I am easily influenced by what The Cool Kids do, so after reading two [2] such articles, I’m also gonna do a retrospective type thing on all the movies I watched this year!! I keep meaning to write about these movies instead of just tweeting and yelling at friends about them, so this will have to do.
Admittedly I wasn’t as on top of Moveys this year as I was in 2017. I watched ~180 movies last year according to Letterboxd, and I only watched ~120 this year! Last year had a lot of films that really stood out and still stand out to me (Get Out, The Shape Of Water, The Florida Project, Call Me By Your Name, to name a few) but not so much this year. Although, full disclosure, I haven’t seen a lot of the Big Name / Must Watch movies from 2018. It’d feel dishonest for me to make a BEST OF 2018 list just yet, so I’ll just give ya a bunch of 2018 movies I Really Liked anyway.
Here we go!
THE FIRST MOVIE I WATCHED IN 2018
The Boss Baby (2017)
I watched this while extremely drunk on my couch with two of my friends as we ate CVS frozen pizza, and between the three of us drifting in and out of consciousness I think we saw maybe 70% of the movie? Fortunately, that was just enough for us to experience the pay-off of them establishing The Beatles’ “Blackbird” as Very Important to the narrative early in the movie.
Every night I close my eyes and I see Him staring back at me…the impossibly smooth face of a malevolent god.
I’M LATE TO THE PARTY
Arrival (I cried!!! lmao!!!!!!!!), My Happy Family (extremely special movie that I think about constantly, very near and dear to me), Brick (would have gone BANANAS for this as an edgy middle schooler), God’s Own Country (gay!), 99 Homes, Inglourious Basterds, A Bigger Splash (this belongs in the horror category, actually)
HORROR NOT WORTH TALKING ABOUT
I watch a ton of horror movies because I Love Horror. A lot of them are fine, a lot of them are mediocre, and a depressingly large amount of them are Bad! Anyway, about 75% of the movies I watched this year (and every year probably) are horror movies, so here are the ones I don’t really want to devote much time to.
(If you don’t watch horror movies honestly just, skip this part.)
The Ritual, Tragedy Girls ([thumbs up]), The Strangers: Prey At Night (don’t freaking answer the door!!!), Reeker (almost unbelievably bad?), It Stains The Sands Red, The Dyatlov Pass Incident, Pyewacket, Dead Shack (is a little old place where we can etc. etc.), Cold Prey, Truth Or Dare (the Blumhouse one is just bad, but the SyFy one is actually atrocious), Funny Games (ok I do in fact have a lot to say about this one but ultimately I just don’t think it works), Basket Case, The Clovehitch Killer (people will try to tell you this movie is good because it’s quiet and about a white teen boy in the suburbs but it’s nothing special, sorry, I’m an expert film critic and), Delivery: The Beast Within (busted out laughing typing that title, but it’s actually like, fine), Downrange, The Gate, Sequence Break (still upset that a movie about a horny arcade game was This boring), Mr. Jones (found footage bold enough to give its protagonist Good Camera Equipment), Halloween III: Season Of The Witch (kinda wish the Halloween franchise did pivot to an anthology series), The Burning (ft. George Costanza’s bare ass), The Domestics, Madman, The Tunnel, Veronica, Grave Encounters, Our House (solid), Dead Night (thanks i hate it), Ghost Stories, Maniac Cop (only good thing about the movie is its role in Neil Cicerega’s Two Trucks), The Fog, Tourist Trap, Jacob’s Ladder, Await Further Instructions, The Brood (mmm….The Meat), Scanners, Poltergeist (real good but what can I say about it??), The Borderlands, The Witch In The Window, Unfriended: Dark Web, Candyman (more interested in Jordan Peele’s remake), You Might Be The Killer (fun!), The Appearance, Into The Dark: Pooka (kill me), Silent Night (this year’s obligatory Killer Santa movie), Terrified, Still / Born
“whoa, how do you have so much time to watch that many horror movies?” ah yes, you see, I am very sad and do not sleep! Speaking of that,
MOVIES I ONLY WATCHED BECAUSE THEY WERE ON NETFLIX
The Collector, All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, Holidays (the Father’s Day vignette is actually a really solid short horror film minus the last 20 seconds), Seven In Heaven, Clown (my friend refused to watch this with me and im still mad that he made the right decision), Delirium, Cargo (let’s leave Apocalypse Dads in 2018), Friend Request, Bleed (extremely bad), Cloverfield (history has proven everyone who said it was bad when it came out Correct)
And Finally:
GOOD HORROR
The Hitcher (1986)
A very weird movie that I’ve decided I like! I am incredibly intrigued with how moody and desolate it gets in the last third. The reality is slightly disturbed throughout even before it shifts gears too which makes the whole movie Slightly Off. Still not sure what to make of it. That aside,,,in the words of a friend: I love a guy who won’t die.
Scarecrows (1988)
Just a solid monster/slasher movie, babey! You’ll know whether or not you’ll enjoy it going in.
Noroi: The Curse (2005)
Extremely eerie. The stakes of found footage usually aren’t very high, but good found footage will make them feel very personal (or at least Immediate.) There’s a palpable sense of dread in this movie as everything unfolds in Real Time while you and the characters can only hope for the best.
The Bay (2012)
Very gross and very good found footage that mimics a ‘Wake Up Sheeple’-esque documentary.
The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)
Pleasantly surprised by this one. It’s now one of my favorite horror movies! Feels like it’d be fun to tell a similar story over a podcast or something.
Tilt (2017)
A horror movie about toxic white American masculinity! I appreciate what it tries to tackle, and how it is very explicit about the whole “yeah, this didn’t just start recently, you chuckleheads.” Horror movies often unintentionally end up being about The Horror Of [Straight White] Men so it’s refreshing to see that tackled intentionally.
A Quiet Place
Horror movies rarely scare me but I am easily startled. And now that you know that: I had a cup of beer in hand while watching this in the theater, and anytime there was A Noise, I would jump and all the beer in the cup would go all the way up, and then come all the way back down with a nice Splash. So I just had to chug it about 10 minutes into the movie to spare myself and everyone in the theater the constant distraction. Anyway, I liked it. It’s good and solid but also shouldn’t they have just lived by the waterfall?
What Keeps You Alive
This stuff is only supposed to happen to straight people!!! Tense and fun slasher / thriller. A slightly cartoonish villain clashes against a Real Person and it works.
Halloween (2018)
Jamie Lee Curtis rulz
CAM
Extremely good!! About the extent to which we “own” our online persona and our Image. The lead actress does a phenomenal job. Maybe the only non-exploitative / gross horror movie about sex-work I can think of, probably because it was written by a former camgirl instead of some gross straight dude!
[edited in because I can’t believe I forgot about it!]
Satan’s Slaves (2017)
The last horror movie I’ll watch in 2018 also happened to be one of the best! Excuse the shlocky title, because this is a very good, solid movie that brings to mind the style / scariness of The Ring.
NICOLAS CAGE
National Treasure / National Treasure: Book Of Secrets (2XXX)
let’s go back to 2017 for a second:
I frequently ask my friends for movie recommendations and since they’re all
“funny”
the few times they actually respond I get recc’d National Treasure. It just so happened that the fall of 2017 was an very dark period in my life. I had reached my breaking point.
Fast forward to exactly a year later and:
and you know what, it did! I had a terrible time watching the National Treasure movies back-to-back at 4AM while drinking Hamms tall boys! I also, never told anyone I did this because I didn’t want anyone to think it was all For A Bit! I mean yes, it’s a bit, but it was a bit for me! Anyway I hate these movies and they’re bad and they made me sincerely angry and there’s a very real chance I’ll watch them again in 2019.
MANDY
The image of Nic Cage covered in blood and grinning maniacally at the camera is oddly charming and seared into my brain forever. I gotta say though, I don’t like it nearly as much as everyone else seems to!
It’s fun and stylish but I have A Non-Zero Amount Of Beef, mainly involving my increasing wariness of this brand of Revenger Story. I was really hoping it’d be a Rescue Story, oh well! Absolutely would not have worked without Nic Cage.
LUCY LIU TRICKED ME INTO WATCHING A MOVIE ABOUT STRAIGHT PEOPLE
Set It Up (more like Set ME Up, am i right??)
here’s my favorite part of the movie
anyway, every romantic comedy is inherently a horror movie because of the wild ways they depict the disaster that is heteroromantic love, bye!
WORMS
Tremors (1990)
Wow! The quintessential worm movie. Love these big worms. Classic lads.
Trench 11
The worms get a 6/10 from me because while I love parasitic hell worms, these ones are kind of boring! They don’t do anything besides turn their hosts in regular ol’ zombie-type guys. Maybe they just need a chance to shine in a different story that isn’t a WW2 movie about nazi human experiments that includes dialogue along the lines of “um actually sweetie, we’re ALL bad.”
TOM HARDY
Venom
here are some things I loved:
- when Eddie shrieks after Venom says “hi” to him in the bathroom
- Eddie sitting in a lobster tank
- Venom: “oh, you want up[pies]?”
- Venom’s feelings getting hurt after Eddie endearingly calls him a parasite
- whatever accent Tom Hardy was trying to do
and Yes, I did watch Venom solely because it stars Tom. And you know what?? It’s good! Sorry if you can’t Handle that. fuck you.
Speaking of Tom Hardy, here’s another, related category of movies:
SOMETIMES I WATCH MOVIES SPECIFICALLY FOR A BOY
Upgrade
between this and Venom, I’ve discovered that a niche genre I actually really enjoy is “Symbiotic Buddy Cop.” But also on that note I’d really just like to point out the following:
Residue (2017)
It’s a movie about a scruffy, down-on-his-luck private detective who gets roped into some Supernatural Nonsense alongside his gay daughter and if that’s not EXACTLY my shit,
Avengers: Infinity War
Chris Evans’ beard/hair combo is great and a worthy rival to his Snowpiercer look which many may know I am a Huge Fan of.
Anyway the movie was fine!
Ant-Man And The Wasp
I love Ant-Man! He’s a big dummy! Ant-Man movies are the closest to big MCU movies being cartoons without actually being animated. If this movie was never made, the only difference in my life would be the extra $15 in my pocket (I bought a beer at the theater.) BUT, I still liked it!
THRILLERS
Us And Them
Praxis is taking a banker’s family hostage so you can ruin their lives on Periscope and jumpstart The Revolution!! An oddly charming thriller/drama/comedy(?) that I enjoyed. Doesn’t stick the landing which is Unfortunate but I love a movie about eating the rich (metaphorically, in this case.)
Enemy (2013)
I love doppelganger stories and I enjoyed this one but I think it’s ultimately a little too Galaxy Brain for me.
I Remember You (????)
unfortunately i can’t say the same!
Cold In July (2014), Son Of A Gun (2014), Bullet Head (2017), Calibre, Midnighters
sure, whatever, fine, sure, sure
COMEDIES (AND SUCH)
Role Models (2008)
Blockers
Pleasantly surprised!!! Cute and funny and gay!
Death Of Stalin
It’s funny and good but unfortunately this movie is too much White Boys Talking At Each Other for my taste. “You realize this is historical fiction right” yeah and i don’t care, bye!
Love Simon
So the first 10 seconds of the movie made me go “oh this isn’t a movie for / about me” and I could tell it was written by a straight woman, BUT, I still really enjoyed it and cried a little in the theater because!! I’m gay!! Wish this movie came out when I was a young teen. Best use of any PG-13 movie’s single allowance of the word “fuck.”
2018 STRAGGLERS I HAVE YET TO TALK ABOUT
Tully
“The ninth month is tough. I remember I could barely make it to the gym.”
I liked it! I was, however, incredibly distracted for a bit because I thought the same actor was playing the husband and also the brother.
Under The Silver Lake
I really liked It Follows (2014) so I was looking forward to this but uhhhhh apparently the director moved to LA and became disillusioned with the world and pop culture and is also trying to grow a mustache? sometimes it be like that, I guess!
BlacKkKlansman
Watching this in an Iowa theater was an experience.
You Were Never Really Here
There was a guy audibly snoring in the audience and I thought it was funny.
I HAVEN’T SEEN THESE YET SO I CAN’T MAKE A ‘BEST OF 2018’ LIST YET
Shoplifters about a family that,,,steals???
Leave No Trace i love camping
The Tale I’ve been putting this one off all year because I’m, afraid!
Burning it was showing at The Music Box for a while but it’s over an hour away and I’m tired
A Star Is Born I haven’t listened to the song yet because I’m afraid it’ll ruin the big moment!!!
Roma I’ll try to catch this one on A Screen
If Beale Street Could Talk glaring oversight on my part, I’m sorry!
Can You Ever Forgive Me [tk joke]
Paddington 2 do you know how WILD i’ll feel if I watch this and don’t like it?
and with that out of the way . . .
MY FAVORITES OF 2018
No particular order or ranking, but I feel more strongly about the movies as we go down the list.
Black Panther
V good but give Shuri more up-to-date memes!! I would have lost my mind if she referenced this vine while pointing her gauntlets at someone.
Sorry to Bother You
It was an utter blast watching this in Hyde Park. I laughed a lot and I love this absurd, hellish world.
First Reformed
It’s either a testament to the movie’s strength that I truly don’t have anything to really say other than an emphatic “it’s good!!” or a testament to me being a dummy. Regardless, it’s good!! I should re-watch it.
Annihilation
oooooohhhh what a treat!! Nightmarish and beautiful, I’m floored! I seriously can’t get over how pretty this movie is (stand-out moments include: the lichen-covered/fungal corpse in the pool, the Bear, and Tessa Thompson sprouting leaves.) Last act is haunting.
The Favourite
“Love has limits.”
I don’t like period pieces except this one!
Hereditary
an absolute nightmare. Two scenes in particular had me holding my breath:
- the accident, and the ensuing shots of Alex Wolff’s face (waiting for Toni Collette’s character to make it to the car as we stare into Wolff’s face was particularly stomach-churning)
- Toni Collette’s dinner table monologue:
So now I can’t accept…And I can’t forgive because…Because nobody admits anything they’ve done!
Ack!! I love it! You watch a horrific tragedy unfold and the Last Chance the family has to avert complete and utter disaster goes up in smoke at the dinner table. Malice and trauma is an inter-generational curse!
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
freaking [runs up the side of a wall and jumps off it, does a somersault, kicks my legs in the air] I absolutely love it!! Extremely fun and vibrant and the only Spider-Man story that’s ever made me feel like I too could be Spider-Man. Miles!! You’re doing great!!!
also:
The Endless
This isn’t a ranked list, and even if it was, I wouldn’t be able to place The Endless because I just wholeheartedly love it. Charming and sincere and a ‘mundane’ application of Cosmic Horror into an otherwise normal relationship/world. I’m also just, a sucker for horror about Storytelling / Horror As A Genre. I’d like to make something like this someday! Saw it at the Music Box, got an empanada, and then watched it again.
Support the Girls
“Don’t you dare feel bad about yourself. And don’t you dare feel bad about us for losing our shitty jobs. There’s lots of other shitty jobs out there, including this one.”
Of all the movies that came out this year that I’ve seen, this is my pick for The Best. Felt like I was constantly on the verge of tears the entire time even as I was laughing and grinning (which is The Service Industry just, in general I guess.) Gonna carry this movie with me into 2019. Please watch it!
And that’s that! Maybe my New Year’s Resolution will be to watch less stuff that’ll fall under “Horror I Don’t Want To Talk About” but who can say! If you made it this far, thanks! I hope 2019 is good to movies and to us. I’m rooting for ya.
