This space is usually reserved for my thoughts as I close the calendar movie year at Sonic Cinema, and that will still happen below, but this retrospective will also be about how Sonic Cinema has grown over the past year.
I began the year with big aspirations for this website. I started a Patreon subscription, had plans to finish, and publish, my book, Why is the Rabbit Wearing Sunglasses?, and just to expand the reach, and scope, of what Sonic Cinema was about, including constant episodes of the Sonic Cinema Podcast. For the latter, in particular, I hoped to do at least 2 a month, with a minimum of 20 hopefully for the year. Between filmmaker interviews, film discussions, and personal discussions I had wanted to do for a while, I also had that goal met by the time I went to DragonCon this year. A lot of opportunities presented themselves, and I took as many as I could. I even joined a friend of mine’s radio show to discuss movies, which was very cool.
This emphasis on Sonic Cinema, continuing what I was doing, bringing in new ways to find, and interact, with my audience already, was especially important for me when personal hardships occurred, and have had lasting impacts on the year. Sonic Cinema, writing and discussing movies, has become a way to focus me on being better at what I do, and more confident in how I do it. This hasn’t always been easy, but I think I’ve made strides this year, and I hope it shows in the content I’ve put out there for my readers and listeners.
Perhaps one of the most exciting prospects of the past year happened near the end of it, on my anniversary actually, when I was welcomed to join the Georgia Film Critics Association, which affords me not only the possibility of end-of-the-year FYC screeners (which will help me catch-up with some films I may have missed earlier in the year), but also allow me to vote in the group’s end-of-the-year awards. Given how tuned out I have started to get re: award season, this may actually get me interested again. I look forward to being able to fulfill that responsibility, as much as I can, in January.
This year saw a handful of steps made, many in positive directions- 2019 will see many more, including a beast of an idea for the Sonic Cinema Podcast that, if you’ve listened, you’ll hear some teasing about, but if not, I hope you enjoy what I have in store for you. And hopefully, the book will come out, as well.
That was the year in Sonic Cinema- what about my year in movies? As always, I ended up missing much in theatres, but a big part of that was the curve balls that life through in my direction, upending the ways I went about things. Among the casualties included “Ocean’s 8,” “The Death of Stalin,” “Blindspotting,” “Bad Times at the El Royale,” “Suspiria,” “Green Book,” “Welcome to Marwen,” “Vice,” “The Mule,” “Mary Poppins Returns,” “On the Basis of Sex,” “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” “The Meg,” “Three Identical Strangers,” “Tully,” “The Front Runner,” “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” although I have also been able to catch up with a lot more than I usually do by the end of the year. Including filmmaker screeners I’ve been sent, I’ve hit the century mark, with some room to spare, and what a collection of films that was- there was a lot of variety in what I saw, what worked, and what didn’t. I won’t mention a lot of the latter here.
As has been the case the past couple of years, I will not be doing a strict list of my best films of 2018 right now, but rather, run down the films that meant the most to me among the new films seen during this calendar year, be they for artistic or entertainment reasons. I’ll also be acknowledging some of my favorite performances and soundtracks of the year, as well as going through the movies I cannot wait to see in 2019. I hope you enjoy!
Movies That Made the Biggest Impact of Me on 2018
=“Ready Player One” (Directed by Steven Spielberg)- So many people focus on the dynamic ’80s nostalgia images Spielberg fills his adaptation of Ernest Cline’s novel with, but like many of his other forays into science-fiction, there’s a larger issue at work in his adventure movie. The chase for Halliday’s egg is pure plot mechanics; the real meat Spielberg wants us to dig into is the emotional and intellectual journey Wade Watts goes on as he tries to find the Easter Egg, which serves as a cautionary tale about our relationship to a virtual world like the Oasis that could easily be swapped out with Facebook and Twitter, and how actual human interaction needs to take priority over the superficial interaction the Internet provides. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Steven Spielberg’s film since I saw it back in March. As the years go on, I think it’s reputation as another undervalued triumph from the great director will grow, and it will be respected as maybe one of his most important films in the digital age. (Oh, and the second challenge in the race for Halliday’s egg? A must-see for film buffs.)
=“If Beale Street Could Talk” (Directed by Barry Jenkins)- Jenkins follows up his Oscar-winner, “Moonlight,” with the most affecting cinematic love story I’ve seen since probably Linklater’s “Before” trilogy. Adapting the novel by James Baldwin, Jenkins tells of a love that spans two lives between Tish and Fonny, and finds itself tested when he is falsely accused of rape, and is imprisoned while she is pregnant with their child. Regina King has been rightly recognized for her role as Tish’s supportive mother, but the lead performances by Kiki Layne and Stephan James are what turns Jenkins’s film into an emotional powerhouse.
=“2050” (Directed by Princeton Holt)- A decade of watching Princeton Holt’s films come to a close with his final feature as a director, though I suspect it will not be the last time I hear from him as a filmmaker. He’s going out on the highest of notes, with a thoughtful and compelling look at a future world where artificial intelligence is at the point where it can be modified to its user’s specific designs, and can be a part of a relationship. Holt’s film is intrigued by the morality of this, but as much as it relates to the emotional journeys of its characters, and the result is probably the most wholly satisfying and accomplished film anyone has ever done on artificial intelligence, and what it means for human interaction in the future. I cannot wait to revisit this film.
=“Minding the Gap” (Directed by Bing Liu)- This was a strong year for documentaries, and none had the impact on me like Liu’s emotional chronicle of he and two friends, who met as kids in love with skateboarding, but find out they have more in common with their lives than just having fun on boards. Liu’s film looks at three lives who have been shaped by fractured notions of masculinity and how to become a responsible man, and like documentaries such as the “Up” series and “Hoop Dreams,” it doesn’t have easy answers.
=“Hereditary” (Directed by Ari Aster)- I rewatched Aster’s gut punch of a horror drama during my October horror run, and this may be the most impactful, and profoundly brilliant, film of 2018. It’s very much like Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” last year in the way it seeps into your subconscious, whether you liked the film or not, and I cannot question your probable reasons for disliking either film. This is cinema that doesn’t really make things easy for the viewer, and that’s part of the reason I love Aster’s film of a family being torn apart by tragedy, and maybe something else. As with “mother!,” perhaps the best female performance of 2018 comes from a polarizing genre film in the form of Toni Collette’s painful, brutal work as the mother who tries to work out her feelings through her miniatures she’s preparing for an art installation. There is imagery in this film I’ll not soon forget, and for the horror genre, Aster has made a film that stands up with the titans of the genre as one of the greats.
=“Black Panther” (Directed by Ryan Coogler)- Ryan Coogler is something special as a filmmaker. The director of “Fruitvale Station” and “Creed” turned his eye to the Marvel Cinematic Universe while continuing to tell stories of black men struggling against the societies in which they live. “Black Panther” is my pick for not just 2018’s best MCU film, but the best in general, because of the way Coogler and his collaborators made a ferociously exciting superhero adventure while giving profound weight to the personal struggle of T’Challa, the king who will face his father’s past mistakes while he tries to lead Wakanda into the future, and Killmonger (the great Michael B. Jordan), a soldier who excels at destabilizing countries, and has valid reasons for why Wakanda made the list. If you removed the superhero elements of this story, you’d still be left with a powerful story of two sons whose current paths in life are laid in place by the worldviews their father’s held, threatening to destroy them both if they do not change their ways.
=“Roma” (Directed by Alfonso Cauron)- Cleo is a live-in housekeeper for a middle-class family with four kids, and marital strife, but she has her own issues to deal with in Alfonso Cauron’s wonderful, personal memory film. The Mexican master puts his technical ideas at the service of a simple story, and brings powerful emotions to the work that we don’t necessarily expect until they happen, while guiding a legitimate breakthrough performance from Yalitza Aparicio as Cleo. Two scenes in particular bring out the waterworks in this gem of a film.
=“E-Bowla” (Directed by Cindy Maples)- In the interest of full disclosure, Maples’s bowling comedy is a movie I have a more personal engagement in than most, as I visited the director and her husband in the editing room when they were in town back in January, where we did an impromptu interview that I discussed here. That being said, I have no qualms putting it here simply on its own merits, as four guys decide to invade “Ladies Night” at a local bowling alley, but bite off more than they can chew when their initial plans get shot down. The film has a wonderful visual scheme- just as Maples’s previous films did- and it’s a lot of fun to watch unfold as the women unleash Hell against the sexism they are faced with.
=“Imposter” (Directed by Chris Esper)- Chris Esper has probably made his best film to date in this observant, quiet, emotional short film. He shows an innate understanding in the way mental stress and anxiety can be shown on-screen as he explores the idea of Imposter Syndrome in a handful of characters. Whether it’s a businessman having to explain things at a meeting, or an artist feeling self-conscious about her work, or a military veteran haunted by the past, Esper finds an interesting way of bringing the emotional pain of feeling less than what we are to life, and the result is a beautiful 10-minute tone poem about the resilience of an individual to take the first step towards being less hard on themselves.
This year is kind of weird in movies, for me. There weren’t a lot of movies, for me, that could really occupy the above slots, and that is out of over 100 films I managed to watch before the end of the year, and even my Top 10 will be pretty different from this. The above slot is, as it has been since 2013, devoted to movies of great personal value to me, and not necessarily great films. That said, what a year for the latter, and films not on the above list include: a wonderful documentary about a genuinely good television personality for kids in Morgan Neville’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”; a terrific Danish thriller about a detective trying to manipulate an emergency call in “The Guilty”; an interesting independent thriller about documentary filmmakers involved with a serial killer called “Strawberry Flavored Plastic”; Bradley Cooper’s heartfelt musical drama, “A Star is Born”; Bo Burnham’s lovely teen drama, “Eighth Grade”; a delicate drama about a father suffering from PTSD, and a daughter who finds herself pulled away from the life they have built together in isolation (“Leave No Trace”); Yorgos Lanthimos’s wicked, devious period drama, “The Favourite”; Wes Anderson’s fantastic stop-motion fantasy about a boy in search of his dog, “Isle of Dogs”; a great found-footage monster movie inspired by Lovecraft (“Black Wake”), as well as a short about a boy struggling with trauma (“Slapface”), both from director Jeremiah Kipp; a wicked satire about a black man’s attempt to assimilate into a corporate environment (Boots Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You”); a bold new joint about a black cop who finds a way to use the system against white hate in Spike Lee’s “BlackKklansman”, and an important documentary about the evangelical support of Donald Trump (“In God We Trump”).
The above films alone would represent a great cross-section of cinema this year, but how can I NOT mention a heartbreaking look at sexual grooming, and trauma relived, in “The Tale”; part one of the Russo Brothers’s massive Marvel epic, “Avengers: Infinity War”; Christopher McQuarrie’s fantastic action thriller, “Mission: Impossible- Fallout”; Panos Costamos’s surreal revenge fantasy with Nicolas Cage, “Mandy”; a fascinating spiritual, visual look at a world on the brink of anarchy in “Apocalypsis”; Ron Howard’s exciting space adventure, “Solo: A Star Wars Story”; a haunting look at human trafficking, “A Child’s Voice”; the Coen Brothers’s giddy Western anthology, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”; Paul Schrader’s look at challenged faith, “First Reformed”; Damien Chazelle’s biopic about Neil Armstrong, “First Man”; a clever conspiratorial thriller about Apollo 18, “The Landing”; a sharp thriller about two screenwriters going too far for their art, “The Depths”; Alex Garland’s visually-thrilling sci-fi adventure, “Annihilation”; Paul Feig’s sexy dark comedy-thriller, “A Simple Favor”; one of the funniest comedies of the year in “Game Night”; John Woo’s wild return to crime action in “Manhunt”; Shane Black’s crazy “The Predator”; the beautiful, but oh-so-messy “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”; and the joys of Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon in “The Spy Who Dumped Me”? There’s still plenty I haven’t even mentioned beyond THAT, but that should give you a good place to start to see how wonderfully varied this year’s cinematic pleasures were, and I still have much to catch up on.
Movie Music to Be Moved By in 2018
In retrospect, 2017 was actually a pretty good film music year. I’m not quite sure if I would say 2018 was better, but it was definitely more imaginative, I think, in terms of what stood out. I don’t know if it ended up being the best of the year by the end of it, but the Kendrick Lamar-produced song soundtrack, and Ludwig Goransson’s fantastic score, for Marvel’s “Black Panther” still feels like it’s in a class by itself when it comes to offering up a rich musical palette for moviegoers combining songs and orchestral music. That said, Steven Spielberg delivered some great use of period songs, along with a satisfying Alan Silvestri score (who also did a great job with “Avengers: Infinity War”) for his virtual reality adventure, “Ready Player One”. Of course, if we’re discussing song soundtracks, none had bigger reach, or more to do with the success of its film, than the country-pop of Bradley Cooper’s “A Star is Born,” which will likely take home Best Original Song (deservedly) for “Shallows,” but also has strong songs in “Always Remember Us This Way” and “Maybe It’s Time.” Unfortunately, that means other gems in the song category get lost in the shuffle, like “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” from the Coen Brothers’s “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” or a couple of doozies from superhero movies like Celine Dion’s “Ashes” from “Deadpool 2” or Eminem’s visceral title track for “Venom”.
In terms of original scores, this year offered a wonderful assortment of them in terms of musical inventiveness, and in how they went with the film. Goransson and Silvestri deserve some props for how they scored their respective popcorn films, to be sure, but this year wouldn’t be what it is to me, musically, without Justin Hurwitz’s thrilling score for “First Man” or the late Johann Johannsson’s bizarre soundscapes for “Mandy,” which lead the way for me as the best scores of the year, although I have to give a lot of love for John Powell and John Williams’s soaring symphonic works for the undervalued “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” as well as Nicholas Britell’s lush, jazzy score for “If Beale Street Could Talk.” Genre represented itself well this year, actually, although I must give props for the lovely and odd score Anna Meredith wrote for “Eighth Grade” before shouting out Colin Stetson’s unnerving score for “Hereditary” or the reworking of his iconic theme John Carpenter did with his son Cody, along with Daniel Davies, for “Halloween”. Meanwhile, Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow created another epic, emotionally rich musical world for Alex Garland with their score for “Annihilation,” Rupert Gregson-Williams made a lush, stunning musical landscape for James Wan’s DC adventure, “Aquaman”, and Lorne Balfe did exciting work for “Mission: Impossible- Fallout.” (And I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the classical soundtrack put together for “The Favourite.”) I’m curious what 2019 will bring musically for cinema.
Favorite Performances in 2018
This is going to be simple- the ladies dominated this year, and I’m fine with that. Toni Collette gave a ridiculously great performance as a woman coming undone in “Hereditary”, while Elsie Fisher gave one of the year’s most delightful performances as a girl coming into her own in “Eighth Grade”. Those were, handily, the best performances of 2018, but it’s hard not to put Yalitza Aparicio‘s fantastic debut as a housekeeper in turbulent times from “Roma,” Lady Gaga‘s star turn as a country singer-turned-superstar in “A Star is Born” and Laura Dern‘s painful look to a past that was more abusive than she remembered in “The Tale” (and yes, I know “The Tale” eventually debuted on HBO, and garnered Emmy nominations, but it debuted at Sundance, and therefor qualifies for me). That’s four terrific female performances before a guy even gets on the list, but the guys whose work I’m thinking of- like Nicolas Cage‘s feral vengeance from “Mandy,” Lakeith Stanfield as a black man whose ability to talk to white people carries him far in the savage “Sorry to Bother You,” and Michael B. Jordan as a soldier whose worldview was radicalized by personal tragedy in “Black Panther”– are compelling looks at shades of manhood and masculinity in an unjust world. Late mention has to be given to the wonderful Kiki Layne and Stephan James as a young black couple with a baby on the way, and obstacles in the way, in “If Beale Street Could Talk”– they stormed into my memory banks with warmth and pain.
It wasn’t until I really started to think about my own nominees for the acting categories for my GFCA ballot that it occurred to me how rich a year this was for individual performances. This space isn’t about just ticking down those lists, though, but to shine a light on what I loved this year. Again, it comes down to women more than men, with Letitia Wright as a king’s brilliant, and sibling-busting, sister in “Black Panther”; Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively as two mothers whose friendship gets complicated in “A Simple Favor”; Kate McKinnon as a best friend who will literally do anything for her BFF in “The Spy Who Dumped Me”; Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone as a trio of women whose political power waxes and wanes with their passions in “The Favourite”; Zoe Kazan as a young woman whose situation gets complicated in “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”; Viola Davis and Elizabeth Debicki as a couple of wives trying to recover from their husband’s mistakes in “Widows”; and Zoe Saldana as a daughter keeping secrets from her powerful “father” in “Avengers: Infinity War.” That said, I wouldn’t trade anything for the heartfelt work done by Sam Elliott and Bradley Cooper as brothers with a difficult relationship in “A Star is Born”; Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie as an isolated father and daughter in “Leave No Trace”; Tim Blake Nelson as a singing cowboy in the great opening of “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”; Josh Hamilton as a father trying to relate to his teenage daughter in “Eighth Grade,” and Jesse Plemons as a neighbor just wanting in on “Game Night.”
What to See in 2019
1. “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” (February 22)- Seeing this trailer recently made me realize that yes, Dean DeBlois’s final film in this animated series is the movie I’m looking forward to most next year. The first two films are all-timer favorites of mine, and the second one was a movie that helped me out emotionally when it came out, and this third film in the adventures of Hiccup and Toothless looks like another rousing chapter in their story together. I cannot wait to see it unfold.
2. “The Irishman” (TBD)- I hope a theatre in Atlanta will be showing this latest Martin Scorsese gangster epic, starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci about the killing of Jimmy Hoffa, but if I need to, I will gladly watch this latest from the master filmmaker on Netflix the day it is available.
3. “Star Wars: Episode IX” (December 20)- The sequel trilogy comes to a close, with J.J. Abrams returning to the director’s chair to bring the story of Rey, Finn, Kylo Ren and Poe to a close, as Luke and other legacy characters help them along the way. The only reason this isn’t number 1 on my list is that the other two are just that much more anticipated for me. So many questions left about what to expect- I cannot wait for Abrams to answer them all.
4. “IT: Chapter 2” (September 6)- Part two of this adaptation of Stephen King’s 1985 horror classic will bring to life the more problematic portion of the story as the Loser’s Club fights Pennywise as adults. The cast includes James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader, and it’s exciting for me to see how they, and director Andy Muschietti, tell the story differently than the 1990 miniseries.
5. “Captain Marvel” (March 8)- The final film before Marvel completes the Avengers’s decade-long initial arc in May introduces Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers into the MCU with an adventure set in the 1990s that gives us glimpses into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s history. Looks pretty good, thus far. And yes, I will also be giving my time to “Avengers: Endgame” (April 26) and “Spider-Man: Far From Home” (July 5), as well, this year.
6. “Joker” (October 4)- I’m quite excited for Todd Phillips’s standalone movie about DC’s Clown Prince of Crime, with Joaquin Phoenix as the titular character, and Robert DeNiro as a key part of his origins in this story. The brief images we’ve gotten of Phoenix in character make it a comic book adaptation I’m dying to see this year.
7. “Us” (March 15)- The latest horror thriller from “Get Out” Oscar winner Jordan Peele. Here, it looks like a typical family terrorized thriller, but the twist we gleam in the trailer makes me think more insidious material is to come.
8. “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” (March)- Will American audiences FINALLY get to see Terry Gilliam’s fantasy adaptation on Cervantes’s Don Quixote, with Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce taking on roles originally intended for Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort in the production so infamously chronicled in “Lost in La Mancha?” We’ll wait and see.
9. “Knives Out” (November 27)- Rian Johnson follows up his controversial entry in the “Star Wars” saga with a whodunit for the modern age. Half of Hollywood is in it, but among the top line is Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Plummer, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield and others. I cannot wait to see what the “Brick,” “Brothers Bloom” and “Looper” director has in store for us next.
10. “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (July 26)- Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, set in 1960s Hollywood, and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, among many others. Of course I’m going to look forward to this.
11. “Glass” (January 18)- M. Night Shyamalan made a stealth entry into the world of “Unbreakable” with 2017’s “Split.” Now, no one is going to be caught off-guard as the superhuman characters played by Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis and James McAvoy meet up in this thriller.
12. “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” (May 31)- I really liked the first “Godzilla” production from Legendary Pictures. With director Michael Dougherty bringing in some of the other iconic movie monsters from Toho’s long-running kaiju franchise, I cannot wait to see where the follow-up takes things.
Viva La Resistance!
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
