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jezfletcher · 6 years ago

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The Oscars 2019

This is two years in a row now that I've seen every single Oscar-nominated feature film, and I have a fear that the completist in me now sees this as something I need to justify doing every year going forward. But I've only managed it the past few years because I've happened to have been in the United States in the period leading up to the Oscars. And honestly, that's not something I necessarily want to keep doing. So, enjoy it while it lasts, is I guess what I'm saying. This has not been a good year for the Oscars, themselves, obviously—what with all of the stupid things they've been trying to do to make the awards ceremony more relevant to people who don't travel to another country to watch all of the nominated films. Obviously, I'm going to keep watching anyway. However, I've found that the films this year have all been of a reasonably good standard. Sure, there have been some which lean too heavily on the formula, and some which fall pretty flat. But there's only one film I think this year that I actively hated, and usually there's at least a handful. So good work in screening out most of the absolute dross, Academy voters. By the same token, while there were some excellent films this year, many of, say, my top 10 are not films that I would say I completely loved either. In previous years, I've had 10 or more films that have absolutely filled me with joy. Anyway, let's get to the count down. As usual, I'm going from top to bottom, because my bottom films tend to be more fun to write (and, I believe, to read). But be aware, as I said above, there are fewer films than usual that are worthy of a proper shellacking.

1. Free Solo

Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin

My top film this year is an honestly brilliant, monumental piece of film-making. It catalogues the first solo ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite done without safety ropes, which is enough of an achievement that a fairly dry account would still be fairly compelling. But the filmmakers really manage to make this something profoundly more as a piece of cinema. We follow Alex Honnold, a professional rock climber, as he prepares for the ascent, and we get a deep sense of the danger involved in such an endeavour, and the mindset required of a person to even attempt something so monumental. More interestingly, the filmmakers delve into what makes up the man, with a particular focus on his burgeoning relationship with his girlfriend Sanni McCandless—what we discover is probably his first real romantic relationship. This adds such another level of interest to the film; it provides the human connection we need to not only see Honnold as more than a machine. But it also provides the stakes to make the danger of the ascent resonate with us. By the time we actually see the ascent——we not only understand the risks involved, but the consequences for characters that we care about were things to go wrong. It makes for absolutely scintillating viewing. And there's another level (I know, does it need more?). The filmmakers themselves make the choice to insert themselves into the story as well—it's a ploy that often massively backfires for me (as it did last year with Icarus), but in this case, it's a masterful stroke. It allows the introspection of the makers to explore how complicit they are in something potentially horrific. Is the presence of cameras pushing Honnold beyond his limits? Is this something he would attempt were there not a documentary film crew following him? How do they feel about capturing on film the death of someone they consider a friend, knowing full well before they start the cameras rolling that this might be how it ends up? What if their mere presence in filming him causes him to make a mistake? These are all questions which are well-explored in the film itself. In the end, watching the footage of the actual ascent is magnified a hundred-fold due to the groundwork in the storytelling. This is why this film ends up being much much more than a technically-proficient documentation of an incredible human feat. It becomes a masterful achievement in itself.

2. First Reformed

Directed by Paul Schrader

I honestly knew almost nothing about this film before sitting down to watching it, apart from that it was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. The film tells of a protestant priest, Ernst Toller (Hawke), who is now the chaplain of the First Reformed church, a historical chapel now mostly serving as a tourist attraction, but which is now mostly run by the local megachurch. To say much about the plot is to give away vital points, which are better left to unravel at their own pace on screen. But it manages to do so gently while building into a huge emotional impact. It's in no small part to Ethan Hawke, who is utterly compelling as the complex Toller. It's just a beautifully constructed film, well-shot in winter bleakness, and capturing the themes that the screenplay demands of it. It touches on deep issues of many kinds: faith, environmentalism, the legacy you consider as you face death. And each is woven into a tapestry that as a whole is nothing short of sublime. Yes, it's a very fine film, and one which I recommend even as I know it will not be to everyone's tastes as it is to mine. I think it's a(nother) testament to the fact that I often find the films on the Screenplay nominations to be the source of hidden gems that don't turn up otherwise.

3. Roma

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

There's certainly a bit of momentum behind this one to take out Best Picture, and while I obviously liked it (sitting as it is here high in my rankings), it's an unexpected film to be the frontrunner. It's released by Netflix, it's a foreign-language film, in black and white. It's also not the crowd-pleasing story you often see in a front-runner. But maybe that's a sign that the Academy is actually doing its fucking job for once. But this is indeed a brilliant film. It's a film really made with care and craft. Everything is beautifully done—the cinematography is astonishing (I saw it at the cinema, which amplified it, but I'm sure much of it still resonates on a smaller screen), the production design is crystal perfect in setting up this world of two worlds between the upper and lower classes in a Mexico City household. But it's not just a technical film, it's one crafted with love, and a story which resonates with emotional impact. The craft just allows us to better immerse ourselves in the story and its human participants. It feels like a labour of love for Cuarón, and he has all the skills required to make it compelling on screen. If this wins Best Picture, I'll be cheering, even though it's the outcome that everyone expects. I think this winning the award will show that the Academy is really now genuinely awarding excellence in filmmaking.

4. Black Panther

Directed by Ryan Coogler

I honestly feel as though Marvel Studios is going to take the wrong message out of Black Panther, one of its obviously biggest hits, and, honestly, probably the best superhero film ever made. This film was great not because it had the best action sequences, the best characterisation, the best super powers, or because they've perfected digital eyelash rendering. It was brilliant because they got the stakes right, and they managed to make them connect to the audience. This, I believe, is squarely the doing of Ryan Coogler, who had previously managed to do something similar with the Rocky series in Creed. But credit to Marvel for giving him the creative freedom to do just that. The film works so well because we see the resonances of Wakanda in our world—it's relevant right now, right this minute when you walk out of the cinema. It's not merely a piece of escapism, despite the fact that there are technically good action sequences and visual effects. Moreover, it manages to avoid the ever-escalating tropes of superhero films which seem to think that you need to make them more exciting by increasing the size of the destruction were our heroes to fail. Let's be honest——to me, the destruction of my home & family, the destruction of my city, my planet, or the universe pretty much work out to the same net outcome. But Black Panther really grapples with the legacy of the choices of history—and it ties them to the modern day in a subtle but very powerful way. So sure, go for the special effects, but you'll likely get more out of it than a well-made superhero film. That's the reason why this sits so high on my list. I just hope that Marvel sees it the same way, and that they have a willingness to explore this kind of filmmaking in the future. Given the success of Black Panther, I hope they will.

5. The Favourite

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

I was so waiting for this film by Lanthimos. I've loved what he's done back to Dogtooth, but in every film he'd done to this point there was a certain kind of similarity——it was as though he had taken the basic structure of Dogtooth and was replaying it in different ways and in different scenarios. Breaking out of the mould by working with a script not written by the director himself seems to have been a good move, because we get to see Lanthimos's skills in another domain. And I'm very happy about that. The story revolves around a love triangle between three women, Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), and Abigail Hill (Emma Stone), and the various political machinations surrounding the war in France. It's interesting enough as a historical drama, but the focus and the success of the film both are in the exploration of the relationships. Olivia Colman is utterly brilliant as Queen Anne, and I believe is the front-runner to take out the award, thereby denying Lady Gaga her own kind of fairytale. She manages to balance so many elements to her performance——the power, the insecurity, the vulnerability, the strength. She is at times both compelling and repellent. It's the kind of performance that comes around once in a career for an actor, and it requires such skill on the part of the performer and the people surrounding her to get it so pitch-perfect. It's a really engaging film all up, and one which is unusual in all the ways you want Yorgos Lanthimos's films to be. But it's also so different from his oeuvre to date that I feel like it's adding something more to the repertoire than any of his films had done since Dogtooth. That's high praise from me.

6. First Man

Directed by Damien Chazelle

I was quite concerned about this film. Having loved Whiplash and having abhorred La La Land, I wasn't quite sure where I'd land on Damien Chazelle's latest. But it's the kind of story I really love (and honestly, intrinsically an excellent story), and it sounded different enough to La La Land that I was willing to give it a shot. And honestly, it was kind of brilliant. I know, I still had a bit of a La La Land hangover, but I found it a really surprisingly believable portrait of Neil Armstrong, and an utterly engaging tale of the race to put a man on the moon. Ryan Gosling shakes off his last role with Chazelle, and returns to his laconic best self as the notably reserved Armstrong, and while that's something of a blank canvas, it's also a strong central performance for a film like this. More surprisingly, perhaps, is that the directorial touches in this are actually one of the strongest elements, which shows that Chazelle perhaps has something more in his arsenal than banality. There's a reserved quality to the filmmaking which matches its subject, and gives the film at time an impressionistic feel. Surprisingly it works. More than that, the somewhat dreamlike quality of parts of the production means that the elements of action, in particular the Gemini 8 mission, become stronger and more forceful by comparison. I really thought this was a very good film indeed, and one which definitely fell off the radar after it was released many months back. But I think it's one that's going to stand up over time. In a way that La La Land certainly will not.

7. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Directed by Joel & Ethan Coen

This is a true anthology film. Six short films set in the Old West, which share some similar themes and mood, but are otherwise disconnected from one another. Am I surprised that it's this high? Maybe, but it does have the Coen brothers at the helm, and a surprisingly strong cast. Why this film is so successful though is because each of the stories holds up on its own, perhaps with the exception of the eponymous tale, which serves more as a way to introduce the rest of the tales, in any case. But all the rest grabbed my attention. In particular, I found The Gal Who Got Rattled and All Gold Canyon genuinely enjoyable to watch, and Meal Ticket was a story with a strong emotional impact. But it's a film that rides on the success of its individual pieces, and it's truly quite exceptional that each of the pieces manages to be strong enough to stand up on its own. As a collection, I found them a very entertaining way to spend my time.

8. Never Look Away

Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

One of the fine crop of foreign language Oscars this year, this film (titled "Work Without Author" in German) follows the life of a young artist as he tries to find a path in the contemporary art world while processing the resonances of his childhood, in particular the death of his beloved Aunt at the hands of the Nazis. It's a brilliantly constructed film, and one which allows its meaning to become fully realised piece by piece. At the same time, the director carefully balances the revelations with a sense of dramatic irony, allowing us to see things slightly before the characters themselves discover them. It's a fine balance to do this well enough to keep the film captivating. I also found the film to be quite a compelling portrait (haha) of the mid-century modern art movement. Although it's something I don't know much about, it's presented in such a way that it feels like it's providing insights into the movement. It shows the way in which even the most abstract of forms can find scope for political and social commentary. In some senses that puts it two steps adrift of making actual political commentary itself, but expounding the value of art is to some extent a purely political position nowadays. Anyway, I enjoyed this film a great deal, and I honestly think it's a film with even more value than I probably ascribed it myself. It's a strong Foreign Language Oscar field this year, but in another year, I could definitely see this being a winner.

9. The Wife

Directed by Björn Runge

I honestly found this film captivating. Lead by strong performances from Glenn Close (an actress I always love), and Jonathan Pryce, it tells the tale of a husband and wife, as the husband travels to Stockholm to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature. The film, however, also focuses on their early relationship through flashbacks, as we see the cracks in their facade start to become more noticeable. Thematically, there's a strong feminist element to the story, and it makes for a suitably ascerbic lens for the tale. What could be overplayed as melodrama has a cutting satire at its core, which helps make the film deeper and more resonant than it might otherwise have been. Helping this is Glenn Close's restrained, but certainly brilliant, performance, which has rightly earned her a nod for Best Actress. Interestingly, it's the only nomination for this film: perhaps in other years this would have seen more acclaim in other categories, but I do feel that there was a trend against more traditional filmmaking—and to some extent, this does follow a certain type of film-making formula. But at the same time, when the formula is put on screen as well as it is here, I can't help but enjoy myself with it.

10. Mary Poppins Returns

Directed by Rob Marshall

I remember very much enjoying Mary Poppins as a child, even though it's a film that I'd not seen for many years when I watched the (very long-in-coming) sequel. But the film very much manages to capture the spirit of the original, while also updating enough to be palatable to a modern audience. This is quite a feat, and I'll admit that I'm surprised Rob Marshall was the one to pull it off. One of the most brilliant things that this film managed to do is to make me see the original a different way. As a child, it's easy to accept all of the magical happenings in the presence of Mary Poppins at face value, but this film makes you look at them through the lens of adulthood, as Jane & Michael Banks look back on their childhood and question their own memories. It's a striking thing to do, and it makes both the original and this one seem deeper films as a result. It's also true that to some extent this film is trying to recapture some of the iconic sequences of the original, and has mixed success——the animated sequence is just about as delightful in this one as in the original, but the lamplighters' big dance number doesn't quite capture the magic and energy of the chimney sweeps dancing on the rooftops. All up though, I found this quite a magical experience, and that probably means its utterly successful in its goals. Despite some reservations, I was able to embrace it in the way that it wanted me to. And I had a great time doing it.

11. BlacKkKlansman

Directed by Spike Lee

Outside of the top ten, I'm going to be a bit briefer in my write-ups, for the sake of time (mine and yours), and will probably limit my writeups in the central section to just a paragraph each. Starting with BlacKkKlansmanm, a surprisingly fun film about a black police officer who goes undercover (in a manner) to infiltrate the KKK. Based on a true story, it's a lot of fun, and one which really tried to pound home its message about the perils of accepting white supremacy in the mainstream. It's an unsubtle film when it comes to its politics, but we're in an era that doesn't respect subtlety any more.

12. Mary Queen of Scots

Directed by Josie Rourke

I really enjoyed this film, although I'll admit that it's a film that plays to my particular traits. Historical drama starring Saoirse Ronan is always going to be in my wheelhouse. And this is a lush production, well served by its two nominations for Costume Design and Makeup & Hairstyling. It's an interesting take on the story two, focusing mostly on the tension between Mary of Scotland and Queen Elizabeth's desire for familial closeness despite the underlying political tension. It's an interesting framing, albeit one which many critics have pooh-poohed for having little historical basis. But I still liked it. I'll keep seeing films like this, in the same way that everyone else will keep going to see the latest Marvel film.

13. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman

This was a really engaging detour from the regular superhero fare. As an animated film, it has a leeway to do something quite different, and this film chose to do so in a way which accentuates the comic book form on which it is based. It's a decent, if fairly convoluted story, but it adds something to the Spiderman ethos which I think is warranted. It's an enjoyable film, and one which I liked a lot more than many of its ilk.

14. At Eternity's Gate

Directed by Julian Schnabel

Willem Dafoe is in his golden era, quite clearly. Here, he provides a startling portrait of Vincent Van Gogh, a man who had little success in his life, and suffered a great deal because of it. This film manages to both explicate why this may have been the case, and also to illustrate to a great extent why there genuinely is brilliance to Van Gogh's work. Director Julian Schnabel (best known for directing The Diving Bell & The Butterfly is an artist himself, and he puts a distinctly impressionistic form on the film, which is a perfect touch, especially when you have such a powerhouse in the lead role to ground it in humanistic reality. It isn't a really easy film to watch, but there is brilliance within it.

15. If Beale Street Could Talk

Directed by Barry Jenkins

An adaptation of James Baldwin's novel of the same name, this is a fine film with a good deal of resonance in the modern world. It follows a non-linear storyline following Tish (KiKi Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James), as they explore life as young lovers, as well as dealing with the aftermath of Fonny's arrest years later. It deals a great deal with the injustices of the time, but strongly resonates in a time when the same injustices survive in much the same form. It's also quite a literary film, with Tish's narration coming straight from Baldwin's, which is rich in poetry. It provides a juxtaposition with the naturalistic dialogue of the scenes, which at time jars, but it allows more of Baldwin's intended work onto the screen. And that's a good thing.

16. Solo: A Star Wars Story

Directed by Ron Howard

I seem to be largely alone in liking this film. Beset as it was with production difficulties, it's really quite something that it managed to come out as well as it did. And honestly, I think it came out pretty damn well. It's the kind of film that I think Lucasfilm really wanted to be making to expand the Star Wars universe. It doesn't need to really push the main storyline of the various wars, but it can have a bit of fun along the way. The set pieces are inventive and engaging, and well produced in such a way that you can feel and follow along with the action, and the cast of characters are well drawn and entertaining. Hell, even Alden Ehrenreich is quite good at channelling the cool of young Harrison Ford. So, despite everything, I think this managed to be successful in just about every way you might have expected it to be. I don't know what everyone else is complaining about.

17. Ralph Breaks The Internet

Directed by Rich Moor & Phil Johnston

I was a big fan of the first Wreck-It Ralph film, which managed to beautifully capture its subject matter, while also providing a snide commentary on it. So it's no surprise that I enjoyed the sequel as well. Admittedly, though, this isn't as good as the original, largely due to lacking the freshness of the concept of the original. What replaces it is satirisation of internet culture, some of which is successful (like Ralph's series of viral videos), and some which is less so, in particularly the personification of certain aspects of internet infrastructure. The new realm also gives the filmmakers license to shoe-horn in a whole stack more pop-culture references, and these feel sloppy to a large extent. But overall, there's enough charisma in the characters, and in the concepts that they're playing with that the film is still successful. It's just less successful than the original.

18. Cold War

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski

Another good foreign language film from this year, it tells the story of a teacher and student who develop a passionate, destructive relationship around the time of the segregation of Germany. Forced to pursue propaganda in communist Poland, the film follows the destruction of the characters after one decides to flee to West Germany. It's a beautifully shot film, and one with a lot of artistic merit. However, I found the story to be a little bit tired at times, and it lacked the emotional resonance that another similar film might have had—perhaps due to the fact that both of the main characters are at times rather unpleasant. It's still a good film, but there's a reason it's in 18th place rather than rubbing shoulders with Roma and Never Look Away.

19. Shoplifters

Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda

Speaking of foreign language films that don't quite make the cut, here we have the latest from Koreeda Hirokazu, who I honestly think of as one of the finest filmmakers currently working in the world today. What is it that made this film resonate with me less than his previous work? Honestly, I'm trying to figure that out myself, because on the surface this bears much similarity to some of his previous films that I've loved, in particular Nobody Knows. This film tells the tale of a man and a woman living in poverty, and teaching their children to steal. I think I've just really enjoyed the subdued nature of some of his previous works, and this one is genuinely more plot-driven, and never necessarily in a way that you expect. I think that I could watch this at a different time and a different place, and probably have quite a different reaction to it. That's maybe just a cheating way of getting out of working out why it didn't work for me this time. But I'm still going to be following Koreeda's work in the future.

20. A Star Is Born

Directed by Bradley Cooper

I was deeply skeptical of this film when it came out. Why on earth did Bradley Cooper (of all people) feel the need (or the right) to remake A Star Is Born (again). But I was surprised as many people were when it turns out this is genuinely very good. In fact, having watched some of the previous adaptations, I can honestly believe that this is the best adaptation yet made of the story. Lady Gaga is, indeed, something of a revelation in a dramatic role, and Bradley Cooper is serviceable in front of the camera and behind it (although he does put himself in front of the camera much more than is warranted). Moreover, there is genuine thought in the musical numbers, including Shallow, up for Best Original Song, which I'll admit is the only of the nominees that I can still hum along to after the film. All up, it's a film that has its limits, but it's a perfectly serviceable adaptation.

21. Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Directed by Marielle Heller

An interesting and somewhat unexpected film, about author Lee Israel, who faces a decline in her success and turns to forging letters from celebrities in order to make a living. It's an odd premise for a film, but it's put together with a lot of heart, and pulled off through strong performances from Melissa McCarthy as Israel, and Richard E. Grant as a miscreant who she befriends. It's played without a lot of sympathy for any of its characters, despite the way it's structured—intrinsically there is something that puts you at arms length. It feels like a delibrate decision by the director, but at the same time it did limit my enjoyment somewhat.

22. Incredibles 2

Directed by Brad Bird

The Incredibles was another of those animated films which really managed to break out of its mould to some extent, and provide a concept that had its tongue in its cheek to the extent that an otherwise straightforward story would seem transgressive in some form. But as a result, like Wreck It Ralph 2: The Ralphening above, this is less than the original film. Since the conceit of the first is now not novel, we're left with just revisiting the characters in a different scenario. I think it does help that the film focuses this time largely on Elastigirl, who is curiously but enjoyably performed by Holly Hunter (who, I'll note, doesn't get top billing, despite being clearly the main character in this film). But there's only so much impact that these characters can have the second time around, when the world is already established. This is perhaps the first film on this list that I can say the world probably could have done without. Despite my enjoyment of it.

23. Hale County This Morning, This Evening

Directed by RaMell Ross

A very impressionistic documentary, this film takes snippets of life from the inhabitants of Hale County in Alabama, focusing on tiny pieces of vignettes (calling them vignettes themselves is overselling them), it manages to fuse the pieces together into the semblance of greater meaning. While it's up to you how you interpret them, it's hard to deny that there's something to the pieces. It's also beautifully shot, and RaMell Ross takes great joy in expressing the beauty in the mundane——a particularly poignant sequence shows light streaming through fog in jagged shards, while the director talks off screen about the beauty of the scene to someone asking why he's set up a camera on this street in this part of town. It's a film that's perhaps too ephemeral to grasp at times, but it's still an artistic construction.

24. Minding the Gap

Directed by Bing Liu

An interesting documentary from first-time director Bing Liu, who returns to his hometown of Rockford, Illinois, and chronicles the lives of his friends who he was connected with through skateboarding. He explores where life has taken them since adulthood has been thrust upon them, and examines themes of poverty, especially its cyclic nature. It doesn't shy away from tough questions and themes either, and the filmmaker is quite skillful in managing to make it as autobiographical as it is, while also seeming to be hands-off in its filming. I didn't like it, overall, as much as many of the films above it here, obviously, but that's not to detract from it as a piece of cinema. M

25. Isle of Dogs

Directed by Wes Anderson

I honestly thought this was going to end up lower on my list. I was honestly pretty skeptical about this from a conceptual point of view, and it seemed like an odd choice for Anderson to take on, unless he'd had a particularly good time making The Fantastic Mr. Fox. But it's not a bad film. It's a bit formulaic, but it's made up for in excess of Wes Anderson's stylistic embellishments. I honestly just kind of hope that they're put to better use in the next film he makes.

26. RBG

Directed by Betsy West & Julie Cohen

This is a perfectly serviceable documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsberg. The subject matter is very interesting, and watching this portrait of the supreme court justice is entertaining just intrinsically. It's not an inventive or exemplary exercise in artistic filmmaking though, and that's why it's below some of the other documentaries, even those which I might have found less intrinsically interesting.

27. Mirai

Directed by Mamoru Hosoda

Ah, there's a good tradition in rounding out the Best Animated Feature category with an anime film, and this year's is Mirai No Mirai (Mirai of the Future), a film which explores the changes in a family from the perspective of a young boy who has recently gained a new baby sister, Mirai. Through a sequence of fantastical episodes, he interacts with both his sister from the future, the personification of their dog (who misses the time before any children, when he was the prince of the household), and other characters rounding out their family history. It ties the past to the future, and explores family in an interesting way, wresting pathos from its story at many points. My only reticence in really embracing this is that it feels extremely slow, and the episodic nature of the film really restricts it from feeling as though it can build up any kind of momentum. Over and over again, it feels like we're just resetting in the present. Only at the end does it manage to tie everything together, and to be honest, I was a bit over it by then.

28. Border

Directed by Ali Abbasi

I found this a pretty unpleasant film, but it's hard to deny that it's a pretty singular one as well. It follows Tine (Eva Melander), who works as a border guard for the ferry between Sweden and Denmark, and who has the ability to sniff out people hiding contraband. She meets a man who resembles her strange facial structure, when he tries to cross the border, and the two strike up an unusual friendship, as he helps her discover her real self. The concept behind the film is honestly pretty unusual, and the way that it plays out actively kind of alienates the audience. But it's hard to deny the impact.

29. Of Fathers And Sons

Directed by Talal Derki

This is a documentary that honestly has a fascinating story behind it. It follows a family helmed by an extremist in the al-Nusra Front in Syria, and his influence in forcing his children along the same path. It's notable for the almost unfettered access that the filmmaker Talal Derki has to these people, and the fact that it tells a story that would otherwise be lost. It's an achievement that it was created at all. But honestly, I found it a pretty indifferent film. Narratively speaking, it doesn't really capture the attention of the audience, unless you already have an ingrained interest in the subject matter. By necessity, it's shot with largely handheld digital camera work, which further alienates the subject and the audience. As a result, I found there were always barriers between me and the film, and I didn't really engage with it in the way it wanted me to. Not a film I disliked, but certainly one that sits at the lower end of my list.

30. A Quiet Place

Directed by John Krasinski

Another film that is conceptually pretty good, but really let down by its execution. I honestly had so many problems with this film, from the obvious "oh god these characters are too stupid to live", to some of the directorial choices, including the mind-boggling decision to ruin moments of silent tension with non-diagetic music. For a film that's based around the idea that noises can kill you, it effectively ruins any tension that comes from the concept. It's a shame, because honestly, this was one of the more interesting ideas for a film in some years, and I really wanted it to be good, and before I saw it, people had told me it was good. I found this to be a real disappointment though.

31. Capernaum

Directed by Nadine Labaki

I'll admit it: this film is so low mostly because I found it such a struggle to watch. It's a deeply, deeply depressing film, not an intrinsically bad one. It focuses on a young boy, Zain, living on the streets of Lebanon. Opening with him suing his parents for giving birth to him, it then delves deeply into the kind of horrors that could result in such a statement. It's a genuinely unpleasant film, and one which feels, at times, obscene for its (undoubtedly realistic) depiction of severe poverty. It's a powerful film for this reason, but I honestly found it excruciating: in particular a sequence where Zain is left to care for a baby on his own when the baby's mother is arrested. It does have a very vaguely positive suggestion towards the end of the film, but by the end it's almost too late to save the film, and I was already to deep to see any sense of optimism.

32. Bohemian Rhapsody

Directed by Bryan Singer & Dexter Fletcher

Alright, I have things to say about this film, so I'll probably write a couple of paragraphs. First up: this just isn't that good a film. At best, it follows the formula of the musical biopic really closely, to the extent that it almost starts to feel like a parody of itself——or at best it feels like a tired cliche. (Someone, not me, pointed out that it was basically Walk Hard, which is such a funny and insightful observation). But worse than this, it's just not very well made. The dialogue is, at times, cringe-worthy. It's clunky, it's unnatural, or it stinks up the joint with trying to seem profound, and bombing terribly. It's shot in a really quite pedestrian way, and doesn't manage to capture to any great extent the spectacle of one of the century's greatest rock bands. To his credit, Rami Malek does his utmost with the material he's given, and tracks out a fairly compelling figure as Freddy Mercury. I found him honestly pretty engaging on screen, and certainly quite a sympathetic character. Overall, indeed, it paints a fairly rosy portrait of the band (a band I like a good deal), especially Brian May and Roger Taylor. And their music being such a large part of the film gives it a certain intrinsic enjoyment. But to be honest, the quality of the music actually made me angrier about the film as a whole: Queen deserves a better biopic than this one, and I'm really disappointed that this is what they got. It doesn't help that it was thrown into production chaos, no doubt, and that seems like it mostly rests on the shoulders of Bryan Singer—by all accounts a pretty unpleasant dude. For his sake, I hope this doesn't get any accolades. But to be honest, it doesn't really deserve any in any case.

33. Green Book

Directed by Peter Farrelly

You may notice that to some extent, the films that end up near the bottom of this list are those which are not intrinsically bad in the traditional sense, but merely those which too rigidly follow an ascribed formula. Green Book is definitely one of the biggest offenders this year, and this crime is compounded by the fact that apparently there is significant license taken with the reality of the story in order to make it more rigidly adhere to the formula. There's something to be said for Maharshala Ali's laconic portrayal of Don Shirley, and Viggo Mortenson provides the classic foil as his Italian-American driver-slash-bodyguard. But apart from the chemistry of the leads, there's almost nothing in this film that we haven't seen hundreds of times before. It's a predictable clash-of-cultures film that doesn't even manage to eke out the cultural and social messages you might want from a film a black man travelling in the deep south——outside the most mundane and pedestrian. "Wow, racism is bad isn't it?" it seems to scream at every turn, while never once really engaging with the subject matter at a deeper level. Really, we've gone beyond that point in cinema now right? Hell, Black Panther had far, far more engaging points than this film. So yeah, this film really struggled to survive after you cracked through its wafer-thin shell. It honestly didn't have a lot to say in any really deep way, and while you might enjoy the story on the surface, it's hard to really take it seriously when you take a deeper look.

34. Vice

Directed by Adam McKay

Look, this just wasn't a great film. I thought there'd be a certain amount of fun from the portrayals from Christian Bale as Dick Cheney, and Sam Rockwell as George Dubya, but while Christian Bale is serviceable, after a while it starts to feel a little like a caricature (which fits with the overall irreverent feel of the film from the somewhat odious Adam McKay). And Sam Rockwell is fun, but he gets very little screen time. Overall though, this fails because of the same stylistic choices Adam McKay made in The Big Short, a film I found equally vacuous. There's some commentary to be made later in the film——suggesting that it was the Bush/Cheney administration (and in particular Dick Cheney), which led to the current state of American politics. It's probably a good point to make, but this wasn't the right film to make it. It's a shame.

35. Christopher Robin

Directed by Marc Forster

This was, conceptually, a real mess. The idea is that Christopher Robin, best friend of Winnie-The-Pooh, has grown up, and no longer visits the Hundred Acre Wood. Instead, he has a menial job and a family to support. Pooh goes looking for him one day and causes havoc in the real world. It professes to have things to say about lost childhood—and indeed, I could see a better film based around the same kind of concept. But this is only so good. Fortunately, this is only up for Best Visual Effects, and there is something to that, with the compositing of the characters being relatively well done—indeed, there is an achievement in so well blending the cartoonish qualities of the animals with the real world, and not letting either feel misplaced. But that's a technical achievement in a film that had some fundamental cinematic flaws. And let's face it: Paddington and Paddington 2 had the same technical achievements, and used them in far, far superior films.

36. Avengers: Infinity War

Directed by Anthony & Joe Russo

Eh... I don't even really know what to say about this aside from the things I've already made mention of in the better superhero films ahead of this. My problems with this are twofold: firstly, as I mentioned above, the stakes in this film are so high as to be meaningless. I don't care about Thanos having the power to destroy the universe——it's at a level that has no personal resonance. And I honestly can't see anyone in the audience on the edge of their seat going "oh no, what happens if Thanos gets the last Infinity Stone??". Secondly, and this is a problem with all of the Avengers films to date: the cast is so large that the screen time of any one character is limited, and the ability to give anyone a convincing personal storyline even more so. That doesn't stop the Russos from trying though, and to their minor credit, things are helped somewhat by splitting the Avengers into distinct sub-plots which we jump between. But that only helps a certain amount. Overall, this felt like a pretty underwhelming, and slightly cynical entry in the Marvel money machine.

37. Ready Player One

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Do you remember when Steven Spielberg was a good director? I don't even mean, like, a visionary director: creator of blockbusters, classics like E.T. and Indiana Jones. I just mean good. Solid filmmaking with a good conceit and laudable subject matter. Because fuck me if it isn't a long, long time since we've seen that man. The latest in a string of stink-bombs from Spielberg is Ready Player One, and let's be fair to him, this is a stink-bomb intrinsically. All Spielberg does is put it up on screen, perhaps, you might even say, competently. Because the entire conceit of this film is straight up balls. Spielberg just either lacks the insight or the will to turn it into something, anything, slightly better. Story-wise, it's plain and simple wish-fulfillment for every single incel dude on the internet who dreams of a time when their encyclopaedic knowledge of pop culture is the one thing that can save the world. That was how Ernest Cline's book was described to me, and that's how this film plays out as well. It's absolutely a concept that we do not need, in any case, but specifically, there's also this weird jarring inconsistency with the vague semblance of plot, and the pop culture references, which are honestly crowbarred in in such a way that they're actively, continuously distracting. And when they're distracting, rather than intrinsic to the film, you just realise how much of a rotting pustule the concept is. And there's some straight up trash in the story too. Plot concepts that are laughable, characterisations that are moronic, or cut-out caricatures, dialogue that made me actively cringe, or (occasionally) actually moan out loud in pain. And let's not talk about the whole "utterly conventionally attractive woman says 'oh, no one could ever love me because I'm hideous and deformed' so our protagonist shows her she's beautiful", oh god I guess I just talked about it so excuse me while I go and vomit for a few seconds. In many ways, I'm grateful that this film came around at the Oscars this year. If it weren't for Ready Player One, Avengers: Infinity War would have taken out the bottom spot. And it didn't deserve this. Few films, in fact, deserve the bottom spot in the way Ready Player One does. It's the kind of film that I really hope at some point people stop making—it actively, I believe, makes the world a worse place, by reinforcing and fortifying a particular type of toxic attitude. There are much better uses that you could put a competent director to. Shame on Spielberg. Alright, now that I've had my moment of catharsis. You might have noticed above that I said I'd watched all of the "feature films", not all of the nominees. The reason why I've not seen all of the nominees is two-fold this year. For one, one of the Animated Shorts seems not to be available by any legitimate means this year. And secondly, I honestly just ran out of time to watch all of the Documentary Short Subject nominees, although if today goes well, I'll watch some this afternoon and evening before the Oscars telecast. If so I'll update this list. The Live Action Shorts tend to dominate this year, because they were brutal and unforgiving, and had more emotional power than just about any of the long form films this year. They were honestly exceptional pieces of filmmaking. I'd say you need to watch them, but in truth there's things in there I wouldn't inflict on the unwilling. The exception is my top film, which manages an emotional punch without the side of existential horror. Here's my ordering, anyway.

Marguerite (live action)

Detainment (live action)

Skin (live action)

One Small Step (animated)

Mother (live action)

A Night At The Garden (documentary)

Fauve (live action)

Bao (animated)

Weekends (animated)

Animal Behaviour (animated)

Let's fill in the Oscars Ballot. As always, this is how I would vote given the nominees. There are other nominees I might like to consider, and films that didn't get recognised at all (did no one go and see Disobedience for instance?). But I've limited myself to just the 3-5 candidates in each category: Best Picture: Roma Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón (Roma) Best Actress: Olivia Colman (The Favourite) Best Actor: Willem Dafoe (At Eternity's Gate) Best Supporting Actress: Regina Kind (If Beale Street Could Talk) Best Supporting Actor: Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) Best Original Screenplay: First Reformed Best Adapted Screenplay: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Best Animated Feature: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Best Foreign Language Film: Roma (with apologies to Never Look Away) Best Documentary Feature: Free Solo Best Documentary Short: A Night at the Garden Best Live Action Short: Marguerite Best Animated Short: One Small Step Best Original Score: Mary Poppins Returns Best Original Song: "Shallow" from A Star Is Born Best Sound Editing: First Man Best Sound Mixing: First Man Best Production Design: Roma Best Cinematography: Roma Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Border Best Costume Design: Black Panther Best Film Editing: The Favourite Best Visual Effects: Solo: A Star Wars Story Until next year, then, folks, when I should really try to break my streak of seeing all the films. Otherwise, this is going to become a chore.

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