John's Top 10 of 2018

As we did the "Worst of the Year," we must also do the "Best of the Year" in honor of this being a week after the Oscars.  I'm not going to rank these on the blog at this point (we'll do that in a few weeks when I announce what I'd do in all Oscar categories closer to the ceremony), but for now, enjoy my alphabetical Top 10 film of the Year list:

Bad Times at the El Royale (dir. Drew Goddard)

The year's most oddly-dismissed picture.  Drew Goddard crafts a compelling mystery that feels like Tarantino meets Clue on a rainy summer night.  Cynthia Erivo's screen debut shows a true talent is about to be unleashed on the cinema.

The Cakemaker (dir. Ophir Raul Graizer)

A strange, introverted look at grief and loneliness.  Watch the way that Sarah Adler's Anat emerges from her cocoon while Tim Kalkhof's Thomas retreats further into his own-it's a master class in rich character work.

Cold War (dir. Pawel Palikowski)

Bleak, sharp, cool, romantic…it’s hard to boil the 85 minutes of Cold War into one adjective.  The best way to describe it is cinema at its best, a swift look at two people, occasionally in love but forever entwined by tragedy & fate, with an ending you’ll think about long after the final ballad is sung.

The Favourite (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

Three actresses at the tops of their games in an acid-tongued look at the waning days of the House of Stuart.  Eve Harrington herself would cower when faced with Sarah & Abigail as competitors.

First Man (dir. Damien Chazelle)

Ryan Gosling hasn’t been this good in years, playing the Boy Scout-perfect Neil Armstrong as an iconic, flesh-and-blood human being.  The scenes on the moon are arguably the most jaw-dropping I saw all year-I think I stopped breathing at points from all of the wonder...who would have thought it would take biopic for me to warm to Chazelle?

Hereditary (dir. Ari Aster)

I literally looked over to my date and said “what the hell did you bring me to?” forty minutes into the movie.  What he’d brought me to was the most messed-up, scariest horror movie I’ve seen in years, with a monstrous acting duet between Toni Collette & Alex Wolff that should have scored every acting award known to man. 

Lean on Pete (dir. Andrew Haigh)

Andrew Haigh continues his unblemished cinematic streak with this look at one young man’s quest to find a place in this world, aided by a stoic horse that shifts as a metaphor for his hopes to his lost childhood as the movie progresses.  Charlie Plummer gives the year’s most heartbreaking performance as a boy whom society has forgotten.

Love, Simon (dir. Greg Berlanti)

Yes, it’s fluffy, but Love, Simon is also a warm, felt movie that never gets weighed down by the historic nature of its existence-I remember feeling so full thinking of what this would have meant to young, gay, cinema-loving me if I'd seen it when I was 14.  Special kudos to Jennifer Garner & Josh Duhamel for finding the heart behind their Eddie Bauer-perfect parents.

The Other Side of the Wind (dir. Orson Welles)

Orson Welles’ final film made us wait nearly fifty years to see if the great one could still craft masterpieces that deserved to be placed alongside Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil-thankfully, he could.  John Huston is marvelous as a director burdened with expectation, trying to find an ending when everyone around him no longer cares.

Roma (dir. Alfonso Cuaron)

A monument to the art of cinema.  Cuaron’s always good, but it says something that he’s never felt so revelatory on the screen, as if we’re looking less at an actual movie and more into the hidden world of his childhood.  The sound work is unnaturally rich-make sure to see it straight through-no breaks, no distractions-to get the full effect.