Each year I look forward to several nights on Red Reporter. Near the top of that list is the Oscar Pool and accompanying "game watch". I'm really looking forward to this year's version because I've actually seen all of this year's Oscar Nominated Films. This Fanpost contains my opinions on who I think should win as well as my top ten films & Bottom 5 films of 2018.
2018 happens to be 24 years removed the greatest year in movie history. Did 2015 live up to the standard of 1994? Well, no. However, it is full of very good movies and surprisingly good performances. While there was probably no all-time great movie released in 2018, there were plenty of very good films and only a few that were awful. I'm going to start off with the nominees and who I would choose to win (Asterisks designate my choice). I'll then add my personal top 10.
BEST WRITING ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
BLACKKKLANSMAN
Written by Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
Screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK*
Written for the screen by Barry Jenkins
A STAR IS BORN
Screenplay by Eric Roth and Bradley Cooper & Will Fetters
This is a pretty solid category and contains a couple of my favorite movies of the year. While Spike Lee has never won an Oscar for one of his films, this may be the year that changes that. BlackkKlansman was long and a little boring at times, but the themes fit very well into the world we are currently living. A Star is Born was an extremely well written script and a nice update to a story that’s been told on screen several times before. Can You Ever Forgive Me is a very curious nomination as the script was clunky & awful. The only things that saved this movie were the very good performances of McCarthy and Grant. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is one of the most polarizing movies of the year, but I thought it was pretty awful after the first short. My hope is If Beale Street Could Talk takes this award. It’s a beautiful film with great dialogue and extremely rootable characters.
BEST WRITING ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
THE FAVOURITE
Written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara
FIRST REFORMED*
Written by Paul Schrader
GREEN BOOK
Written by Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly
ROMA
Written by Alfonso Cuarón
VICE
Written by Adam McKay
I thought the Original Screenplay nominees were stronger this year than the group from the Adapted Screenplay category. This was possibly my toughest decision as I loved both First Reformed and The Favourite. Green Book was a very solid script and definitely gave you warm and fuzzy feelings as you watched it. Roma had no plot as far as I could tell, but much like Shape of Water last year, I expect it to take home several awards. I don’t get the Roma hype at all. Vice was well done, but was depressing and just not an enjoyable watch. In the end, I gave the nod to First Reformed as it had little to no music and was based entirely around the script. I don’t know how many people actually saw this one, but I highly recommend it.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
AMY ADAMS
Vice
MARINA DE TAVIRA
Roma
REGINA KING*
If Beale Street Could Talk
EMMA STONE
The Favourite
RACHEL WEISZ
The Favourite
Another solid category thanks to the great films The Favourite and If Beale Street Could Talk. There wasn’t a memorable performance in Roma, and this nomination should not have happened. Amy Adams is excellent in Vice, but she couldn’t keep up with the top 3. Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz may wind up cancelling each other out, but they were great in The Favourite. I probably would have preferred a Best Actress nomination for Stone, but people get nominated in the wrong category every year. My vote goes to Regina King and it’s really based on one scene alone. This is a spoiler free report (even though I love spoilers), but if you’re fortunate enough to have seen the movie, I’m talking about the Puerto Rico scene.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
MAHERSHALA ALI*
Green Book
ADAM DRIVER
BlacKkKlansman
SAM ELLIOTT
A Star Is Born
RICHARD E. GRANT
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
SAM ROCKWELL
Vice
There’s not a bad performance amongst these nominees. However, this may be the category that provides that least intrigue during the ceremony, as Mahershala Ali is almost guaranteed to win. Adam Driver was a highlight of BlackkKlansman and I’ve really grown to like him over the last couple of years. Sam Rockwell was a curious nomination as he was basically doing a caricature of George W. Bush. I would have nominated Steve Carrell (Vice) over him. I believe this is Sam Elliott’s first ever Oscar Nomination, and it’s a well deserved one. He’s always playing a version of himself, but he fit perfectly into A Star is Born. Richard E. Grant carried Can You Ever Forgive by playing a character that was a very nice combination of Christopher Walken and Bill Nighy.
BEST DIRECTOR
BLACKKKLANSMAN
Spike Lee
COLD WAR*
Paweł Pawlikowski
THE FAVOURITE
Yorgos Lanthimos
ROMA
Alfonso Cuarón
VICE
Adam McKay
This category is filled with great nominees, but I expect the worst one to win. Alfonso Cuaron bored me for over 2 hours, but voters seemed to have enjoyed Roma. Adam McKay did everything he could to save Vice from the material it covered. He did his typical movie making tricks and they mostly worked. However, I have him a distant 4th in this one. For me, this category came down to The Favourite and Cold War. Both were beautifully shot, but I gave the edge to Cold War. This was the first movie I’d seen by Pawel Pawlikowski, and the first Polish Film I’ve ever seen. It was briskly paced and used the black & white/subtitles formula to its advantage.
BEST ACTRESS
YALITZA APARICIO
Roma
GLENN CLOSE
The Wife
OLIVIA COLMAN
The Favourite
LADY GAGA*
A Star Is Born
MELISSA MCCARTHY
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Early in Awards season, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Lady Gaga was going to win this one. However, as each awards show passes, it looks more and more likely that Glenn Close is going to take home her first Oscar. If not, she will become the most nominated actress without a win. Again, Roma has no business with a nomination in this category. Her character experiences unrelated catastrophe after unrelated catastrophe and she barely reacts to them. Olivia Colman was amazing as the queen in the Favourite, but she was in many ways overshadowed by Emma Stone. I went with Gaga as my choice. While Close was close in quality, Gaga’s character and film were much better.
BEST ACTOR
CHRISTIAN BALE
Vice
BRADLEY COOPER*
A Star Is Born
WILLEM DAFOE
At Eternity's Gate
RAMI MALEK
Bohemian Rhapsody
VIGGO MORTENSEN
Green Book
Bradley Cooper did an incredible job with A Star is Born and wound up with a ton of Oscar Nominations as a result. Sadly, it looks like he will be shut out of any significant wins. Rami Malek has won most of the best actor awards leading up to the Oscars and I expect him to take home the big statue as well. He was incredible as Freddie Mercury and I won’t be upset if he wins. I’m a big fan of Willem Dafoe and thought he absolutely deserved his Oscar last year. This year? Not so much. He played a very boring Vincent Van Gogh in my least favorite movie of the year. Christian Bale did an amazing transformation turning himself into Dick Cheney. I just don’t want to watch two hours of Dick Cheney.
BEST PICTURE
BLACK PANTHER
Kevin Feige, Producer
BLACKKKLANSMAN
Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Raymond Mansfield, Jordan Peele and Spike Lee, Producers
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
Graham King, Producer
THE FAVOURITE*
Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday and Yorgos Lanthimos, Producers
GREEN BOOK
Jim Burke, Charles B. Wessler, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly and Nick Vallelonga, Producers
ROMA
Gabriela Rodríguez and Alfonso Cuarón, Producers
A STAR IS BORN
Bill Gerber, Bradley Cooper and Lynette Howell Taylor, Producers
VICE
Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adam McKay and Kevin Messick, Producers
I'll hit on many of these in my top ten (or bottom 10) list, but they didn't all make the cut.
TOP TEN FILMS OF 2018
Honorable Mention: Avengers: Infinity War, BlackkKlansman, Creed 2, Isle of Dogs, Love, Simon, Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, and Tully
10. Eighth Grade: This one wound up being a little overlooked by both audiences and the academy. Bo Burnham did a wonderful job portraying the struggles of adolescence for both the person going through it and the parents trying to understand how to deal with it. Eighth Grade is often considered the most awkward year for young girls, and this film embraces that. My daughter is in 6th grade, but takes 8th grade classes and I saw a lot of the same struggles she’s going through accurately portrayed & often times I feel just as lost as the dad did. It’s an excellent movie, and you should watch it!
9. Green Book: Green Book was probably the most pleasant movie to watch this year. It had a touching relationship between two people that didn’t seem to have much in common. It’s a formula that has been done many times, but this movie still seemed fresh. Directed by a Farrelly Brother, it has heart you wouldn’t normally associate with his films. The movie has humor, but gets a little syrupy for my tastes from time to time. The film doesn’t really portray the brutality of racism in the South & probably dropped a few spots in my rankings due to this. I must confess my ignorance, however, as I did not know what a Green Book was.
8. A Simple Favor: A Simple Favor was one of the most fun movies of the year. Driven by great performances by Blake Lively & the always great Anna Kendrick, this movie delivered mystery and comedy in equal doses. Paul Feig has been doing great work for over 20 years, and this is no exception. This is a great date movie and should have made a lot more top ten lists than it did.
7. Deadpool 2/Once Upon a Deadpool: This was the year that a comic book movie broke through and actually got a best picture nomination! Unfortunately, it was the wrong one. Deadpool 2 was quite simply the funniest movie of 2018. I have combined both releases into one spot. Deadpool 2 is extremely vulgar, but they released a PG-13 cut late in the year that took out the bad words, but very few of the laughs. The addition of Fred Savage & the Princess Bride parody worked perfectly. Hilarious from start to finish, Deadpool 2 provides action and the most likable comic book movie hero going today.
6. Sorry To Bother You: There’s a very good chance you will hate this movie, because it seems that a large % of people who saw this, hated it. It’s hard to pin down a genre for this one. It’s partly a comedy and then there’s a huge sci fi twist late in the film. Sort of like From Dusk til Dawn, this is actually two movies in one. The first part of the movie is pretty much a workplace comedy set in a call center. This is very good. The last part of the movie is also very good, however it takes a twist that I did not see coming (no spoilers). You’ll probably hate this one, but you should watch it anyway.
5. First Reformed: First Reformed was a movie that caught me by surprise. It was released early in the year, but I didn’t know anything about it until awards season. Starring Ethan Hawke as the aging pastor of New York’s oldest church, it is a great character study of religion, global warming and how they relate to each other. Paul Schrader wrote & directed this one and is in his 70s. He’s had a long and storied career, but I’ve missed most of his films. He made this one without any frills. There are no jump cuts and the camera focuses in the same place on the same actors for minutes at a time. This makes everything they say seem incredibly important. He decided to shoot this movie in 4:3 and it adds to the tone of the movie. There is no score, and very little music at all. Still, it is immersive and you feel exactly what the characters are feeling. Schrader says the ending is open to interpretation and that will be a problem for a lot of viewers, but I chose the version of ending I liked best and I’m good with it. This movie also had a great performance by Cedric the Entertainer as the pastor of a mega church.
4. Cold War: Cold War is actually the movie that everyone seems to think Roma is. Both are foreign films, shot in black & white and completely subtitled. However, cold war is an achingly beautiful love story and Roma is a two hour bore. Cold War is set in Poland and France and tells the love story of a musical director and singer. Even though it takes place over the course of a couple of decades, the movie flies by with a running time under 90 minutes. Not a single minute of screen time is wasted and it moves at a satisfyingly brisk pace. I’m glad that it got a Director Nomination, but it definitely should have also been in Best Picture consideration.
3. A Star Is Born: Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga were absolutely perfect for this film. It’s the 3rd of 4th time that A Star Is Born has been turned into a feature film, but it’s the first version I’ve actually seen. It’s an impressive debut directorial effort by Bradley Cooper and had one of the best trailers ever produced. The opening scene takes place on stage as Cooper is playing a concert to a sold out crowd. This scene is electric and establishes the tone for the rest of the movie. It also features great supporting performances by Dave Chapelle and Sam Elliott. Chances are you’ve already seen this movie, but if not, you definitely should. There wasn’t a dry eye in the theater!
2. The Favourite: The Favourite is a female driven period piece and is the most vulgar movie I saw this year. The vulgarity is hilarious and really keeps the movie from ever becoming boring. It tells the story of an aloof queen and two women competing to be her Favourite. This is the first film I’ve seen from Yorgos Lanthimos, but I’ve been told he makes really strange films. This film is very strange, but I would call it mainstream strange. It’s fun watching the competition between the established Favourite and her new competition. This is another one with a strange ending, but I thought it ended at the perfect time.
1. If Beale Street Could Talk: 2018 will be remembered as the year of strong and funny female main characters. The Favourite, A Star Is Born, Tully, Eighth Grade, A Simple Favor, and Cold War are all great examples, but perhaps none were better than Tish in If Beale Street Could Talk. Beale Street tells the story of a wrongfully imprisoned man, but is mainly about Tish’s quest to free him. It should be an incredibly sad film (and in many ways it is), but it also has a ton of humor and charm. The weight of the movie never drags down the enjoyment of watching the film. This one is a piece of art. The lighting and camerawork is some of the best I’ve seen in years and I absolutely loved this movie.
WORST FIVE FILMS OF 2018
Honorable Mention: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Incredibles 2, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
5. Mandy
4. Superfly
3. Roma
2. First Man
1. At Eternity’s Gate
