But enough about my personal life, you're here for my annual top 5, aren't you? And while the blog has been pretty much dormant this year, I couldn't miss my New Year's tradition, and I have been watching a fair few films this year. Sadly not as many as I'd have liked: between heavy uni work, the usual cruel UK release schedule and the fact I literally just forgot to go to the cinema this last term has led to my film intake being a little lower than last year. Suffice to say there'll be a lot of catchups for next year, but in the meantime, here's my top 5 of 2018.
Updated Top 5 of 2017
5. Baby Driver
4. Logan
3. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
2. Dunkirk
1. Blade Runner 2049
5. Hereditary - Ari Aster
Well, I started writing out my thoughts on this film like I normally would for one of these entries, but it quickly became a fucking wall of text, so you know what, Hereditary is getting its own post early next year because I want to go in-depth with this mother. For the time being though, my opinion is essentially thus: this film was nearly at the Number 1 spot, it shaped itself up to be one of the most powerful, subversive and maybe even revolutionary horror films of the decade, and a personal favourite of mine, only for it to completely ruin itself in the final act and undo all of its hard work. Again, further details to follow, but consider this Number 5 spot an honorary place for the film this nearly was. 8/10, High Recommendation
4. Deadpool 2 - David Leitch
About the only Marvel character I have any care for at the moment, both movies have made it into my top 5s of their respective years which is pretty impressive really. I'd say this is an improvement on the first film: it's the same trademark brand of intelligently childish and self-aware humour but this time around, everything's been ramped up a notch, from the action scenes to the characters and jokes and even the overall theme of the film is darker and more nuanced. Yeah, it's not really as high brow as some of the other choices on this list but you know what, this was a barrel of laughs from start to finish and I enjoyed it immensely. 8/10, Medium Recommendation
3. A Quiet Place - Josh Krasinski
Look everyone, it's our good old friend the Avatar effect, where a good film is praised and enjoyed by everyone only to be inexplicably shat on by everyone from seemingly nowhere because someone must have decided that it had enough praise. I understand films being overrated, and even receiving backlash after an initially good reception, but Jesus people, no one was comparing it to Citizen Kane. Luckily for me (I suppose?) I made a point of seeing it as soon as I could after first hearing of it so as to minimise the hype effect, and probably achieved some kind of personal best in the process: I first heard if it on a Monday morning when I checked my Letterboxd rushes, was convinced to check it out by Monday afternoon and saw it Tuesday evening. And you know what, it was pretty damn good. Yeah, fine, it wasn't a masterpiece but you can't deny it was at least a unique breath of fresh air from our usual horror offerings. As you'd expect from something like this, the sound design is impeccable, and you really felt every single noise and the dread that each brought. I also really liked the attention to detail and world-building in terms of the methods the family had to eliminate noise such as the sand pathways and felt-lined board game pieces. And finally, can we just take a moment to appreciate the building of tension, with the stair nail if nothing else. Probably one of the most agonising Checkov's guns I've seen for a long time, from the moment it was set up I could not stop thinking about it until it's eventual payoff, and while in the end it felt a little disappointing, they say it's about the journey rather than the destination, and what a hell of a journey. 8/10, High Recommendation
2. Incredibles 2 - Brad Bird
After the rather disappointing and unnecessary Finding Dory, the phrase 'Pixar sequel' was one of dread to my ears, and while the upcoming Toy Story 4 still has me screaming 'no', I'm now a little happier that at least one of them has had a reason to exist. Incredibles 2 was not only a very fun and well-made continuation of the story, but really explored and developed its characters and their relationships in new depths, and even managed to tackle contemporary societal and familial issues without feeling preachy or getting in the way of the story or its entertainment value. With some spectacular action setpieces that surely trump the original's and the expansion and development of the world it created, Incredibles 2 aims to be bigger and better than its predecessor, and for the most part, succeeds. While both have strengths in different areas, I found myself getting more engaged in this one than the first, but a lot of people still prefer the original and I can completely understand why. Either way, it's hard to deny that this was an incredible (ayy) film and a shining example of how to do a sequel right. 9/10, Medium Recommendation
1. Isle of Dogs - Wes Anderson
I've always had a bit of an awkward relationship with Wes Anderson. Like basically every other even remotely hipster film student, I really love Anderson's visual style: his approach to symmetrical composition and pastel colour palettes, but I've rarely enjoyed the films themselves. That is except for two, one is The Grand Budapest Hotel and now the second one to join these ranks, Isle of Dogs. I really was not expecting to love this film as much as I did, but everything about it just worked so perfectly and hit me in all the right spots. Firstly, I have a big ol' soft spot for animation, stop motion especially. And the animation in this film is absolutely fantastic and bursting with energy and creativity. Of course, Anderson brings his trademark compositional style and colouration, but this time it combines with a feudal Japanese art style to make a visually breathtaking film where every frame's a painting. The plot is suitably tongue-in-cheek but still surprisingly complex with multiple threads running at once and all of them work well off each other. And finally, a shoutout to one of my favourite details: considering the film is set in Japan with mainly Japanese characters, all the human dialogue (where applicable) is spoken in Japanese, only being translated where it makes sense in-universe (such as a TV translator during a broadcast). As a result, there are several scenes with the human characters where Anderson relies on old fashioned silent film techniques for conveying information to the audience, utilising both the scenery and character gestures and expressions to get the important details across. It's an unusual choice but it absolutely pays off and really adds to the rich cultural immersion of the film. 9/10, High Recommendation
And so we enter 2019, the year where flying police cars patrol the smog-covered, urban jungle of LA if Blade Runner is to be believed, or where biker gangs battle it out amongst the neon streets of Neo-Tokyo, according to Akira. Well, who knows, a lot can change in a year. I'm expecting to bring the blog back in the new year, as hopefully once I finish uni I'll be able to get back into writing these posts again: there's plenty of old, unfinished drafts kicking around and plenty more new stuff to discuss. Until then, I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year!
