Retrospective 2018- A Year in Film

December

Tis the Season to be Jolly . . .

Image sources: Warner Bros., Disney, Netflix & 20th Century Fox

With no ‘Star Wars’ epic to dominate the Christmas box office this year, it was left to a selection of big blockbusters to fight it our for top dog in the final month of the year, with latest ‘DC Extended Universe’ installment and origin story ‘Aquaman‘ duking it out with ‘Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse’ for the December superhero crown, while ‘Transformers’ spin-off ‘Bumblebee’ and apocalyptic steampunk epic ‘Mortal Engines’ made their own mark. Meanwhile the world’s most iconic nanny swooped back down into the picture after fifty-four years, in the guise of Emily Blunt, to spread magical festive joy with ‘Mary Poppins Returns‘.

December’s release slate was balanced out by more modest fare, which included Netflix’s first legitimate Oscar contender in the form of Alfonso Cuarón’s semi-autobiographical Mexican family drama ‘Roma‘, as well as Robert Redford’s on-screen swansong ‘The Old Man & the Gun‘ and Boots Riley’s unique social satire feature debut ‘Sorry to Bother You‘, while Lars von Trier unleashed his latest divisive concoction ‘The House That Jack Built’ and Michael Noer brought us his adaptation of a classic biographical prison break odyssey ‘Papillon‘.

Those We Lost

Image source: Warner, Universal, ITV & Paramount

The final month of 2018 brought the final losses of the year, as December took from us among others veteran American TV & film actors Ken Berry (85) (F Troop, Herbie Rides Again) and Philip Bosco (88) (Working Girl, Law & Order), as well as British TV veteran Peter Armitage (78) (Couples, Coronation Street) and celebrated American jazz songstress-turned-actress Nancy Wilson (81) (Hawaii Five-O, The Sinbad Show). December also meant the loss of an American comedy great, as TV comedy star and Hollywood director Penny Marshall (Laverne & Shirley, Big) unexpectedly passed away at the age of 75.

So that’s it for 2018! A resurgent box office in the UK and worldwide made it both a prosperous and eclectic year of releases, with surprises and disappointments galore, and with independent film and smaller studio pictures once again largely leaving a more lasting mark than the blockbusters.

2018 also marked what seems like a major social shift in the film industry, fuelled by the Harvey Weinstein scandal, the #MeToo movement and loud general calls for greater representation, while the year as always signalled the passing of some major figures in the industry. Let’s hope 2019 will be at least as productive and lucrative, and it probably will be if Disney have anything to say about it. Please let us know what were your highlights and lowlights of 2018 . . . and we wish you all a happy new year!

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