Davey is on vacation in the Azores(??) but didn’t want to break our “new format” weekly content flow, so he thoughtfully put together this “end of year roundup” post. I already did one of these off-blog and will leave it at that, except to add that the modes of our disagreement on a few of these is about as good a description for why I’m excited abt working on this blog as there could be. Happy New Year / Please post recommendations in the comments / Thanks to the original uploader.
The Best
Annihilation
Saw this movie with a bunch of people who all liked, and it really resonated with me, but then I ended up at bat defending it against people who hated it for the rest of the year. Incredible film about confronting powerful destructive environmental/emotional forces that are indifferent to you. Does a really good job illustrating the different ways people deal with and can be destroyed by immense psychic trauma. Incredible psychedelic ending that’s both very trippy and successful at tying the themes of the film together.
Hereditary
My pick for best movie of the year. Highly intentional, deep examination of how grief can tear apart a family, told to fresh effect by tapping into a reservoir of horror film language, and successful at being really scary. Important story to tell, enhanced by its use of genre.
Eighth Grade
This felt heartbreaking in a manageable and good way. Extremely good film about adolescence that feels real but also isn’t afraid of betraying its realism when it should in service of “being a good movie.” Incredible lead performance by Elsie Fisher.
Mission Impossible Fallout
Best action movie of the year, with solidly consistent characterization, comparable to Mad Max: Fury Road but in the way it uses very clean lines of cause and effect to move the action and plot forward. Always nice to see Tom Cruise put himself in mortal peril as well, which he does scores of times in this film.
Paddington 2
Great movie about a bear helping enact prison reform so he can get a present for his aunt. It’s possible that the amount of joy I get from these films is directly related to how fucked the world outside them is but there’s no denying their wonderful craft and characterization. A close second to Mission Impossible in terms of cause and effect filmmaking, with the whole movie unfurling organically from a seed that’s planted in the first five minutes.
Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse
One of the best superhero movies of all time. Extremely fun and funny film that is a direct ode to the breadth of expression you can accomplish in comic books. Incredible visuals unlike any other animated movie coupled with a character-driven story that’s both extremely focused and dense. The most exhilarating moviegoing experience I had this year.
Widows
Great heist movie that felt like it was constantly reinventing itself while you were watching. Contains probably my favorite shot from any movie this year, one that’s both extremely simple but still manages to convey a ton of information, that both plays with your expectations and lets your mind wander.
Others
Black Panther
Didn’t really connect with me that much, I think due to unrealistic expectations based on how much I liked Creed. Watched it again recently, and realized that it was due to almost every character’s way of readings their lines; they all had something to them that made me feel like I was watching a movie. Besides that, very good, and the only Marvel movie that I would say is actually essential.
Game Night
Clever but not super funny, wish it had gone way further in any direction.
A wrinkle in time
Couldn’t hold onto anything this movie was giving me. Lots of bad performances and writing that was more interested in outcomes and moving things forward than character. Made me feel drunk in a bad way.
Isle of Dogs
Weird to make a movie about dogs that’s so cold. Spent my time wondering why they made certain aesthetic decisions instead of trying to relate to what watching the film would be like.
Avenger Infinity War
I thought the biggest issue here would be making a coherent movie, but that didn’t end up being a problem, which was kind of incredible. Still, the strategy of loading all the reasons I should care about what happens to the characters in this movie into 10+ years of preceding movies didn’t work for me. Also suffers from being part one of a two part movie.
Deadpool 2
Saw with a friend who hated the first one but loved this one and was incredulous when I told him they were basically the exact same thing. Very funny good movie, the only place in superhero cinema where they play with superhero narrative conventions instead of following them. Has a nice scene where Deadpool gets little baby legs.
Solo: A Star Wars story
Horrifically shitty example of a movie reverse engineered from concept, where the inevitability of the need to make the movie overrode the total lack of a compelling story.
Won’t you be my neighbor
A very good, uplifting doc about someone who is basically completely unknowable. The phrase “good person porn” crosses the mind, although that’s definitely reductive and sells the film short. Has exactly one moment that’s so mind bogglingly strange it popped me right out of reality.
Sicario: Day of the Soldado
Suffers from not having an impartial viewpoint to interrogate the movie’s moral reality, a la Emily Blunt from the first one, and ends up just being about government spooks going to Mexico to fuck shit up. Which, without the necessary context, in my book ends up being basically immoral. It needed to decide if it was going to try and really think about the war on drugs, the border, US/Mexico relations or be an action movie, but instead it decided not to do any of these, making it way less than the sum of its parts. Has a mind-bogglingly stupid final line with echoes of Finding Forrester. “You’re the Sicario now, dawg!”
Sorry to bother you
Shaggy unevenly executed movie with a ton of good ideas. Reminded me of low budget 80s Larry Cohen oddities. Raw, weird auterism seems to be extra rare these days, so it was a breath of fresh air even if I didn’t think the movie worked as well as it could have.
Mamma Mia… Here we go again!?!?
Had a wonderful time at the theatre feeling pleasantly confused and detached while two heavy duty Mamma Mia heads hysterically laugh-cried through the last 20 minutes of the movie. I hear the academy is creating a new category “best diabolically emotional twist” just so they can give it to this one.
Crazy rich Asians
Had a tough time with the “Rich” part of the movie but definitely thought the “Crazy” and “Asian” portions were refreshing and well done.
The Predator
First two thirds are really funny and entertaining, but it completely collapses in a third act where instead of the Predator dispatching soldiers in cool chilling ways, the soldiers are basically stepping on a rake that hits them in the face over and over. Has a great/very bad final moment that I interpreted as the studio demanding it be set up for a sequel, and the filmmaker acquiescing, but in a way where the only possible sequel made would have to be the dumbest thing on the face of the planet.
Venom
Beautiful film about a mush-mouthed “reporter” and the alien goo that loves him. I guess in China they played up the romantic comedy aspects to the point where it’s on the posters? Loved it.
Halloween
Unbearably pointless dreck, doesn’t work as a horror movie, a comedy, or a drama. Less essential than basically any other movie in the franchise.
Suspiria
Super interesting take on horror that doesn’t use the agreed-upon language for how to make a horror film. Great performances and really interesting directing coupled with some insane imagery. A little overstuffed particularly with the political subplots, but the things that work in this movie are remarkable, and most of it works.
yo dudes, i’m psyched the blog is back, and back in a manageable way.
my request is that when/if you guys do “deep dives”, watching a bunch of movies on a subject, director, or theme, it would be fun to read brief capsule reviews. you don’t have to sum up the genre or your experience but it would be fun to get one or two lines of a movie grouping i hadn’t considered, like 2000s rave movies or relaxing restaurant movies.
tom, i feel like you should post your list here too just so everything’s all in one place.
davey, what was the crazy moment in the mr rogers doc?
ya you’re probably right abt reposting, if only for search purposes; I’ll backpost it later or something. (I’m experimenting w. how I want “search” and “surfing the backlog” to work here in general; you might notice for instance that the vanity fair post is kind of aggressively “tagged.” the idea is that in 5 years, “tagging” may surface non-obvious patterns, like that I’m constantly talking abt james purefoy or whoever.)
roger that too on more brief summaries of wider pattern viewing type things.
Hmmm ya that’s definitely an interesting idea, would be a nice way to tackle some odd spots in film.
In the Rogers doc the thing that really got me was the bit about his relation to the number 143, which if u haven’ t seen the film, it presents in a much more startling way than I can really convey here.