Box office review 2018

Beyond the simple headline that super heroes and dinosaurs ruled the worldwide box office in 2018, there are other stories to tell, of daring release strategies, of little films that made it big, of audiences coming back time and again to see the same film.

But let's start with the unavoidable, inescapable fact: Avengers: Infinity War ruled the world, nudging over the $2bn barrier. That figures includes £70.8m from the UK (topping the chart), nearly $1.4m from the international box office (Thanos & co was the chart topper in Brazil, Mexico,  France, Australia, Germany and Russia, as well as being the best-performing foreign film in China and South Korea), and 'only' $678.8m in the US (trailing behind Black Panther with its seismic $700.1m).

Super hero movies dominated the worldwide top 20: in the Avengers' and Thanos's wake came Black Panther, Incredibles 2, Venom, Aquaman, Deadpool 2 and Ant-Man & The Wasp. Panther and Incredibles both skipped passed the $1bn barrier, while Christmas hit Aquaman is about to cross that barrier as I write.

Among the really big hits, one of the surprises - especially given its lengthy and difficult gestation - is Bohemian Rhapsody. With a budget of just $52m and without securing the right to be distributed in China, the Queen biopic closed 2018 with $713.4m - and continues to hold screen space through January and is closing on $800m. The film was spectacularly successful in Japan, being the number one foreign film (and the second-best foreign film in the past three years), and in South Korea, where it was second best performing foreign film behind the Avengers. Freddie & co finished fifth in the UK with £47.2m, and at number one in both Italy and the Netherlands. Freddie & co was only the second-best music-based film in the UK - Mamma Mia 2 took the title with £65.6m.

Indeed, musicals and music-based movies were one of the other key trends of 2018: the combination of MM2, Bo Rhap, A Star Is Born and the hold-over business from The Greatest Showman generated a worldwide box office total of $1.8bn off combined budgets of just $247m (note: MM2 cost $25m more to produce than its predecessor). In the UK, the four films generated £184m.

Indeed, The Greatest Showman became a sensation in the UK, showing tremendous legs as audiences returned again and again to see the film: it took more than £1m every weekend for 12 consecutive weekends - that's positively Titanic-esque. Aside from its bumper opening weekend, its weekend takings from its second weekend until its twelfth look like this: £2.4m, £2.1m, £2.1m, £2m, £2.2m (this was the first weekend in February and the only time the film hit the top spot), £1.9m, £1.9m, £2m, £1.2m, £1.6m, and £1m.

Awards season was a particularly fruitful time at the UK box office with Darkest Hour performing like a bona fide blockbuster, opening at number one with more than £4m and finishing its run just shy of £25m (the ballsy release strategy - pitching it as a blockbuster - was a stroke of genius). Three Billboards performed very well, raking in more than £15m. In both cases, the backers must have been pleasantly surprised at how well their films performed.

Other performances of note in the UK were Peter Rabbit's £40.9m steal and Mary Poppins returning in style, grabbing more than £23m in just 11 days before continuing to rule the roost at the start of 2019 (it should easily pass the £40m barrier).

A relative under-performer in the UK was A Quiet Place, hauling in just £11.8m, meaning the critical hit chiller didn't take the crown for best-performing movie based on entirely original characters and scenario: Coco's £18.9m sealed that title. However, A Quiet Place was the worldwide and US best-performing original on $340.7m and $188m respectively on a budget of just $17m.

Notably profitable movies - comparing production budget with box office receipts - were Bo Rhap, A Star Is Born ($389.2m haul from a $36m budget), and US hit Crazy Rich Asians ($238.5m - $174m from the US! - off a budget of $30m).

Challenging those Asians for the title of most one-sided performance of the year was Ready Player One, with more than three-quarters of its $582.9m worldwide haul coming from the international market - indeed, nearly half of its international haul came from China!

China was the number one worldwide market for not only Ready Player One, but also Venom, The Meg, Rampage, Pacific Rim 2, Skyscraper and Tomb Raider.

Of course, there were a number of box office disappointments - and the world's most successful was not immune. While Disney had Avengers 3, the Panther, the Incredibles sequel and the Ant-Man sequel generating an astonishing $5.3bn worldwide between them, it also caught a cold on Star Wars spin-off Solo, which spectacularly underwhelmed with less than $400m, while the combination of A Wrinkle In Time, Christopher Robin and The Nutcracker & The Four Realms could only muster $503m between them.

The Pacific Rim sequel fell noticeably short of its predecessor ($291.4m v $411m respectively), but arguably the biggest flop was Robin Hood: off a $100m budget, it missed the target, generating just $79.8m.

Forecast for 2019: another banner year for Disney with (deep breath) Captain Marvel, Dumbo (live action), Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin (live action), Toy Story 4, The Lion King (live action), Artemis Fowl (the new Harry Potter?), and the end-of-year double whammy of Frozen 2 and Star Wars 9.

2018 charts
Worldwide top 20
Avengers: Infinity War   $2,048.7m
Black Panther   $1,346.9m
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom   $1,304.9m
Incredibles 2   $1,242.6m
Venom   $855.2m
Aquaman   $836.1m
Mission: Impossible - Fallout   $791m
Deadpool 2   $735.6m
Bohemian Rhapsody   $713.4m
Fantastic Beasts 2   $628.7m
Ant-Man & The Wasp   $622.7m
Jumanji   $615m (also took $342.7m in 2017)
Ready Player One   $582.9m
The Meg   $$30.2m
Hotel Transylvania 3   $527.2m
The Grinch   $474.2m
Rampage   $428m
Mamma Mia 2   $393.8m
Solo   $392.9m
A Star Is Born   $389.2m

UK top 20
Avengers: Infinity War   £70.8m
Mamma Mia 2   £65.6m
Incredibles 2   £56.1m
Black Panther    $50.6m
Bohemian Rhapsody   £47.2m
The Greatest Showman   £41.9m (also took £4.8m in 2017)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom   £41.6m
Peter Rabbit   £40.9m
Deadpool 2   £32.7m
Fantastic Beasts 2   £32.7m
A Star Is Born   £29.3m
The Grinch   £26.6m
Mission: Impossible - Fallout   £24.4m
Darkest Hour   £24.9m
Mary Poppins Returns   £23.2m
Venom   $20.2m
Jumanji   £20.1m (also took £17.8m in 2017)
Hotel Transylvania 3   £19.9m
Solo   £19.4m
Coco   £18.9m

International top 20
Avengers: Infinity War   $1,369.9m
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom   $888.2m
Black Panther    $646.9m
Venom   $642.1m
Aquaman   $637m
Incredibles 2   $634m
Mission: Impossible - Fallout   $570.9m
Bohemian Rhapsody   $523.6m
Ready Player One   $445.2m
Deadpool 2   $417.1m
Ant-Man & The Wasp   $406m
Jumanji   $396m (also took $157.5m in 2017)
The Meg   $384.8m
Hotel Transylvania 3   $359.7m
Rampage   $327m
Mamma Mia 2   $273.2m
50 Shades Freed   $271m
The Nun   $248.1m
Skyscraper   $236.3m
Peter Rabbit   $236m

US top 20
Black Panther   $700.1m
Avengers: Infinity War   $678.8m
Incredibles 2   $608.6m
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom   $416.8m
Deadpool 2   $318.5m
The Grinch   $266.3m
Jumanji   $235.5m (also took $169m in 2017)
Mission: Impossible - Fallout   $220.2m
Ant-Man & The Wasp   $216.6m
Solo   $213.8m
Venom   $213.3m
A Star Is Born   $201.2m
Aquaman   $199.1m
Bohemian Rhapsody   $189.8m
A Quiet Place   $188m
Ralph Breaks The Internet   $177.6m
Crazy Rich Asians   $174m
Hotel Transylvania 3   $167.5m
Halloween   $159.3m
Fantastic Beasts 2   $156.8m

China top 10
Avengers: Infinity War   $359.5m
Venom   $271.7m
Aquaman   $261.4m
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom   $261.2m
Ready Player One   $218.5m
Mission: Impossible - Fallout   $181.2m
Rampage   $156.4m
The Meg   $153m
Ant-Man & The Wasp   $121.2m
Black Panther   $105.1m

Data sources: boxofficemojo.com, BFI

Golden Stans 2018

As the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Oscars are being bandied about, it's time for the Golden Stans. I saw 89 films in 2018, of which 16 were old films or repeat screenings of current films, thus 73 motion pictures are left to pitch for my awards.

First the bad news: the Cone of Shame. I was very tempted to hand this to Aquaman - quite how this nonsense is heading to $1bn beggars belief. It's not as bad as Justice League, but it's not a whole heap better. But the Cone of Shame goes to the hopelessly misguided snorefest that was Peterloo. Buried beneath the endless speeches was an important slice of history, but I firmly believe Ken Loach would have done a better job because he would have realised the importance of telling a story - something that apparently escaped Mike Leigh's attention. Leigh's approach might have worked if stretched across four one-hour episodes of quality television, but as a 2.5-hour movie, it massively under-delivered.

The Best Score of 2018 was Paul Sanderson's sympathetic soundtrack to Three Identical Strangers: as the narrative shifts from triumph to mystery to tragedy, so his score shifts too, never abruptly, emphasising and reinforcing the story.

The Golden Stan for Best Cinematography is a somewhat one-sided affair even though there was so much great work to admire, including:

• Martin Otterbeck's 72-minute single take in Utoya - 22 July, running, crawling, splashing through the water helped to make the film even more unbearable to watch;
• Robbie Ryan's fish eye and non-Steadicam (in natural light) add greatly to the Kubrickian air of The Favourite;
• Linus Sandgren embraced and overcame the challenges set by his director, working across 16mm, 35mm and IMAX, creating significant levels of immersion at First Man's dramatic height;
• Julie Kirkwood caught the disorientating sun-bleaching of LA perfectly in Destroyer; 
• Lukas Zal, working in 4:3 ratio, produced only the second-best black and white work of the year (although noticeably higher contrast than the ultimate winner) in Cold War; and
• Matyas Erdely repeated his stunt for Son Of Saul, the camera always in the face or seemingly on the shoulder of Sunset's hero, immersing the audience in her fever dream.

But none of these scoop the trophy. With his preferred DOP, Emmanuel Lubezki, unavailable, Alfonso Cuaron shot ROMA himself: and what a job he did! The resulting beautiful black and white compositions linger long in the memory.

The Best Adapted Screenplay goes to Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely for Avengers: Infinity War. For my money, they just about pulled off the impossible. Their key decision early on was to make the villain the protagonist, the super heroes the pesky kids trying to thwart his plan. The high stakes were clear from the beginning, the character beats perfectly deployed, and the action well-staged. The mismatch of heroes was well-thought through: the Beard Brothers of Tony Stark and Stephen Strange absolutely not getting on; the comedy tag team of Thor and Rocket ("Rabbit"); and the 'sisters' of Black Widow, Scarlet Witch and Okoye doing it for themselves. And the decision to give Steve Rogers the best gag in the movie was particularly inspired.

The Best Original Screenplay Golden Stan is another one-sided affair: in fact, it's a one-space affair.  The hands-down winner is The Guilty, written by Gustav Moller and Emil Nygaard Albertsen. This Danish thriller in the Hitchcockian tradition was simply perfect: a humdinger of an idea, well thought-out and sublimely executed.

And now on to the acting categories. First up, Best Supporting Actress; the shortlist is:

• Allison Janney/I, Tonya
• Rachel McAdams/Disobedience
• Lesley Manville/Phantom Thread
• Sissy Spacek/The Old Man & The Gun
• Marina de Tavira/ROMA
• Jodie Whittaker/Journeyman

Janney's casting as Tonya's mother was hardly against type, but she was absolutely right for the role. McAdams delivered a timely reminder that there's so much to her than romcoms and a super hero's girlfriend. Manville comfortably held her own against Daniel Day-Lewis, her eyes hinting at an almost Lady Macbeth command of the man in her life. Spacek lit up the screen in her scenes with Robert Redford. De Tavira had arguably the more challenging role in ROMA, her character's heart always there as she shifts from the hero's boss, to discarded wife, to benevolent matriarch. And Dr Who played a significant part in Journeyman and that phone call scene (possibly the gut punch scene of the year). The award goes to Lesley Manville. 

The shortlist for Best Supporting Actor is:

• Josh Brolin/Avengers: Infinity War
• Kevin Costner/Molly's Game
• Ben Foster/Leave No Trace
• Nicolas Hoult/The Favourite
• John Krasinski/A Quiet Place
• Alessandro Nivola/Obedience

Brolin's Thanos is almost up there with Andy Serkis's Gollum for the best motion-capture performance. In truth, Costner's appearances in Molly's Game are little more than extended cameos, but he nails them perfectly, in particular the free psych session in the park. Foster deserves much wider recognition than he's getting for his broken soldier. Hoult is a hoot in The Favourite - he might do better to focus on comedy in the future, with this performance acting as a calling card. Krasinski juggled the role of playing support to his wife while directing her very well. Nivola was a sympathetic 'wronged' man, his accent spot-on. But the winner has to be Ben Foster.

The Best Actress shortlist runs to 10 exemplary performances:

• Emily Blunt/A Quiet Place, and Mary Poppins Returns
• Olivia Colman/The Favourite
• Clare Foy/Unsane
• Juli Jakab/Sunset
• Nicole Kidman/Destroyer
• Eva Melander/Border
• Chloe Grace Moretz/The Miseducation of Cameron Post
• Margot Robbie/I, Tonya
• Emma Stone/The Favourite
• Rachel Weisz/Obedience, and The Favourite

Blunt made the most of two significant roles, her outstanding scene being the [spoiler alert!] giving-birth-while-making-no-noise-to-ensure-the-beastie-doesn't-kill-you (if I recall correctly, it was done in one take). Colman can apparently do no wrong. Foy went where Soderbergh sent her, desperately trying to hold onto her sanity. Jakab will either be a major find or a one-hit wonder, her steely ingenue a constant mystery. Kidman was perfectly gender neutral as the hard-boiled cop on the edge. Melander, underneath a substantial amount of prosthetics, delivered a true hero's journey to self-realisation and empowerment. Moretz is being ignored, incorrectly, by the major critics and awards bodies: her performance is her most memorable since Hit-Girl, but the complete antithesis of that mouthy super hero - the self-doubt constantly at war with the self-confidence is always there in her Cameron Post. Robbie was very impressive as Tonya Harding, her intelligence evident in picking the role and co-producing the movie. Stone and Weisz were their customary brilliant selves in The Favourite, with Weisz showcasing her range in Disobedience. It's a pitched battle between Blunt and Robbie, and Emily Blunt takes it by a whisker.

The Best Actor shortlist also runs to 10 excellent performances:

• Jakob Cedergren/The Guilty
• Paddy Considine/Journeyman
• Steve Coogan/Stan & Ollie
• Jim Cummings/Thunder Road
• Ethan Hawke/First Reformed
• Oleg Ivenko/The White Crow
• Hugh Jackman/The Front Runner
• Rami Malek/Bohemian Rhapsody
• Mads Mikaelsen/Arctic
• Gary Oldman/Darkest Hour

Cedergren makes light of the physical and emotional precision that the direction and screenplay call for in The Guilty. Considine was considerably more than the sum of the tics afflicting the brain-damaged boxer - again that phonecall scene had me choking on my tears. Coogan nailed Stan Laurel, in particular the accent and his physical whimsy. Cummings delivered probably the bravest performance of the year, frequently teetering on the edge of absurdity, but the pain driving him was always evident. Hawke was the outstanding element in First Reformed. Ivenko is incredible as Nureyev - as a ballet dancer, he has the moves, but his ability to handle the intense close-ups and the drive of a man whose ambition was greater than his talent were outstanding. Jackman quietly delivered the goods as Gary Hart, generating some sympathy for a man who would not gain any today. Malek was astounding as Freddie Mercury - he simply became Freddie. Mads was typically Mads, physically fighting the freezing odds for all he was worth. And Oldman clearly researched Churchill heavily, and is probably the best Winston we'll see on screen. The winner? The champion? I'm a hardcore Queen fan, Freddie is a hero to me and still lives on through his and the band's music: for going beyond impersonation, the Golden Stan has to go to Rami Malek.

The Best Director shortlist is:

• Ali Abbassi/Border
• Damien Chazelle/First Man
• Alfonso Cuaron/ROMA
• Craig Gillespie/I, Tonya
• Debra Granik/Leave No Trace
• John Krasinski/A Quiet Place
• Yorgos Lanthimos/The Favourite
• Christopher McQuarrie/Mission: Impossible - Fallout
• Gustav Müller/The Guilty
• Laszlo Nemes/Sunset

Ok, let's get the big shock out of the way: Cuaron doesn't win! ROMA while brilliantly shot by Cuaron, is perhaps a little cold, a tad removed from the heart of the narrative. The other shock: yes, I've nominated McQ for M:I6, an outstanding piece of action cinema. Chazelle showcased his range, while challenging himself and his crew technically. Krasinski came from nowhere to helm the year's best horror with apparent ease and solid judgment. Nemes conjured a dreamscape that lingers long in the memory. Abbassi embraced the modern fairytale, imbuing it with touches of Lynch and Shyamalan. Granik drew excellent performances from her two stars, handling the story with sensitivity. Gillespie clearly played a significant role in the year's most audience-challenging movie. Lanthimos continued his Kubrickian observations of the human condition. But the winner is Gustav Moller for the Hitchcockian perfection of The Guilty.

A new category for 2018 is Best Documentary, reflecting how many great non-fiction works there were last year. Here's the shortlist:

• Fahrenheit 9/11
• The Bill Murray Stories
• They Shall Not Grow Old
• Three Identical Strangers

To an extent, Peter Jackson's WWI reimagining is beyond criticism for all the right reasons, but I felt a little short-changed having seen the Somme movie a few years back. Fahrenheit 9/11 was an angry, passionate and timely investigation that deserves a bigger audience. Three Identical Strangers was compelling, shocking and horrifying. But the Golden Stan goes to the Bill Murray Stories because it's that rare documentary - it preaches and offers hope - and I suspect it will stand up to repeat viewings.

And finally, the big one, its Best Film. There's no shortlist here, but a long list of the films that affected me in 2018 (in the order in which I saw them) and I recommend each and every one of them. There are some notable absences: The Square (at times brilliant, but there was just too much going on, emphasised by the madness throughout); Cold War (I struggle with the hashtagMeToo of it); and Hereditary (had some great sequences, but didn't journey to its shock, folk horror finale smoothly enough; too many plots points borrowed from masterpieces of the genre). Here, then, is the list:

• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: blackly funny as hell, almost theatrical in its timing and the audience reactions; great script and great performances.
• Darkest Hour: a surprise mega-hit in the UK, Oldman's finest hour occasionally brought a lump to the throat; only one or two trick shots from Joe Wright - hopefully the critical and commercial reaction to this means his got his mojo working again after the disaster that was Pan.
• I, Tonya: a giant 'fuck you' of a movie with Margot Robbie on top form edges towards greatness thanks to the intelligence of its approach - [spoiler alert!] arguably, once you're into the second half of the movie, you should be questioning yourself, 'am I complicit in the (gender- and class-based) judgement and the media's intrusion and shaming of an athlete? Am I part of the problem or part of the solution?'
• Journeyman: the boxing and the boxing community feels utterly authentic as do the performances, particularly from Paddy and Jodie. As previously mentioned, the most emotionally devastating moment of the year was the phonecall between the two, almost matched by the lump in the throat that accompanies the finale.
• A Quiet Place: a superior horror - indeed, is it more chiller than horror? Whatever, Krasinski's brilliant re-working of the script, his sure touch behind the camera and his wife's outstanding performance made this the must-see of the spring. I might have held off on revealing so much of the beasties though.
• Avengers: Infinity War: the Marvel motherlode! The Russo Brothers, in combination with Markus and McFeely, almost delivered a riposte to Logan: while lighter in tone, it was just as thematically dark and just as brave, concentrating on the villain. The decision to end with the simple text, 'Thanos will return', just rammed the point home: this was the Thanos movie - and he was right. But the Marvel humour was there, especially in Cap's timeless reply to Groot: "I am Steve Rogers!"
• Beast: intriguing, quintessentially British folk chiller that might just herald the arrival of a talent to watch in writer-director Michael Pearce. 
• Leave No Trace: Debra Granik's very worthy follow-up to Winter's Bone. Featuring a turn from Ben Foster that deserves more awards heat than it's getting, this quiet, sensitive movie delves into another tribe that America has chosen to forget, offering no easy or pat answers. As with so few movies, it dares to suggest that some people just can't be or don't want to be saved in the space of a 90-minute narrative - and I'm more than OK with that.
• First Reformed: a top flight performance from Ethan Hawke anchors this Taxi Driver update. Ascending to heaven and descending to hell while resolutely stuck in a harsh reality, Paul Schrader's film does have some issues, not least that it doesn't, for my money, fully earn its more fantastical, fanciful moments nor its finale.
• The Miseducation of Cameron Post: one of the few films that I strongly recommend you watch at home. Why? The gossamer-light tone is easily spoiled by other cinema-goers' reactions. An inclusive, non-judgmental look at a teenager forced to 'pray the gay away' that, while set in the 90s, remains horribly relevant. Chloe Grace Moretz is outstanding in the lead.
• Ant-Man & The Wasp: funny and engaging romp, with Evangeline Lilly to the fore. In so much that nobody dies, this is Marvel's first family movie. Pure joy!
• Black k Klansman: Spike Lee's best and most relevant film in ages. Hugely enjoyable and full of righteous anger, but would the film be half the experience that it is without it's factual, modern day crushing depth charge of an epilogue?
• Mission: Impossible - Fallout: more than one impossible stunt after another, the sixth IMF movie just about made sense and even had some genuine emotion at the heart of it. The next Bond (due Valentine's Day 2020) has a lot to live up to.
• The Guilty: an impossibly perfect Hitchcockian thriller; the experience of watching it is greater than the sum of its still excellent parts. 
• Arctic: the virtually dialogue-free survival movie template of All Is Lost and Gravity is transplanted to the Arctic with considerable power. Mads is terrific, but watch out for the polar bear!
• Border: the year's best (only?) modern, Grimm's fairytale. Great direction and performances, a genuine sense of 'otherness' seeps through the film.
• Green Book: as the world becomes more divided, so Peter 'Dumb and Dumber' Farrelly delivers a feel-good movie in the Hollywood grand tradition. Not challenging, but a source of light and hope in a world that seems hellbent on going to the dogs.
• The Old Man & The Gun: quite old school, slightly mischeivous, this hinges on Robert Redford's easy screen charm. His scenes with Spacek are an absolute delight.
• Utoya - 22 July: in no way was this entertainment, but it sure was one of the most unrelenting immersive experiences you could endure in a cinema in 2018. Excellent editorial decision to not give the crazed killer the oxygen of publicity.
• First Man: while not quite the critical hit that both Whiplash and La La Land were, and not in the same commercial league as the latter, Chazelle nevertheless made the most of the impact of IMAX. Even though you know the outcome, my palms were sweaty with the tension of the moon landing.
• ROMA: Cuaron's intimate epic recreation of his childhood is a considerable achievement, and while he posits film-making as a team effort, he wrote, shot, directed, edited and produced this piece and thus it's a true auteur's work. See it on the big screen to marvel at the black and white cinematography and the outstanding sound design.
• Sunset: Nemes's follow-up to Son of Saul doesn't quite scale the same heights, but the fever dream foretelling of the coming war in Europe in the early 20th century is hypnotic stuff.
• Duplicate: excellent, small-scale sci-fi musing on mental health. Catch it if you can.
• The Favourite: already Lanthimos's most successful commercially, it's hard to fail to observe that he did not write the script. Nevertheless, his print is evident in all areas of the film. It would have been very easy to shoot the script as a straight Blackadder-style comedy, but Lanthimos loads the film with his touches and his concerns. Exquisite performances from the leads. And the best deployment of the C-word since 48-Inch Chest.
• Bohemian Rhapsody: by some substantial margin not perfect, but this is the movie that Freddie would have wanted. Is it gay enough? No. Is it debauched enough? No. Does the recreation of Queen's Live Aid in full IMAX blow you head off? Hell, yes! Does Rami Malek become Freddie? Absolutely. If the BFI IMAX screens it on the anniversary of Freddie's death every year, will I be there? Most definitely!
• Disobedience: outstanding performances from Weisz, McAdams and Nivola in this even-handed tale of love and faith in a cold climate. Deserves much wider recognition than it's getting.
• Stan & Ollie: an absolute joy. Predictable, but with buckets of old world charm from a more innocent age.

There has to be a winner, and the Golden Stan for Best Film in 2018 goes with no hesitation to The Guilty.

Bring on 2019!

London Film Festival 2018: the best of the fest - part 2

With the London Film Festival 2018 now over, here follows the second half of my round-up of the films to look out for in the coming months.

Fahrenheit 11/9: the latest Michael Moore documentary looks at how the hell Donald Trump became the US President. It’s typical Moore: too long, too many targets, but it is never less than compelling and informing; it’s an urgent call to arms to liberals everywhere to get off their backsides and get in the political fight and protect ‘democracy’ being abused.

ROMA: master director Alfonso Cuaron finally follows up Gravity with something completely different, something of a personal passion project (he produced, directed, wrote, shot and edited). In beautiful, crisp black and white photography, ROMA tells the very simple story of a few months in the life of a maid living with a well-to-do Mexican family in 1970: nothing much happens and yet everything happens. As well as the gorgeous cinematography, this intimate epic is buoyed by impressive and immersive sound design that is best experienced in a cinema.

Sunset: Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes follows up his successful debut Son Of Saul with this fever dream. Set in the dying days of the Austro-Hungarian just before WWI, the film focuses on Irisz Leiter, a young woman with a mysterious past returning to Budapest whose true motivations may not be clear even to herself. The narrative is deliberately dream-like. The sumptuous cinematography apes Son Of Saul, the camera closely following Juli Jakab as Irisz. Needs to be seen in a cinema.

Duplicate: excellent meditation on mental health via a small helping of sci-fi. Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver himself) wakes every day and watches a video message from an almost identical man (his twin brother?); he concludes every day with a video message of his own, detailing the day’s apparently banal facts. Why are they leaving messages for each other? Why the boring facts of their days? As thoughtful a slice of sci-fi as we’ve seen in a while.

They Shall Not Grow Old: Peter Jackson’s Weta crew have colourised and added audio to black and white footage from WWI to stunning effect. With the aid of the recordings of veterans’ recollections, the film tells the story of war from the Army soldier’s point of view, from war being declared, through enlisting, training, being sent to the front line, experiencing the battlefields and finally returning home. The film may cause you to muse on many things, few of them positive, but at least a copy of the film has been sent to every school in the UK so that every teenager has the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past.

The Raft: excellent documentary about a human behaviour experiment carried out on a raft sailing across the Atlantic in 1973. A renowned anthropology professor gathers together 10 volunteers to sail across the Atlantic, their skills a mixture of those necessary to survive the trip, their personalities likely to cause internal conflict; he joins them on the raft to ‘observe’ in the hope that the 10, in the battle to survive the elements, will find a way to avoid or resolve conflict and that their method can be used to end international conflict. However, things do not go as the professor planned…

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote: Terry Gilliam finally delivers his passion project with Jonathan Pryce in the lead role. By some margin, this is Gilliam’s most straight-forwardly entertaining film since Twelve Monkeys. It has strong echoes of Brazil: better to excel in your dreams and be deemed mad, than to be sane and live in mediocrity.

The White Crow: Ralph Fiennes directs this retelling of Rudolf Nureyev’s defection to the West. Cross-cutting with key moments in Nureyev’s life that lead him to the biggest decision of his life, the film evokes the impact that Paris (and the great works he saw there) had on him. Ukranian dancer Oleg Ivenko is astonishing as Nureyev: not only is he convincing as Nureyev the dancer, but also as Rudolf the artist, the free spirit, a young man coming to terms with who he is and what he could be.

The Favourite: hugely entertaining, blackly comic period romp from Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer) that will garner multiple nominations from every major awards body, in particular for its trio of leading ladies: Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone. Colman channels Miranda Richardson’s Queenie as Queen Anne in the early 18^th Century, struggling with her health and to lead England in the war against France. In both matters, she relies heavily on her friend and right-hand woman, Weisz’s Duchess of Marlborough. Their sympatico is rent asunder by the arrival of Stone’s Abigail and a battle of wits ensues. Nicholas Hoult lends excellent support as a leading Whig. Be warned this is not a traditional British period piece: the language is fairly salty with a number of delicious deployments of the c-word.

Opens 1 January

Assassination Nation: this year’s gender war incendiary grenade in which the Salem witch trials are reconfigured for the modern age.

Perhaps guilty of trying to have its cake and eat it, the film features four attractive, barely-dressed teenage girls, engaged in social media, chasing boys and abusing booze, who end up being hunted down by their townsfolk (in Purge-like scenes). Partly a warning about what you say and how much you reveal about yourself on social media, and partly a rallying cry to women everywhere to not take any shit from any man.

Opens 23 November

London Film Festival 2018: the best of the fest - part 1

With the dust now settling on the London Film Festival 2018, it’s time to look back and highlight the best films I saw so you know what to look out for in the coming months.

I saw 30 films at the LFF this year (taking my lifetime total to 480 films seen at the LFF), and I’ve highlighted 20 to look out for. Where known, I have listed the film’s release date.

Thunder Road: intense, blackly comic character study of a cop on the edge. At times more excruciating than The Office (I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or exit the cinema), the film belongs to writer-director Jim Cummings who also fearlessly plays the ‘hero’ to stunning effect.

Bill Murray Stories: who knew a documentary could be so life-affirming?! This features the real stories of Bill Murray ‘gatecrashing’ ordinary people’s lives and taking them on mini-adventures. Quite moving in its own way.

The Guilty: Hitchcockian thriller from Denmark. The less you know the better, but the set-up is simple: the action focuses on an operative in the police call centre handling incoming emergency calls; we see only him and his colleagues, but we can hear the distressed persons he hears on his headset. By the end of his shift, he will not be the same. Perfectly executed. Probably my favourite film of the festival. See it ASAP!

Opens 26 October

Arctic: Mads Mikkelsen does All Is Lost… on ice! Gripping survival thriller. Mads, as expected, gives his all. Watch on the biggest screen that you can find.

Border: a modern fairytale that has shades of both Shyamalan and Lynch, where the fantastic is real, and the real is fantastic. It’s based on a book by the man who gave us the original story for Let The Right One In: so expect some gender-bending and some pyscho-sexual weirdness. A beautiful piece of work anchored by a strong performance from Eva Melander as the customs officer who seems to have the power to smell guilt on a person.

Green Book: hugely entertaining, feel good crowd-pleaser, buoyed by engaging performances from co-leads Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen as, respectively, the successful African-American pianist who hires an Italian-American to be his driver/hired muscle while on a tour of the American South in the 1960s. Directed gently by, would you believe, by Peter Farrelly of There’s Something About Mary, Dumb And Dumber fame.

Opens 1 February

The Old Man & The Gun: another crowd-pleaser that sees Robert Redford dominating the screen with his easy charm as an elderly gentleman bank robber. Humourous, touching and a reminder that you’re never too old to continue to embrace life. Redford’s scenes with Sissy Spacek are delicious morsels to be savoured.

Opens 7 December

Utoya – 22 July: not to be confused with Paul Greengrass’s film of the same terrorist attack (nor to be thought of as ‘entertainment’), this Norwegian mini-epic is utterly compelling and justifiably uncomfortable. Its 92-minute runtime includes one 72-minute take that details the terrorist's massacre of 69 young people on an island holiday camp. Giving no oxygen of publicity to the attacker, the film immerses the audience (courtesy of cinematographer Martin Otterbeck’s sterling work), ensuring we share the victims’ horror and fear.

Opens 26 October

Destroyer: neo-noir thriller that could see Nicole Kidman pitching for Oscar and Bafta glory as a grizzled, washed-up LAPD cop facing a fresh case that may have connections to the case that broke her and made her what she is now. Great soundtrack and cinematography, and two classic, tense bank robberies.

Opens 25 January

The Front Runner: classy political thriller nominally charting the three weeks in which the wheels come off Gary Hart’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination in spring 1987 after the press got wind of his affair with Donna Rice. Hugh Jackman plays Hart with aplomb, but the real joy in this is its detailing of a watershed moment for the US press as political coverage goes tabloid and notice is served on white male entitlement.

Opens 11 January

Continue with my round-up.