The heads of prominent Dallas and North Texas Film Festivals announced their selections for the Top Ten Films of 2018 with Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, and John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place taking the top three spots among films released in 2018.
Justina Walford (artistic director, Women Texas Film Festival), Michael Cain (director, EARTHxFilm), and Alex Garcia Topete (director of programming, Festival de Cine Latino Americano of North Texas) revealed the list of films.
The films were chosen by representatives of Dallas and North Texas-based film festivals, and Studio Movie Grill (which served as a sponsor and host for both the Dallas Video Fest and the Women Texas Film Festival this past year), including Walford, Cain, and Topete, along with Bart Weiss (director, Dallas Video Fest/artistic director, 3 Stars Cinema), Raquel Chapa (managing director, Dallas Video Fest,), Maverick Moore and Sam Henderson (programmers, Deep in the Heart FF), Linda Eaddy (director of film programming, Denton Black Film Festival), David Gibson (programmer and director of operations, Asian Film Festival of Dallas), Susan Kandell Wilkofsky (programmer, 3 Stars Cinema), Niloo Jalilvand (founder, Pegasus Film Festival), Bill Hass (programming director for Fort Worth Indie Film Showcase), James Faust (artistic director, Dallas International Film Festival), Barak Epstein (co-founder, Oak Cliff Film Festival), Todd Donnell (programmer, Studio Movie Grill), and John Wildman (publicist and film festival consultant, EarthxFilm and WTxFF).
The announcement of the top films of the year as chosen by the tastemakers that select them to screen at their film festivals in Dallas and North Texas serves as a precursor to the recently announced Best of Fests Film Festival next month (January 10-13). The event, which will present the top films screened at the film festivals over the past year, or films that represent that fests’ programming and philosophy, will include a remarkable 22 different organizations and marks the first time in the U.S. that a city and region’s film festivals have joined forces in such a way.
Dallas and North Texas film festivals’ Top 10 Films of 2018
- 1. Black Panther (DIR: Ryan Coogler)
- 2. Roma (DIR: Alfonso Cuarón)
- 3. A Quiet Place (DIR: John Krasinski)
- 4. A Star Is Born (DIR: Bradley Cooper)
- 5. The Favourite (DIR: Yorgos Lanthimos)
- 6. Eighth Grade (DIR: Bo Burnham)
- 7. BlacKkKlansman (DIR: Spike Lee)
- 8. Sorry To Bother You (DIR: Boots Riley)
- 9. Blindspotting (DIR: Carlos López Estrada)
- 10.Won’t You Be My Neighbor (DIR: Morgan Neville)
Other films cited by the group included: Ari Aster’s Hereditary; Barry Jenkins’s If Beale Street Could Talk; Bryan Singer’s Bohemian Rhapsody; Peter Farrelly’s Green Book; Panos Cosmatos’s Mandy; Robert Greene’s Bisbee ‘17; David Leitch’s Deadpool 2; Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters; Jim Cummings’s Thunder Road; Jennifer Fox’s The Tale; Alex Garland‘s Annihilation; Paul Feig‘s A Simple Favor; Debra Granik‘s Leave No Trace; Anthony and Joe Russo’s Avengers: Infinity War; and Jon M. Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More