Thursday, 3 January 2019

Top 10 Most Surprising Films Of 2018


For a few years now, I’ve been making it a point to highlight the most surprising films of the year; the ones I went into not expecting anything worthwhile, yet walked away impressed in one way or another. I usually take the time to list the most disappointing films as well, but in a showing of just good 2018 was for films, the disappointments were honestly few and far between. As for the surprises, they’re not just surprisingly good; most of them came from filmmakers I never would have expected to be capable of anything as watchable as the films I’m about to get into. Here are my picks for the 10 most surprising films of 2018.

#10: I Want To Eat Your Pancreas
Winner of the “Best Movie Name Ever” award, I’ll admit that I didn’t even know what I was expecting from this. All I knew going in was that that name was attached to a real movie at the cinemas, and I would be damned if I was going to let it pass me by. What sounded like a cannibalistic horror flick from the offset wound up being a light-hearted coming-of-age romance… you wot, mate? Honestly, the reason why this makes the list is because it is such a glorious clusterfuck of a movie, constantly teetering between the romance and the more morbid side of things, that I can easily say I haven’t seen anything quite like it. It didn’t reinvent sick-lit or anything, but it’s still a mindfrag generator of the highest calibre.


2018 wasn’t exactly a great year for Aussie cinema. It turned out well for Aussie creatives working abroad, but on the home front, not much of it managed to surpass being merely watchable. That combined with the usual willingness to put anything home-grown on the big screen, regardless of whether it should be there or not, and I’ll admit that I wasn’t expecting anything from this. As I’ve been saying for years now, I am more than happy to admit when I’m wrong, and oh boy, did I underestimate this feature.

What looked like a bog-standard attempt to cash-in on YA adaptation tropes, in the same year where third-wave YA films were preparing for the end, wound up being a pretty damn good example of those tropes and how to do them justice. Not only that, it’s a cinematic presentation of human empathy at its most powerful and its most draining, one that genuinely warmed my heart when first watching it. Lead actress Jessica Falkholt sadly won’t see this, having met a tragic end months before the film’s release, but her performance here as the title character was one of my absolute favourites of the entire year. Because it feels good knowing that someone else knows what being an empath feels like.


This one is relatively low on the list because, in all honesty, this is still a PureFlix movie. It still contains the same ‘preaching to the choir’ tone as the bulk of their oeuvre, and there remains an unavoidable stench of duplicity at its core. But even with that in mind, I am genuinely surprised to see a David A. R. White production that shows this much willingness to, y’know, not vilify anyone that doesn’t wear a cross around their neck. The closest any of these films have gotten to showing realistic characters, this serves as a more personal view of faith, open to showing dissenting opinions without feeling the outright need to turn them into strawmen meant to be knocked down and further sanctify the ‘heroes’. I actively made it a point to wait for this film to come out on home media before checking it out, so I could rent it and check it out while contributing as little money to the PureFlix machine as possible. What irony that the one time I chose to do that is when they made a film I honestly wouldn’t mind paying ticket prices to see. Matinee ticket prices, admittedly, but ticket prices nonetheless.


Sometimes, what seems to be irredeemably terrible is just a matter of not being used in the right context. I mean, when taking kingpin of hilariously crap filmmaking Tommy Wiseau, and putting him in a film that looks like it actually has a budget behind it, it is quite shocking that the results turned out this good. I’d been hearing jokes about The Room’s original script and how Johnny was originally meant to be a vampire for years now, but it’s not until these films that I realised that that might have been a really good fucking idea. It certainly would’ve put Wiseau more in his element, as his portrayal here of a literal gold-digging mortician is quite enjoyable. And when backed with Justin MacGregor’s occasionally eye-popping approach to visuals, and Greg Sestero showing that he could make for a solid breakout as a legit screenwriter, it becomes the centrepiece for a pretty gratifying continuation of the Wiseau/Sestero story.


Even more so than Game Over, Man!, this is the Point Grey production that I was most apprehensive about. No production studio is perfect, and with the story here of overprotective parents trying to joy-kill their kids’ prom night, I thought that this would be the inevitable moment where shit went downhill. However, while I prepared myself for a limp reworking of the American Pie rom-com formula, what I got was an incredibly astute and kick-ass look at the double standards regarding sex between men and women.

Looking at the age-old notion that sex is a thing that happens to women and rightly kicking it square in the teeth, this depiction of three high school friends preparing to lost their virginities on prom night and the different outcomes that follow honestly made me immensely proud that we as a species were dispelling what has become a quite hazardous myth in the world of sexual politics. While other films like Colette would use feminine sexuality as a springboard for much broader themes, this film warmed itself closest to my heart because, honestly, I’m pretty fucking sick of the idea that women should be ashamed of sex. Well done, Kay Cannon; if this is you on your first outing as a director, I eagerly await what comes next.


Gnomeo & Juliet is one of the worst films I’ve ever sat through. Just… the fucking worst, to the point where no amount of decent acting is enough to excuse how every single decision behind it is astoundingly wrong. I was looking forward to a sequel to this as much as I was looking forward to a sequel to Vacation (2015); degloving sounds like a less painful option. Well, lo and behold, that sequel Sherlock Gnomes managed to transcend both its predecessor and its eyeroll-worthy title to deliver that had actual effort put into it. Aside from managing to give us a halfway-decent Sherlock Holmes yarn, in a year where the more ‘official’ depiction was utter garbage, it showed a respectability level of visual creativity and quite a bit of loveable insanity.

Maybe it went a little too insane in places, since there are still many moments that feel like they come right out of nowhere (I guess 2018 was just the year for inexplicable musical numbers in Sherlock movies), but when it gained some lucidity, it honestly came out with some choice dialogue. “A man won’t make you strong, but the right partner can make you stronger” is a fucking amazing line, and thinking back on it, I can’t help but see a lot of truth in it. Certainly rings true to what my current relationship feels like.


Even as someone who will walk the long mile to champion family films, I never would’ve expected that something like this was even possible: An animated film about a Yeti tribe interacting with humans that delves into heavy subject matter like religion, nationalism and how much the control of information affects people on a personal and sociocultural level. I’m not going to completely fall head over heels and call this film a masterpiece or anything, as James Corden singing a karaoke rewrite of Under Pressure isn’t exactly something I needed in my life, but holy shit, this is one of the most daring family films I’ve ever had the fortune to watch. Much like Toy Story 3, I will happily point towards this movie as a shining example of why products made for children shouldn’t be held to an immediately-lower standard to everything else; good family films exist, and when they’re at their best, they can provide material that would be challenging even for older audiences.


A no-one-asked-for sequel to one of the most hollow examples of a ‘chick flick’, written and directed by someone who has made a career out of wasting the talents of solid actors on absolute drivel. When the original film is one that even pre-critic me knew wasn’t worth dealing with, what were the chances that its belated follow-up was gonna be any more deserving of my or anyone else’s time? Well, whatever those odds are, writer/director Oli Parker managed to beat them and deliver something that seems to actively correct everything the original failed at.

Intentionally self-conscious singing replaced with actual musical talent, managing to make me warm up to a group that I’ve never really taken a shine to. Utter lack of narrative structure replaced with a tangible story, giving this jukebox musical a reason to exist beyond stringing ABBA songs together. And an exceptionally trite approach to emotional engagement replaced with moments that, and I have no shame in admitting this, got me more than a bit misty-eyed while watching them.


Never before have I jumped so quickly at the opportunity to review a film. An official write-up for FilmInk, I had seen some trailers and posters kicking about for this for a while but I hadn’t really paid it much mind. Then, in the press kit for the movie that I got sent along with the invitation, I noticed that Eli Roth was listed as the director, something that most of the marketing hadn't even brought up. Eli Roth, the guy who made his name on old-school gore and immensely irritating characters, who earlier the same year had given us the travesty that is Death Wish, was now going to helm a fantasy film for all ages. It’s such a hard left-turn that I had no choice to check it out for myself.

And what I got was basically Eli Roth’s own version of The Shape Of Water: A film that distilled the sensibilities present in all of his other films, crystallising his aesthetic into a singular vision. All of his fascinations with the morbid, the macabre, the monstrous, were laid bare and given a sense of agency that I never would’ve been able to give him on my own. I may still have my misgivings with a lot of Roth’s filmography, but after watching this, I at least have a better idea of why they are the way they are.


This was the point where I knew that 2018 was going to be something special. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, two filmmakers that I held a sizeable grudge against for giving me the single worst film I’ve ever sat through with Vacation 2015, had made a good movie. Not just a good movie, but a fucking great movie, giving them the chance to truly show their way with darker humour while injecting some palpable action thrills in the process. It’s such an unexpected combination of genuine laughs, genuine smarts and genuine tension that it actually made me drop my guard and finally give these guys a break for their past actions.

As someone who freely admits to taking cinematic slights rather personally, being able to redeem themselves for a film that represents everything I hate about both the film world and the real world is no small feat. But indeed, that is just how good this film is. While this isn’t the only redemption story of 2018, considering some of the other entries on this list along with features like the upcoming Instant Family, it remains the one that filled me with the most hope. If 2018 could make me forgive the people behind one of the worst things I’ve ever seen, it could do just about anything.

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