December - It's a wrap!

BE SAFE OUT THERE TONIGHT. PARTY RESPONSIBLY! New Year's Eve is legit your host's least favourite holiday so I'm just going to curl up with screeners and comfort food and call it a month... er, year! Of course the film year, for our specific purposes, still rages on until the Oscars are handed out. Here are some highlights from the month that was here at the site ...

• Fav Line Readings "I am your MOTHER" "Oh no... he died." etcetera
• A Star is Born Hits $200 Million appropriate ways to celebrate
• What's Eating Gilbert Grape aging well 25 years on
• While You Were Sleeping yes, it should be a holiday perennial
• An Unfortunate Julia Roberts Headline... though she'd probably laugh
• Boy Erased unfortunately quite relatable
• Chris Feil's Top 20 List with a video montage!
• Toni Collette loves Roma also talks about her bold acting choices
• Into the Spider-Verse  the best Spidey movie in ages
• Best 2018 Dance Sequences Suspiria, Mary Poppins Returns, more...
• Months of Meryl: The Post - the last regular episode of this year long journey!

Most Discussed
• Our chat with Glenn Close she's very honored by the tributes
• Best Actress winners in bad movies an opinionated list
• "Worst" of the Year Ready Player One, Beautiful Boy, and more...
• SAG Nominations / Ensemble Expose what a strange year for SAG
• Globe Nominations 

COMING IN JANUARY: Anne Hathaway in Serenity, M Night Shyamalan's double-sequel Glass, lots of Golden Globe partying, the Sundance Film Festival, the 75th anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, more celebrity interviews, and of course the Oscar Nominations themselves.

Our Favorite Line Readings of 2018

Every day a new Year in Review round-up as we joyfully bid 2018 adieu...

For today's entry we asked Team Experience and a few of our friends to share their favorite line reading of the year. No one was assigned anything so these are direct from our faces to your faces. Yes, Toni Collette's towering work in Hereditary is on our minds lately. Remember that gem? 

And all I get back is that fucking face on your face."

Or these:

I am your MOTHER." 

I did everything they told me not to do, but it didn't work. I'm happy it didn't work.

So, that was my mom’s life.

God she's extraordinary in that new horror classic, isn't she?

Okay, ready for more actorly gems as actors elevating specific lines or sometimes whole films. Here we go...

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Thirst Trap Party. 13 Sexy Movie Men

Each day a new 'year in review' party. Well, today you get two. Here's a bonus list from the team...  

Tonight, Team Experience (and a few friends of ours from elsewhere) drool on our favorite thrist traps. The entries aren't ordered since we just asked people to choose which man they wanted to cover from a preliminary list of notable big screen men of 2018 with "write-in" choices welcomed.

We should probably note that the most popular choice, and in fact the only choice several different people asked for, was Steven Yeun from Burning  so apparently that multilingual yawn and general air of mystery/superiority really did it for everyone. Curiously no one chose Henry Golding but given his barrier-breaking double duty in both Crazy Rich Asians and A Simple Favor, we dedicate this list to him.

Let's take the men in random order. Y'all ready for this?

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The Ten Best Dance Sequences of 2018

Each day a new year in review list. Here's Dancin' Dan

If there was a common theme among the films of 2018 when it came to dance, it's the idea of losing yourself to the dance, of dancing as a trance-like state where either the viewer, the dancer, or both can shut everything else out and focus on this one thing. I think that's something we all could have definitely used in 2018, but it certainly wasn't all happiness and fun that was offered up for us to get lost in.

Before the countdown begins, though, a shout-out to three honorable mentions: Marina's disco fantasy in A Fantastic Woman (which was kind of last year but also kind of this year which makes listmaking INFURIATING), the climactic lighthouse sequence of Annihilation (which isn't technically a dance, but sure as hell feels like one), and this rightly cut but nonetheless adorable scene from A Simple Favor (Henry Golding has never been so adorable).

And now, let's get down and dirty...

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Top 30 Documentary Hits of 2018

Each day a different year in review topic. Here's Glenn Dunks...

Documentaries had one of their biggest years on record in 2018. In fact, the upper realms of non-fiction at the North American box office started to look like what the foreign-language charts once looked like. There was at least one major cross-over smash, several very impressive eight-figure grossers, a selection of not insignificant titles that did over one-million, and a long list of niche titles that did business anywhere from respectable to disappointing depending on expectations and release size. The year even started strong for docs with 2017 hits Bombshell the Hedy Lamarr Story and Faces/Places continuing to earn tidy sums buoyed by word of mouth and an Oscar nomination respectively.

My column Doc Corner will continue in 2019 so here’s hoping the new year offers just as bountiful a crop. It's been good to see documentaries reaching the mainstream, zeitgeist conversation.

TOP 30 DOCUMENTARIES FOR 2018
Domestic Box Office Grosses Only - Figures as of February 17th, 2019. 🔺 = the film is still in theaters

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