This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2018

Nope, but I recommend it. I prefer it to Winter's Bone.

Leave No Trace is probably the best movie made yet about Iraq/Afghanistan PTSD

Not only have the nominations for one Golden Globes category been announced, but so has the winner!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Globe_Award_for_Best_Actress_%E2%80%93_Motion_Picture_Comedy_or_Musical

Re: The John Waters list and a few comments upthread...

Jeannette was one of the worst films I have ever seen. I don't think I have ever felt such regret at not having walked out of a movie. Everything about it is simply intolerable. Not only did I hate it but I have a hard time believing anyone could like it (I can imagine someone liking a 10-15 minute short version, but the gag stales very quickly).

I saw it because I have a thing about seeing every movie about Joan of Arc. I watched the trailer and was fairly warned. But that still didn't prepare me for the endless pain of seeing it through.

thank you for the warning!

xp that wikipedia entry is hilarious

Burning was not only good, it surprised me so much, it's stuck with me so hard, all the images, absolutely haunting performances, it's my favorite of the director's films, it may be my favorite of the year, I was stunned!

Shirkers, which is on Netflix, is going to end up being one of my favorite films of the year. An uncommonly fascinating and moving documentary.

all the many Joan of Arc films I've seen are at least good (even Rivette's), but i'm unsurprised that Dumont wd break the streak.

Shirkers, which is on Netflix, is going to end up being one of my favorite films of the year. An uncommonly fascinating and moving documentary.

― Chris L

Watching it tonighit.

NYT crix top 10s:

Manohla Dargis

01. Roma
02. Burning
03. Shoplifters
04. Zama
05. Happy As Lazzaro
06. BlacKkKlansman
07. First Reformed
08. The Death of Stalin
09. Monrovia, Indiana
10. Colophon (for the Arboretum Cycle)

A.O. Scott

01. Monrovia, Indiana; Bisbee '17; Hale County This Morning, This Evening; Minding the Gap (tie)
02. Happy As Lazzaro
03. First Reformed
04. Private Life
05. Roma
06. Let the Sunshine In
07. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
08. BlacKkKlansman
09. Capernaum
10. The Favourite

Would have rather seen A.O. Scott commit to a mostly-doc list.

Zama at last

It's on my list, whenever that gets finished (2023).

Let the Sunshine In at last

Bisbee '17 at last

Sunshine also on my list, whenever that gets finished (it won't).

Sunshine never left my list (first and last time you'll see any version of this sentence).

Oscar VFX finalists:

Ant-Man and the Wasp
Aquaman
Avengers: Infinity War
Black Panther
Bumblebee
Christopher Robin
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
First Man
Incredibles 2
Isle of Dog
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Mary Poppins Returns
Mission: Impossible – Fallout
Mortal Engines
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
Paddington 2
A Quiet Place
Ready Player One
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Welcome to Marwen

First Man
Paddington 2

burn the rest

Golden Globe noms announced in a few

They snubbed Roma in every category but foreign film! Your kinda people, Soto!

Also the line between Ethan Hawke winning everything and Ethan Hawke never getting mentioned again this detrius season.

While people are transcribing the nominations, here's one more top 10 list, from Vanity Fair's K Austin Collins:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/12/10-best-movies-2018-k-austin-collins

#1 ... First Reformed

Robert Redford, The Old Man and the Gun

John C. Reilly, Stan & Ollie

what

Best Motion Picture – Drama

Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Star Is Born

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Crazy Rich Asians
The Favorite
Green Book
Mary Poppins Returns
Vice

Best Motion Picture – Animated

Incredibles 2
Isle of Dogs
Mirai
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language

Capernaum
Girl
Never Look Away
Roma
Shoplifters

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama

Glenn Close, The Wife
Lady Gaga, A Star is Born
Nicole Kidman, Destroyer
Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Rosamund Pike, A Private War

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama

Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born
Willem Dafoe, At Eternity's Gate
Lucas Hedges, Boy Erased
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
John David Washington, BlacKkKlansman

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Emily Blunt, Mary Poppins Returns
Olivia Colman, The Favourite
Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade
Charlize Theron, Tully
Constance Wu, Crazy Rich Asians

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Christian Bale, Vice
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mary Poppins Returns
Viggo Mortensen, Green Book
Robert Redford, The Old Man and the Gun
John C. Reilly, Stan & Ollie

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture

Amy Adams, Vice
Claire Foy, First Man
Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Emma Stone, The Favourite
Rachel Weiss, The Favourite

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture

Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Timothee Chalamet, Beautiful Boy
Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Sam Rockwell, Vice
Adam Driver, BlacKkKlansman

Best Director – Motion Picture

Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born
Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Peter Farrelly, Green Book
Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
Adam McKay, Vice

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture

Roma
The Favourite
If Beale Street Could Talk
Vice
Green Book

Best Original Score – Motion Picture

A Quiet Place
Isle Of Dogs
Black Panther
First Man
Mary Poppins Returns

Best Original Song – Motion Picture

“All The Stars,” Black Panther
“Girl in the Movies,” Dumplin’
“Requiem For A Private War,” A Private War
"Revelation," Boy Erased
“Shallow,” A Star Is Born

what

see also: Bohemian Rhapsody in best drama picture (which ensures the Globes will get way higher ratings than the Oscars this year)

(I was wrong, Roma is in two other categories.)

Best Motion Picture – Drama

Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Star Is Born

FYI, A Star is Born is going to defeat four films starring non-white actors.

Chalamet and Weisz in supporting? Fabulous category fraud. Guess they figure it'll help their Oscar chances.

Glad to see Theron mentioned at least (McCarthy too).

happy to not see cold war

I saw it again on Tuesday to confirm its vaporousness.

Publicists have determined that Weisz and Stone are supporting in The Favourite and Colman is lead, instead of the other way around. Guess they think Gaga is winning either way.

by my reckoning Weisz is on screen longer than Colman, but I don't hold stopwatches up either.

I saw it again on Tuesday to confirm its vaporousness.

I admire the commitment.

A whole lot of Bs in the best drama category

haven't seen it and not a lanthimos fan, but colman's run on peep show >> basically every oscar winning performance,so glad they've gone that route

xp what I've also seen people mention in the past is that, in cases where screen time is basically equal, class/status tends to come into play, along with in Brokeback's case, top/bottom status

Seeing The Favourite tonight or tomorrow but yeah the way that literal character hierarchy has apparently translated into performance category hierarchy seems to be pretty transparent

(and hilarious)

John C. Reilly, Stan & Ollie

what

hater

(opens end of the month here)

Brody names 40... first list i've seen with The Spy Who Dumped Me on it.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2018-in-review/the-best-movies-of-2018

That Hale County film looks v interesting.

I'm delighted to see Sollers Point showing up instead of being buried in afternoon screenings at film festivals (as it was here in March).

so Brody liked Jeannette

just saw Let the Sunshine In. feel like I need to see it again

John C Reilly's makeup wattles playing old Oliver Hardy look like they could store lunch for the entire shoot

Alm0nd has no time for any of the AFI top 10: https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/american-film-institute-top-films-2018-list-bad-judgment/amp/

I’ll save you the click:

It’s the first week of December and the nation’s countless, overeager awards groups have already begun parceling out their year-end encomiums. They kowtow to Hollywood, obviously without having seen all the films yet to be released in 2018 — only movies that the big studios from Disney to Netflix have already decided are award-worthy.

The most egregious of these early-starters is the American Film Institute, which rushed the awards race with its 10 Best choices, sprinting out of the gate before a couple of the listed movies have even opened in theaters. The problem is that movies no longer have a chance to register in the culture or to become beloved or reviled by the public. It’s the case of yet another institution, based in Hollywood or D.C. (the AFI has feet in both), making decisions for the rest of us, indifferent to our participation.

The AFI began 51 years ago, after a Johnson-administration call for an organization committed to preserving America’s film heritage. It was originally funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Ford Foundation, so its list sounds official. But the movie awards game is part of the commercialization of pop culture.

Even the debatable idea that the government should finance artists (through any means) is belied by the endorsement of commercialism rather than artistic expression. Be assured, there’s a political component to this: The films that won the AFI’s approval are all politically motivated and represent social-justice precepts rather than moral virtues or aesthetic standards. In other words, they’re propaganda.

Listed alphabetically, the AFI films assume the same values that are promoted in politically biased mainstream media; the list resembles an index for Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.

BlacKkKlansman. In this clumsy race satire, “ridicule is man’s most important weapon” — Alinsky’s Rule 5. Spike Lee distorts a black-police-informer (and real-life race-traitor) tale about infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan and then uses slanted documentary footage to incite resistance to the current administration.

Black Panther. This Marvel Comics adaptation works from the idea that “a good tactic is one your people enjoy,” as Alinksy’s Rule 6 states. The black Millennial audience is exploited, its childlike need for empowerment used against it by replacing historical fact and learning with fantasy.

Eighth Grade. By assuming a teenager’s perspective, writer-director Bo Burnham follows Rule 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people” (the clueless market, in this case). With this approach, he makes the idea of “girl power” maudlin.

If Beale Street Could Talk. Using a minor James Baldwin novel to “go outside the expertise of the enemy” (Rule 3), Barry Jenkins’s white-guilt collage mixes romance with prison reform, religious mockery, and other topical targets. His Baldwinetics fake African-American authenticity.

The Favourite. Through this perverse Anglophilic tale, America’s inferiority complex manages to “maintain constant pressure upon the opposition” (Rule 10). By fostering contempt and scandal, the filmmakers show contempt for the audience.

First Reformed. Here, religious skepticism is the means of carrying out Rule 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” So Ethan Hawke’s manic Calvinist minister is radicalized, becoming a crazed eco-terrorist without faith or redemption.

Green Book. The relationship between a straight white bigot and a gay black artiste dishes up a trite lesson in brotherhood, by which the racist “threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself” (Rule 9). Everyone is patronized.

Mary Poppins Returns. Moviegoers are forced to endure remake/reboot mania as Hollywood’s dominant form of indoctrination, proving that “a tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag” (Rule 7).

A Quiet Place. This insipid horror film retread, based on the premise that “power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have” (Rule 1), inspired the fallacious label “Smart Horror.” Fanboys, beware.

A Star Is Born. The latest showbiz shell game follows the command to “never go outside the expertise of your people” (Rule 2), thus inspiring more celebrity worship.

Roma. Boutique neorealism in this Mexican import, which won a “Special Award” from AFI, owing to its foreign-language status, helps “keep the pressure on” (Rule 8). Its pathetic “humanitarian crisis” is uncannily in tune with the Caravan vs. Invasion canard now favored by media and open-borders politicians.

It’s obvious from this roll call that the AFI committee is not a group of adventurous filmseekers. (As critic John Demetry responded: “Two Emily Blunt movies!”) The Special Award to Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma reveals ignorance of movie history plus an irresistible urge to conflate political sentiment and artistic objectives. American film culture has reached a point where propaganda has become a goal even while its shameless obviousness goes largely unrecognized.

The AFI list shares a certain smugness with AFI alum Paul Schrader’s recent tirade against the contemporary film audience: “It’s not that us filmmakers are letting you down, it’s you audiences that are letting us down.” Ralph Waldo Emerson’s maxim “Tis the good reader that makes the good book” is offended by these “official” statements on movie quality and film perception. The AFI’s hastiness forces elite political preferences over the public’s intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic needs.

These insidious “entertainments” destabilize U.S. culture. The rush to proclaim a 2018 movie canon without even a brief test of any film’s probable worth is merely another example of the industry’s habit of deception. Can anyone clean up this intellectual swamp?

he's right that the Spike joint is clumsy

but they often are

a Spike joint that isn't clumsy is a Trump rally without LOCK HER UP

His Baldwinetics fake African-American authenticity.

He's become a bad writer who won't get the copy editing he needs.

Update! According to Deadline, THIS is the most wide-open Oscar race in years. Forget those other years, THIS IS THE ONE. https://t.co/DxEJIN9rX5 https://t.co/ohGKGA0toV

— Mark Blankenship (@IAmBlankenship) December 6, 2018

I even started the Oscars thread for you.