C O N S I D E R - Best of the First Half of the Film Year
Friday, July 6, 2018 at 10:00PM
NATHANIEL R in Annihilation, Black Panther, Disobedience, Hereditary, Isle of Dogs, List-Mania, Oscars (18), Tully, Year in Review

by Nathaniel R

For our halfway mark party we've covered biggest hits of multiple kinds, favorite actresses, and favorite actors. To be eligible for these "best ofs / favorites" whatever you'd like to call them lists, a film must have been released from January 1st through June 30th in 2018. Oscar holdovers like Loveless (Russia's nominee) don't count because the Oscar nomination permanently marks them as a 2017 film even though they weren't released until 2018. To conclude our halfway mark year in review party, here are seven favs from each category we hope Oscar will at least think about once the onslaught of fall prestige films happen. So, ready? Here we go...

Well, here we almost go. Before naming the "Best" a DISCLAIMER: I see far less films in the first half of the year than I do in the second so I still hope to catch up with these titles I missed before year's end: Lean on Pete, The Rider, Red Sparrow, Game Night, The Seagull, Hearts Beat Loud, You Were Never Really Here, and Death of Stalin.

The honors are listed alphabetically - no rankings. Why are there seven listed instead of the traditional five, you ask? Well, I like to keep an open mind and let films percolate for awhile before making final decisions on best of the best -- we all have until late December to do that! I should not because some people always seem confused about this that these are in no way shape or form Oscar predictions or things that necessarily have any shot whatsoever at Oscars. It's just fun to make lists and this is a handy reminder for myself as much as for anyone reading that there's more to any given film year than the last three months of it so it's good to jot things don't so that we don't forget them. 

BEST OF 2018 (THUS FAR) AT THE HALFWAY MARK

PICTURE

DIRECTOR

ENSEMBLES

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

COSTUME DESIGN

CINEMATOGRAPHY 

PRODUCTION DESIGN

FILM EDITING

VISUAL EFFECTS 

(Just for in-the-now clarification Ant-Man and the Wasp was released in July so ineligible for this particular prize but those visual effects were insanely fun and I think they're worthier of the Oscar nomination that won't come than Black Panther or Infinity War with the nominations that might)

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

ORIGINAL SCORE OR ADAPTED/SONG SCORE

SOUND MIXING

 

SOUND EDITING

ORIGINAL SONG
(It's difficult to keep track of which movies have original songs, so as always, if we've missed something obvious or one of these is not original, please do let us know)

THOUGHTS? OBJECTIONS? SECONDS? Which film achievements you've seen thus far this year do you hold most dear?

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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