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.
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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