2018 Mofo Film Awards

Best Film of The Year (5/10)

MANDY*
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
FIRST REFORMED*
EIGHTH GRADE*
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
ANNIHILATION*
THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
LEAVE NO TRACE*
PADDINGTON 2
ROMA

I almost nominated Roma for this but ultimately decided not to as I figured I was unlikely to vote for it anyway. I guess it's an okay winner, though I obviously prefer other nominees.

Worst Film of the Year (4/5)

DEATH WISH
THE 15:17 TO PARIS*
FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD*
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY*
THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX*

Was The Predator really that bad? Maybe you all should watch Death Wish and get back to me on that. Anyway, this is obviously a stacked field - perhaps too stacked as any of those winning would be fine by me to the point where picking was hard. Let's break it down - The Cloverfield Paradox was a bland mess, perhaps too bland to deserve the vote. The 15:17 to Paris was arguably Clint at his worst but he's always been kind of bad and this is almost bad in an interesting way (try looking up some of the analytical defences of this film as a postmodern Bressonian masterpiece on Letterboxd sometime), so in a way it was almost too idiosyncratic to truly hate. Fantastic Beasts - okay, this was a close one as it is an interminable and charmless mess of a movie that readily encapsulates the worst of franchise filmmaking, J.K. Rowling's capacity (or lack thereof) for storytelling and world-building (especially in a cinematic medium), and any kind of entertainment value whatsoever. But no, I had to pick Bohemian Rhapsody because of the reasons I outlined in my previous post - it's not merely a bad movie like the rest of the nominees, it's almost sacrilegious.

Best Director of the Year (0/5)

Lynne Ramsay, YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
Spike Lee, BLACKKKLANSMAN
Boots Riley, SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
Debra Granik, LEAVE NO TRACE
Barry Jenkins, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
Alex Garland, ANNIHILATION
Alfonso Cuaron, ROMA

The only category in which none of my noms made it and, as with so many of the categories that featured Roma, I figured I could afford to not vote for it.

Best Actor of the Year (3/5)

Joaquin Phoenix, YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE*
Nicolas Cage, MANDY
Ethan Hawke, FIRST REFORMED*
Willem Dafoe, AT ETERNITY'S GATE
Ben Foster, LEAVE NO TRACE*
Bradley Cooper, A STAR IS BORN

Of course it ends up going to the only Oscar-nominated performance on the list. Once again, ya boring.

Best Actress of the Year (3/5)

Toni Collette, HEREDITARY*
Olivia Colman, THE FAVOURITE*
Yalitza Aparicio, ROMA*
Elsie Fisher, EIGHTH GRADE
Helena Howard, MADELINE'S MADELINE

I didn't love Hereditary like so many other people did, but Collette's work in it is undeniable.

Best Supporting Actor of the Year (1/5)

Hugh Grant, PADDINGTON 2
Tim Blake Nelson, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
Dolph Lundgren, CREED II
Mahershala Ali, GREEN BOOK*
Michael B. Jordan, BLACK PANTHER
Adam Driver, BLACKKKLANSMAN

Not too fussed about any of the nominees in this category (except Yeun, if only because I still haven't seen Burning) so...I guess this is fine?

Best Supporting Actress of the Year (3/5)

Tilda Swinton, SUSPIRIA*
Regina King, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK*
Thomasin Harcourt Mackenzie, LEAVE NO TRACE
Rachel Weisz, THE FAVOURITE*
Claire Foy, FIRST MAN
Emma Stone, THE FAVOURITE

Whatever.

Best Screenplay of the Year (3/5)

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU*
THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
FIRST REFORMED*
EIGHTH GRADE*
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
THE FAVOURITE

Guess I'm not as amused by Lanthimos' particular brand of deadpan insanity as I used to be.

Best Animated Film of the Year (4/5)

ISLE OF DOGS*
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE*
INCREDIBLES 2*
MIRAI*
THE NIGHT IS SHORT, WALK ON GIRL!

I very nearly picked Isle of Dogs for this, but screw it, like it would have made a difference.

Best Documentary Film of the Year (2/5)

THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD*
MINDING THE GAP*
DISTANT SKY
FREE SOLO*
SHIRKERS
WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?

Won't You Be My Neighbor? still hasn't come out here - guess it's hard to get people to care about Mr. Rogers around these parts. Minding the Gap, on the other hand, is very much my kind of documentary.

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year (3/5)

ROMA*
COLD WAR*
SHOPLIFTERS*
LET THE CORPSES TAN
CLIMAX

Still waiting for Burning to come out here. In the meantime, another instance where Roma is such a lock that I could afford to vote for literally anything else, so why not Shoplifters? (With all due respect to Cold War, of course).

Biggest Surprise of the Year (3/5)

MANDY*
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
CLIMAX
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE*
EIGHTH GRADE*

As I've noted before, I reckon picking "biggest surprise" should be the opposite of "biggest disappointment" in that it should be about acknowledging films that turned out far better than you could have ever expected (though I did still pick some of the more obvious out-of-nowhere examples like Sorry to Bother You or Eighth Grade). While Mandy arguably qualifies in this regard (it could've turned out like any number of trashy Nic Cage movies of recent years but surprisingly it's the best thing he's done in ages), Spider-Verse also deserves it because I have to admit that nothing about the promotional material (especially not the stinger at the end of Venom) made me think this would be some kind of masterpiece.

Biggest Disappointment of the Year (2/5)

MUTE*
PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING*
RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET
SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

So yeah, there were only two real choices for me here. While Uprising was a very underwhelming follow-up to a thoroughly enjoyable blockbuster, I had to give it to Mute because the anticipation was so much higher over Duncan Jones finally returning to the futuristic world he'd created with his breakthrough hit Moon after the comparative disappointments of both Source Code and Warcraft. However, it may well be his worst film yet as it's just a messy and unpleasant piece of cyberpunk that was definitely not worth waiting the better part of a decade for.

Most Overrated Film of the Year (4/5)

DEADPOOL 2
SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY*
VICE*
GREEN BOOK*
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY*
BLACK PANTHER

You had one job, people. Any of these other nominees - the Star Wars version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, more condescending liberalism from Adam McKay, an honest-to-God Best Picture winner about how Racism Is Over, and your pick for Worst Movie of the Year - would've been just fine, and yet you had to go after the one film on here that was even remotely decent? This category needs to be scrapped.

Most Underrated Film of the Year (1/5)

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
FIRST REFORMED
SUSPIRIA
WIDOWS*
THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
ANNIHILATION
UPGRADE

Unfortunately, I seem to be one of the people who underrates Upgrade (it's okay but I didn't love it). Not exactly disappointed that it didn't win, though.

Most Memorable Scene of the Year (2/5)

The final ritual, SUSPIRIA
The snap, AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR*
The rescue, YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
Opening number, CLIMAX
The reveal, SORRY TO BOTHER YOU*

Maybe the most unsurprising win of them all here (and another one where I figured I could afford to not vote for it).

Funniest Scene (2/5)

Buster in the saloon, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
Time-travel montage, TEEN TITANS GO! TO THE MOVIES*
Post-credits scene, SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE*
Biker fight, MANDY
Closing number, PADDINGTON 2

Damn right. Honourable mention to my other nominee, the Teen Titans montage because I honestly reckon it manages to render the dark humour of incapacitating (and reviving) its heroes better than the blandly gory helicopter sequence from Deadpool 2 could ever hope to, and the fact that it's all done in a bright and colourful kids' movie just makes it all the more brilliant.

Mixed Bag of the Year (1/5)

THE PREDATOR
HEREDITARY
THE FAVOURITE
HALLOWEEN
AQUAMAN*

I already outlined my criteria for mixed bag and I'm glad that so many other people seem to agree with me that Aquaman is perhaps the perfect mixed-bag movie that is alternately fun and stupid, whereas films like First Man and You Were Never Really Here are quite simply too good for this category.

Best Cast of the Year (2/5)

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS*
WIDOWS*
PADDINGTON 2
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

Another close call where I'm glad at least one of my nominees made it.

Best Cinematography of the Year (3/5)

CLIMAX
MANDY*
ROMA*
COLD WAR*
SUSPIRIA

I figured Roma was a lock so it didn't need my help, besides which so many images from Mandy are burned into my brain anyway.

Breakout Performance of the Year (4/5)

Elsie Fisher, EIGHTH GRADE*
Helena Howard, MADELINE'S MADELINE
Lady Gaga, A STAR IS BORN*
Yalitza Aparicio, ROMA*
Thomasin Harcourt Mackenzie, LEAVE NO TRACE*

Tough category this year as all of the nominees had to effectively carry the entire films (except maybe Wolff), but Fisher was the right choice (and Mackenzie a close second).

Best Score (1/5)

MANDY*
SUSPIRIA
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
HALLOWEEN
ISLE OF DOGS
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

A very respectable winner. I forgot to swap it in for Halloween before sending my initial nominees and I still ultimately voted for the droney doom of Mandy but I'm perfectly okay with Beale Street winning.

Best Visual Effects (3/5)

ANNIHILATION*
FIRST MAN*
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT
AQUAMAN*
MORTAL ENGINES
AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

I'm sorry, but I will never not think of Infinity War's special effects without thinking of this tweet: