Well here we are again, the 5 films that I found to be my absolute favorites of this year and now that we’ve cooked the turkeys its now time to feast on them by enjoying the favorites so let’s get underway with number 5 and boy was this the hardest spot to fill on this list, the top 4 were pretty much locked into place but 5th place was tough.
But once it was locked in I began to think about the list overall and what I wanted to accomplish with it and what I wanted to do with it was have it reflect as much as possible my own tastes so to speak, what I want out of the movie going experience and have it be a list where people could look at it and go “Oh that’s Simon as close as possible in movie tastes.”
With that disclaimer here is number 5 and it’s:
Ready or Not: Boy was this movie a surprise for while I had enjoyed the trailer for it, I wasn’t sure if I would give it a chance or not but after some strong recommendations and a bit of good timing I was able to give it a watch and boy did I enjoy myself.
Firstly it had a great idea for a horror movie, this rich family that made their name through playing these games and carrying that tradition into whoever marries into their family, secondly it had some terrific MA15 bloody violence that really made me feel all tasty inside as it felt properly gooey and icky in all the best ways and thirdly the look of the film and the use of night photography really added to the mood and tension of the story being told.
And lastly I can’t not mention this movie and not talk about the lead performance by Ms Samara Weaving, she is truly great in this movie as the innocent bride marrying a man she loves only for it all to change over the course of what should be the happiest night of her life her wedding night and she truly rises to the challenge much like Sigourney Weaver did in the first Alien film and she also has a pair of lungs in here as her screams are fantastic, I can’t wait to see more of her in these lead roles in the future.
4. Rocketman: Though Dexter Fletcher had the unhappy task of finishing Bryan Singer’s Bohemian Rhapsody (a job Singer should have finished himself instead of throwing his actors and crew under the Bus for the sake of his personal ego) Rocketman is his movie through and through and like BoRhap it was for me a terrific time at the movies.
Firstly I loved the way he stages the music in the film, yes the film uses Elton’s songs but they are done in a way that reflect the mood of those songs from the big song and dance routine of Wednesday-sorry-Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting to the soulful slowness of Your Song and Tiny Dancer to the manicness of the Crocodile Rock where the crowd becomes the chorus in that song, it was all done so well where I was singing with my pretend microphone-sorry-Water Bottle in my cinema seat.
Secondly Taron Egerton is fantastic as Sir Elton, the moment you first see him which is during the Saturday Night musical sequence he gives you none of that aggravation and he’s had with that discipline he captures the vocal tone of Sir Elton very well and he in some cases improves upon it where it’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside and its not one of those you can easily hide blue jean Baby, LA Lady seamstress of the band in the case of Your Song and Tiny Dancer and though some of the drugs scenes bothered me he sells the pain very well.
And lastly Fletcher’s direction and editing I feel fixed the primary problem I had with Bohemian Rhapsody which as great the performances and concert scenes were (and they were genuinely great) that film suffered from Singer’s firing before filming wrapped as it showed he wasn’t there to properly edit the film in post production and find the right tempo between the drama scenes and the concert scenes but here Mr Fletcher was there all the way through and he did find that balance and strikes it very very well.
3. Dolemite is My Name: The only non cinema release on this list is the Netflix film Dolemite is My Name which starred Eddie Murphy as Rudy Ray Moore who created the character of Dolemite in the hope of advancing his own career only to create a great character that his own community really responds to despite big opposition in his way.
Boy did I love watching this movie and firstly I have to talk about Eddie, as a longtime fan of his going back to my first showing of Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 2 in my early 20s the moment I saw him on screen I said to myself “He’s Back” it was just this feeling that came over me he was back, back to his best form and it feels like it has been an eternity since he was this good in a movie (a lot of this due to his own ego getting the better of him) and I just ate up every moment of it.
And secondly I loved the message of this story regarding following a dream and a desire to make that happen and gathering the people around you in pursuit of that goal and yes things can get tense and people don’t always see eye to eye but if the drive and the desire are there then sometimes these things work out and for that community to see something of themselves on a big cinema screen done in a way that felt right to them it was just wonderful to see.
And when it was all over I said to myself “Coming to America 2 is in great hands” as Eddie has got this team making that sequel due late next year and I am very confident that they will deliver the goods.
Now comes my top 2 and it became no question what these 2 films would be and though they briefly went back and forth for a time I have no hesitation in having a clear delineation in second and first place.
2. Ford V Ferrari: Like Dolemite, this was a very late entry that was directed by James Mangold and starred Matt Damon and Christian Bale as designer engineers for Ford who want to build a race car to beat Ferrari at the 24 hours of Le Mans in the 1960s.
And boy did I love this movie when I saw it each of the 3 times I did in the cinema, Mr Mangold has crafted for me a near perfect 2 and a half hour movie that firstly shows the best of people coming together to come up with a challenge and a product that will deliver on its promise and the drama in the film was as riveting to watch as the racing scenes were as like Ron Howard’s criminally underseen and overlooked 2013 film Rush its built on a great rivalry both personally and company wise this time around and its terrific to watch.
Secondly Mangold and his team in those Drama moments are having a bit of fun with the Ford executives characters especially those played by Tracy Letts (who would make a great Gough Whitlam in a biopic about his government one day) and Josh Lucas who come across as versions of the various studio executives Mangold has come across over the years (and he made Cop Land for Miramax during the time of the Weinsteins) and some of the conflicts on show reflect I think to him what its like to make a big movie for a big company and the meddling that can happen for good and for bad.
And lastly it has really made me miss 20th Century Fox as one of the big 6 movie studios that governed the movie industry for most of its lifetime as they were a studio that weren’t afraid to take some big risks in their lifespan be it Star Wars, X-Men, The Abyss, Alien you name it now granted a good chunk of their risk taking didn’t quite work out but they built some of this most iconic brands of the business through that risk taking and crafted such a rich history of movie making over the decades that to see them now just another folder in the spreadsheet of Walt Disney Pictures is heartbreaking to me and I miss them deeply.
But now we end at number 1 the top of the pile, the king of the mountain and for most of the year like in 2018 this has never been in question in my mind and that movie is:
Dragon Ball Super – Broly: Yes this was the one movie I was most looking forward to this year and it was the one movie above all else that I got the most out of.
For while I had some minor complaints that really only reflect critiscisms I’ve had of the Dragon Ball franchise post the Freeza Arc what this movie got right it got so very right.
The fanservice, the animation, the voice acting, the music, the story telling, the way it truly developed Broly into an actual character and not just a one dimensional punching bag, the fight scenes all of it was just operating at the highest levels rarely seen in the franchise in a long long time, you could really tell that this movie was a movie the Dragon Ball team really believed in and they wanted to craft something truly special.
And lastly it has given me a new appreciation for the overall leadership of this franchise since Funimation took direct control of its direction in 1999 working with Toei Animation in Japan, this blend of East and West working together has created a sense of leadership that has been steady, stable and patient in crafting the direction, knowing what stories to tell and then later on dubbing it for Western audiences in a way that feels true to its Japanese source.
And given what a mess most Western franchises have found themselves be it Star Wars, the Wizarding World, DC to name as examples where there has been this ungodly mess with no sense of direction, going from one movie to the next, throwing ideas against the wall in the hope that something will stick and giving huge power to a creator who can’t write a goddamn screenplay the fact that Dragon Ball has been steady and stable for the most part save for a recent hiccup is something I am coming to appreciate more and more.
And that’s it for this year but not the decade and in the third part of this decade I’ll look back at my favourites of this decade.
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