2018 Review: Top Ten Hits in Nine Categories!

Soon we'll start daily 'year in review' parties, but here's an early one...

It's time for a special box office report AND the kick off to our year in review party. Yes, yes, everyone knows that Disney/Marvel owned the domestic and international box office with Black Panther and Infinity War, respectively. Yet there is far more to the story of ticket sales than just one studio and superhero films in general.

It's much more interesting to break it down into types of films and see which films most interested the ticket-buying public. We'll have separate reports on foreign films and documentaries but for now nine other categories!

🔺 = means that the film is still in release so its place in these rankings is not yet settled. All figures are as of March 24th, 2018

TOP ORIGINALS
NOT PRE-EXISTING  / NOT (YET) A FRANCHISE

 

01 🔺Bohemian Rhapsody (Fox) $215.9 (Nov 2nd)
02 A Quiet Place  (Paramount) $188 (April 6th)
03 The Mule (Warner Bros) $103.8 (Dec 14th)...

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It's the most wonderful time of the year... 'Top Ten List' time

by Nathaniel R

I've been gleefully reading top ten lists for as long as I've loved movies. The first I waited for impatiently was in the Detroit Free Press in the 1980s and decades later I still love the impulse to live best movies, no matter how many people occassionally play contrarian to dismiss them as irrelevant and reductive. Top ten lists are definitely the latter but they're hardly the former, since what people value tells us so much about them and the idiosyncracies of individual top ten lists as well as occassional consensus across them are are especially beautiful if you love the magic that happens between any artform and its audience.

That said they'll make you crazy as often as they delight you. After the jump three early top ten lists worth discussing...

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November. It's a Wrap

!!!!!!!!!!! How is their only one month of the year left? It's nearly time for our year in review festivities to begin. So many movies left to see. So much holiday interference. Etcetera. Nevertheless we must move on by looking back. Wait, what? Here are some highlights from the month that was.

ICYMI 10 Favourites*
• Milk Eric thinks it's aging beautifully on its 10th anniversary
• Green Book and Widows a passionate podcast discussion
• Pauline, Jane, and Olympia -Glenn looks at new docks about legendary movie women
• Top Ten Ezra Miller Lewks Nathaniel appreciates his fashion
• Hirokazu Koreeda Interview Murtada interviews the great Japanese director of Shoplifters Palme d'Or winning fame
• Chris Pine's Penis Anna looks at the double standards around nudity
• The Best of Parker Posey a 50th birthday look back 
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Chris hauntingly sings the soundtrack's praises
• Blindspotting Lynn Lee on codeswitching and one of the year's indie gems
• Thanksgiving Team Experience gives thanks 

Most Discussed (you didn't miss these ones obviously!)
• 1997 Best Actress. An impromptu look back at gowns and ballots 
• NBR and NYFCC Winners - yes, awards season is officially here!
• Oscar's 10 Favorite Leading Actors the names might surprise you!  
• Rebecca remake? The rumors are true 

Coming in December!
Year in Review silliness w/ best of this & that (so specific!), SAG & GLOBE nods (exciting!), lots of interviews (transcribing now... fingers be tired), Team Experiences's favorite X-mas movies, anniversaries (Philadelphia, Gilbert Grape, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and, of course, new releases (Aquaman, Mary Queen of Scots, Vox Lux, Destroyer) and Oscar build-up mania.

Since a few of you have been asking: the new season of 'Supporting Actress Smackdown' will begin in February with the 2018 shortlist which will include some but not all of these ladies, followed by the long delayed '72 showdown in March. Ok? Ok.

* Yes we will be adding "u" to all "favorites" in honor of Yorgos Lanthimos awesome new movie.

Best of October

Sniffle. There are only two more days of October left but we're working through our grief at saying goodbye to our favorite month each year by doing it a bit early... oh and Happy Halloween y'all! Here are some highlights from October that you might have missed.

Dozen Favorites
• Diane Warren Sings! Her new song "I'll Fight" and a tribute concert
• Green Book it's a bonafide crowd pleaser
• Posterized: Tilda Swinton Her biggest roles and essential roles
• Months of Meryl on the rewatchable delights of It's Complicated (2009)
• Carey Mulligan in Wildlife Murtada is wowed
• Amazing Carey Mulligan impression from comic actress Desi Domo
• Exciting 30 Year Old Actors because Nathaniel fancies himself a casting director
• Brian Dennehy LOVES Saoirse Ronan thinks she's one of the all time greats
• Foreign Film Oscar List the trailers to the 87 contenders
• Private Life Chris on the new Tamara Jenkins on Netflix
• The Favourite Olivia, Rachel and Emma's triple-dynamism in one of the year's best films

Most Discussed by You!
• Best Horror Film Performances from Carrie to Hereditary
• Gotham Nominations The Favourite and First Reformed lead the pack
• Yes No Maybe So: Vice Christian Bale does his Cheney mimicry
• A Star is Born is a Drama at the Globes so where does that leave Best Comedy/Musical?
• A Star is Born Nathaniel's review

Coming in November
Parker Posey's 50th birthday, Addams Family Value's 25th anniversary, Honorary Oscar Recipients actress Cicely Tyson, producers Frank Marshall & Kathleen Kennedy, and composer Lalo Schifrin, If Beale Street Could Talk, Widows, The Front Runner, Foreign Film contenders including Israel's The Cakemaker, Japan's Shoplifters, Argentina's El Angel, and new on DVD/BluRay: Blindspotting, BlacKkKlansman, and Crazy Rich Asians....

Festival Wrap - All The Reviews

We screened them at TIFF or NYFF or Middleburg but you also may have heard about them from Cannes or Venice media coverage. Now that the festivals are wrapped (only AFI remains and we're unable to make it this year *cries*) the rest of the year is all of these treasures and some of the duds hitting movie theaters (hopefully) near you. THEN, THE OSCARS. You know how it goes. It's our very very very favorite time of year. That sound you hear is the squealing of movie fans everywhere.

Nicole making the festival rounds in the fallHere's everything we reviewed from TIFF and NYFF or Middleburg in case you missed any of them...

• Ash Is Purest White (China) - Murtada at NYFF
• Border (Sweden) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Bulbul Can Sing (India) - Chris at TIFF
• Burning (South Korea) - Nathaniel at NYFF
• Can You Ever Forgive Me? (US) - Chris at TIF
• Climax  (France) - Chris at TIFF
• Cold War (Poland) - Jason at NYFF
• Destroyer (US) - Nathaniel at TIFF  
• Diamantino  (Portugal) - Chris at TIFF
• Duelle's / Mother's Instinct (Belgium) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• A Family Tour (China) - Murtada at NYFF
• The Favourite (UK) - Nathaniel at NYFF
• Fig Tree  (Israel/Ethiopia) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• First Man (US) -Nathaniel at TIFF 

• Giant Little Ones (Canada) - Chris at TIFF
• Gloria Bell (US) - Chris at TIFF
• Green Book (US) - Nathaniel at Middleburg
• Happy as Lazarro (Italy) - Jason at NYFF 
• Her Smell (US) - Jason at NYFF
• High Life (France) - Jason at NYFF
  
  
• If Beale Street Could Talk (US) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy (US) - Chris at TIFF
• The Kindergarten Teacher  (US) Nathaniel at TIFF
• Long Day's Journey Into Night  (China) - Jason at NYFF
• Museo (Mexico) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Non-Fiction (France) - Jason at NYFF
• The Old Man and the Gun (US) - Chris at TIFF
• The Quietude (Argentina) - Nathaniel at TIFF

• Rafiki (Kenya) -Chris at TIFF
• Ray & Liz (UK) - Murtada at NYFF
• The River (Kazakshtan) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Roma (Mexico) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Ruben Brandt Collector (Hungary) - Nathaniel at Middleburg
• Shadow  (Hong Kong) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Sorry Angel (France) - Jason at NYFF
• A Star is Born (US) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Tell it to the Bees  (UK) - Nathaniel at TIFF

• That Time of Year (Denmark) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Too Late To Die Young (Chile) - Murtada at NYFF
• Touch Me Not (Romania) - Chris at TIFF
• Transit (Germany) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Vita & Virginia  (UK) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Widows (US) - Chris at TIFF
• Wildlife (US) - Chris at TIFF
• Woman at War (Iceland) - Nathaniel at TIFF

'extras'

• Venice winners - Murtada
• Venice fashion - the gowns -Nathaniel
• Venice thinks pink - Nathaniel
• The men of Venice - Nathaniel
• Toronto Fashion - Murtada
• Nicole in Toronto - Nathaniel
• Jury of One TIFF - Nathaniel's honors
• Best of NYFF Performances - Murtada's honors
• Yalitza Aparacio tribute - Nathaniel at Middleburg
• Diane Warren concert - Nathaniel at Middleburg

It's true we didn't review everything we saw at Festivals but the biggies we didn't get to --  Shoplifters, El Angel, Capernaum, and Boy Erased -- will be in theaters very soon so reviews are forthcoming.