‘Phil’s Quick Capsule Review’ (a nod to legendary comedian Bill Hicks who coined the phrase when he reviewed ‘Piece Of Shit’ movie Basic Instinct)… where a perfect 10 is rarer than a rain free British summer!
Written by Phil Hobden – UK based podcaster, writer and former filmmaker. Part of the All Things Film network…
So this is my semi-regularly updated of the BEST and WORST of the films from 2018 (2018 Films), as well as the best films I missed from last year and the Phil’s Quick Capsule Review Sharknado Award.
All in my very humble opinion…
BEST Films Of 2018… So Far:
Coco
Mission Impossible: Fallout
I, Tonya
Lady Bird
A Quiet Place
Honourable Mentions: Revenge, Mollys Game, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, You Were Never Really Here, The Festival, Calibre, Avengers: Infinity War, Game Night, Black Panther, Ready Player One, 12 Strong, The Post, The Meg, Deadpool 2, Love Simon, Andre The Giant
WORST Films Of 2018… So Far
The Cloverfield Paradox
Annihilation
A Wrinkle In Time
Red Sparrow
Deep Rising 2
Dis-Honourable Mentions: The Commuter, Renegades, Peter Rabbit, Ocean’s 8, Death Wish, Hellraiser: Judgement, Day Of The Dead : Bloodline, Godzilla: Planet Of The Monsters Part 1, Extinction, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Patient Zero, Tremors: A Cold Day In Hell, All The Money In The World, Skyscraper
The 2018 Sharknado Award for Films So Good (!) They Cant Be Rated:
The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time
The 2018 Films I just couldn’t Finish…
TBC
Great Films Of 2017 That I saw In 2018:
The Disaster Artist, The Babysitter, Mayhem, Icarus, The Greatest Showman, The Big Sick, LA 92
So this is my semi-regularly updated of the BEST and WORST of 2018’s movies, as well as the best films I missed from last year and the Phil’s Quick Capsule Review Sharknado Award.
All in my very humble opinion…
BEST Films Of 2018… So Far:
Coco
I, Tonya
Lady Bird
Mollys Game
Avengers: Infinity War
Honourable Mentions: Game Night, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Post, Black Panther, Ready Player One, 12 Strong, Deadpool 2, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Andre The Giant
WORST Films Of 2018… So Far
The Cloverfield Paradox
Deep Rising 2
The Commuter
Day Of The Dead : Bloodline
Annihilation
Dis-Honourable Mentions: Renegades, Peter Rabbit, Death Wish, Hellraiser: Judgement, Godzilla: Planet Of The Monsters Part 1, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Tremors: A Cold Day In Hell, All The Money In The World
The 2017 Sharknado Award for Films So Good (!) They Cant Be Rated:
TBC
The 2018 Films I just couldn’t Finish…
TBC
Great Films Of 2017 That I saw In 2018:
The Disaster Artist, The Babysitter, Mayhem, Icarus, The Greatest Showman, The Big Sick
So this is my semi-regularly updated of the BEST and WORST of 2018’s movies, as well as the best films I missed from last year and the Phil’s Quick Capsule Review Sharknado Award.
All in my very humble opinion…
BEST Films Of 2018… So Far:
Coco
I, Tonya
Lady Bird
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
The Post
Honourable Mentions: Black Panther, Ready Player One, 12 Strong
WORST Films Of 2018… So Far
The Cloverfield Paradox
The Commuter
Day Of The Dead : Bloodline
Annihilation
Renegades
Dis-Honourable Mentions: Peter Rabbit, Hellraiser: Judgement, Godzilla: Planet Of The Monsters Part 1
The 2017 Sharknado Award for Films So Good (!) They Cant Be Rated:
TBC
The 2018 Films I just couldn’t Finish…
TBC
Great Films Of 2017 That I saw In 2018:
The Disaster Artist, The Babysitter, Mayhem, Icarus, The Greatest Showman, The Big Sick
So this is my semi-regularly updated of the BEST and WORST of 2018’s movies, as well as the best films I missed from last year and the Phil’s Quick Capsule Review Sharknado Award.
All in my very humble opinion…
BEST Films Of 2018… So Far:
Coco
I, Tonya
Lady Bird
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
The Post
Honourable Mentions:
WORST Films Of 2018… So Far
The Cloverfield Paradox
Day Of The Dead : Bloodline
Renegades
Hellraiser: Judgement
Godzilla: Planet Of The Monsters Part 1
Dis-Honourable Mentions:
The 2017 Sharknado Award for Films So Good (!) They Cant Be Rated:
TBC
The 2018 Films I just couldn’t Finish…
TBC
Great Films Of 2017 That I saw In 2018:
The Disaster Artist, The Babysitter, Mayhem, Icarus
Phil’s Quick look at what’s wetting his whistle for the upcoming year in films…
Well 2017 saw Marvel driver big and DC retain it’s patchy record. Horror stood out overall as most of the big Blockbusters fell short. 2018 has the promise to be even more mixed… so here’s the films I’m most looking forward to in 2017. And a few that I’d be happy to miss.
Most Excited: Avengers: Infinity War
Like it or not this is the biggest film of the year and whilst I have reservations (Age Of Ultron wasn’t great and the trailer did little for this latest instalment did little for me) BUT Marvel have been building to this for over 10 years and with the talent involved both on screen and off this could be a once in a life time film. Or Justice League Mark 2. Time will tell.
2. Deadpool 2 The original Deadpool was brilliant and by all accounts if the trailer is anything to go by this could be as good if not better. Enter Cable to the X-Men universe and with all the returning faces from part one Deadpool could be the last great 18 rated film Fox makes if the merger with Disney goes ahead.
3. Black Panther
Marvel bring a more unconventional Superhero tale to the screen, and with an excellent trailer and Marvel’s near flawless 2017 record this has the ability to be something quiet special indeed.
4. Bohemian Rhapsody Yes it’s had production issues and yes Singer isn’t a nice guy but with Dexter Fletcher taking over and with Queens backing this could be the film about the great Freddie Mercury that we have ALL been wait for.
5. The Incredibles 2 The Incredibles was, er, Incredible and this belated sequel looks like it could be another smash hit for Pixar. Lets just hope its more Toy Story 2 than Cars 2.
Bubbling Under: Tomb Raider (Good Trailer, great cast), Ant Man & The Wasp (Ant Man was great fun), The Predator (Shane Black + Predator = Hell Yes!), Mission Impossible 6 (These films tend to always be fun), The Happytime Murders (Brian Henson + Muppets = Heaven), The Purge: Island (LOVE the Purge Films), The Irishman (Scorsese teams with DeNiro & Pacino), Halloween (New sequel that ignores previous. With Carpenter’s blessing AND music)
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Stinker Of The Year: Fifty Shades Freed Yes I’ve watched BOTH Fifty Shades movies. And yes BOTH have previously taken the WORST FILM of the year titles. Look this franchise has nothing. Poor acting, poor direction and poor writing topped off with S&M so softcore you could see harder on Babestation. Thankfully this will bring this torrid series to an end and hopefully the careers of all involved.
Also Dreading: Solo – A Star Wars Story (fired directors, Ron Howard, total reshoots – this could be the first Disney Star Wars flop), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Boring trailer and a sense of having done this before), Day of The Dead: Bloodline (please no), Ready Player One (Spielberg hasn’t made a truly interesting film for a while), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (X-Men films just don’t grab me anymore), Oceans 8 (Just WHY!), Scarface (Urban Scarface remake….a film NOBODY asked for), Pacific Rim: Uprising (God no)
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So how did I do last year?
This is the time of the year when I look back at my picks of the good, the bad and the ugly from 2017 and see how close I was (or as it often is the case, how far!)…
For best: I tipped Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Star Wars The Last Jedi, War For The Planet Of The Apes, T2: Trainspotting and John Wick Chapter 2 as my most anticipated of 2017. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was good but eclipsed by both Spiderman Homecoming and Thor Ragnorok.War For The Planet Of The Apes was good but fell a bit short of the rave reviews it was given. T2: Trainspotting was one of my top 5 films of the year (and film of the year for almost half of 2017) whilst John Wick 2 was a bit shit. Star Wars The last Jedi meanwhile. As for the rest? Silence, Spiderman: Homecoming, Alien: Covenant and Baywatch were all either great or enjoyable.
As for the Stinkers? Transformers: The Last Knight was picked as the stinker of the year but eventually was pipped by Fifty Shades Darker. Both were appalling. Wonder Woman was actually mostly excellent, Blade Runner 2049 ended up as one of teh years best and Logan knocked it out the park. XXX: Return Of Xander Cage was dumb funbut The Mummy, Power Rangers and Cars 3 all were in the worst of the year.
So 2017 is almost over and it’s that time a year again where everyone reflects back on their best and worst films of the year. So we’ve covered our best and our worst films of 2016, so before we look at the films coming up in 2017 here’s my ‘Alternative’ End of Year Awards for 2017…
The Most Entertainingly Bad Film Of The Year Award… Geostorm
The Gerard Butler Award For Consistently Making Entertainingly Terrible Films Gerard Butler (Geostorm)
Surprise of The Year Award… That Any one’s left standing in Hollywood after the year of deaths and scandals…
Performance Of The Year Award…
Mark Kermode AGAIN… for his still oddly favourable reviews for his friends movies (see Murder On The Orient Express)
Just Fuck Off and Die Award…
Michael Bay & Transformers. Just stop. Now.
Least Deserving Commercial Bomb of The Year (Maybe EVER) Award…
Blade Runner 2049
Shit so I still can enjoy these films right, even though their lead/producer/co-star was a pervert/bully/ sex offender/Insert Crime Here Award Baby Driver, Swimming With Sharks, Pulp Fiction, X-Men 2, Toy Story… agh almost ALL my favourite films. God damn you Hollywood.
Come In Your time is Up Award… Zack Snider. You made two good films. EVERYTHING else has been deeply average. TIED with Harvey Weinstein – your a cunt Harvey pure and simple.
Trailer Of The Year Award… Logan Redband Trailer
Let Down of The Year Award… Hollywood. A seething industry of low lives and scum.
Yes it’s Good. But come on people its also a bit Emperors new clothes… Get Out
Low Budget Straight To DVD Surprise of the Year! Shot Caller
The ‘YES! See We don’t Always Fuck Up Award’ DC/Warner Brothers. They Made a Good Film! (Wonder Woman)
Fuck! We Spoke Too Soon Award DC/Warner Brothers for Justice League
Let Down of The Year Award Part 2…. George Romero NOT coming back as a Zombie when he died.
Cameo of The Year Award… Tim Curry’s original Pennywise The Clown in the 2017 version of IT.
The Prove That ‘You Can Come Back from Horrible Shit’ Award (Aka The Future Kevin Spacey Award) Mel Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge, Daddy’s Home 2)
The Oscars only like REALLY famous dead people award for missing out other stars who died Award… Garry Shandling, Florence Henderson, Alexis Arquette, Doris Roberts and Robert Vaughn
The Proof That Award Shows Suck Award… Snubs (Didn’t wins or Not Nominated) for I Daniel Blake, Hunt for The Wilder People, Sing Street, Hell Or High Water, Jake Gyllenhaal, Kubo And The Two Strings, Silence, Amy Adams and many more
The Poof That Award Shows DONT Suck Award… It’s La La Land… No Moonlight… No Titanic… No it’s me. The awards themselves offered few surprises, The Oscars even less, but the best picture cock up at the Academy Awards was pure gold!
The Audience Wins! Award. 2017 Sees LESS remakes/Reboots than ever before. Some still sucked. Flatliners, The Mummy
Not ALL remakes & reboots suck Award… IT 2017. Just awesome.
Yup we just made it for the money award (aka The Sequels Suck) Award… Transformers Age Of Extinction
Films That SHOULD have been on my 2016 List’s but I Hadn’t Seen…
The Edge Of Seventeen, The Girl With All The Gifts, Train To Busan, Deepwater Horizon, Kubo & The Two Strings, Sing Street, Hunt For The Wilderpeople, 13th, I Daniel Blake
Next time: Phil’s Look at 2018 and a look back at my 2017 predictions…
2017 continued TV’s dominance over film. With new shows launching almost weekly on Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime it was hit after hit with shows like Glow breaking new ground (well kinda) and the old guard like The Leftovers and Game Of Thrones hitting to put the park. Here’s my lost and the 5 best and The Worst TV shows of 2017…
(Yet to watch Narcos Season 3 or Punisher)
TV Show of The Year: Billions In Brief: Season 1 of Billions was good but didn’t hit “great” for me. Yet Season 2, playing like a suped up cross between Wolf Of Wall Street and Boiler Room just knocked it out the park and then some. Pacier, sharper and rounded, Billions just threw out great episode after great episode and did something really special – made an unlikeable lead character into someone you DIDN’T want to lose.
2. Game Of Thrones In Brief: It’s second to last season Game Of Thrones upped the pace, threw in some major events and introduced the theory of “jet packing”. In truth it didn’t matter. Whilst the storytelling has diminished the action, pace and fun has increased making for a breathtaking run. Oh and THAT ending. Just wow.
3. Stranger Things In Brief: Season 2 fell SLIGHTLY short of Season 1. But that still makes it one of the best shows on TV. With more characters, more back story and more episodes Stranger Things suffered a little from not being as tight as it was last year but by upping the horror it was for sure scarier than ever.
4. The Leftovers In Brief: For a show I quit in Series 1, it’s pretty amazing to have the show end as one of my favourites of the year. But on the back of a knockout season 2, Season 3 pulled it all together in a surreal, confusing and often oblique way. No clear answers were given but there was enough threads to draw conclusions. Beautiful, clever and frustrating.
5. Silicon Valley In Brief: Into its fourth year, Mike Judge’s tech comedy continued it’s impressive recent run with another constant and entertaining season. Whether it can maintain next year with the loss of TJ Miller is another question but for now it’s still one of the best shows on TV.
Bubbling under:
Veep (funny as ever), Better Call Saul (captivating stuff) Fear The Walking Dead (now MUCH stronger than The Walking Dead), Mindhunter (Top Notch stuff from David Fincher), House Of Cards (Bloody good, even with all the issues), Line Of Duty (Proving the UK can still smash it out the park), GLOW (brilliant fun), American Gods (Insane), Star Trek Discovery (the makings of something special), American Horror Story Cult (One of the strongest season yet)
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Miss of the year: The Walking Dead
In Brief: Second year running! Falling from one of the best shows on TV at its height, The Walking Dead has been on a massive decline the past two seasons which culminated with a recent run of episodes that took on and then royally botched the All out War Arc from the graphic novels. Add to that the recent ‘death’ of a major character (which would have meant MUCH more if it had been earnt), some terrible editing and increasingly poor production values (save for the VFX) and you have a show so far from it’s good days that it mostly now exists to be ‘hate’ watched.
Shame because in the right hands this show could have been unstoppable.
So 2017 is almost over and it’s that time a year again where everyone reflects back on their best and worst films of the year.
So first up… the 5 WORST films of 2017. And, as always, there were quite a few to choose from..
Stinker of The Year: Fifty Shades Darker (2017) In Brief: It’s so bad it’s not even fun. Yup Fifty Shades Darker takes off where 50 Shades Of Grey finished – mostly bad script writing, score core S&M and some Movie Channel poor acting. It’s totally amateur and I’m beyond gobsmacked that they made this film, let alone the upcoming sequel. Lets be honest if a film can beat a Michael Bay Transformers film to Worst film it’s pretty bad.
2. Transformers The Last Knight In Brief: Another year this would have romped it home, but few things can beat Fifty Shades in a shit film contest. That said Hopkins slumming it, more Marky Mark and a pointless nonsensical story get’s pretty close.
3. Assassins Creed In Brief: Video name adaptations don’t come more asinine than this. It’s dull, it’s silly, it makes no sense and you stop caring after a few seconds.
4. Underworld Blood War In Brief: The Underworld films have always been little more than OKAY but Blood War was a case of flogging a very dead horse.
5. The Mummy (2017) In Brief: CGI strewn humourless Pants… The Mummy is a hot mess of a film that even the usually robust star power or Cruise couldn’t save. It’s just terrible.
6. The Circle – Boring Netflix drivel
7. Power Rangers – Pointless
8. A Cure For Wellness – Pretentious, long and dull
9. Leatherface – A film you didn’t need or want
10. Hacksaw Ridge – Nice to see Mel back but this was just jingoistic war porn.
Dis-Honourable Mentions:King Arthur Legend Of The Sword , Live By Night, Sing! , The Boss Baby, The Dark Tower , The Limehouse Golem, Justice League
The 2017 Films I just couldn’t Finish: Sleepless, The Ghoul, The Lost City of Z
And that’s it. Another year in the rear view mirror and another reason to take a look back at the BEST, WORST and, well, others of 2017.
So here it is: my pick of the BEST films of 2017.
Film of The Year: Baby Driver
In Brief: Yup the Spacey factor makes this awkward for sure BUT the fact that it still remains as many favourite film of the year DESPITE of that should tell you just how good Baby Driver is. Edgar Wright delivers a fanatic, charming, 90’s style film that mixes True Romance, Bullet and many other great films to make what will probably be a modern classic. Oh and THAT soundtrack. Superb.
2. T2 Trainspotting In Brief:: Silly title yes. Silly film? No. Few films are ever made about what it’s like to be middle aged, by T2 Trainspotting nails it. It’s not perfect but it hit where it counted.
3. Paddington 2 In Brief: Who saw this coming? Well anyone who actually watched Paddington 2 obviously. Charming, fun and silly Paddington has more heart than it can share. It’s just brilliant.
4. Raw In Brief: This French horror film is a tough watch and will turn some people off for sure. But I found it captivating, brutal and, er, raw.
5. Star Wars The Last Jedi In Brief: It’s a really good Star Wars film and an excellent blockbuster, up there with the year best. Full of massive highs and a few lows, The Last Jedi mostly lives up to expectation.
6. OJ: Made In America – Fascinating documentary
7. Blade Runner 2049 – One of the best SCi-Fi films in many years
8. La La Land – Charming, funny and heart breaking all at once.
9. IT (2017) – One of the best horror films for many a year.
10. Thor: Ragnarok – Marvel go three for three and Thor whilst not the obvious choice was the one, on reflection, I enjoyed most.
The votes are in, they have been counted an verified and I can now proudly announce the Winner of 2017’s Phil’s Quick Capsule Review & Guests Turd Of The Year award is…
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Mother!
IMDB: A couple’s relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.
