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

Hasn't Cuaron been good for a while? I don't care much for him, but Children of Men and Gravity were better than so much else. I mean, at least he's not Inarritu.

Roma sure looks like navel-gazing awardsbait. But Children Of Men is shaping up as the best sci-fi film of the century, and Gravity was fantastic on the largest screen in the US, and then the largest screen on the planet, so I'm expecting Roma to be better than it appears from two stills and a summary.

(Y Tu Mama was a perfectly okay piece of teensploitation, haven't seen his others.)

I'd add his good Harry Potter gun-for-hire too.

Adam Nayman said something about how Roma comes on like it expects judges' scores to be held up at the end of every shot, which made me laugh no matter whether it's true or not.

it is absolutely accurate

hahaha that is awesome

I'm eager to see it this weekend after reading so much *around* it (I still have no idea wtf the movie is about)

Cuaron’s 2000s run is indeed fantastic; Gravity killed my enthusiasm for a bit, though I admit that it might be one film that suffered considerably by my not seeing it theatrically.

yeah I remember liking Gravity fine but I saw it in a theater, front row. probably would've turned it off if I tried at home

I saw it in 3D and thought the spaceships looked like big blobs of plasticine that looked ridiculous but apparently that was my eyes not this film.

Film Comment contributors/editors Poll:

01. Zama
02. Burning
03. First Reformed
04. Roma
05. Western
06. Shoplifters
07. Let the Sunshine In
08. The Other Side of the Wind
09. Happy As Lazzaro
10. Hale County This Morning, This Evening

https://www.filmcomment.com/best-films-of-2018/

SAG nominations are the first (probably only) wrench in the Regina King runaway. (And, as I said before, the Ethan Hawke portion of our tour through detrius looks to be over.)

Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Timothee Chalamet, Beautiful Boy
Adam Driver, BlacKkKlansman
Sam Elliott, A Star is Born
Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, Vice
Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place
Margot Robbie, Mary, Queen of Scots
Emma Stone, The Favourite
Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

Lead Actor
Christian Bale, Vice
Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Viggo Mortensen, Green Book
John David Washington, BlacKkKlansman

Lead Actress
Emily Blunt, Mary Poppins Returns
Glenn Close, The Wife
Olivia Colman, The Favourite
Lady Gaga, A Star is Born
Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Motion Picture Cast
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
Crazy Rich Asians
A Star is Born

Emily Blunt getting that second nomination for A Quiet Place makes Toni Collette's snub seem even more pointed.

Oh, and for some reason, Film Comment now adds the other half of their top 20 that wasn't there last night:

Film Comment contributors/editors Poll:

01. Zama
02. Burning
03. First Reformed
04. Roma
05. Western
06. Shoplifters
07. Let the Sunshine In
08. The Other Side of the Wind
09. Happy As Lazzaro
10. Hale County This Morning, This Evening
11. Sorry to Bother You
12. If Beale Street Could Talk
13. The Rider
14. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
15. Support the Girls
16. You Were Never Really Here
17. Monrovia, Indiana
18. Personal Problems
19. The Favourite
20. BlacKkKlansman

Supporting actor noms set in stone, I see.

Basically.

armond tweeted at me

What did he tweet?

for good or ill? i bet i can guess

Zama is thoroughly respectable and well made, but i'll have to give it another look (NYFF, Oct '17)

Zama was so fucking good, can't wait to give it a very high placing in my ilx ballot.

How is Burning?

It's OK, with a few transcendent scenes. Overlong and the ending doesn't really work.

burning and zama both trade on elusivity, but the latter does a better job of preserving it past the ending

Saw 'Burning' today at a press screening, and I'm most of all fascinated by how on earth this becomes the best reviewed film ever out of Cannes. It's definitely good, sure, but it does nothing that you haven't seen before.

glad to see more women filmmakers represented in the Sight and Sound and Film Comment lists

Zama worked so well in part for me because Martel's own comments about the movie and what it was up to (especially its looking to depict the ambient banality/quiet absurdity of life under colonial rule, rather than depicting it as some sort of overwhelmingly oppressive terror or a torturefest) were so illuminating

ZAMA brings off its ambiguities better than BURNING did.

i think the llamas should get some awards

between that and the big dog in claire's camera, a good year for scene stealing animals

Add 24 Frames to that list.

many xps - i said armond's work for the NR is more tedious than offensive, and he said "Keep reading. You might learn something..."

Yeah, condescension is his long suit.

Paraphrasing but Lee Chang-Dong talked about how he wanted to sneak all the great questions and mysteries of the world, the issues young people are facing, into Burning, and I felt that, but it's part of what makes it a little difficult to talk about. It suggests truths and lies around us, and it's hard to grasp with words. And so rather than its themes I focus on the unbelievable atmosphere, the humming rhythm of it, the likability of the three main characters and the great lines the actors deliver so well.

Hopefully I can get to watch it sometime.

i was happy to see that in the NYT Mag's big spread on the year's best actors, they chose the OTHER guy in Burning (whose name few can remember, including me). Just as crucial and a more subtle, difficult role.

I don't dislike Burning, but that anyone can find the characters likable is a bigger mystery to me than anything in the film.

There are no likeable characters in arthouse cinema - haven't you noticed this?

i mean except for the llama

who finds them likable? the 3 main ones are all maladjusted at best.

the two men are sociopaths

I should say, the likability of the performances. Or the sheen of likability about both Ben and Haemi, with disturbances beneath the surface. Jongsu is in some permanent funk, but there's still the fumbling suggestion of someone likable, for a while. Then, not anymore.

I don't dislike Burning, but that anyone can find the characters likable is a bigger mystery to me than anything in the film.

― Frederik B,

I'm not seeing this? Steven Yeun made his empty vessel Gatsby fascinating. It could be I have a fascination with these types.

I find it very hard to discuss this without spoiling the film, but it seems like there's a pretty major plot point people are ignoring...

I can't believe Alfred doesn't think the Yeun character is a sociopath. He spells it out in his own dialogue.

Better: Ben wants Jongsu to think he's a bad ass/sociopath.

It's not what he says, it's what he does

...and ppl disagree on what he does offscreen

Lol. People are stupid.

I'm curious to know what the notionally ignored plot point is.

All the signs point in one direction, but I guess that explains why people think the film is 'mysterious'.