The Fifth Annual Bamboo Awards: The Panda’s Favorites of 2018

[The Panda]

Number 15

 

User Opinions

"I chose to watch First Reformed for a college paper yesterday evening and I have to say, I'm definitely rooting for Ethan Hawke. His performance really takes an already great script to new heights. The entire film revolves around his character, and he nails it and then some." - @Slambros

 

"First Reformed  is good as hell for the most part, but man, between this, The Florida Project and Hereditary, what is it with A24 releases and throw-you-the-fuck-off endings recently." - @Jake Gittes

 

Critic Opinions

"Toller’s heaviest burden may be his apparent loss of faith. First Reformed is not-so-jokingly referred to as the “tourist church” by Abundant Life’s Pastor Jeffers (Cedric Kyles, AKA Cedric the Entertainer), because it takes in more money selling souvenirs than it does from the collection plate passed to its dwindling flock. Toller feels the sting of that cruel jest as surely as he does the stomach pain he quietly endures, which nothing seems to remedy.  The pastor stoically carries on, much like the title cleric of Diary of a Country Priest, the Robert Bresson film that inspired writer/director Schrader, a filmmaker whom critics had almost despaired of, who has made his best film since Affliction in 1997. That movie, like this one, was set in winter, with a similar dynamic about a man facing up to a fearsome destiny.

 

Toller finds a soul in greater distress than his own: environmental activist Michael (Philip Ettinger), who recoils at the thought of impending doom wrought by global warming. Michael’s wife Mary (Amanda Seyfried) is pregnant, and he doubts the wisdom of bringing a child into a dying world.  Schrader is a master of austere screen stories of existential crisis, which he’s deepened here with his genuine concerns about environmental ruin. Hawke is his most excellent avatar, quietly expressing the physical and intellectual pain of a man torn between forbearance and extreme measures in the face of a great wrong. 

 

“Will God forgive us?” Toller angrily posts on a sign outside his church, but the film requires no apologies. First Reformed deserves all praise." - Peter Howell

 

 

"Paul Schrader's newest film First Reformed (2018) is at its heart a meditation on what it means to truly have faith and the eternal clash of old ideas versus new ideas. Ethan Hawke puts in a dark and subdued performance as Reverend Toller, a pastor who is haunted by the death of his only son that passed away after enlisting in the armed forces. Toller is charge of an old church that is connected to a much bigger and modern megachurch. He gets involved with Mary (Amanda Seyfried), a pregnant women who's unstable environmental activist husband is pushing her to get an abortion. This is the catalyst for a chain of events that tests Toller's faith in God to the fullest.

The first thing that viewers will notice is the uncommonly used boxy 1.37:1 aspect ratio that Schrader utilized for the film. It's an interesting visual choice because it echos the insular and claustrophobic viewpoint of the film, since the story is told entirely from Toller's point-of-view and through his voice-over narration. Toller is keeping a diary in the film so we are privy to all his intimate thoughts and feelings. In this way we are trapped with him and can see his gradual mental decline. Another interesting aspect is there is no underscoring for two-thirds of the film (all the music is diegetic) which reinforces the quiet subtlety of the narrative.

 

First Reformed is a hard film to pin down as it travels to many varied places story-wise and has some tone-shifting in the latter half. Despite how dark it gets, there is a ray of hope that keeps it from becoming too oppressive. Toller himself emphasizes this dichotomy when counseling the husband saying: "It is our human duty to hold despair and hope together and not let either eclipse the other."  - Michelle Kisner

 

Personal Reasoning

First Reformed is the slow-burn with the WTF ending for the year (It feels like there's always at least one, and they're usually from A24 recently), and it succeeds in enrapturing you in it's vision.  Schrader took the Diary of a Country Priest and updated it into a modern setting, and the apocalypse of climate change rearing.  The film mixes a potent scientific and religious message, with a powerful performance by Ethan Hawke.  The film also manages to give one of the more nuanced messages about faith I've seen in a film since maybe Life of Pi, as that's a theme that often tends to be  heavy handedly one way or the other.  It offers a powerful conviction too about the duties of the faithful, who often neglect what it is their religion calls them to do, yet it isn't damning in the way it does it.  First Reformed is a strong, quiet slowburn.

 

 

 

[The Panda]

Number 14

 

User Opinions

"To viewers who bemoan the lack of originality and boldness in today’s movies, consider Sorry to Bother You as both a refutation of that assumption and a welcome blast of fresh air. Despite having never previously directed a feature film, writer-director Boots Riley delivers a well-crafted satire with visual and intellectual touches that register in equally powerful manners. Like Jordan Peele’s Get Out, it’s an extremely confident film that goes to surprising places and has razor-sharp observations about race and class in society. All at once, it’s a hilarious and bracing takedown of subtle racial discrimination (those white voices!), the public’s taste for mindless escapism, greed’s corrupting power, and the power corporations wield over individuals. And all of that is to say nothing of the unexpected twists and turns it takes in its final half-hour, which enhance the themes of the film while going to admirably bizarre places; some viewers will loathe these creative decisions, but I loved the audacity behind them. Lakeith Stanfield does very strong work in the lead role, selling his character’s conflicting thoughts about his occupation effectively and maintaining audience sympathy even in his lower moments; it’s an impressive jump to leading man status after memorable supporting performances in Short Term 12, Selma, and Get Out. The always-solid Tessa Thompson is also a most welcome presence as Stanfield’s love interest; she and Steven Yuen in a small-but-pivotal role as a union organizer are highly effective as agents calling on Stanfield’s character to follow his conscience. Though perhaps a bit underused, Armie Hammer gives one of his most memorable performances to date in a role that melds the smarminess he brought to his Social Network performance with stinging dark humor. I’d like to say more about the film, but to do so would ruin the surprises of a film so clever and surprising that viewers should experience it with little specific advance knowledge (and luckily, the trailers do not give away much of the film). Viewers who value inventive and provocative films ought to consider it a must-see." - @Webslinger

 

"Sorry to Bother You has a very millennial consumerism feel to it. There’s a lot of themes of how messed-up the future potentially is, the most popular TV shows are ones where characters are having the stuffing beat out of them, and bad news is treated like “great for business”. In many ways, this film is a reflection on our modern society, as a whole. In other ways, it’s actually quite funny, dark humor. Cash starts working for Regal View, a telemarketing company using infomercials to sell you “perfect” items that actually turn out to be incredibly flawed. All of this is blatantly  aggressive consumerism to the point where, to get ahead, salespeople use a simulated “white voice” (Cash’s voice is supplied by David Cross) to make themselves sound more appealing to customers. Personally, I thought the social commentary for the first part of the film was really well-handled.

 

    The film has a witty script, along with its heavy social commentary, it’s also a comedy, and as a comedy, it’s very funny. Some of the one liners that got the audience laughing included: “35% of men who wear pink are more likely to start a franchise”, and “Hot damn, you’re a sharp one”. These lighter moments feel quite natural and relatable, which I appreciated. The humor is, in fact, one of the film’s strengths, being both well-written and coming from the right place." - @Fancyarcher

 

Critic Opinions

"Has the satire of white voice since Pryor’s peak lost some of its original shock? Has the liberal white audience acclimated to its barbs? It seems telling that the authors of some of the most popular recent lampoons of whiteness—Christian Lander, of “Stuff White People Like”; Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, of “Portlandia”—are not black themselves. The stereotype has become domesticated, meta-referential; it’s no longer rooted in subversion and offense. But Lee and Riley, whose films are righteously tuned to our era of bad-faith white victimization, seem keen on retrieving its power. Their critique, ultimately, is a moral reversal, one that has less to do with making the white man a stereotype than with giving the black one a sense of self." - Doreen St. Felix

 

 

"A surrealist satire that deconstructs what’s worth laughing at like Sorry To Bother You should be allowed to take its place alongside similar underdog greats like Brazil, Repo Man, and Science of Sleep. It’s a part of that rich, wacky tradition. The whole point of surrealism is that something is strange, and interesting in what it makes this strangeness contemplate. Riley’s film operates in the genre of the absurd in a way that Peele’s Get Out never intended, as a horror.

 

When Tessa Thompson, co-star to Stanfield in Sorry To Bother You, talked about how important it is that Stanfield wants to take that cultural place, of embracing absurdity and weirdness in his career, she reminded us that he is an outlier, making that position accessible for artists of colour simply by existing. Surrealism, of course, isn’t exclusively for white people – but for so long, in the embrace of the Spike Jonzes and Wes Andersons of the world, it’s seemed that way. That’s what makes something like Sorry To Bother You doubly exciting: it’s conscious of what it achieves in its absurdity, just as much as it’s conscious of the dangers of late-stage capitalism." - Mariam Ansar

 

Personal Reasoning

Boots Riley delivers a wildly innovative debut feature film with Sorry to Both You.  The movie has a mix of dystopia, while also planting itself close enough to our own reality where the social criticism are easily recognized and ring with truth.  It's hilarious, with a mouthful to say, even if it does have to use its white voice a few times to speak its message,  Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson are both brilliant in the movie, however the entire ensemble is strong.  This would have ranked higher for me, because of how enjoyable and creative it is, but Riley is a little unrefined and the film as whole, while not sloppy, feels like it needed a little more editing work to keep the momentum going.  It's fun and exciting movie though, excited to see Riley develop his talent as a filmmaker.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by The Panda

[The Panda]

Editing and Cinematography!

 

 

[The Panda]

Number 13

 

User Opinions

"Man, you know you have a real hold-your-breath movie when the credits appear and you can hear 90% of the audience audibly exhale.  Anyway, yeah, I enjoyed it big time. Little surprise there. It's a Marvel event film that feels like a genuine comic book event film, for better or for worse (mainly better). It doesn't hold back for a moment, delivers on levels you didn't even know you wanted, feels grandiose in a way that a movie with 10 years of build-up should feel. And yeah, maybe it's a bit crowded and bloated and not every character gets full justice done to them, but in some ways that's also just the nature of a comic-book event.

 

Honestly, the approach the Russo's took for the story was honestly pretty interesting, in that it's not really a team-up movie in the traditional sense. Well, okay, there's a lot of teaming up going on, but unlike the first Avengers (and to a lesser extent AOU) the movie itself isn't about the team(s). No, the movie is all about Thanos, the movie's central character is Thanos and fuck me if they didn't goddamn blow it out of the water with him.  To sum up, honestly, in large part, I have a bit of similar reaction to this compared to Avengers 1 that I do to GOTG vs GOTG 2. That is to say, while I consider Avengers 1 to have superior pacing, structure, narrative flow and is ultimately a better movie in my eyes, when Avengers: Infinity War winds up to really punch you, it hits hard. Harder than anything in the first Avengers. That comment at the beginning about the audience exhaling once it was all over was completely accurate because, regardless of how you feel about that ending, even if you know it almost certainly won't stick, it will still make you feel something. And that's certainly meaningful in its own way." - @rukaio101

 

" I enjoyed the interactions, though some of the back-and-forths were getting kind of tiresome by the midway point. The action scenes were alright, with the best one being the battle on Titan where everyone ganged up on Thanos. Speaking of Thanos, he's the best CBM villain since Ledger's Joker. I loved every time he was on screen. Aside from Thanos, Thor and Gamora are my MVPs. The amount of Marvel characters in this movie were a blessing and a curse. It was awesome to see them all in the same movie, but more than half of them just felt like background characters without much to do. 

 

Overall, I enjoyed it, but I don't feel all the parts add up to it being the greatest Marvel movie. I agree with ddddeeee. I'm ready for a smaller cast in Avengers 4." - @MrGamer

 

Critic Opinions

"Avengers: Infinity War is one of the most unique, thrilling, action packed, and tonally balanced films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ten years and 18 films of universe building, character dynamics, and memorable stories have led to this gigantic film. Avengers: Infinity War is certainly different. It dodges many tropes the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been known to use, it stays on a uniquely balanced pace, is filled with dramatic and dark moments, while also keeping the humorous “Marvel charm” that has captivated general audience for many years. Directed but Joe and Anthony Russo, veteran Marvel directors that have helmed successful films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Captain America: Civil War, use their thematic imprint and translate it in a film that juggles ten years worth of characters and dynamics. The brothers have made their mark on this franchise and continue to take these characters in bold directions with Avengers: Infinity War." - Sheraz Farooqi

 

 

"10 years ago, a seemingly humble superhero film hit cinemas, showcasing a B-level character, Iron Man, but sporting a notorious lead, Robert Downey Jr, in a hopeful comeback. Little did we know, this audacious, landmark moment in cinema kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), a sprawling, decade long saga of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. This included Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and of late, Spider-Man and Black Panther. It’s become a common occurrence for characters to pop up in each solo film, for example Tony Stark is central to Homecoming‘s plot.

 

But when looking back at this magnificent universe, everyone remembers The Avengers (for the purposes of this review, we’ll ignore the UK’s stupid name). A blockbuster many thought would never come to fruition, purely because of its avant-garde scale, director Joss Whedon proved the world wrong, cementing himself and the film in movie history forever. His follow up, Age of Ultron, was for all intensive purposes, a let-down following the predecessors soaring heights. While Captain America: Civil War was dubbed ‘Avengers 2.5’, as it saw many characters come together and face off (that airport fight though), we haven’t had the full team together in a while. But, looking back to The Avengers; a little post-credit scene featuring a purple, smiling man teased something much grander. We were all naive. We couldn’t foresee what was coming. After six years of teasing and leaving loose-ends around each film, the universe is ready to be balanced, as well as put a smile on our face. Thanos (Josh Brolin), an Infinity Stone hunting titan, is here, and it’s a reasonable guarantee that the fans are not ready." - Cameron Frew

 

Personal Reasonings

 My initial reaction to Infinity War was a bit more mixed about the whole thing, as there's a whole lot of movie and giant moments all smashed together.  But when looked backed upon and re-watched, the movie really soared, and everything just clicked in a clunky but fashionable way.  Anyways, this movie made my list less for it's cinematic merits, but for the sweeping emotion and spectacle it hits you with.  The climax is absolutely killer, and watching Thanos' journey to succeed is enthralling.  Josh Brolin is phenomenal in the title role, and the cast a whole mostly give their best performances within the MCU.  There won't be many films like this one, especially a blockbuster that takes its villain and makes him the 'protagonist' of the story.  I'm excited to see if Endgame can match Infinity War in some of its bold moments.

 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by The Panda

[The Panda]

I'd like to note I borrowed the majority of this image from the Fulcrum (who in turn borrow images from the movie).

 

Number 12

 

User Opinions

"Hereditary is brilliant. It's a compelling family drama about a cursed family who has to suffer due to the actions of one of their loved ones. The acting is brilliant, the characters are so well-developed, that one can't help but become attached to them and invested in their survival. The mood is excellent with amazing cinematography that entrances you into the movie. The editing is also great really capturing the horror elements of the script very well. The scene where the girl loses her head? That's such a shocking scene that really establishes Hereditary isn't your typical horror movie.

 

As for the supernatural stuff? You have divination, people inquiring after the dead, witches setting up family members as sacrifices for their own gain. As the movie moves on and it becomes more clear what is happening, as a Christian, I couldn't help but think about the Bible and how God's view on witchcraft is that it comes from the devil. Hereditary gets that. At no point do these characters seek help from a priest or a pastor. They don't consult the Bible or seek aid from God. Annie tries to solve the problem on her own but she's way in over her head and doesn't even begin to comprehend what is actually going on.

 

And so with evil moving in around them and the family being left on their own, it should come as no surprise that in the end they fail. There's Steve, a practical man who believes his family is losing their minds after Charlie's death because he misinterpreted the signs that were in front of him. I know some people think this was more psychosis and all the supernatural stuff was in their heads but I don't think that's true at all. In the end, he burns because he couldn't accept that his worldview was wrong despite the evidence he saw contradicting it." - @Water Bottle

 

"the director surely knows how to ramp up and conjure the dread during individual scenes by his sense of framing and crafting unnerving imagery with sparse elements. My favourite in terms of absolute horror is all tied to Toni Collette's performance of a mentally ill mother being eaten bit by bit by grief and the burden of her family's insane legacy. (That scene when she gets possessed by her daughter and the helpless reactions of her hubby and son were bone-chilling and painful in terms of depicting a loved one's mental state unraveling before your eyes and having to deal with it on top of your own turmoil. The repulsive dread and the heartwrenching sadness works on both levels, the popcorn horror metaphor and the realistic one which is the one that really touches a nerve).

 

Collette sells it for me (whether she's torn by grief, sobbing for sympathy or overcome with resentment and frightening anger) and navigates her way through an acrobatic role (displaying her chameleon-like abilities) in what looks like a promising but slightly messy debut." - @dashrendar44

 

Critic Opinions

"First time filmmaker Ari Aster’s HEREDITARY is so nasty and dark that you’ll be shocked at how much empathy this story generates, even if the results are further down than you’d ever expect to dive. Aster, who has made several shorts that gave him notoriety this decade, is yet another filmmaker in a long list of recent newbies who’s created a show-stopping debut seemingly out of thin air. 

 

What Aster made is a sorrowful story about familial turmoil that turns vindictive in a hurry, without unlocking the keys to the puzzle until it’s absolutely necessary. He taps into the horror and resentment that accompanies grief with a fear that we may have all had at one point: “Am I turning into my parents?” He sets a mood that’s filled with a semblance of love for the (un)suspecting family, but something isn’t quite right. Fans of Stanley Kubrick and early period M. Night Shyamalan will eat this up, but those looking for your regular smash-and-grab horror need not apply. HEREDITARY tells a story that keeps the darkness alive with one beautiful scene after another." - James Clay

 

 

"Hereditary is a disturbing descent into madness that highlights all the best parts of the horror genre. It takes you in directions you never imagined, and it fills you with a deep sense of anxiety, all the while giving audiences a completely unique plot. Combined with fantastic performances and gorgeously dark visuals, it delivers the perfect horror film. I’m confident this film will reveal new revelations and insights each time it is watched, due to how perfectly Aster incorporated minute details that may be missed on the first (or even second) viewing. With how minimal Aster kept many aspects the film, it is hard to believe how truly effective and terrifying every moment is. There is not a single thing I would change about this film, and I honestly can’t wait to see it again. My biggest piece of advice for fans going into this film for the first time: try your hardest to absorb every precise detail on the screen. You never know what might be important later on." - Molly Henery

 

Personal Reasoning

Hereditary is absorbing work of dread and horror.  This was a slow-build that was one of my favourites of the year, while hands down being the worst theatrical experience I've had this year (all thanks to an incredibly obnoxious audience).  Instead of ranting about the audience, it's probably best that I give some of my praise to the film itself.  The movie creeps up on you, with a few shocking turns, and you can feel the grief that comes from Toni Colette's character.  The supernatural elements sometimes don't work as well as the drama portions of the film, but they're still deeply effecting, especially with the insane and fun climatic ending.  Hereditary is another film that's a wild debut for a new director, this time Ari Aster.  

 

 

 

 

 

[The Panda]

Screenplay Winners!

 

 

[The Panda]

Number 11

 

User Opinions

"Lady Gaga was a revelation! I haven’t seen her act in anything and she nailed this. She was Ally. I rooted for her. I cried with her. I cheered for her. I empathized with her. She just felt so real and strong and open.   Bradley Cooper was also great. While Ally’s character was the one I identified with, Cooper’s Jack was a tragic character. Also cried when he cried in the rehab scene. And hated him for some of his actions, like DYING! I felt very conflicted about him, up to the end. Man was I cringing all through the Grammy Awards scene.  The Chemistry! So palpable! From their first meeting through it all. Despite the bad stuff, I kept hoping they’d overcome everything and loved it when it seemed like they would." - @Deja23

 

"This is the best movie I've seen so far this year and I won't be surprised if it remains that way. I've seen all three of the previous versions, and this might be the most effective one of them all (this is worlds better than the Streisand movie from the 70s). While there's nothing here that will surprise anyone who has seen the earlier ones (or even those who haven't), it hits harder than you expect, and the entire audience is sure to be in tears by the end (I sure was). I never would've guessed that Bradley Cooper had something like this in him behind the camera. In front of the camera, he gives what is easily the best performance of his career. I can easily see him taking home an Oscar for this. He's often matched, and at times even exceeded, by Lady Gaga. While this isn't the renowned singer's major acting debut (that was the lame fifth season of American Horror Story), she convincingly sells Ally's transformation and has fantastic chemistry with Cooper. The soundtrack is also terrific and I'm sure to pick it up off of iTunes soon. Remakes often come criticized for trying to update stories that don't need improvement. Cooper makes a strong case for how necessary they are when they're done this well." - @filmlover

 

Critic Opinon

"Both stunning and heartbreaking, A Star Is Born is not a campy remake of an old film, but rather a successful re-imagining of a timeless story—with a modern flare. In his directorial debut, Bradley Cooper manages to effortlessly take a love story last told in the 1970s and bring it into the current day with the perfect combination of wit, raw emotion, and transcendent music.

 

Lady Gaga brilliantly tackles the part of insecure Ally as her first big-screen role—confirming her status as an all-around superstar. Ally works a service industry day job and performs when she can at a local drag bar, but she dreams of making it in the music industry. Jackson Maine (Cooper) is a rugged, well-known rock musician who is suffering from tinnitus, a common hearing issue—something that fuels his already out of control alcoholism." - Heather Gunn

 

 

"There are moments that seem a bit visually cliched; one of the notes I scribbled during my screening was simply, "Directors love wind farms." (They do, by the way.) But Cooper credibly builds a love story that's fraught from the beginning, even as it leads to soaring moments for both Jackson and Ally. The musical moments that are meant to seem enormous actually do, and the relationship is suffused with a specific, cocooning intimacy that foregrounds the difference between how close they feel to each other and how uneasy both are with their public standing

.

Melodrama gets a bad rap sometimes. The term is swapped in for cheap storytelling or lazy filmmaking, and this is neither. But it is proudly, openly, resolutely designed to elicit an emotional response. It asks you to feel deeply, more than it asks for anything else.  And that means that if you happen to have notes at the end of the film that remind you that you did, for all the analysis you may attempt later, have goosebumps up your forearms, it would be wrong to pretend you didn't." - Linda Holmes

 

Personal Reasonings

If you would have asked me directly after I saw this one, I would guaranteed it would have been at least in my top 5.  It's a movie that's more effective directly after you see it then after you've sat on it for a little bit.  What's effective in this movie is really effective, the two lead performances from Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga are both excellent.  When the film gets emotional, it really hits you in the gut.  There are certain parts within the movie where the storyline drags a little, but it's forgiveable for how much of a punch the film ultimately leaves you with.  Bradley Cooper proves he isn't just a good actor but has just as strong instincts behind the camera as he has in front of one.  The film's the same story as the past iterations, but Cooper manages to have it strike a little harder than the rest did, especially the Streisand version that this one is closest to.  All around, A Star is Born is great filmmaking.

 

 

 

[The Panda]

Number 10

 

User Opinions

"The best film of the year for me so far.  It educates and makes you laugh in some parts and then makes you cringe and feel ashamed at being a human being in other parts.  My favourite part of the film, and perhaps the most harrowing section of the whole film is the juxtaposition of the two gatherings at the end.  The Klan welcoming their new members and the planning of the bombing and them the black power gathering where Harry Belafonte tells the story of the young black man convicted of raping a white woman by an all white jury in less than 4 minutes.  This story and the telling of it almost brought me to tears.  Belafonte tells it in a calm manner, the complete opposite of the first speaker at the beginning of the movie.  This scene is like the final fight in a Rocky movie or the final act in a Mission Impossible film.  The whole film is building to this one moment and it's the crescendo.  As @filmlover mentioned, it shows how far we haven't come.  This is a film that takes place in the 70's and yet it could be about events that happened yesterday.  The leader of the "free world" comes off as racist, you have young and elderly black folk being gunned down by the police, you have rallies where racist inbreds are carrying confederate flags and so on.  This movie takes place 40 years ago and yet we see a lot of the same stuff on the news today.

 

The acting in this is top notch from everyone.  John David Washington was simply hypnotic.  He was funny yet serious, vulnerable yet strong and just made me forget his was an actor playing a role.  Adam driver was his normal terrific self and even the smaller roles from actors like Topher Grace and Michel Buscemi were very well played.  I think this would have been a hard film to make for an actor, I really do.  Some of the lines that they had to recite would have been difficult to say but credit all the actors and of course director Spike Lee for getting it all out of them.  As for Spike, he is hit and miss for me.  He's done some brilliant films like Malcolm X and do the Right Thing and he's had some that just didn't connect with me.  I'm not sure if this is his best because Malcolm X is in my top 100 but it certainly is in the same conversation." - @Christmas baumer

 

"I don't get very tense during a lot of movies but I was legit on the edge of my seat during the climax of this film. My heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest, a feeling that only a few horror movies have done for me in my lifetime (although the car scene from Eighth Grade is up there as one of the scariest scenes of the year in a non-horror film). The final moments of the film also hit incredibly close to home, showing footage from the events of Charlottesville, which happened over a year ago. Spike Lee shows us that we, as a country, still haven't changed in four decades. Violence and racism are still prevalent and as loud as it was back in the 70s. This is an incredibly important film that has been released at a time where our country is still divided and is still dealing with the same exact issues that were relevant more than 40-50 years ago. It is heart-wrenching to think about and this film serves as that message." - @Rorschach

 

Critic Opinions

"One of the more interesting aspects of BlacKkKlansman is the way that Spike Lee uses cinematic history as a backdrop to the film’s story. The choice to use that famous shot from Gone With the Wind, a shot that isn’t too dissimilar from many of Spike’s own crane shots, is a stark reminder that Confederate monuments don’t just exist in the Deep South, but in the very art form that we all love. The Oscar-winning performance by Hattie McDaniel is used as an example later in the film by Duke as an example of him not hating black people, as if that decades old award assuages cinema of its past bigotry. Later, during the initiation ceremony, the members of Klan gleefully watch D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, reveling in the racist imagery from the silent classic. As the members of the Klan cheer on Griffith’s infamous epic, the film cuts to Jerome Turner (Harry Belafonte) recalling a mob whipped up into a bloodlust by Birth of a Nation and the brutal lynching that he witnessed. It’s obvious that Spike isn’t just asking the audience to reexamine racism in America, but how the classics of cinema have perpetuated a culture of white supremacy, be it Griffith’s love letter to the Klan or Gone With the Wind’s romanticism of the Antebellum South." - Sean Mulvihill

 

 

"The story itself is beyond insane—a zany, hair-raising misadventure destined for the big screen. Stallworth (John David Washington), a rookie in Colorado Springs’s intelligence office, stumbles upon an ad in the newspaper, makes a call, and joins the Klan.  Of course, he’ll need a second officer to actually show up. Enter Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver—perfect), who sounds about as much like Stallworth as he looks, plus he’s Jewish, which could further complicate his face-to-face relationship with the hate group.

 

Much sit-com-esque absurdity and dramatic police procedural thrills follow, but it’s the way Lee subverts these standard formats that hits home. The insidious nature of the racism depicted in 1979 echoes in both directions—in the history that brought our country to this moment in time, and in the future Ron Stallworth undoubtedly hoped he could prevent.  Yes, there are laugh out loud moments in this film, but there are far more rallying cries." - Hope Madden

 

Personal Reasoning

BlacKkKlansman was an August home run by Spike Lee, a veteran director who may have just made one of his best works with this one.  The film is not only a strong tale of how we haven't gotten over the past, and how much of a mistruth the idea of "post-racial society" is, but it's an entertaining thrill ride.  Washington is great as Stallworth, creating a highly likable character who you're invested in until the very end.  The actual story this is based on is nuts, and Lee does a great job of bringing out the tension and humor in the moments, while also uncomfortably highlighting how they're so similar to moments we see too often now.  Also, like Sorry to Bother You, there's some great phone calls where Lee demonstrates the truth behind the idea of "using your white voice".  BlacKkKlansman is a gut-punching blast of a movie that needs to be seen.

 

 

 

[The Panda]

I'd like to mention two honorable mentions for Best Actress, Lily James and Thomasin McKenzie, I really wanted to put them on my list but I couldn't find the room

 

 

 

 

[4815162342]

29 minutes ago, The Panda said:

I'd like to mention two honorable mentions for Best Actress, Lily James and Thomasin McKenzie, I really wanted to put them on my list but I couldn't find the room

 

 

 

 

 

This yellow font was not a good choice

[The Panda]

Number 9

 

User Opinions

"A delightful dark comedy about power plays in early 1700s British politics with an All About Eve twist. I was surprised by how genuinely hilarious this was at times: the script is filled with hilarious one-liners and other quirks (that strange dance between Rachel Weisz and Joe Alwyn might be the hardest I’ve laughed all year). The biggest asset is its trio of central performances: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone (in a role that takes a dark turn previously unseen by the actress), and Rachel Weisz all deserve the awards love coming their way (kudos as well to a never better Nicholas Hoult). Like Love & Friendship from a few years ago, this is a period piece for those seeking something spicier from such a usually stuffy genre ." - @filmlover

 

"It's fabulously diva, and I already love Rachel Weisz, so I was sold on her.  The real surprise to me was Olivia Colman, whom I sadly wasn't already familiar with.  She nearly steals the whole thing as the Queen.  Stone is amusing and gets to parlay her smart-alecky schtick into a somewhat alternative historical tone that only Lanthimos can generate, but not sure how this will appeal across the market.  Still a very acquired taste." - @Macleod

 

Critic Opinions

"Every department performs at the top of its game. Sandy Powell’s costumes are all to die for, but Weisz – at one point something like Adam Ant’s dandy highwayman – is particularly well served: a blend of theatrical flourish and mild fetish wear. The music blends baroque with the awkwardly modernist. Robbie Ryan, the great Irish cinematographer, has never been on better form.  The candle-lit, mahogany (literally and figuratively) interiors, so redolent of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, are frequently rendered via sickeningly heightened fish-eye lenses that emphasise the contained, solipsistic orbits of each character.

 

It shouldn’t need to be said that the film-makers have prodded the historical facts to their own mischievous ends. Anybody complaining about inaccuracies deserves one of Stone’s nasal snorts. Others may more justifiably wonder if Lanthimos’s aesthetic is occasionally just a little too misanthropic.  There is more warmth in the average Samuel Beckett play than you’ll find in the director’s entire oeuvre. These are, however, the colours he works in and, not for the first time, he’s fashioned them into something like a masterpiece." - Donald Clarke

 

 

"All hail the rise and rise of Olivia Colman. Here she plays Queen Anne (reigned 1702-14) as a disconsolate bully with a queer streak.  Her performance tugs us into the strangest of realms (think Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland as the Queen of Hearts gives way to fury or the Duchess’s baby turns into a pig). Colman, always brilliant, has never seemed more divine. If she’s not nominated for an Oscar, I will cry.  We expect weirdness from director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster; The Killing of a Sacred Deer). What’s satisfying about The Favourite is that it builds on his signature style — rapid, deadpan delivery; wonky visuals — in a euphorically populist way. How can you resist a historical drama containing the word “vajuju”?

 

The story is full of sexy schemers. Anne’s in thrall to her simultaneously blunt and Machiavellian advisor, Sarah (Rachel Weisz; fabulous). But the dynamic between the pair changes when Sarah’s savvy, down-on-her-luck cousin, Abigail (Emma Stone; reliably zany and touching), comes to court. Slowly but surely, Anne comes to appreciate Abigail’s gentle touch. As a wise person once observed, “Everything’s about sex; except sex, which is about power”. There’s not room in the queen’s bed for both Sarah and Abigail. So will it be Sarah or Abigail who’s left in the cold?  This slice of history was explored in Helen Edmundson’s play, Queen Anne. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. The scriptwriters have added colour but never stray from what’s important: the core selves of the three women. In between the fakery and delusion, we witness desperately sad epiphanies. Compare and contrast this with Mike Leigh’s Peterloo. Both films have a cossetted royal, selfish toffs and put-upon underlings. But where Peterloo was inert,  The Favourite is a riot of emotion." - Charlotte O'Sullivan

 

Personal Reasonings

The Favourite is a brilliant and quite funny period piece by Yorgos Lanthimos.  Oddly enough, neither of those two things, period pieces or Lanthimos, would be typical appeals for me in a film, yet for whatever reason this movie as a whole worked wonders.  The screenplay is full of wit, that is delivered to it's fullest potential from Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Queen Olivia Colman.  There's plenty of meat within this movie to chew on, as it delivers on nearly all fronts of grand production.  Had this been able to trim just a little bit off the end, this may have even made it into my top five of the year.  The movie also has a wonderfully compiled soundtrack of classical works that feel like they were original works composed for the film, so great selection there.  It was certainly one of the biggest surprises for me of the year, as I was fairly pessimistic about the whole thing going in, maybe that helped me to fully appreciate it without the weight of great expectations.  Anyways, great movie.

 

 

 

[The Panda]

Just now, 4815162342 said:

 

This yellow font was not a good choice

Not my best graphic at all, I'll give you that.  For those who can't read it

 

1st: Elsie Fisher

2nd: Toni Colette

3rd: Yalitza Aparicio

4th: Olivia Colman

5th: KiKi Layne

6th: Lady Gaga

[The Panda]

Number 8

 

User Opinions

"I should also say more than just "the bear".

 

Yeah, there are some great jump-scares, and I think horror buffs will like the more extreme moments (like the stomach scene), but overall it's the mood of the movie and it's stately, methodical exploration of this mutating natural beauty that's so engrossing. I remember wondering at one point -- just before that total gonzo lighthouse sequence -- how Garland was gonna wrap this up in any way that felt satisfying, and yet he completely nailed the ending (for me)." - @Telemachos

 

"By far, the bear scene when they were tied up was FANTASTIC and by far the most chilling piece of the film. The way they were able to formulate the screams but also mix in enough of a bear growl was spot on. I was glued to my seat that entire time. I just wished in someway, we had more of that eeriness in the film.

 

However with that said, sometimes a film doesn’t have to show the viewer everything or explain everything, especially when it comes to sci fi. I think it comes with the lore, it brings about mystery leaving the screen and having the viewers have their own opinion for imagination (kind of what authors do for books). I at first was turned off by the ending when the woman basically looked like she was vomiting lights in the air. I was a bit turned off by that. However, I absolutely loved what followed it, the whole sequence if portman vs the “thing” and how t simply mimicked her every move. The look of it was perfect to me, it had a very unsettling matter to it that had me on edge. However, when portman tricked it, I actually genuinly felt bad for it weird enough. So did the glimmer die at the end? That’s what it looked like." - @K1stpierre

 

Critic Opinions

"“Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects ... don’t have politics.” That’s a line from David Cronenberg’s 1986 sci-fi classic The Fly, but it would not have been out of place in the new sci-fi blockbuster Annihilation, of which this is a spoiler-heavy review. In both movies, chaotic recombinant genes wreak havoc on a very good-looking protagonist, troubling the lines between identity, species, and body-knowledge. Unlike The Fly, however, Annihilation extends that troubling to the broader category of environment, bringing flowers and crocodiles and fungus into the equation.

 

Throughout Annihilation, the Shimmer phenomenon examines the spread of trauma and grief throughout a living being. When a bear kills one of the explorers, it returns with part of her voice incorporated into it. When one being causes suffering in another, the suffering fragments and embeds within the being that caused it. Lena must face and destroy the shadow-self, or it will, like the bear, continue to incorporate elements of her identity until she and her trauma are identical. She will become the grief that is her wounded marriage, and lose herself. The shadow-self is the id, the object that defines the subject, the dark mirror tethered to the self that must be faced if we are to escape it. When Lena destroys the humanoid, all its effects—the crystal trees, the mutations everywhere—burn away in a cleansing fire." - Josephine Livingston

 

 

"This movie was riveting, ambitious, and absolutely mesmerizing to watch on screen. Amongst the many evolving things in The Shimmer, one of the biggest parts within it was the animals. Garland takes the mutations of animals and balances beauty with terror all in the same area. As an audience member, you can see this abundance of life that’s growing and flourishing within it that looks truly wonderful, but you also see the monstrous side to this beauty and how these mutations can really go either way. The deeper the team goes in, the worse it gets. Which leads me to the scares in this movie. There’s definitely some moments that had me hiding behind my hands, but the trailers make it out to seem like a film that’s filled with jump scares. Have no fear folks, there’s none of those, just some disturbing images created by Alex Garland (THANKS, MAN). 

 

Another great aspect to this movie is its message. The key to a successful science fiction film is the takeaway. When you leave the theater, you’re left mulling over many different portions. This film has a strong message about how humans have a need to thrive, but also to destroy. It’s difficult to find a balance and this movie explores that in a very interesting way. It also does a fantastic job with representation, which I can’t applaud Alex Garland for enough. The group of women in this movie are simply referred to as scientists, there is never a moment where their gender is defined or they fall separate from their male counterparts. This was something I also noticed in “Black Panther” and it brought a smile to me face." - Hannah Hoolihan

 

Personal Reasonings

This movie pretty much made my list for that bear sequence alone, but that terrifying creature isn't the sole great thign about this movie.  Annihilation is a film about the human tendency of self-destruction, and it manages to show the terror and beauty in how we deteriorate and push forward as creatures.  Everything in the Shimmer is new, entrancing and it leaves you complete immersed in the experience.  This maybe one of the more flawed movies from a technical perspective in my top 10, but I really couldn't leave it off because of how much ambition the film had, and how much of that ambition is succeeded at pulling off.  From the trippy ending, the beautiful effects, gorgeous cinematography and production design, Annihilation is one of the more interesting and innovative movies you could end up seeing this year.

 

 

[The Panda]

Number 7

 

User Opinions

"Middle school is a nigh-unbearable stage of awkwardness, and Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade captures it with raw honesty that registers as hilarious and heartfelt simultaneously. The film consistently feels like both an accurate window into the electronically-connected world today’s teenagers navigate and a more timeless reflection upon craving self-assuredness and a place of belonging at a vulnerable stage of life. At the center of it all, newcomer Elsie Fisher does terrific work as Kayla, the insecure protagonist. Her honest, vulnerable work highlights Kayla’s ongoing tension between developing a stronger sense of self and creating a different persona in the hope of appearing more confident and worldly. She also has just the right degree of naivete to make some of the film’s racier jokes and its more serious scenes work perfectly. While the nature of the narrative allows Fisher to carry most of the film on her shoulders, character actor Josh Hamilton also gets several opportunities to shine as an all-too-believable caring dad who nimbly straddles the line between embarrassing “dad joke” humor and tear-jerking devotion; one of their last scenes together is an especially moving one that highlights the admirable qualities Kayla overlooks in her immature perception of what makes a person worthy of love. The film admittedly has an episodic feel, but the approach fits with the short timeline (a week or thereabouts) and eschews tropes and clichés that wear many other teen comedies down in favor of more authentic, organic moments that gradually reveal the protagonist’s layers and carry her – and viewers – toward a joyful conclusion that feels earned rather than obligatory. Debut writer-director Bo Burnham takes a big risk by setting the film in the present day rather than evoking the mid-2000s setting of his own adolescence (a fact that his script seems to address implicitly when a high school student comments upon Kayla effectively belonging to a different generation than him), but he delivers upon that risk by portraying technology as an essential part of the young characters’ lives in an organic, non-judgmental manner. While his YouTube fame doesn’t appear to inform the low production values of Kayla’s videos, it does inform an intriguing commentary on public and private selves via the confident front Kayla displays in her videos versus her awkward, self-conscious off-camera behavior. It’s a sublime accomplishment in its genre, certain to join Lady Bird and The Edge of Seventeen as one of the definitive teen films of the decade." - @Webslinger

 

"The best horror movie of the year." - @Rorschach

 

Critic Opinions

"Anxiety inducing and rip-your-heart-out honest, "Eighth Grade" is a spot-on portrait of the awkwardness of adolescence. In his brave, striking, spectacular writing and directing debut, comedian Bo Burnham empathizes with and exposes the heart of the American teenage girl. He is able to succinctly sum up the pain and heartache of the teenage experience, but he does so in a way that is relatable to everyone who has ever been a teenager while reminding viewers how much they don't ever want to go back to those years.  Elsie Fisher is a treasure as Kayla Day, who is wrapping up her final week of middle school. She has a page on YouTube where she posts videos about self-confidence that she doesn't have to an audience of no one. She claims no particular social scene, and is visible enough to her classmates only to be voted the quietest student in her grade.

 

Raised by single father Mark (the great Josh Hamilton), who is as supportive of his daughter as she is horrified by his existence ("be quiet and drive, and don't look weird and sad," she tells him in the car), Kayla takes a stab at fitting in with the cool kids. They can barely look up from their phones long enough to notice her standing in front of them. Burnham uses over-exaggerated music cues to heighten the stress of the mundane events that mean everything to a teenager; a pool party becomes a playground of panic for Kayla, and the audience.  But Burnham has the restraint, and the soul, to not twist the knife the way some filmmakers would. He comes from a place of compassion, and in Fisher he finds an actress to make his film sing. "Eighth Grade" aces the test." - Adam Graham

 

 

 

"Eighth Grade is a painfully acute, hilarious, and honest depiction of the most awkward stage of human development. It’s not a period many of us want to revisit, but Burnham’s approach is bursting with empathy, not just for Kayla, the film’s protagonist, or for her lovingly derpy dad, but for the viewer as well. It’s a sensitive and pointed reminder that life, at all stages, is a daily struggle, and we need to be kind. Particularly to ourselves.

 

Kayla is a product of her environment. She applies makeup and styles her hair before posting a selfie in bed, captioned “woke up like this”. Her mirror is festooned with post-it notes of affirmation reminding her to smile, be bold, and use green eyeliner. She has a YouTube channel where she posts vlogs for her peers about confidence and “putting yourself out there”, which have no views. Meanwhile, at school, she has been voted “Most Quiet”. She doesn’t stand out, and she doesn’t fit in. During her last week of middle-school she is determined to stop being invisible." - Di Golding

 

Personal Reasoning

Eighth Grade is an uncomfortably awkward and funny portrayal of what many people in the U.S. would consider the worst years of their life, middle school.  The film so accurately captures both the universal and the now of what it's like to be going through that early stage of puberty that most of us would rather forget.  Burnham finds some nice truth through his display of a week in the life of the most awkward place on the planet.  Elsie Fisher completely owns her role, she's complete honest in her performance and it really does feel like you're watching this one week in her life.  Nothing in the week is to transformative, but you can see the moments which Kayla would view as key points in her development.  The movie has a strong moral message, and almost feels like it should be a required viewing for middle schoolers.  It's funny, awkward and touching.

 

 

[The Panda]

Ensemble Winners!

 

[The Panda]

Number 6

 

User Opinions

"pl always say "best villain since Heath Ledger Joker" and it's always total horseshit but like, Killmonger is an actual character in this? With a real arc and real emotional stakes, things of that nature

 

Anyway this movie absolutely rules. World-building for days, characters with functional, diverse POVs, and also some shitty CGI that rivals Justice League lmao" - @Chewy

 

"With god Coogler, stunning visuals, great action and story, a well done message, and a phenomenal cast. (Killmonger is best villain the MCU has done, loved the Dora Milaje and Nakia in this). This movie has touched me in ways no MCU movie has done. Wakanda Forever" - @YourMother the Edgelord

 

"Clearly the most interesting MCU film thematically, if not a bit imperfect. I wish they could have taken more time to explore the dueling ideologies a bit, but Killmonger steps in seemingly late and doesn't get the ball rolling until after the halfway point of the movie. By the time he has taken over as King, we get one scene where he announces his plan and before we know it, we gotta get T'Challa back for the climax. There's a lot the movie is trying to tackle here that the 2hr 15min feels short for what it's trying to achieve. Give me Nolan length here if we're going to be talking about race, privilege, and geopolitical relations.

 

Michael B. Jordan is highly magnetic in his role, in the sense that some ways he goes too over the top for the moment at hand, but I was drawn to every moment he was on the screen. Shuri and Okoye are my two MVPs, I loved them. I was really surprised at how well they managed to represent almost everyone among the supporting cast." - @MrPink

 

Critic Opinions

"‘Revolutionary’ is the sense that you’ll get throughout Black Panther. Coogler is contending with a few sentiments: the need for Killmonger to be militant, the Wakandans to be dignified; a few thousand years of African history, and African American oppression, with a shared cultural trauma; and most of all, Black Panther has to be considerate of the White world/”colonizers” without turning into Uncle Tom’s. Coogler balances those themes and creates a tapestry that would be one dimensional in someone else’s hands.

 

Coogler is unflinching in his vision. Even the ending, which I won’t reveal for fear of spoilers, is brutally and utterly honest. All I can say is that, Killmonger delivers such a line that it sums up both cultural trauma and pride like no other. When I heard it, as someone who has studied the Middle Passage, I wanted to jump out of my seat and applaud. Coogler could have easily softened the blow for anyone who wasn’t Black. He could have let his White audience leave, leaving the film as just a good time. Instead, he delivers a gut punch. A cultural salvo that can’t be ignored or misinterpreted. He took the biggest risk of any Marvel film to date, and was more directive in one line than many more “serious” art pieces.

 

The ending to Black Panther, the willingness to not “Uncle Tom” it up, for me, is what made it into a 4/4. For me, it not only demonstrated a willingness by Disney/Marvel to let a Black director helm an almost entirely black cast in a major tentpole, but also to allow him tell his own story. They let him be brutal. They let him be historical. They let him be divisive. They trusted him to make a funny, action packed, musically current (Kendrick Lamar’s soundtrack is fantastic, and it’s a nice change from the previous Marvel films that were stocked with 80’s radio), and politically charged film. And they gave him a big budget to do it with. In short, they “let” him be revolutionary." - Robert Daniels

 

 

"Imagine going to see a Marvel superhero movie where all of the characters not only look similar to you, but where a story is about the often negatively highlighted continent from where your ancestors arose.  Marvel Studio's "Black Panther" does and achieves exactly that — and so much more.  Being the 18th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "Black Panther" is unlike any other Marvel film that fans have seen or are used to. This new film features hip slang used in African-American culture and even "giving dap" (a handshake originally made popular between African-American soldiers during the Vietnam War as a part of the Black Power movement).

 

"Black Panther" grossed a record-breaking worldwide total of $404 million at the box office and gained an early 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Once viewers see the movie, the why becomes evident.  This new superhero movie in unlike any of the other Marvel films because it's not just one good guy vs. one bad guy. There's no pile-on team or super group. It's about the fight and struggle of one family and one true leader trying to secure their rightful place in Wakanda." - Kiera Allen

 

Personal Reasoning

Probably the greatest live action comic book movie ever made, in a year filled with fantastic ones. This movie is a sensation and the boldest (even if not the biggest) the MCU has ever chosen to go.  The movie is grand in scale, and the stakes manage to be comic book level large, yet upfront and personal.  There's a villain, portrayed by Michael B. Jordan, who's a full, complex character and not just an anarchal slate to give a target for the hero to dispose of.  There's room for every member in the cast the shine.  The movie is empowering and amoung all of the spectacle, it manages to fit in a ripe amount of subtext and racial commentary that hasn't truly been present in a comic book movie before.  It's gorgeous to look at, the score rings easily as Marvel's best, it's this kind of blockbuster that is the reason you go to see movies in theaters.

 

 

 

[The Panda]

Number 5

 

User Opinions

"A slow paced, subtle yet noticeable drama told in a epic scale.

Camera panning like a moving fans.....capturing all the visual detail and the atmosphere of the scene.

Air Plane, Disaster, water, all are metaphor in the movie.

The noise of airplane that constantly heard in throughout the film, suggest that once in a while, huge noise may strike in your life but they will be gone no matter how....." - @titanic2187

 

"Fantastic! Absolutely powerful. Cuaron's best film by a big margin." - @FantasticBeasts

 

"My biggest regret is that I didn't get the chance to see this in theaters. Truly magnificent." - @Alpha

 

Critic Opinions

"Alfonso Cuarón is among the most unusual of world-class directors. He is not closely associated with any particular genre, and while there are cinematic elements that recur in his films—the long panning shots come to mind—he does not have what most filmgoers would consider a signature style. He has made, among others, the raunchy, idiosyncratic coming-of-age story Y Tu Mamá También; the best of the Harry Potter films, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; the extraordinary dystopian fable Children of Men; and the fascinating exercise in spatial—literally spatial—geometry, Gravity. Cuarón’s trademark, to a remarkable degree, is simply excellence in whatever project he chooses to undertake.

 

I’ll forgo describing the rest of the plot in any detail, in part because it is unnecessary: In Cuarón’s hands, a scene that features young brothers playing shootout with toy pistols on a roof and then segues into an inspection of laundry drying on the line is a greater pleasure than many of the year’s most clever cinematic subplots. Roma captures, as well as any film I have seen, the spirit of “magical realism,” without ever hinting at the supernatural. Its magic is pure, stunning cinematic technique.

 

Roma is amusing without being a comedy. (Certainly, no other quality film has ever leaned as hard as this one into the idea of dog shit as a principal narrative metaphor.) And, until its final act, it is moving without indulging in melodrama. I should caution prospective moviegoers that, in its final third, Roma has not one but two scenes that threaten to shatter your heart to a degree that few films will ever dare. I did not see these moments coming. But by its conclusion, Cuarón’s film proves itself both wonderful and fearsome. See it. You will never forget it." - Christopher Orr

 

 

"I can’t express how radical it feels to see Cleo, a Oaxacan woman played by first-timer Yalitza Aparicio, centered as the main character. On the one hand, it's wonderful to finally have such rare representation. When was the last time you saw a high profile movie that even gave housekeepers names, much less featured them as main characters? On the other hand, Roma makes you confront your own surprise at seeing domestic workers live rich lives outside of their places of work.

 

I felt chastened by my own biases, of the exhilaration I experienced at seeing Cleo and fellow houseworker Adela (Nancy García García) sprinting down the streets of Mexico City, humanized through laughter and flirtatious double dates at the movie theater, as well as through searing loss and deeply complicated relationships with their well-meaning employers.

 

On gender specifically, Cuarón deserves kudos for crafting a feminist film that never stumbles in its realism. Men are portrayed with flaws, as they let down the women in their lives whether through extramarital affairs or through the prioritizing of politics and violence over fatherhood. The situations are painfully recognizable, but thankfully, Roma never feels as if it’s demonizing nor excusing men for such poor behavior. As with the entire film, it merely holds an unflinching mirror up to society—in this case, to the uglier realities of what it means to be a woman held hostage by patriarchy." - Li Lai

 

Personal Reasonings

Alfonso Cuaron's most personal work to date, and is yet another impeccably crafted film from the auteur.  Everything Cuaron does, he puts his all into it and has never made a movie that wasn't worth seeing (and if you exclude just one of those movies, I'd argue never made a movie that wasn't exceptional).  Roma won't end up being my favorite of his work, but it's certainly a searingly powerful one, with at the end that will sit with you.  In the opening scene, Cuaron shows he's one of the only directors that can have a long pan of the floor and water and make the shot utterly captivating to watch.  Yalitza Aparicio is great in the movie, and has a few truly heartbreaking moments.  It's a movie that really deserved to be on the theatrical big screen, but sadly Netflix will have to do.  Cuaron was all over the camera, and he deserves even more note given his fingerprints are all over the film.  The sound design is creative, and manage to fill in as if it were the musical score in an otherwise silent movie.  From a technical standpoint, I don't think there's another movie this year that matches it.

 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by The Panda

[The Panda]

[The Panda]

Number 4

 

User Opinions

"I caught this at TIFF, but my god this is an absolutely gorgeous, heartbreaking tale. I may have liked it even more than Moonlight.

 

Special props for Jenkins for how RICH and beautiful the design is. Especially since this isn’t the kind of movie that gets this kind of detail and support.

 

So very, very recommended, and possibly my favorite movie of the year." - @Spagspiria

 

"The head critic of Vanity Fair said on a podcast recently this was getting pushed back to 2019. Test screenings haven't been going well, so this isn't a surprise." - @WrathOfHan

 

Critic Opinions

"This against all the evidence needed to prove what Baldwin wrote in 1970, in a letter to activist Angela Davis: “The American triumph — in which the American tragedy has always been implicit — was to make black people despise themselves.” One of Fonny’s friends, Daniel (Brian Tyree Henry, Paper Boi from TV’s “Atlanta”), is just out of prison, a big man finally defeated, and the late-night scene in which he pours out his exhaustion over being a black man in white America hits an audience softly while leaving a lasting bruise. (Henry, who’s also the crooked politician in “Widows” and the voice of the dad in the new “Spider-Man” movie, deserves some kind of 2018 award for Body of Work.)

 

We see that exhaustion, that sense of total entrapment, sink into Fonny in the other scenes, as Tish visits him in jail with barely encouraging news from their lawyer (an idealistic young Finn Wittrock) and her mother flies off to seek out the rape victim, Victoria (Emily Rios), who prosecutors have sent to hide out in Puerto Rico and ensure their case. The sequence where the two women meet is heartbreaking mostly for the damage it reveals across every stratum of the powerless. The system that destroys people like Victoria and Fonny and Daniel is never glimpsed in “If Beale Street Could Talk.” We only see their instruments, who carry badges and build prisons and pass judgments based on what they think they know.

 

And yet, somehow, this movie remains hopeful — you can hear it in the score’s aching strings and in the looks Tish gives Fonny, both actors giving simple, even childlike performances because nothing else is asked for. (The Nativity does not seem far away at times.) Baldwin knew that hope is the engine that takes us to the future, to a changed and better day, and whether that hope is embodied in action, in expression, or in a child is immaterial. “If Beale Street Could Talk” is a stained-glass window looking out onto what could still be." - Ty Burr

 

 

"If Beale Street arrives in theaters in an already crowded award season, but it’s easily a film worthy of consideration and nominations. It’s a wholly mesmerizing story of family, devotion and unyielding love.
Tish (fantastic newcomer KiKi Layne) and her fiancé, Fonny (Stephan James, Selma), are preparing for their new life together. That quickly unravels when Fonny is falsely accused of a crime and imprisoned. Determined to prove his innocence, Tish and her family work tirelessly to get Fonny exonerated and back to his family.  James and Layne are outstanding. Layne makes an impressive feature film debut. She carries herself with the poise, grace and presence of a longtime veteran.  Layne gives Tish an inspiring sense of perseverance and strength that it’s easy to see her as so many black women having to carry heavy burdens while their loved ones are in prison.

 

It’s not the flashiest and doesn’t feature showy performances, but that’s part of what makes this such a special film. There’s a quiet confidence radiating in every scene that shows Jenkins knows it’s unnecessary.  Jenkins does an exceptional job of bringing Baldwin’s words to the big screen. At times, it feels like watching a poem in motion with the subtle slow pans and soft lighting. Establishing that relaxed conversational tone is important in a film that doesn’t have those obvious big moments.  It’s all about the characters reflecting on their various states of life. The way Jenkins stages these scenes, Beale Street never feels slow or in need of a shot of adrenaline. That’s important since much of the film is conversational." - Jeffrey Lyles

 

Personal Reasonings

A slow moving, unflashy, yet gorgeous adaption of Baldwin's great work.  If Beale Street Could Talk gives voice to those whose voice often hasn't been heard, and certainly not in a way that's free from either the torture porn or white savior narratives that often dominate movies where racial themes take the center.  The score from Britell sweeps you up from the first scene and just leaves you completely immersed into the movie.  Moonlight is a hard film to follow up from, yet I feel like Jenkins exceeded his work there with this one, it's a movie that manages to feel a little more alive and it left me a little more moved.  You can feel the words of Baldwin on the screen, and the message rings with the same amount of truth.  I left the movie a little tired, as if you had just lived little pieces of the ranging life and emotions of Layne's character and her family.  It's a movie that really sweeps you away and leaves you entranced until the film finishes.

 

 

[The Panda]

Number 3

 

User Opinions

"I found some bits slow, which in retrospect I'm grateful for, because when this punches you emotionally, it really hits. This was not a movie I expected to cry so much in.

 

I'm going to rewatch it again. This is the first movie in nearly ten years that could possibly be my new Favorite." - @Morieris

 

"I've already have seen it twice. It gets better with each viewing." - @YLF

 

"no less than the best superhero movie of the 2010s. i have no issues with it. a perfect film." - @CoolioD1

 

Critic Opinions

"“Spider-Man” is the superhero franchise that may suffer the most from reboot fatigue. In the past 16 years, there have been six Spider-Man movies starring three different actors as Peter Parker, with another on the way. Yet, animated feature “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is here to prove new life can be injected into the franchise by reminding us all where Spider-Man comes from: the comic books.  Right away, “Spider-Verse,” directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman, with a screenplay by Phil Lord, reveals itself to be unlike any other superhero or animated film that has come before. The animation style is like watching a comic book come to life. The characters look hand-drawn, with distinctive strokes and lines.  The images even have a pointillist style reminiscent of the Ben-Day dots paper printing technique, complete with red-blue aura around the characters. There’s a tactile sense of a comic book page on the screen, fluidly rendered, with an ingenious use of text boxes, married with a technologically and aesthetically outré style. The climax is a wild and colorful head-trip of neon and pastel, a big-bang fight scene exploding in pink and green and blue and purple.

 

Miles' relationships, particularly with his father (Brian Tyree Henry) and uncle (Mahershala Ali), have real heart and stakes. Johnson balances that with his hilarious take on washed-up Peter B. Parker, who’s packed on a few pounds and shows Miles the ropes in his sweatpants. The smart and spry Spider-Gwen is also incredible, in her hooded suit and ballet shoes.  The key to the balance of self-aware and sweet is Lord, who along with his writing/directing partner Chris Miller, penned the incredibly smart “The Lego Movie.” There’s a deep sense of love for the characters and tropes, but also a willingness to have some fun with it.  The delights of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” bring a newfound sense of joy and playfulness to the beloved character – in every iteration." - Katie Walsh

 

 

"The Spider-Man myth has always been ripe for questions of identity. I can’t imagine a more terrifying identity crisis than having your genes mutated by experimental spider venom. Knowingly, lovingly, Spider-Verse realizes that potential in set pieces that clack and clatter with movement and hue, and in relationships built on the basic questions of loyalty and insecurity; the world spins outward from the story of Peter Parker and Mary Jane to become a series of confrontations between Spider-Man and his many selves. The film is beautiful. Colors ricochet throughout with a sense of danger; landscapes constantly change, expanding one second and closing in on themselves the next. It’s a great argument for animating every superhero movie. It would serve as a breath of fresh air for a genre that’s been a little too slow to acknowledge just how much it needs one." - K. Austin Collins

 

Personal Reasonings

This is a movie that if you had asked me at the beginning of the year if this would make my top 5, I would have probably scoffed at the idea because I thought the whole thing didn't look all that great.  I was honestly originally planning on just skipping this one entirely, but I am glad I didn't.  Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a genius animation that dissects the mythos of Spider-Man with a lot of humor and heart, and it does so bombastically and almost flawlessly.  The animation is impeccable, and the way the movie is painted as if you're watching a comic book unfold is brilliant.  It's a movie that I think most were skeptical about going in, but it's hard to find nearly anyone that wasn't won over.  It's quite possibly the best superhero movie ever made, and that makes me feel reactionary because I just said I thought Black Panther was the best live action superhero movie ever made.  Anyways, Spider-Verse is the comic book genre at the top of its craft.