Best Films of 2018

I have a friend (he knows who he is) who, every year, sends me a New Year's Day greeting that includes his lists of favourite books, movies, trips, etc., of the old year. I wanted to be ready for him, so I started keeping track of the movies I saw during the year.

For the first time, his NYD card didn't include his top movie of the year.

Still, I had this long list of movies I'd seen, along with a rating I'd given each (one to five stars), so I thought I'd publish it here, for no particular reason. I know it's out of date, but I don't care.

Five-Star Movies:
None

Four-Star Movies:
The Greatest Showman  
Crazy Rich Asians
The Green Book
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society
Blindspotting

Three-Star Movies:
Hostiles
Game Night
Red Sparrow
Ready Player One
Leave No Trace
The Spy Who Dumped Me
Mile 22
Juliet, Naked
Bad Times at the El Royale
22 July
Widows
Hunter Killer

Two-Star Movies:
Black Panther
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Call Me By Your Name
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Equalizer 2
Mission Impossible: Fallout
The Old Man and the Gun
Bohemian Rhapsody
Sweet Land

One-Star Movies:
Tomb Raider
Rampage
I Feel Pretty
Blockers
Deadpool 2
Life of the Party
Uncle Drew
Ant Man and the Wasp
Skyscraper
Johnny English Strikes Again
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

In posting this, I find that I have absolutely no memory of some of these movies; others are recalled to mind just by seeing the title. I should probably lower or raise the score based on how memorable the movies are, but some of them I remember only how very bad they were.

Narcissism's Great Leap Forward

And the Golden Microphone goes to...

Danielle Slaton, former US international soccer player, commenting on the performance of the Women's World Cup's host team in its match against Nigeria, in the 65th minute:

"It looks right now like France couldn't 

hit water if they fell out of a boat."

The French did manage to get a win by a single goal on their second chance at a penalty kick, after the first attempt went wide. (They got a do-over because the Nigerian keeper stepped off the line a few inches just before the first kick was taken. I object to that outcome because (1) the French penalty-kicker did not approach the ball at a steady pace, but slowed her last step, practically guaranteeing that the keeper -- who naturally would have anticipated the timing of the kick from the kicker's first few steps -- would move when the ball would have been kicked had the kicker maintained the pace she'd established; and (2) since the kick went wide of the goal, the keeper's coming off the line had no effect on the play. In a world free of nitpicking video review, the infraction by the keeper would rightly have been waved off as insignificant.)

Danielle Slayton (Fox Soccer)