10 Favourite Films of 2018

1. Death of Stalin

Stalin Dies. Russia goes into manic frenzy. 

2. They Shall Not Grow Old 

Peter Jackson's restoration of WWI footage

3. Eighth Grade

A generation Z's eighth grade experience

4. Zama

A spanish officer in the 17th Century awaits his transfer to Buenos Airies

5. Roma

The life of a maid in Mexico in the 70's

6. The Other Side of the Wind

Orson Welles' last film...finally complete!

7. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Coen Brothers' shocking Western shorts

8. Blackkklansman

Based on a true story, a black man joins the KKK

9. Let the Sunshine In

An artist looks for love. Juliet Binoche is my favourite actress. 

10. Avengers: Infinity Wars 

All your favourite heroes fight Thanos for the fate of the Universe

Eighth Grade (2018) Review

Title: Eighth Grade 
Year: 2018
Director: Bo Burnham
Country: US
Language: English

Previously cinema was filled with coming-of-age flicks that were centred around teenage boys (Submarine, Boyhood). More recently we've had hit after hit about the experiences of girls (Ladybird, Edge of Seventeen) These semi-autobiographical pictures, often directed and written by women, feel quite honest and vulnerable. Even though I'm of different gender and of different time (I was an adolescent 10+ years ago) than the character, I feel like I've had very similar experiences. 

An introverted teenage girl named Kayla (Elsie Fisher) tries to survive the last week of her disastrous eighth grade year before leaving to start high school.

Bo Burnham, a millenial writing about generation Z, delivers a sweet, understanding portrait of a particularly brutal and rejection-inflected period. He resists making his character too self-aware, ensuring a naturalistic performance from his lead actress Elsie Fisher. Her character’s crutch of vocalized pauses and resistance to eye contact, captures what it feels like to exist in an unwelcoming world and feel alone.

The film's balancing act of coming-of-age comedy and dramatic depiction of teenage insecurity is remarkable. The style of humour is close to cringe-comedy, but it doesn't detract from the emotional character study unfolding in front of our eyes. Older viewers might have trouble relating to  Kayla's world, as it is dominated by gadgets, but I still found it quite relatable. 

Eighth Grade is full of Universal lessons that will appeal to all ages, no matter how far from eighth grade you are. An absurd and yet heartbreaking picture, it\s one of the best from 2018 and will likely be remembered for decades to come. 

They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) Review

Title: They Shall Not Grow Old
Year: 2018
Director: Peter Jackson
Country: UK
Language: English

Originally comprised of murky archive film and scratchy audio testimony, Peter Jackson uses his same Lord of the Rings technical talent to transform and restore priceless footage so audiences of 2018, one hundred years after the end of the war, can view the same events in awe and wonder. The clean-up job must have been difficult and taken countless hours, but after having seen this film I can thankfully say that the time and effort was worth it. 

This is a documentary about World War I with never-before-seen footage to commemorate the centennial of the end of the war.

Plundering the vast collection of Britain’s Imperial War Museum, Jackson has given us an artistic educational video that surpases all others. This accumulation of century-old film, previously unviewable, emerges like a phoenix via colorization and 3D conversion (among other cleanups). As a result, the footage looks like it was filmed this year. An foreign feeling war is brought incredibly close to home. I feel like I could have known- or been- one of these soldiers. 

We start the picture in a boxy black and white frame and, although very unimpressive, prepares us for our jaws to drop when we see the restoration job- which is complete with sound. No doubt inserted via sound editing long after the fact, it helps complete the picture of the war. The sounds of fight and fury create an atmosphere of dread and disease. but also courage and honor.

They Shall Not Grow Old captures what is left out of classroom textbooks; namely the daily mood and morale of the common soldier over the course of four long years. It does a wonderful job, as I've said previously, of making the war feel more personal and closer to home. A very important picture that ought to be seen by people of all ages. 

The Wild Bunch (1969) Review

Title: The Wild Bunch
Year: 1969
Director: Sam Pekinpah
Country: US
Language: English

American Director Sam Pekinpah Peckinpah once said, “The whole underside of our society has always been violence and still is. Churches, laws—everybody seems to think that man is a noble savage. But he’s only an animal, a meat-eating, talking animal. Recognize it. He also has grace, and love, and beauty. But don’t say to me we’re not violent. Because we are. It’s one of the greatest brainwashes of all times to say we’re not." With that philosophy in mind, he set to dispel the myths of the American West. 

In this, an aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them.

The Wild Bunch confronts its audience, knowing they've been fed lies about the frontier, and gives us an honest representation of a brutal time. Pekinpah's characters are defined by their sadness and regret, lacking any sense of decency or real code of honour. Its a far cry from the John Wayne films of the 1940's. Brutally violent, any sense of romanticism of the past is dropped and instead stark unforgiving reality fills the screen. 

A controversial film for the time, another notable theme in The Wild Bunch is the spiritual bankruptcy that shrouds each and every character. Their pointless, fruitless existence only leads to a finale that leads any surviving character completely empty. To see beyond the violence is the great challenge of The Wild Bunch, but once you do you'll find great introspection is to be had. Pekinpah not only asks you to be critical of the American West, but to be critical of what you are taught about humanity in general. 

Boy Erased (2018) Review

Title: Boy Erased
Year: 2018
Director: Joel Edgarton
Country: US
Language: English

I have often dismissed evangelical films like Heaven is for Real and The War Room as meandering melodrama that can only appeal to very weak minded people. Similar can be said for Hollywood's anti-evangelical films. Boy Erased (2018) ia a film about an issue we all know about (gay conversion therapy) and is important to know, but tells us in a weak way that doesn't quite hit its audience in the gut wrenching way it should. 

Jared, the son (Lucas Hedges) of a Baptist preacher (Russel Crowe) is forced to participate in a church-supported gay conversion program after being forcibly outed to his parents.

Joel Edgerton's direction treats the material seriously, but with an astonishing lack of subtlety regarding its symbolism. In one scene the main character walks past an advertisement on a bus stop, as he turns back the hot female model turns into a hot male model. It's like the Universe is mocking his sexuality! In another he is walking in slow motion to his school, against the flow of traffic. It's like he's "different" from everybody else. Woah. 

The dramatic points of the film never quite hit a high note. The most harrowing scene ends with Jared's mother picking him up after he calls her. The expose against the church doesn't tell us anything new and doesn't go far enough in showing the abhorrent nature of gay conversion therapy. Honestly if one were to watch Boy Erased they might think "well gay conversion is not as bad as we hear". It is as bad and its so much worse than what we see in this film. 

Boy Erased is not a good film despite having incredible performances by Lucas Hedges and Russel Crowe. Russel's body morph alone (the Gladiator guy got that fat for this role!?) deserves to earn him an oscar nomination. Ultimately this film was very dissapointing. 

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) Review

Title: Bohemian Rhapsody
Year: 2018
Director: Bryan Singer
Country: UK
Language: English

Bohemian Rhapsody was a one of a kind Rock/Opera fusion that, at first, was considered an indulgent mess by critics at the time. Slowly overtime, specifically in part due to the SNL hit Wayne's World (1992), critics and fans warmed up to it and it became a song of legend. An experiemental song with a variety of tones, Queen defied the set glam rock formula and changed the course of music history.

This is the story of the legendary rock band Queen and lead singer Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek), leading up to their famous performance at Live Aid (1985).

It's unfortunate that this film isn't as bold and brave as the song its title is based on. We get the usual "band breaks up because of singer's ego, singer learns his ways" biography formula and a truck-load of shallow anecdotes that would make wikipedia blush. Screenwriter Anthony McCarten's paint by numbers script is full of cliches and corny elements; such as arguements that happen in the rain. You see, the rain is symbolic of their inner turmoil! Wow! 

Perhaps the saving grace of the picture, the element that saves Bohemian Rhapsody from being a complete bomb, is Rami Malek. He captures the essence of Freddy Mercury and plays the performer to perfection. Put them side by side and I think people would have difficulty telling the difference. Both have tremendous stage precense, which is a huge compliment to Rami. 

Never reaching the highs it ought to, and barely reaching any signifigant lows, Bohemian Rhapsody is an over-rated picture with one notable accomplishment in the form of Malek. The Live Aid performance, although it cannot match the real deal, is quite satisfactory. However, one great scene cannot make up for an overall bad picture. 

Daddy(2017, Short) Review

Title: Daddy
Year: 2017
Director: Carrie Brooks 
Country: Canada
Language: English

My friend Paul Riviera was the lead actor in this extremely indie short, so I thought I might as well review it. It's a very very low budget short by an inexperienced director featuring a nice Canadian cast and crew. A movie is a movie and I might as well review it. 

Through many years of trying to gain her absent father’s (Paul Riviera)  love, a girl (Michelle Anderson) discovers a family secret that shatters her identity and changes her perspective on everything she thinks she knows about herself and her father

After seeing the film, I'm not sure how I feel about this "secret". Considering this is the director's very real attempt at reconciling the past through film, one shouldn't greatly alter the truth, but perhaps this could have been alluded to earlier in the film with something as small as a line of dialogue.

"Why can't you take your daughter?"
"So she's MY daughter now!?"

Then again, having this secret revealed without any foreshadowing makes the picture a decent repeat viewing as it changes the dynamics of the character. You can re-watch Daddy from the beginning with a different perspective. Perhaps the dad was so cold because he couldn't process his experience. Perhaps the "proud" moment is even more extraordinary because he loves his daughter despite the "secret". Perhaps the main character has more of a "mommy" issue than we realize.

One can't expect too much in terms of technical expertise when it comes to bathtub film-making, but there were many shots I enjoyed. One in particular was the cookbook falling off the van. I also loved Paul Riviera's acting. He works well as an old man; I could sense the desperation and loneliness coming off the character. I also enjoyed his younger scenes. The way he shows with his face that he doesn't care about his daughter's accomplishments is proof of decent acting. 

Daddy's screenwriter has potential, even if the story has a few rough bumps and the "twist" doesn't resonate in the way they would hope it to. One cannot expect perfection in the beginning of a film-maker/writer/actor's career. As far as a novice goes, this was entertaining. 

Ps. Taiya is an A+ actress.