My top 10 films of 2018
Jan. 1st, 2019 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessHappy new year!
For once, it is a top 10 – in the order I saw them, not of preference.
Phantom Thread – a wrong-footing period drama/love story set in a 1950s couturier with strong performances, although it’s really a director’s film and an exhilarating one at that.
The Shape of Water – a sumptuous-looking, swooningly romantic adult fairy tale, with a mute heroine and an amphibian love interest, also set in the 1950s.
Lady Bird – I only realised how good this comic drama was when I thought of how many others fail. It’s a sympathetic portrayal of a daughter and mother’s strained but loving relationship, and a love letter to Sacramento.
You Were Never Really Here – this film intelligently reveals the fragile mental state of a bulky man who’s ‘job’ is to rescue abducted girls as things go awfully wrong. Joaquin Phoenix is excellent.
The Incredibles 2 – entertaining to spend more time with the Parr family in a film that addresses some of the first film’s flaws (while, if I’m honest not being as good as it). Jack-Jack vs the Raccoon really is as good as everyone says.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout – the live-action action film of the year. I loved it for hearkening back to the third film as well as, obviously, the fifth. Keep ‘working in it’, team.
Upgrade – an intelligent piece of sci-fi that’s willing to be nasty, lifting anxieties about technology, AI and human redundancy and bolting them on to a revenge thriller. Logan Marshall-Green (Trey on The O.C., which I’d forgotten) is revelatory in the lead role.
A Star is Born – (Will Tippin, I didn’t know you had it in you!) This is an accomplished, authentic take on modern musical stardom, while also not stinting on the emotion. Lady Gaga does not disgrace herself following on in Garland and Streisand’s footsteps – that moment Ally marches on stage to sing her song!
First Man – although we know the outcome, we’re there with Neil Armstrong and his family, on the long, risky journey to the moon, thanks to this film.
Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse – sophisticated and heartfelt, with eye-popping visuals, this film is good on adolescence and impossibly fresh. I also found the Stan Lee tributes touching.
Hostiles, Avengers: Infinity War and Crazy Rich Americans nearly made it on to the list.
I went to the cinema 34 times to see 32 films (and, in fairness, the second time I saw Black Panther, I liked it more). That’s less than in 2017.
Past lists can be found here: at Dreamwidth from 2012 on and at Livejournal for a more comprehensive list.
For once, it is a top 10 – in the order I saw them, not of preference.
Phantom Thread – a wrong-footing period drama/love story set in a 1950s couturier with strong performances, although it’s really a director’s film and an exhilarating one at that.
The Shape of Water – a sumptuous-looking, swooningly romantic adult fairy tale, with a mute heroine and an amphibian love interest, also set in the 1950s.
Lady Bird – I only realised how good this comic drama was when I thought of how many others fail. It’s a sympathetic portrayal of a daughter and mother’s strained but loving relationship, and a love letter to Sacramento.
You Were Never Really Here – this film intelligently reveals the fragile mental state of a bulky man who’s ‘job’ is to rescue abducted girls as things go awfully wrong. Joaquin Phoenix is excellent.
The Incredibles 2 – entertaining to spend more time with the Parr family in a film that addresses some of the first film’s flaws (while, if I’m honest not being as good as it). Jack-Jack vs the Raccoon really is as good as everyone says.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout – the live-action action film of the year. I loved it for hearkening back to the third film as well as, obviously, the fifth. Keep ‘working in it’, team.
Upgrade – an intelligent piece of sci-fi that’s willing to be nasty, lifting anxieties about technology, AI and human redundancy and bolting them on to a revenge thriller. Logan Marshall-Green (Trey on The O.C., which I’d forgotten) is revelatory in the lead role.
A Star is Born – (Will Tippin, I didn’t know you had it in you!) This is an accomplished, authentic take on modern musical stardom, while also not stinting on the emotion. Lady Gaga does not disgrace herself following on in Garland and Streisand’s footsteps – that moment Ally marches on stage to sing her song!
First Man – although we know the outcome, we’re there with Neil Armstrong and his family, on the long, risky journey to the moon, thanks to this film.
Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse – sophisticated and heartfelt, with eye-popping visuals, this film is good on adolescence and impossibly fresh. I also found the Stan Lee tributes touching.
Hostiles, Avengers: Infinity War and Crazy Rich Americans nearly made it on to the list.
I went to the cinema 34 times to see 32 films (and, in fairness, the second time I saw Black Panther, I liked it more). That’s less than in 2017.
Past lists can be found here: at Dreamwidth from 2012 on and at Livejournal for a more comprehensive list.
