The Best to Worst Films of 2018 – According to Tom

Written by Tom

‘Tis the time of year to look back at everything you’ve done over the past 12 months and then mercilessly segment them into a series of ranked lists. As this is (somewhat) a film blog, here are all the films that I’ve watched this year organised from my most loved to my most hated.

Please Note: Films which were technically released in 2017 but that I saw in cinemas during 2018 are included in this list. Films released in 2017 which I caught up on via other means (BluRay, streaming, etc) are not.

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The Top Ten

1. I, Tonya
There’s no one single thing that makes this film brilliant to me, it’s just that everything it does is exactly how I like things to be done. I love the actors; I love the script; I love the visuals; I love the directing style; I love the themes; I love the subtexts. It’s the only film where I’ve been in constant awe of the expressions the actors keep pulling; I keep wanting to pause the film and make the latest shot my desktop background. It’s basically perfect. I love it.

2. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
This year’s equivalent of mother! in the contentiousness stakes. I deeply respect this film: it builds a collection of working class characters and treats their issues, concerns and actions with dignity, even while mildly mocking them. We don’t have to necessarily agree with them but we do come to understand them. It’s a film of genuine complexity which asks us to draw our own moral boundaries, and I’ve been thinking about it constantly since watching it in January.

3. Isle of Dogs
This is just a really satisfying film to look at. I can’t understand why more directors don’t design their shots like Wes Anderson does here; the visual style deserves to be the new pallbearer for what animation can do. It’s better than A Dog’s Purpose at any rate.

Solo: A Star Wars Review (Warning – here there be spoliers)

Written by Dan. It’s the fourth Disney Star Wars film, the second of the ‘Star Wars Story’ lines (after Rouge One). Set somewhere in between Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars IV: A New Hope. We find the galaxy under the rule of the evil empire. On the shipbuilding world of Corellia a young man known as Han longs to escape and see the galaxy. So he and his partner Qi’ra, having been doing on and off jobs for local mobs, hatch a plan to get past boarder control and get of the planet. But, things do not quite go to plan. I’m going to tell you now that I like this film, it’s not a prefect film and there are flaws, but overall its a fun space swashbuckling adventure. Here, I’m going to explore as much as I can remember, so if the title of this review didn’t get the message across, I’ll tell you again – there will be plenty of spoilers throughout, so go see the film first. Also, if you haven’t seen the film, my review is so rambling it relies on you to do some of the work. Okay, here we go…

There’s a lot of fan service in this film, in many ways the film is a series of episodes, each new episode giving a little more detail as to how Han become who he is, how he met certain people, and how he acquired certain items. At times, it does get a little too much, for example when Han goes to sign up to join the Empire as a pilot – this is enough to tell the viewer how Han actually became a pilot, furthermore its an interesting backstory in showing the lengths he had to go to in order to escape Corellia and to learn to fly (especially when we consider he’ll later join the Rebellion, it cements him as a scoundrel who uses opportunities to his advantage, as opposed to others (a perspective which, as we know, will change over the course of the Star Wars timeline)). When the imperial officer, however, asks for Han’s last name and he’s unable to provide one, the Imperial officer simply gives him the surname Solo as a formality – it’s delivery feels so squeezed in, and considering Solo is one of the less elaborate surnames in the franchise it also seems a little irrelevant. This said, as cheese as it might be, it’s a moment which has grown on me. Upon further reflection I think it’s quite a nice touch, it’s just delivered badly. A lot of the dialogue in the opening scenes does feel ‘clunky’, there’s too much exposition, to the point where it feels forced. Once the exposition is out of the way the dialogue, and the dialogue between the characters becomes a lot easy. What is more, as I shall get onto, is that as the film goes on there’s plenty of events which the film just actively refuses to explain. As the film goes on, it just encourages you to go with it.