The Final Entry THE TOP TEN films of 2018!

Here we are! I won't pontificate as I usually do before an entry like this since the suspense is killing you. So here they are.

10) "Ms. Hyde" - Serge Bozon

Wow, the study of the duality of the human mind can be so...Damn, I'm actually making myself yawn. Most of the additions into the whole Jeckle and Hyde concept are insipid and obvious, aren't they? Tripe. But "Ms. Hyde" bursts out of the model and shoves its revolutionary ideas on the story right down your throat. The rare film of this series of stories that has just a bit of profundity.

9) "Disobedience" - Sebastian Lelio

Sebastian Lelio's follow-up to 2017's Oscar-winning "A Fantastic Woman" is every inch as good as its predecessor, maybe even better. When her father dies, Ronit (Rachel Weisz) is called back to her Orthodox Jewish home. She gets there only to be confronted by Esti (Rachel McAdams,) the love of her youth. With their affair reignited, they are once again faced with the question of how to respond to their conservative community. The real drama is between the two women and Esti's husband Dovid (Alessandro Nivola.) What pulls your heartstrings most in this film is the contrast between Esti and Ronit's joyous homecoming and watching this good man's heartbreak in real time as he slowly realizes what's going on.

8) "Beautiful Boy" - Felix van Groeningen

"Beautiful Boy" follows David (Steve Carell,) a father desperately trying to save his son Jasper (Timothée Chamalet) who is struggling with an addiction to crystal-meth. We follow the duo in the present and back to when Jasper was young, juxtaposing the effed-up junkie with the adorable, loving son David raised. In the end, "Beautiful Boy" is a film about the intimate and heart-rending between father and son. When a boy suffers, the father feels the pain. He matches his son's pain, blow for blow and hurt for hurt. Groningen, director of 2012's "The Broken Circle Breakdown," a film about a man struggling with finding a way to break through the grief of losing his daughter, is no rookie when it comes to telling stories of heartbreak and fatherhood. So just a warning, if you are a father this film will make you cry.

7) "The Favourite" - Yorgos Lanthimos

"The Favourite" demonstrates plainly that sexual politics are the most efficient to manipulate. They're also the most malicious. I don't know what I enjoyed watching more, the two vindictive-to-the-point-of-sadistic women vying for power and the queen's affections or just how delighted Queen Anne (Olivia Coleman) seems to watch it all play out in front of her. It's a very dark comedy that gleefully celebrates what it really means to be cruel.

6) "Hereditary" - Ari Aster

Oh my God, did this movie throw the template for horror films into a bonfire! "Hereditary" has no rules. Every character is vulnerable and the evil has no restraints and that's what makes it so horrifying. The film is so terrifying that you want to turn away but feels forced to face it just to see where the hell it goes.

5) "Hotel Artemis" - Drew Pearce

Bizarre for the sake of itself can be entertaining, but in the end, it's not a solid foundation for a film. Lucky "Hotel Artemis" earns the right, through strong stories and well-written characters, to be bizarre as it wants to be. A healer known as "the Nurse" (Jodie Foster) runs an underground makeshift hospital at a former hotel. The characters who come to her are desperate, naturally. But there are strict rules for anybody needing to be stitched-up. Writer/director Drew Pearce takes us on a ridiculously fun ride through a single night at the Armetis when the rules are for shit.

4) "Cold War" Pawel Pawlikowski

If you disagree with me that "Cold War" is one of the best films of the year, you have to concede that it's certainly the most beautiful. Director Pawel Pawlikowski and Cinematographer Lukasz Zal were nominated for Oscars for their work on this film. But good looks can only get you so far if you don't have a good story with solid characters. "Cold War" has both. We follow Zula (Joanna Kulig) and Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) chasing each other through the fifties both behind the Iron Curtain and on this one. They're first separated in a self-sabotaged escape from occupied Poland. After that, they come across each other every once in a while, longing to be reunited. "Cold War" is more than a celebration of impossible love though. There's the simple joy of life in every frame.

3) "Border" - Ali Abbasi

Most years, "Border" would easily take the top spot as the best film of the year. The fact that it's only number three is just a testament to how brilliant Boots Riley's and Anne Ramsay's offerings were. Tina (Eva Melander) is a Swedish customs officer with an aptitude for sniffing out all sorts of smugglers and criminals. She also has a physical deformity that makes her feel less than human. Then Vore ( Eero Milonof,) someone with the same deformity but incomparably high confidence comes along, questioning everything Tina had come to assume over her life. The film is really about monsters and how they are defined. We learn along with Tina that a deformity does not define a devil.

2) "You Were Never Really Here" - Anne Ramsay

If "We Need to Talk About Kevin" was Ramsay's "Reservoir Dogs" then "You Were Never Really Here" is her "Pulp Fiction." Lynne Ramsay's follow up to her disturbing 2011 masterpiece "We Need to Talk About Kevin" became iconic instantly when the film was released. She attempts to study and submit the psyche of a self-loathing, violent revenge-seeker and she nails it to the wall. She understands that the source of Joe's (Joaquin Phoenix) compulsion to rescue innocents and murder wrong-doers is an underlying sense of helplessness he's had beaten into him since he was a child. "YouWere Never Really Here" is basically a celebration of righteous violence and boy, is it glorious!

And here we are – the greatest film of 2018!

1) "Sorry to Bother You" - Boots Riley

With "Sorry to Bother You," Boots Riley delivers what is most likely the greatest dark comedy so far this century. Aside from the morbidity that glues the whole thing together, we're also looking at rare, biting and important satires you'll ever see. Desperate for money and employment, Cassius Green, a.k.a Cash (LaKieth Stanfield,) takes a job as a telemarketer. He quickly learns that the key to doing the job well, to pull down those fat commission checks, is to put on his white voice. His numbers skyrocket and get the attention of corporate. After that, Cash slowly sells off his soul, piece by piece as he repeatedly compromises his sense of ethics. In the end, Cash finds himself essentially, a slave trader. Finally, the powderkeg explodes as we see the truly sadistic underside of corporate America, our citizens' lackadaisical response to true evil and just how far a grassroots revolution can go.

The Oscars – Who Will Win, Who Ought To Win and Those Who Were Simply Screwed – Part 1: Who Were Left Out, Proving that Justice is Only an Abstract theoretical idea

We've already gone through which films will win and which ones ought to. So all the fanfare I can muscle from my PC, please enjoy – 

Which Films and Performances Were Criminally Overlooked 

Best Picture – Sorry to Bother You

Yes, this has been a great year for black movies and black filmmakers. We had "The Hate U Give," "Black Panther," and "BlacKkKlansman."
"The Hate U Give" gives us a visceral picture of what is happening right now on our streets, in this world, shown to us through the eyes of an innocent."
"Black Panther" came out and transformed the shallow messages in comic-book films to a legitimate tool for social change.

But one offering this year by Boots Riley, a first-time filmmaker was superior to the aforementioned films in every way. "Sorry to Bother You" is the film that shows us what America is becoming with wit, a scathing scream out to grab our attention and dares his audience to choose a side – those who ignore the way Americans are changing for the worse and those who can see our country's true face. 

Sebastian Lellio's "Disobedience"

Sebastian earned the attention of the world film community with 2017's "A Fantastic Woman." "Disobedience" builds on the themes he'd already established. The story of a rekindled love affair put away for years shines as a powerfully emotional drama where everything is at stake for each of those caught in this love triangle. Watch this film and I dare you not to cry. Go ahead, just try it.

Best Director – Anne Ramsay

Ramsey should've been recognized.for her taut, unsettling thriller "You Were Never Really Here," a frantic and disturbing film about the relationship justice has with violence. I want to proclaim Boots Riley the greatest filmmaker alive right now, but he needs to start a body of work and make sure he makes it clear to the wind that he's more than a true artist, he's also a force to be reckoned with. Ramsay has given us one masterpiece – "We Need to Talk About Kevin." With "You Were Never Really Here," she cements her place among great filmmakers.

Best Supporting Actor – Allesandro Nivola 

Allesandro Nivola shows us true heartbreak looks and feels like. Rabbi Dovid the tortured man when his wife's former lover, a woman from their past comes to town. He's forced to helplessly stand there, caught between lovers, his wife, and their childhood friend, in Sebastian Lellio's "Disobedience." The one thing we're sure of when watching the film is that no matter how this all shakes out, somebody's going to be left alone with a broken heart. 

So here's the trailer for "Disobedience," the film I've been raving about, the one that's not getting the love it deserves.

The Oscars – Who Will Win, Who Ought To Win and Those Who Were Simply Screwed – Part 2: Who Should Win

Okay, we've covered which films are the most likely to take home Oscar gold. But which movies are actually deserving? Who SHOULD win?

Best Picture – "BlacKkKlansman"

Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman" may not be a sweeping epic (have you ever wondered why film critics use the word "sweeping" so much? Meh. When in Rome) like "Roma," the frontrunner this year, but it's the only film, with bigger balls than both "Black Panther" and the dark sex comedy "The Favourite."

I would really like to see Spike Lee honored at last.

Best Director – Pawel Pawlikowski

This one is easy. My pick doesn't have a chance in hell, but he sure deserves it. The cards are stacked against him, but putting away showbusiness politics and other factors, if there were any justice in the universe, the Oscar would unquestioningly go to Pawel Pawlikowski for "Cold War," a gift from God to the world.

Best Cinematography – Lukasz Zal

If God would intervene here, this honor would go to Lukasz Zal's "Cold War. It's one of those few films in which you could disregard story and characters and just watch at beautiful images as they are shown. Every frame of this work of art is a masterpiece.

Best Supporting Actor – Adam Driver

"BlacKkKlansman" has so much going for it that it's hard to give one performance too much credit. But Driver brings something special to the table. He turns what could've been just a standard cop role into an introspective detective who is wonderful to watch as he brings just the right amount of machismo to the table.

Best Actress –  Olivia Colman

None of these actresses stand a chance against Glenn Close this year. I think pretty much everybody has accepted that.

However, if I had my druthers, Olivia Colman would win for her turn as Queen Anne in the hilarious and dark comedy, "The Favourite." The film is so damn clever and subversive. Colman shines as the object of two different women's obsession. She's lovers with them both and seems to delight in egging on their cruel rivalry. She's not above "I like it when she puts her tongue in me." 

Best Actor – Willem Dafoe

If you saw "Eternity's Gate" you may already agree with me that Willem Dafoe deserves the trophy for his wonderful portrayal of Vincent Van Gough. The Academy has honored him before with plenty of nominations, but no gold this year. He's made so much of contribution to cinema, building up a reputation for choosing films that nobody else could've made their own like "Antichrist," "eXistenZ," "Shadow of the Vampire" and of course, "The Last Temptation of Christ."

His depiction here of Van Gough is as lovely as it is dark. He reminds us of the profound beauty of an artist in the context of his life, his neurosis and his crippling (and ultimately fatal) depression. 

How a man who saw the world as oppressive and hostile and still find beauty everywhere, giving us the most gorgeous painting in world history, is unspeakably moving.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about the movies that got screwed out of any nominations whatsoever. I'll leave you will a bit of evidence as to why Adam Driver should win the prize for Best Supporting Actor.