Bohemian Rhapsody
Without a doubt, my favourite film of 2018 was Bohemian Rhapsody. I'm a big fan of Queen's music having grown up listening to them, but I also thought the portrayal of Freddie Mercury's musical life was excellent and heart-wrenching. The culmination of the plot in the Live Aid performance had me in tears. If you don't like Queen, or maybe weren't around or didn't listen to them in the 80's, then perhaps this film may not appeal to you as much. For me though, it turned the nostalgia up to 11 and hit me right in the feelings. Goodbye everybody, I've got to go...
Tag
Comedy film of the year for me was Tag. A group of friends play a giant game of tag with eachother for the entire month of May every year, for the past 35 years! On top of that, one of them has never been tagged, perhaps this is the year! The film includes some hilarious "action" scenes centered around Jeremy Renner's character, combined with the nostalgia hometown homecoming theme of a Christmas movie and good quality comedic interactions between all the characters. An added bonus is that the film is based on the true life story of a group of friends that have been playing tag for years and alot of the scenes in the film are inspired by their real world antics, as shown at the end of the film. Pro-tip, watch all the way to the end of the credits! Once, there was this girl who....
I Am Not An Easy Man
I Am Not An Easy Man is a fantastic French film with English subtitles on Netflix that follows a womaniser who hits his head and wakes up in a world where women are the dominant sex and men are forced by society to change their clothes, wear make-up and put up with sexist and abusive behaviour, among other things. The premise sounds funny and for much of the film is portrayed in a comedic manner, but in actual fact is a cutting indictment of our patriarchal society's treatment of women. Feminism in some places is a word and a movement dismissed as annoying and attention seeking, but the table-turning landscape in this film does enough in my opinion to seperate and distance feminism and equality from existing societal biases long enough to see how oppressive our treatment of women can be. For me, perhaps it is because it is easier for me as a man to identify with the plight of a male protagonist, but this film has fully converted me to feminism and continued to keep me thinking well after watching it. Je ne suis pas un homme facile.
