The Films of 2018 That Surprised Me
I make this list every December. I tend to be broad in December and specific in January. Usually in January, I can say, “This was overrated, this was underrated.” Here, it’s more — which movies ended up being better than I expected them to be, and which ones were worse.
I should note, that opinion is based on nothing other than my expectations for the films back in January, or in the time before I saw them. So really, all a movie needs to make this list is that it ended up being better than I thought it would be.
So, here are the films of 2018 that surpassed expectations: (more…)
Pic of the Day: “What’s the matter, Scrooge? I thought you enjoyed looking down on the world.”
Oscars 2018: SAG Nominations
Okay, so SAG announced today. Which means this is it. The extent of the acting contenders is just about told to us. BAFTA might illuminate some more in a month, but until then — this is what we’ve got. These are the contenders we have to chew on until then. Shit’s getting real, guys. Which is good, because now I can finish watching stuff and really be ready to go in January.
So without further ado, here are your SAG nominees: (more…)
Pic of the Day: ♫ “Silver and gold, silver and gold / Mean so much more when I see / Silver and gold decorations / On ev’ry Christmas tree.” ♫
Mike’s Favorite Movie Trailers of 2018
I’m of very mixed opinions on the movie trailer. On the one hand, seeing a good one is really exhilarating. On the other, so many of them now spell out the entire plot of the movie and make you feel as if you’ve seen everything before you’ve watched it. Or they give you enough to where you can figure out all the plot twists and stuff beforehand. At that point, where’s the fun?
But, in the past few years I’ve been in theaters more and more and have seen more and more trailers, and I’m starting to come around on the better ones. Unlike with movie posters, they don’t really exist in perpetuity. They’re there to sell you on a film, and once the film is out, no one particularly remembers the trailer. Sure, the good ones you maybe remember, but you don’t go back and watch them often. How many trailers do you go back and see for movies that came out 5+ years ago? Less than five, I’d guess. And most of the time, it’s not because you remembered, “Oh yeah, that was an awesome trailer.” Mostly it’s to see what the trailer looked like or to show it to a friend to sell them on the movie.
However, each year, there are some cool trailers that come out that are worth noting. So what I do, at the end of every year, is go back and watch several hundred trailers (often multiple trailers for each film), and pick out what I think the best ones were. Usually I’ll have half a dozen in my head that I remember having liked, and then I’ll think of some more along the way. But mostly I’m going back and seeing which ones ended up being the most artfully done.
Here are my favorite movie trailers of 2018: (more…)
Pic of the Day: “What do you mean, get him outta here?” “Take him to the car.” “In case you didn’t notice I’m a motherfucking dwarf, so unless you got a forklift handy, maybe you should lend a hand, hmm?” “That figures. You want all kind of set-asides. Special treatment ’cause you’re handicapped. You’re all the same.” “Special treatment? I’m 3-foot-fucking-tall you asshole! It’s a matter of physics. Draw me a sketch of how I get him to the car, huh?” “Bitch, Bitch, Bitch!” “Sketch it up, you fucking moron. Fucking Leonardo da Vinci.” “What’d you call me, thigh-high?” “I called you a fucking guinea homo from the 15th-fucking-century, you dickhead!” “I could stick you up my ass, small fry.” “Yeah? You sure it ain’t too sore from last night?” “You got some lip on you, midget.” “Yeah? Well these lips were on your wife’s pussy last night. Why don’t you dust that thing off once in a while? Asshole!”
Oscars 2018: BFCA (Critics Choice) Nominations
Critics Choice time.
After the Globes, which pretty much told me this is a wide open race, BFCA is here to give us a little more clarity. They’re generally pretty populist, but do tend to hit a good deal more than not. They feel like they get most of the Best Picture nominees a lot of the time, and they always have six-to-seven acting nominees in a category, which gives us the broad lay of the land.
Usually a fair amount of where the Academy is going is laid out on this table, and it’s just a matter of which ones are gonna end up being extraneous. So I’m interested to see what they’ve done.
Here are your Critics Choice nominees for 2018: (more…)
