Now for the list that everybody’s been waiting for (Ha, I kid, no one waits for my lists), and is also the most controversial because there are some people who don’t like the idea of a list that’s purely dedicated to discussing films that are deemed bad. I understand that point of view even if I don’t agree with it. I consider this list to be a cleansing, a look back at the films of the year that were the low points so that we can reflect upon them and get that anger out of the system in order to start off the new year properly… that and there are some films that need condemning either because they represent a major issue in the industry or were so poorly made that it still boggles my mind that they were able to find a release. If you want to go back and see my rules or just remind yourself of what I consider to be a good list, yesterday I had my best films list up so now onto the worst. Let’s start with the dishonorable mention!
The Top 10 Best Films of 2018
Another year has come and gone, the first time I’ve been doing this for a full year (Albiet in bursts) and this has been really nice. Final year of University was good, this year I had 10K views on this blog and while that’s not a lot to some, it means a ton to me. Even when I was sitting through films I hated, I was loving that I got to do this and try and explain why you should or shouldn’t see them even if there were times that my explanations were not well worded (Working on that is my new years resolution). But, as is tradition with reviewers there are now lists to make and this list is the ‘Best’ list (AKA just the ones I liked the most but no one ever admits to that openly because ‘best’ is the term people serarch for, even though calling something ‘best’ is a very bad term for a subjective artform like film). Before we get to that, here’s the parameters for the lists we’ll be doing.
- I did not see every film. I saw a fair few of them and was seeing them since the start of the year but thanks to final year of Uni stuff, I missed some because doing assignments came over going to movies so if something from isn’t on the list that probably should be, there’s your first potential reason.
- Only films released in Australia in 2018 are going to be on this list. Specifically films need to have a wide release, wide enough that I can get to see them at a massive chain cinema like Event. Festival screenings are nice and all but they do not help me in this situation becuase, at the moment, I’m not paid for this. So this means films like If Beale Street Could Talk, Mary Poppins Returns, Green Book and The Hate U Give and are not eligible because, while they may have had screenings before the end of the year that I just couldn’t get too, they didn’t have a proper wide release. They’ll be eligible for the 2019 list and hopefully by then maybe Hollywood will stop being idiots and just release a movie worldwide on the same day instead of making some countries wait 3 months and then wonder why there’s piracy. Basically, if there isn’t a review on this blog about it, I didn’t see it.
- Netflix films are totally eligible for both lists. Indeed any video on demand movie is available for scrutiny, no matter how they had to release it. If they sent it out to be viewed by an audience, then they should be ready for critique.
- These are merely my opinions and you are absolutely entitled to disagree with me for any reason, go nuts, make your own list in the comments or question my order. That’s fine. What’s not fine is just saying “Your list sucks” with no reason behind it, critique is fine but blind attacks with no reason isn’t. Again, just my opinion.
With that said, before we get to the list, I have several honorable mentions, because this year was so good that I couldn’t be restrained to just one
Vice (2018) – Pictures Of Your Dick (Cheney)
Released: 26th December
Seen: 31st December
It’s a turbulent time to talk about politics, the chances of offending someone by stating an opinion is on the rise so clearly now is the perfect time to release a very politically charged biopic made by a bunch of left wing Hollywood people about a right wing political figure and the effects that his actions still have on the planet today. I can’t see a single person having an issue with this at all… so, for full disclosure I’m more on the left side of politics and that might color my opinion on some things in this movie and it might also mean you may not want to hear my opinion on the most politically charged movie of the year, I am totally aware of that and I need you to be aware before we go on because I don’t plan on holding back my opinion or sugar coating it so with that out of the way, let’s do this.
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Holmes & Watson (2018) – The Defective Detective
Released: 26th December
Seen: 27th December
In all of literature, one of the most beloved and adapted characters is that of Sherlock Holmes. The story of a genius detective who goes around solving crimes, defeating Moriarty and working with his friend Dr Watson is the stuff of legends that everyone has had a crack at. He’s been in action oriented films, weekly episodic TV shows, miniseries, he was a gnome at one point, an animated rat another time, a doctor for a very long period of time and even a Japanese puppet. Sherlock Holmes has been everything and in every kind of movie… and now, he can add “Awful unfunny comedy” to the long list of film projects he’s been associated with.
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Aquaman (2018) – It’s Better, Down Where It’s Wetter
Released: 26th December
Seen: 26th December
DC has really had something of a bad time with their attempt at a cinematic universe. While the hardcore DC fan base have enjoyed the films so far, with general audiences they’ve been critically panned and have such a horrible reputation that the massive team up movie Justice League is the worst performing film in the franchise. That’s almost impossible to contemplate, the film where every major DC superhero was meant to team up in an event that we have been building too for four movies and it didn’t make as much money as Suicide Squad. The audience is effectively done with what the DC universe is offering now. There were serious talks for a while that the upcoming Flashpoint movie might be used just to try and erase the entire franchise and start again from scratch, it’s not looking good for the DCEU who not only have a failing franchise on their hands that can barely bring them a return on investment, but the franchise is now so far behind the juggernaut MCU that it seems unlikely they’ll ever catch up. For this franchise to still have legs it needs this film to be good. All they had to do was make something that didn’t hurt to watch and they might actually put themselves on the right track… and oh thank god they pulled it off.
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Peppermint (2018) – Not Exactly Minty Fresh
Released: 15th November
Seen: 21st December
You know what’s really difficult about writing these reviews? Figuring out how to start them. Sometimes it comes easy, there’s a really good comparison I can make to give the reader a quick idea of the direction I might go in or there’s a half decent joke I can build too. Sometimes though, there’s nothing. Sometimes, there is no really good comparison or a bit of weird history, sometimes a film just pops up out of nowhere and surprises you with its release, mildly impresses you with how it’s telling a well-told story and then… nothing. It’s not that it’s awful, it just kind of happens to be there and there isn’t exactly that much to say about it that would make a good lead into the main portion of the review.
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Once Upon A Deadpool (2018) – Once More, With Savage
Released: 12th December
Seen: 19th December
One of the most infamous bad horror movies of the ’80s was a film called Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2. The internet knows it mostly because of the infamous “GARBAGE DAY” scene that was a meme a while ago. The movie itself is a barely repackaged copy of the original movie, edited down with interstitial scenes featuring the brother of the main character from the first movie and a psychiatrist who literally go over the events of the original film in detail before moving onto a new story in the second half of the film. Beyond the Garbage Day sequence, there wasn’t much about it that was memorable. At best it was a mediocre cash in that barely tried to differentiate itself from the original and was trying to bank on the media uproar that surrounded the original film in the franchise… so, what if someone took the “Repackage an old movie” idea, used a good movie to do it, but didn’t bother to add any new story elements of any kind and just relied on a marketing gimmick in order to make some money? Turns out, that might work but only up to a certain point.
Read The Rest Of The Review
Second Act (2018) – Intermission
Released: 6th December
Seen: 18th December
There is something in a comedy that is more valuable than the script will ever be, an element that a lot of films seem to forget. It’s the chemistry in the cast. A good cast with great chemistry can make absolutely any film work, while a bad cast couldn’t make a Marx Brother’s routine funny. It’s more important than anything else that the cast is able to make a scene feel funny and charming, even when the jokes aren’t exactly the best thing ever… my god, this might be one of the most delightfully charming casts that I’ve ever had the joy of seeing on film.
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Robin Hood (2018) – They Roam About The Forest Looking For Fights
Released: 21st November
Seen: 12th December
A little over a year ago I watched a film called King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, a retelling of the iconic tale of King Arthur and how he became the legend that we know him as. It was a very fun, albeit critically panned, film that utilized the director’s style to try and breathe some new life into a tale that’s been told so many times that it’s almost comical to think that someone decided that they really needed to retell it… it also bombed spectacularly. SO, what if we did the exact same thing, didn’t use Guy Ritchie as the director and picked that other famous and well-retold story about the medieval era hero who’s pretty good with a weapon? Oh, that would be a bad idea because of obvious reasons? Well, screw that, let’s do it anyway because there is no possible way this could go badly.
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Tea With The Dames (2018) – There Is Nothing Like A Dame
Released: 2nd May
Seen: 7th December (Catch-Up Screening)
There is a style of documentary that always feels a little bit strange to me, I call it the capture conversation documentary, these are documentaries that just put a bunch of people in a room and have them just talk. We don’t cut away, it’s not a talking head piece but it’s a film where the people on screen converse as though there isn’t a camera there and we’re a fly on the wall to this discussion. It feels odd because that kind of thing isn’t genuine, these people would never be sitting in a perfect semi-circle and decide amongst themselves to talk about films that they had been in together or about the state of industry when they were young, things that they probably haven’t thought about in ages and certainly wouldn’t be talking about in this manner. So for a film to take this idea and find a way to not only make it feel natural but to also be willing to mock the facade that they’ve put up as part of the framework of this style of documentary is something special.
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