Every year I reflect on all the movies I
saw over the past 12 months and try to work out which were my favourites. Some
years it is very easy, and often there is one movie which, for me, stands far above the rest. Other years it can be challenging. For me 2018 was a year
when I enjoyed very many films but only loved a few. I saw 172 films in this calendar year and so many of them were fun, funny, exciting, entertaining. But as I look back I see there
were really only a handful which stuck with me, that pull me back into them again and again, that give me that sense of magic and wonder that I look for when I go to the movies.
In many ways 2018 was also ground breaking.
The biggest movie of the year was a film which featured a non-white, not-American,
superhero who fought colonialism more than any traditional villain. We got a
good Transformers movie and a kick-ass Aquaman movie, two things I never
thought I’d see. We got the best Spider-man film we’ve ever seen. Women-lead
films once again out performed men-lead films. Some of the year’s best films
were not released in cinemas at all as we took our biggest step towards watching
movies through new mediums. 2018 overall offered a lot for film lovers.
But in 2018 it was the following films
which truly touched me, which I have returned to again and again and enjoyed more and more. For
me these are the ones I will remember as being the films I most enjoyed in 2018.
In no particular order…
A film that paints one of the most
beautiful portraits of love and family I have ever seen. Writer/director Barry
Jenkins takes the gorgeous work of James Baldwin, puts it into the mouths of an
incredible cast, and makes a movie that is a true thing of beauty.
Blindspotting
This deeply personal film seizes the moment
where much of the nation is waking up to the reality of state violence against
people of colour and tells a very human story of connection and friendship in
such a country. From Daveed Diggs and Fafael Casal, this touching, powerful,
topical, and beautiful film about friendship in racist America is a treasure.
The film makers’ personal relationship brings such gravitas to all we see in
this story and avoids the kind of predictable end we would expect from a lesser
film. 
Roma
One of my favourite directors, Alfonso
Cuaron, has made his most personal film, from his memories of growing in up
Mexico City. It is also a gorgeous treat for the eyes and heart. Beautifully
black and white, evoking the classic feeling of “the silver screen,” Roma is
true monument to love beyond the ways it is traditionally structured, and is
also a truly beautiful film to watch.
Thoroughbreds
Can we empathize with someone who has no
empathy? That is the experiment that is the most quietly disturbing film of the
year. We are made to care when we don’t think we should, as is Lily who has to face
up to her own terribleness. Thoroughbreds is about looking at the ways we
construct and justify evil. And the ways we can see the humanity of those we
call inhuman. It is difficult and uncomfortable and fascinating. Also it is the
final film by a talented actor (Anton Yelchin) whose time was cut too short and
a showcase for two up and coming actors (Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy) who
have so much potential. 
Widows
Another of my favourite directors, Steve
McQueen, has made one of the best caper films I’ve seen in a long time. At the
same time he’s also filled it with the kind of pathos and gut wrenching drama
one usually sees in different genres. His cast is a team of some of the best
actors working today and they give some of the best performances of the year.
What makes Widows so great is how much it focuses on the people in it and not
just the scheme. It is about the human interactions and the moral grayness of
survival, all of this amongst all the high adrenaline action.
A Wrinkle in Time
Director Ava Duverny shows us just what an
auteur she is by making an art film for the whole family. She crafted something
more than just what one would expect, growing the source material into
something even more transcendent than it was before. Her A Wrinkle in Time is gorgeous
and emotional and subversive and radical. And all of us, those who are kids now
and those who still have that child within us, will be inspired by this film to
see movies in a way we hadn’t before. 
Bad Times at the El Royale
This is the sort of clever, fun, raucous
story telling that makes going to the movies fun. Drew Goddard has taken the
twisted mystery, in depth character building, smart funny dialogue, and topsy
turvy story telling style of a Tarantino and imbued it all with a true heart.
During this, one of the most fun movies I saw all year, I couldn’t stop looking
at how beautiful it was, how amazing the performances were (hello Cynthia Erivo!!),
and how much I just wanted to see what happened next. El Royale is a “page-turner”
of a movie. It never falls into the trap of jumping the shark, always
maintaining its perfect pitch.
A Quiet Place
Good horror is a rare treat and this film
takes tension and ratchets it up to the maximum. But, like the best horror, the
film isn’t about monsters listening for us. It is an exploration of the truly
terrifying experience of being a parent, raising children in this world we live
in. While other horror films this year relied on gimmicks but skimped on
meaning, A Quiet Place is filled with strong performances and a smart writing, becoming
something more than just its gimmicky premise. It becomes a treatise on a kind
of love that is overwhelming.
Lean on Pete
Film maker Andrew Haige has taken the genre
of a kid and his pet to a completely different level, transcending that sort of
a story to examine the desperation of neglect and loneliness. Beautiful and
poignant while being tragic and quietly inspirational, Lean on Pete is a
showcase for newcomer Charlie Plummer and for anyone ready for a sensitive and
smart weeper.
It took me a while to decide which of these
was my favourite. But I kept coming back to one, a film which moved me more than all the rest,
that shook me to my core, that taught me, that inspired me. It is a film of great importance and significance to the people of Canada, and a film that is made so beautifully and so powerfully that it also stands as a work of art as well. Truly any of the above films could have been my favourite this year but there was something so urgent and impactful about this one that made me choose it over the rest.
Indian Horse
Reckoning with true reconciliation means
facing the horrors of the residential school system and this film does so in a
truly thoughtful and meaningful way. Blending what Canadians see as the best of
themselves (hockey) with their worst (our racist colonial past) Indian Horse
creates a story that is essentially Canadian and powerfully told. Based on Richard Wagamese’s fiction
novel the story is steeped in more truth than most “true stories.” The strong
cast commits themselves to tell what is becoming recognized as the quintessential
Canadian story, one that we all need to embrace. Powerful, moving, loving,
transformative. The more I think about this film, the more I know that of all
the films I saw in 2018 this one will be the one I sit with, return to, and
truly experience again and again. This isn’t the film I imagined would end up as
my favourite of the year, but I continue to revisit it and it is the film I
most recommend from 2018 that everyone watch.
If, 12 months ago, you told me I'd pick a film about hockey as my favourite film of the year I'd have laughed in your face. Never say never I guess...
But I can't stress enough just how many great films there were this year. I enjoyed dramas like Ben is Back, The Children's Act, Colette, Creed II, Disobedience, Don't Worry He Won't Get Far on Foot, Eighth Grade, Endless, Green Book, The Hate U Give, Hold the Dark, I Kill Giants, Leave No Trace, Love Simon, Mid90s, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, The Old Man and the Gun, The Other Side of the Wind, Tully, Vice, White Boy Rick, and You Were Never Really Here.
These funny films made me laugh; Can You Ever Forgive Me?, The Death of Stalin, Dog Days (yes I know...), Dumplin',The Favourite, Freakshow, Leisure Seeker, Mamma Mia Here We Go Again!, Ocean's 8, The Party, Ralph Breaks the Internet, The Sisters Brothers, Sorry to Bother You, Support the Girls, and Teen Titans Go to the Movies!
And I learned something from these documentaries; Fahrenheit 11/9, RBG, and Won't You Be My Neighbor?
And it was a fun year for blockbuster action films and scary movies like Annihilation, Aquaman, Black Panther, Bumblebee, Deadpool 2 and Once Upon a Deadpool, The Girl in the Spider's Web, Mary Poppins Returns, Mission Impossible Fallout, Mohawk, The Night Comes For Us, The Night Eats the World, Overlord, The Ritual, Spider-man Into the Spiderverse, Searching, Solo, Summer of '84, and Venom.
Each year there are films I enjoyed which I felt was unfairly maligned and this year it was The Cloverfield Paradox, Hotel Artemis, and Ready Player One.
So with all of that I can say once again I loved being in love with movies and I can't wait to see what 2019 holds in store.
No comments:
Post a Comment