Filmic Forays - 2018 Preview (and Filmic Resolutions)

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. Neil Gaiman.

Cinematically speaking, 2017 was a year of blockbuster failures and leftfield successes. It was also a year that showed considerable diversity in film content, suggesting a move towards cinema that's representative of all the talent out there. Yes there was dross, but as a year in film it reassured me that the industry overall is in a decent state of health and well able to compete with the continued rise of Netflix and Amazon - something I discussed here, and elaborated on here, so consider my point made on that subject.

Now to 2018 - a year so ripe with filmic promise that it gives me chills. As ever the schedule for the early part of the year has firmed up, while summer onwards is marked out in big studio releases alone, with smaller projects potentially of equal interest are still jostling for space. But already the forthcoming twelve-months is shaping up to deliver a good crop of big-screen stories. (May I not rue those words by the end of December.) Here are a few highlights.

Awards Season Magic

Awards contenders tend to hit US screens in November/December, meaning that here in the UK we receive all kinds of cinema treats to help us through the bleakness of January. This year there are so many impressive-looking films it's frankly silly. Molly's Game. Hostiles. All the Money in the World. Darkest Hour. The Post. Downsizing. I'm hoping they'll drain me of positive adjectives. But the one that's really making my stomach buzz with anticipation if Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, starring Frances McDormand. From Fargo. In a film written and directed by Martin McDonagh. The writer/director of In Bruges. And people are saying it's the best thing either of them have ever done. So can I see it right now? Damn. It transpires I'll have to wait till January 12th.

Saoirse Ronan

Pronounced seer-sha. Anyone who's seen the film Brooklyn will know what an amazing and radiant screen presence Saoirse Ronan is. Well she's going to light it up twice this year in two very different coming-of-age dramas. Lady Bird opens in February here in the UK, having already garnered impressive reviews elsewhere. And in June we'll see her in an adaptation of Ian McEwan's painfully beautiful novel On Chesil Beach. At twenty-three this girl is only starting what promises to be a brilliant career - the kind that's a privilege to watch unfolding.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

I'm not a massive geek, but I am a bit of a one. And I seriously love Marvel's ever-extending universe, with all its movie-crossovers, humour and exuberant sense of fun. This year has three Marvel releases lined up - Black Panther (their first leading black superhero in an exotic-looking African location), Ant-Man and the Wasp (a bickering superhero couple - what's not to love?) and the colossus that will be Avengers: Infinity War. The last of those will include just about every major character in their storytelling universe to date, and could be anything from a triumph to a catastrophic mess. You've got to relish stakes that high. It opens on April 28th in the UK, a week before its US release. My verdict will be swift and to the point.

Great Directors - Great Films?

Steven Spielberg is doing more than hitting us with a Streep/Hanks combo in journalistic drama The Post. He's also giving us fun-time Steve with March release Ready Player One. It looks like a big effects-driven crazy-fest - hopefully Jurassic Park-levels of entertainment, or something close. Guillermo del Toro has already gifted the human race with Pan's Labyrinth, so he owes us nothing; but February will bestow on us the weird wonder that is The Shape of Water. Paul Thomas Anderson, the mind behind one of my all-time favourite films Magnolia, is directing Daniel Day Lewis in what the actor claims will be his final screen performance - Phantom Thread. It's promising to be a divisive piece of storytelling. And Alex Garland is following up the fascinating and disturbing Ex-Machina with environmental sci-fi thriller Annihilation. Good name. Great movie?

Family Friendliness

Last year's Paddington 2 reminded us that family films can be great films. With that in mind I have high hopes for a few titles this year. Pixar are landing a double whammy of Coco, where they transport us to a spectacular Mexican Land of the Dead, and Incredibles 2, which will hopefully provide the same high-scoring fun levels as the original. Aardman Animation bring us their trademark toothily grinning characters in Early Man, the studio's first stop-motion feature since 2015's Shaun the Sheep Movie. Then November will plunge us back into J K Rowling's wizarding world in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, with Jude Law making an already controversial debut as the younger Albus Dumbledore. And the year will end with what might be an act of either cinematic worship or blasphemy, when Marry Poppins Returns (Gor Blimey). Emily Blunt is the brave soul taking up Julie Andrews' iconic brolly, hopefully to supercalifragilistic effect. 

And that's a mere scattering of what's already on offer this year. Plus there'll be other intriguing projects popping up that have thus far remained beneath the publicity radar, while I scramble to take it all in. Which brings me to my...

Filmic Resolutions 2018

1. To cover both mainstream and independent films, as much as my local multiplex and trips into London allow.

2. To keep all reviews pithy, succinct and as spoiler-free as possible, while still saying something of merit about each title.

3. To take a glass-half-full approach to people's work and only hate on something when it really deserves it.

4. To use a rating system at last - no gimmicks, just a straight score out of 10. (I may resort to decimals.)

5. To introduce a new 'Where are the Women?' feature in pursuit of gender equality in the film industry. Because it matters. Right on.

Okay, that's it. My first review of the year will follow shortly.

Happy New Year, and here's wishing you 2018 filmic forays of your own.