Images, lines, gestures, moods from the year’s films
* Dunkirk: lapping of leaflets as they fall in quiet street of a seaside town…
* Imperceptible bleed of newsreel and movie, Detroit…
* Post-first-kiss, Christine’s (Saoirse Ronan’s) milestone-marking scream in middle of suburban street, Lady Bird…
* Bobby (Willem Dafoe) fires up a cigarette; lights come on all over The Florida Project….
* Super Dark Times: interior-lit plastic snowman, no snow, rain sheen on blacktop driveway…
* Ben Bradlee’s (Tom Hanks’s) voice changing on the single syllable “Jack” during a recitation of Presidents who have lied—The Post…
* Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) going at each other hammer and tongs. Suddenly he coughs up a spray of blood and she says, “I know, baby!”…
* In the Fade: Diane Kruger’s total immersion in the pain and rage of a woman dreadfully wronged…
* Second by second, the most astounding performance of the year: Cameron Britton as Ed Kemper in Mindhunter…
* Get Out: TV-like image of Mrs. Armitage (Catherine Keener) receding in darkness as Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) “sinks into the floor”…
* Bronze box in ebon cosmos above ocean of stars—Twin Peaks: The Return…
* The Other Side of Hope: gray face pushing up out of coal bin…
* Almost subliminal glimpse of Maureen (Kristen Stewart) disappearing into a boutique doorway; how longshots of public spaces somehow enhance profound interiority, Personal Shopper…
* But of course: Julianne Moore a great silent-movie face, Wonderstruck…
* I’m waiting for someone … Who? … I don’t remember. A Ghost Story…
* New fathers staring into maternity ward, Mom and Dad…
* “I thought about drowning. Of course, with a kid that’s not an option.” Wonder Wheel…
* Father-daughter duet at piano, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)…
* In Atomic Blonde, cigarette lit to, faintly, “As Time Goes By”…
* The Lovers: Married couple (Debra Winger, Tracy Letts) wake, kiss each other, and realize they’re kissing each other….
* Boyfriend and girlfriend? “Early stages.” Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri…
* Nuns looking on at prom, Lady Bird…
* In Thor: Ragnarok, Tom Hiddleston’s you-know-me shrug when outed as Loki-not-Odin…
* Michael Shannon in Cadillac showroom, The Shape of Water…
* An unexpectedly sinister VW Bug, Suburbicon…
* Lazy biking, summer lanes—Call Me by Your Name…
* Nocturama: little kid playfully changing train cars as terrorist studies Métro schedule…
* Detroit: post-starter gun shooting, Carl saying (Jason Mitchell falsetto) “I’m performing”…
* The Florida Project: “Jan, d’you wanna go play with the kids from the purple place?”…
* Ed Lachman colors of Manhattan streets, 1977—Wonderstruck…
* On Molly Bloom not being Irish: preposterous dialog between Molly (Jessica Chastain) and Downey (Chris O’Dowd), Molly’s Game…
* Dunkirk: pale hand of a man drowning on boat…
* “They’re no longer persons, only body parts”—In the Fade…
* Thelma: the baby under the divan…
* The opening of Wind River: young Native American woman running barefoot against moon glaze on snow…
* Mother and non-reincarnated deer, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri…
* In Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, father (Kenneth Cranham) remembering Gloria Grahame from In a Lonely Place: “Gorgeous mouth. You knew you’d get sore lips, walking her home.”…
* The Shape of Water: Creature (Doug Jones) watching CinemaScope in empty moviehouse…
* Rainwater in furrows, Mudbound…
* The Bad Batch: under white tent flapping in windstorm…
* The Post: In his frenzy to dial the new phone number he’s just been given for Ellsberg, Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) spills coins all over the sidewalk….
* Train to Busan: Surging passengers instantly fill train car to the ceiling….
* “Don’t shoot, I’ve got your shoe”—Atomic Blonde…
* Brawl in Cell Block 99: Bradley (Vince Vaughn) pulling headlight cable out of wife’s car…
* Mother’s body sailing over moonroof, Mom and Dad…
* Wrists bound with Christmas lights, Super Dark Times…
* Thelma: hair hanging hydralike on outside of windowglass…
* “I won’t let you leave until you’ve tried my tart”—Martin’s mother (Alicia Silverstone), The Killing of a Sacred Deer…
* Captain Phasma eye through shattered mask; Gwendoline Christie, Star Wars: The Last Jedi…
* Kaurismäki cactus witness to terse divorce, The Other Side of Hope…
* “Can we have an awkward hug before we part forever?”—The Big Sick…
* In The Lovers, she: “J’you want some [wine]?” His shuddering consideration of what to say, encompassing whole unspoken dilemma before “Yes.” Ladies and gentlemen, the stylings of Tracy Letts…
* Timothée Chalamet’s spastic lunges, Call Me by Your Name; extra spin after reading Oliver’s “I’ll see you at midnight” note…
* Arthritic fingers keying a linotype, The Post…
* A Ghost Story: play of afternoon sun/shadow in lower corner of frame as M (Rooney Mara) picks at, then wolfs down chocolate pie. Sun shifts and afternoon dims….
* Green fireflies through waterfall, War for the Planet of the Apes…
* Biscuits and jam and torpedo, Dunkirk…
* Detroit: Within seconds, the big night snatched away from aspiring Motown stars; row of mikes on stage in front of empty auditorium…
* Georgina (Betty Gabriel) in Get Out: “No, no, no no no no nononono”…
* Nocturama: Revolutionary accidentally strikes same pose as mannequin….
* “I find Maugham to be skillful without being an artist”—Harold (Dustin Hoffman), The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)…
* Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool: sister (Frances Barber) finishing mother’s (Vanessa Redgrave’s) Shakespeare lines…
* Knife aimed at poking finger beyond tape, Mom and Dad…
* Gardner (Matt Damon) retrieving a poker, Suburbicon…
* The Other Side of Hope: tape-measuring Khaled (Sherwan Haji) while he vacuums…
* Good Time: In mid-scam, Connie (Robert Pattinson) shares juice with sick old lady in hospital….
* “Everybody betray me … oh I hurt my foot”—Tommy Wiseau (James Franco), The Disaster Artist…
* Brawl in Cell Block 99: Bradley (Vince Vaughn) telling wife (Jennifer Carpenter) not to come near him yet…
* “I know what you’re going to say. I changed my hair.” Comedic grace note in Star Wars: The Last Jedi courtesy of Carrie Fisher…
* In Super Dark Times, Zach (Owen Campbell) and mom (Amy Hargreaves) sleeping at opposite ends of couch…
* Dunkirk: Mr. Dawson’s (Mark Rylance’s) imperceptible nod when his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) tells a kindly lie…
* In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the moment it’s belatedly revealed the billboards can be seen from Mildred’s porch…
* In the Fade: Katja’s (Diane Kruger’s) face as she listens to murderer’s father…
* Cat food tin loosing a thousand scurrying horrors, Mindhunter…
* Presses rumble, the vibration travels up through the building, and a pencil rolling atop Bagdikian’s desk tells him the story won’t be stopped. The Post…
* Wonderstruck: aerial night view of Trailways bus slipping into the Lincoln Tunnel along pink trajectory…
* Atomic Blonde: The fight on the stairs, and then part two…
* A Ghost Story: moving van’s reflection on window, swinging out of sight down road…
* Mudbound: laughter and tears at homecoming…
* Stephen Root pronouncing “melancholic,” Get Out…
* Sublimely daft rhythms of MoMA reception, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)…
* Man pedaling boy’s bike, city lights on horizon—Suburbicon…
* The Bad Batch: Hermit (Jim Carrey) tossing bits to a raven…
* The Other Side of Hope: Jimi Hendrix poster looks on as latest manifestation of the Leningrad Cowboys performs….
* Peerless line readings: “My mother was an abusive alcoholic”—Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird. “You guys!”—Cameron Britton, Mindhunter…
* The Disaster Artist: Tommy’s intro like Tiny Tim doing Stanley Kowalski…
* Brawl in Cell Block 99: Is that … Don Johnson? Yessss!…
* “It made my nether regions engorge.”—Drax (Dave Bautista), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2…
* Opening the door for a package, Molly’s Game…
* Blood streaks on Giles’s (Richard Jenkins’s) sketch pad, The Shape of Water…
* Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s bleeding plain…
* Bobby’s traffic advisory to the flamingos, The Florida Project…
* Good fathers: Rob Morgan, Mudbound; Tracy Letts, Lady Bird; Michael Stuhlbarg, Call Me by Your Name; Mark Rylance, Dunkirk; Kenneth Cranham, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool; Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri…
* Movies that keep things in perfect scale: Mudbound, Lady Bird, Call Me by Your Name, Dunkirk, The Post…
* Bridges, rivers, streets, fields, woods around Kingston, NY—Super Dark Times…
* “Are we still going to prom together?” “Sure.” Lady Bird…
* The Magic Kingdom, The Florida Project…
* Bradlee (Tom Hanks) and Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) in low-key conference over brunch—actorly badminton in The Post…
* The transcendent finale of Five Came Back: why we fight, why we film…
* At the end of Dunkirk, reading Churchill’s speech from a borrowed newspaper…
* Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: Dixon (Sam Rockwell) fails to catch Milk Dud in his mouth, turns, lurching casually, and looks up at another angle as if more Milk Duds might be raining….
Copyright 2018 by Richard T. Jameson
Relive past “Moments” at Parallax View here…
