With the Academy Award nominations named this week, we thought it would be fun to cast our minds back and nominate Studio Giggle’s ‘Films of the Year’.
Creative Director Jonathan Brigden:
Best film: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs – as always the most surprising film of the year came from the Coen Brothers. A mention too for Isle of Dogs.
Best TV show: The Sinner. Impeccably acted by Jessica Biel and Bill Pullman and it keeps you guessing to the end. I also loved The Kominsky Method because of Alan Arkin.
Biggest disappointment: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. I loved the first one but this was messy and it had Jude law in it…
Most excited to see next year: One word: Dumbo.
Producer David Humphreys:
Best film: I really liked Bohemiam Rhapsody. The main lead playing Freddie was sublime. The soundtrack obviously sounded amazing in the cinema too.
Best TV show: Killing Eve was on another level. The two lead characters were so well thought out and their relationship was so complex. The Bodyguard is worth a mention too, which also left me hooked.
Biggest disappointment: Black Panther for me – it was ok, but I was expecting to be blown away. The plot and characters lacked depth and it just a bit cheesy.
Most excited to see next year: The live action Lion King.
Designer & Animator Iina Kuula:
Best film: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I didn’t know what to expect and it was an absolute visual treat for an animator. Full of great stylistic choices that honour the comics, good story and plenty of laughs. Best seen in a cinema to fully experience all that colour.
Best TV show: Steven Universe, I think this is really making way for more diverse characters in cartoons and I’m loving the constantly developing relationships and skills of the characters and finding out more about their backstories. Also Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. What’s not to like, it’s a dark twisted reboot of the Sabrina the teen witch from the 90s I remember watching as a kid! Just wish it had more of the talking cat Salem ha.
Biggest disappointment: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald and The Avengers: Infinity War – both disappointed me with their stories. I felt they relied too much on the VFX and failed to tell a good story with interesting twists.
Most excited to see next year: It: Chapter Two, I really enjoyed Bill Skarsgårds version of Pennywise in the first film and kids fighting a monster kind of gives the same vibes as Stranger Things. Also, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World – not only is Toothless the cutest dragon I’ve seen, there’s now two of them and they’re in love. I can’t miss cute dragons in love, right?
Designer & Animator Ed Vosper:
Best film: Isle of Dogs & Ready Player One. I haven’t seen many new films this year but these two stood out to me.
Best TV show: The Bodyguard. I heard a lot of hype about this from so many people. So I binged it and enjoyed it.
Biggest disappointment: The Shape of Water. I know this came out last year but I’m still disappointed about this film!
Most excited to see next year: Star Wars: Episode IX & Pokémon: Detective Pikachu.
Founder & Director Steve Garratt:
Best film: The Death of Stalin – Armando Iannuci and Steve Buscemi in the same film – I could explode with joy – and I love the comic book it’s based on as well. I really want to give an honourable mention to Ready Player One as well.
Best TV show: RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars season 3 was epic from start to finish. In drama I’ve enjoyed Amazon Prime’s The Man in the High Castle season 3 and in kids – Cupcake and Dino by our friends at EOne.
Biggest disappointment: Star Wars: Solo. After Rogue One I was so excited but clearly dropping directors halfway through and having no real sense of what the story should be has left the film limping along without much purpose.
Most excited to see next year: Anything Giggle Media have been involved in developing finally making it to a screen near you! Failing that my kids can’t wait to see Pokémon: Detective Pikachu staring Ryan Reynolds as the electric yellow… Pokémon!
So there we have it, no clear winners as we all have very different tastes!
