It is by now a well-established fact that, for some reason, I am garbage when it comes to writing in interesting ways about the big and fancy elements of film-making that everyone pays attention to and loves (aka acting, writing, and directing). Would you like to read 500 words on why the ambient sound in Eighth Grade is a vital and unmissable contribution to the narrative of human progress? Great, because that's totally what I'm going to post after today's post. For whatever reason, I can wax rhapsodic for decades about the below-the-line filmic craft, but, if pressed to say nice things about actors, I come up inevitably wanting. So, in order to save us all time (it's absolutely punishing and ridiculous how much I have to put off just to grab an hour to write this, and I imagine it's even worse for those of you who take time out of your busy lives to pass your eyes over these silly little scribbles), I'm going to just go ahead and not try to be compelling about these categories. Rather than writing a few thousand words, I'll just present my top 5 in each category, followed by some brief comments on the whole field. I tried this format out last year, and I think it went fairly well, so I'm primed trot it out again.
So here we go: I've queued up the Greatest Showman soundtrack for the 50th time (why is this my go-to movie-writing music), I've made some lists, and I'm ready for love.
(Of course Zac Efron chimed in on the soundtrack once I wrote that. Take me Zac! Take me away from this place!).
Best Actress
5. Melissa McCarthy-Can You Ever Forgive Me
4. Emma Stone-The Favourite
3. Olivia Colman-The Favourite
2. Carey Mulligan-Wildlife
1. Toni Colette-Hereditary
Honorable mention: Regina Hall-Support the Girls
What a spectacular category--and the next five in my list would have been just as great (sorry ____ Julia Roberts, Viola Davis, Elsie Fisher, Constance Wu et al). Special kudos should be given to the raucous and fleet-footed duets in The Favourite, as well as McCarthy proving (again) how talented she is, and depths from which she can pull. But this category belongs to the top two women (both of whom I had listed as #1 in the course of the year). Carey Mulligan is arguably one of the most underrated young actresses working, and her mid-life crisis mother in Wildlife is a singular and vivid construction. But I have to give Colette the slight edge--maybe for her dinner monologue, maybe for convincingly working through, around, and without her grief while making ghoulish miniatures, and definitely for the way her faces changes in one pivotal ending scene.
Actor
5. Tomasz Kot-Cold War
4. Lucas Hedges-Ben is Back
3. Ryan Gosling-First Man
2. Bradley Cooper-A Star is Born
1. Ethan Hawke-First Reformed
Honorable mention: Ah-In Yoo-Burning
I'll admit that this category has some of the less interesting offerings of the year (a fact no doubt compounded by how many movies from this year I've yet to see), so it was the easiest thing in the world to give the gold to Hawke's genius unhinged man of the cloth--a performance massive and undeniable enough to win any competition in most years (except, apparently, the Oscars, who would rather give their award to a pair of semi-sentient prosthetic teeth). Still, I appreciated both Gosling and Cooper playing with (and denying) their own star images in their respective films, as well as Hedges for finding a real person amid the sillier aspects of the script he worked with.
Supporting Actress
5. Dolly Wells-Can You Ever Forgive Me?
4. Elizabeth Debicki-Widows
3. Regina King-If Beale Street Could Talk
2. Jong-Seo Jun-Burning
1. Rachel Weisz-The Favorite
Honorable mention: Michelle Yeoh-Crazy Rich Asians
What an unbelievably difficult category to narrow down! There are a good 15 women that I considered here, and the top 8 were nigh-impossible to rank against each other (sorry, Cynthia Erivo and Blake Lively--your time is coming!). That said, the top two were miles away from the others. Jong-Seo Jun's debut performance is a legitimately haunting and constantly surprising tangle of pyschosexual tensions, bold lies, and some truly, mind-bogglingly insane choices. It was awfully tempting to put this in the top spot, but ultimately, I couldn't deny Weisz her crown--how long has it been since we've seen a director and performer as totally in sync with each other's deranged visions as Weisz and Lanthimos. She knows the exact robot affections and breakneck, playful deadness that the material requires, and she imbues the proceedings with her own hidden warmth. How often do we get a performance so dead-eyed and bold, so tongue-in-cheek and emotionally raw? How many actresses could make 18th century hip-hop dancing convincing as a wild expression of joy, a demonstration of power, and, bizarrely, an act of love? This might be the performance of the year.
Supporting Actor
5. Michael B. Jordan-Black Panther
4. Timothée Chalamet-Beautiful Boy
3. Nicholas Hoult-The Favourite
2. Richard E. Grant-Can You Ever Forgive Me?
1. Steven Yeun-Burning
Honorable mention: Josh Hamilton-Eighth Grade
Lots of great work here--points to Jordan for making the first emotionally compelling villain in Marvel history, and Timmy for winning the 'best performance in a movie I hate with every fiber of my being' award. Special points here for poor Nicholas Hoult: I absolutely love this new phase of his career (from bland pretty young thing to totally unhinged character actor), but, after this and Mad Max, what is he going to have to do to get the world at large to take him seriously as an actor? Grant's irascibly bitchy work in Can You... is fantastic, but I've got to give the laurels to Steven Yeun for his study in charismatic coiled panther deadness.
Director
5. Ryan Coogler-Black Panther
4. Bo Burnham-Eighth Grade
3. Yorgos Lanthimos-The Favourite
2. Alfonso Cuaron-Roma
1. Luca Guadagnino-Suspiria
Honorable mention: Pawel Pawlikowski-Cold War
The fifth spot was a toss-up between Coogler, Pawlikowski, and Chang-Dong Lee for Burning, but I ended up leaning toward Coogler, as it must have been a brutal and unholy fight to be allowed to inscribe that much personality, intelligence, and conflict into the tried-and-tested Marvel format. Burnham should also be getting showered in prizes for the deranged, horror-movie aesthetic he brings to a movie about middle schoolers. The top three are each towering achievements in their own right, and I almost went with Cuaron for degree of difficulty alone, but the heart wants what it wants, and what my heart apparently wants is ballerina witches killing each other in dusty basements.
Original Screenplay
5. Roma
4. Hereditary
3. Eighth Grade
2. First Reformed
1. The Favourite
Fun mix of genres and ideas here--from Roma's deeply personal story given epic scale to Hereditary's exploration of grief as a festering illness decorated with severed heads and Eighth Grade staging the War of the Roses on Instagram. It's tempting to let First Reformed's bleary doomsday calls walk away with the win here (if only to make Paul Schrader smile, as he clearly needs it), but how could anyone pick anything other than the wit, wackiness, and alien affections of The Favourite?
Adapted Screenplay
5. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
4. Burning
3. Black Panther
2. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
1. Suspiria
I admire so much about everything here: Spider-Man's go-for-broke reinterpretation is a pretty staggering achievement, as is Black Panther's herculean wrangling of a creatively exhausted story structure, or Can You...'s brittle and warm fascination with friendship in the face of oblivion. But I've already spent too many words gushing over Suspiria's endlessly complex and challenging insights, so I'll just say that any movie that grants us a line as iconic as "my daughter is the shame I smeared on the world" is never going to struggle to earn my giddy devotion.
And that's that for today! Tomorrow (or Saturday? My schedule tomorrow is ridiculous) I'll jump into the crafts categories, and that'll be (almost) it for the 2018 cinematic year! (Of course I'll still find a moment to pop by with some final Oscar predictions, because it's what I do, and I have an illness.)
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