Category: aisle of the damned

The Best o’ the Best Part 2

15. ANNIHILATION
I left Annihilation not sure how much I liked the film, but reasonably sure I did. It’s that kind of movie; one that may require some time to settle and get hashed out by your mind. This is especially true of the ending, which is trying too hard to be a 2001-style psychedelic spectacular, but very nearly works anyway. The preceding portions of the film were even more successful at being unnerving as the plot takes a group of military and civilian women into a phenomenon along the Florida coast called “The Shimmer,” within which they find increasingly strange combinations of life as they approach the center. Animals with hybrid traits, or plants and animals combined in one organism; things from the nightmares of an obsessive Monsanto-phobe . They also grow increasingly disoriented and paranoid. Without doubt it will be a cult favorite for those who enjoy partaking in hallucinogens, but its merits go beyond that towards some deeper philosophical questions, including how much of what we are comes from our biology, and what happens to that if we can’t be completely sure of our minds and bodies (or if they are even working against us) to be an excellent allegory for mental illness.

14. BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE
Drew Goddard made a splash with Cabin in the Woods, as he and Joss Whedon created a meta narrative which worked as both a horror film and a commentary on said same. He stays in that general wheelhouse with his new film, which is a more subtle nod/critique of the stylized crime thrillers which came to prominence in the mid-to-late 90s, reaching their zenith with the release of Pulp Fiction. Like Cabin, El Royale contains aspects of voyeurism and of a manipulative other, but the execution of the themes don’t have a lot of other overlap. Like Tarantino’s breakout film, El Royale is littered with cinematic touches that populated the 20-year-old style it seeks to reinvent; visual cues like titlecards which announce the perspective we will be following, a shuffled chronology, sudden outbursts of violence, a cultivated soundtrack… and yet, thanks to the setting and twists of the tale, it’s something new told in a familiar way. Of course, some people (especially those who’ve never watched anything older than 1982) accuse the film of being a rip-off of Tarantino, but if you know anything about how much Quentin lifts wholesale from the films he admires for his “remixes,” you know that’s a silly notion. Chris Hemsworth gives one of his best performances as a charismatic, Manson-like cult leader, and steals the film near the end, but the actors are largely excellent across the board. There are also some genuinely surprising revelations throughout the film which add context to everything which has come before. It adds up to an entertaining film that is far enough from what spawned it that it feels fresh again.

13. HEARTS BEAT LOUD
I’m glad that people have begun to figure out how to take advantage of Nick Offerman’s unique charisma in the wake of his incredible tenure as Ronald Ulysses Swanson on Parks and Recreation. One of the best instances of this is an independent comedy which uses him as a slightly cantankerous, sharp-witted, record store owner in Brooklyn, who still manages to get excited about making music with his daughter. Said daughter, a young woman on the verge of going to medical school on the other side of the country, is more reluctant. After some surprise success erupts from one of their home recordings, there is a lot of push and pull as he attempts to find a way to stay in her life and keep the special bond that music gives them, even as she tries to walk away from the artistic release that she needs to cope with the changes she is forcing in order to make the separation easier.  Between the character work and the catchy soundtrack, it’s a movie that charmed me throughout, featuring excellent turns from Ted Danson as a bartender and fellow business owner, Toni Collette as his landlady, and Kiersey Clemmons as his daughter, a role which could easily tip into obnoxious if she didn’t manage to coax a sympathetic portrayal throughout the film. Brett Haley, who’s film The Hero made my previous list, is quietly making some very solid films with some very good actors.

12. WIDOWS
Steve McQueen wrote and directed this film with Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, and their fingerprints are all over it. Are there a couple of glaring plot holes? Yes. Does it matter? Well, your mileage may vary, but for me, this Wire-like tale of double-crosses and political bosses manages to be a great character piece disguised as a heist movie. A somewhat sprawling exploration of crime and politics in Chicago (but I repeat myself), it weaves a tale about the widows of a team of career criminals who had robbed a gang boss, said boss and his enforcer brother, and the local power-broker family that said boss seeks to upend in a local election in order to go “legitimate.” As such, it isn’t some Ocean’s-style caper, but a look at broken people who relied on bad people, and the lengths they have to go to in order to free themselves after that bites them in the ass. The cast in uniformly good, but Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya is especially chilling, making good use of his limited screentime. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Debicki should be forgiven for any involvement in Cloverfield Paradox given how great she is here as someone who is learning self-respect (and the fine art of manipulation) for the first time. It may not be flawless, but it certainly is satisfying, as indicated by the shouts and hoots from the ladies in the audience at the screening I attended.

11. CREED II
The thing that stands out most in this follow-up to Ryan Coogler’s amazing 2015 Rocky sequel is that Creed and Rocky may well not even be the most interesting characters in it. Instead, that distinction belongs to Rocky IV’s Ivan Drago, the disgraced former hero of Russia and his son, Viktor, who he pushes to take up his mantle and get back what he lost when he fell to Rocky in the 80s. What was once a villainous cartoon in the 80s is now a rounded character with motivations, allowing Dolph Lundgren to actually show off his acting chops. While the story itself plays as more of a Rocky Frankenstein monster than its predecessor, splicing together things from most of the other films, Michael B. Jordan actually gets more to sink his teeth into; his success causing him to regress to a degree, and his wounded pride being as slow to heal as his broken body. For a fan of the series there is a hell of a payoff with Rocky, as the character’s past doesn’t just come back to haunt him, but forces him to take a good look at his relationships with the people in his life and what he has control over trying to fix. The filmmaking is solid, without a lot of over-the-top flash, which helps keep the story grounded. This is important when you’re dealing with what is essentially a sequel to a feature-length montage. If it were only judged in relation to Creed, it would certainly be stuck in its shadow, but as its own film, Creed II is an excellent addition to the Rocky franchise and deserves praise on its merits.

10. THE MULE
Clint Eastwood has created something of a bookend to Gran Torino by positing a man with similar characteristics, but facing much different circumstances. In The Mule, he’s alone because he has managed to alienate everyone in his life. He starts with his family, ignoring them in favor of a society of similar characters who mostly grow flowers and sit in hotel bars. Then he loses the respect and adoration of that community when he fails to adapt his business to changing times. Finding himself with nothing, he begins working for a cartel, running drugs. At the same time, he finds himself with a desire to make amends as his life winds down, putting these two parts of his life on a collision course with wackiness. It boasts a strong supporting cast, including Eastwood regular Bradley Cooper heading up a DEA effort to find the titular mule who is sneaking cocaine into Chicago under their noses. It’s one of Eastwood’s odder films, with several grace notes to show how this 90-plus-year-old guy is still learning and adapting after his whole life changes, and that’s what really makes it work as a character piece. Old-fashioned as it may be, he puts a real arc into the character over the course of the film. Eastwood’s direction over the last few years has been an odd mix, but The Mule is definitely a winning effort. I can only hope I’m still doing something as interesting and vital when I’m his age.

9. PADDINGTON 2
I watched the two Paddington movies over the course of two days, and doggone it, every frame of these things is charming. They’re like atomic bombs of pleasant greatness. For me, that’s kind of a big deal because charming isn’t really a thing anymore for most movies. Yes, there’s a little bit of bodily function humor, but it never slips into Nickelodeon fart joke territory. The physical comedy works really well, and the heightened reality that makes things just on the side of being like a children’s storybook are well done, bringing you an idealized London that you imagine if you’ve never actually been there. It’s almost like if Wes Anderson was a little less idiosyncratic and a little more populist, and not in a bad way. Director Paul King has mostly done stuff like The Mighty Boosh, and he has a fantastic sensibility here, taking what could be a mawkish cash-in and truly doing something worthy of the stories. I was completely enchanted.

8. THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS
This documentary is touted as being an incredible true story, and this is one of the rare cases of truth in advertising. Three identical brothers, separated at birth, are reunited when they find each other as adults. That sort of “real life is stranger than fiction” tale would be enough to carry a feature, but that’s nowhere near the end of the story, and it takes some dark turns before the end. To say much else would be criminal, because it’s best to go into this film as cold as possible and I would rather just indicate that it’s highly recommended. Strangers may be guilty of manipulating things a little too much for a doc instead of maintaining a passive voice, but it’s still one hell of a narrative that will make you question the degree of control you have over your own life.

7. INCREDIBLES 2
No, it isn’t as good as the first one overall, but then what is? The Incredibles, which blew away audiences in the nascent days of the superhero boom, is a near perfect film. But there are parts of this long-awaited sequel which are actually better than anything in the first one, which is an achievement in and of itself. It seems obvious that Brad Bird’s interests as a filmmaker in returning to this world after 14 years lay with the potential of the family itself. I say this because a solid, if perfunctory, A-plot involving Elastigirl is overshadowed by everything having to do with Bob “Mr. Incredible” Parr trying to maintain the household, and everything involving Mr. Incredible is pure gold. When baby Jack Jack becomes the super-powered handful of all handfuls, the inspired lunacy that ensues ranks among the best things I have ever seen in a film, animated or otherwise. Even then though, the Elastigirl sections are fun to watch, and would be strong enough to dominate most other films. This sequel also has a more on its mind than even a lot of other Pixar films. When was the last time you saw a family action comedy have a discussion about the moral obligation to defy unjust laws, even if it tries to play both sides of the argument to avoid bogging down the story?  Boy-oh-boy is it an ungodly gorgeous film to boot, bordering on pornography for those of us who are mid-century modern design fans. It takes the wonderful aesthetic of the first film and finds a great balance in updating its sleek look with the increasing quality of computer animation over the last 15 years, while still keeping everything recognizable.

6. ANT-MAN AND THE WASP
I feel totally justified in putting something in my top 10 based completely upon enjoying it to an absurd degree. If there’s one overarching reason for me not being taken seriously as a film critic, this might be it. I’m not sure why though, since it’s not like Star Wars has made every “best movies of all time” list because it was a thoughtful documentary on the Crimean War. Regardless, that’s what I did last year with the fantastic, pulpy, Kong: Skull Island, and that’s what I’m doing this year with Peyton Reed’s follow-up to 2015’s Ant-Man. It may be even better than that movie, which has grown on me with each subsequent viewing. *rimshot* I think a great deal of well-made movies that up my giddy, as evidenced by the fact that there are several popcorn films in my list, and this may have been the most fun of anything I saw this year. Paul Rudd’s charm carries the film a long way towards that, but what cements it is his chemistry with the entire cast, most notably Evangeline Lilly as the titular Wasp, who truly deserves to share the billing. It builds upon Rudd’s scene-stealing appearance in Captain America: Civil War to show a Scott Lang torn between the love of his daughter and his desire to do the right thing for his mentor and desired partner. Hopefully, following Infinity War, we can leave the dour Sokovia Accord malarkey in the dust, but in the meantime, this film makes good use of it and ends up being one of the funniest comedies of the year. Somehow this goofy character has stealthily risen to become one of the best “mini-franchises” in superhero cinema canon.

<Top 16-25 of 2018………………………………………………………..Top 1-5 of 2018>

The Best o’ the Best Part 1

5. REVENGE
I’m not a big fan of the rape/revenge genre. I’ve had a copy of Ms. 45 on my shelf, unwatched, for a few years now because I have yet to be in the right headspace to watch it. Yet, Coralie Fargeat’s thriller about a girl who’s assaulted and left to die in the desert during a weekend at her rich, married boyfriend’s vacation home is taut, resourceful, and visually iconic while acknowledging the films that came before. Is it style over substance? Maybe. I don’t think so, but that seems to be the charge leveled against you when you apply so much style successfully to what is often looked at as a trashy cinematic cul de sac. Visually, it’s a day-glo marvel that has some 70s style touches in its spirit, yet never feels like it’s a direct homage the way so many films of its ilk do. It feels grimy, yet poppy. Sun-soaked, but not washed out. In regards to the story, the phoenix metaphors and the pack behavior exhibited by the boyfriend and his buddies might be on the nose, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. Mathilda Lutz is absolutely gorgeous… right up to the point that she isn’t… and her transformation from sex kitten to badass is as impressive as it is gruesome. I think the subject matter of the film is the only thing currently keeping cosplayers away from dressing like her character, Jen. Otherwise, I would expect to see women running around with bloody hair and eagle scars, right alongside men in baseball shirts, carrying axes like in the next film.

4. MANDY
Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy is, without doubt, the most unique experience you could have at the movies this year. A surrealist, revenge-fueled exploitation epic, set in 1983, it stars Nicholas Cage as Red, a lumberjack who lives a tranquil existence in the woods with the titular Mandy. That happiness is shattered by a small cult, led by the dubious failed rocker-turned-messiah, Jeremiah Sands. You see, Sands is the kind of dick who will play you his own music to show you what a genius he is, and that’s the tip of his iceberg of flaws. He decides after one glance of Mandy along the roadside that she must be his, and needless to say, things to not go well. What began as a moody, visually arresting (and, admittedly, very slow-burning) kind of home invasion thriller morphs in its last forty minutes into a coke-fueled, hallucinogenic fit of Adult-Swim-meets-Black-Sabbath celluloid rage that threatens to jump the sprocket holes of the projector through sheer force of will. The weirdness comes complete with melting bikers, something called Cheddar Goblin that you’ll need to see to believe, animated sequences, and a chainsaw dual. After a relatively-subdued performance for the first half of the film, Cage’s reputation for over-the-top acting basically says, “Hold my beer,” and doubles down to create a stylized performance of a character which perfectly fits this bugnuts film. I called it the first film ever adapted from 70s van art. I stand by that statement, and all the Heavy Metal Magazine glory it implies.

3. ISLE OF DOGS
Yes, I’m in the tank for Wes Anderson. With rare exception, I’ve loved his films and find that his particular eccentricities speak to me, despite not considering myself anywhere near the kind of hipster which his fanbase is said to encompass. (Unless, of course, you count my undying loyalty to vinyl and midcentury classicism.) I’d like to think I’d have enjoyed Isle of Dogs even if I wasn’t familiar with Anderson’s oeuvre, though. The rare animated feature with enough edge to be rated PG-13, it helps fight the annoyingly reductive idea that the medium is nothing but kids stuff aside from the rare, over-the-top R-rated feature. TV learned that after The Simpsons came along. Maybe Dogs can help the movies with the same lesson. Regardless, the film itself is both slightly grotesque and meticulous, making for a unique visual experience unlike anything outside of Anderson’s first stop-motion feature, The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Even then, however, Isle of Dogs carves out its own graphic identity, heavily inspired by the work of mid-century Japanese filmmakers. Despite touches of whimsy, it’s also eager to show the viewer some alarming things, like tortured pets, which would be unmanageable in a live-action setting. The Japanese and English language casts are both good at selling the trademark dryly humorous dialogue, with Bryan Cranston being a particular standout as a first time member of his troupe. Here’s hoping Anderson continues to work in both live action and animation as his career continues.

2. SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE
A stripped-down adaptation of one of the most popular Spider-Man stories in recent years, Spider-Verse manages to take the crown of the best Spidey film from Sam Raimi thanks to its incredible visual splendor, its moving family drama, and its absurdist comic book sense of fun. Is it strange for the best Spider-Man film to feature Peter Parker as a side-character (or at most a co-lead)? Especially since it’s a different, older version of Peter than we’re used to seeing, who has been through the wringer thanks to that ol’ Parker luck? You bet it is, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Rob Rothman just plain get Spider-Man right. Or should I say, Spider-Men? Spider… People? Heck, that doesn’t even work. Along with Ultimate Universe stalwart Miles Morales, we see the film debuts of such Marvel eccentricities as Spider-Gwen, Spider-Ham and the black and white Spider-Man Noir. This is the superhero movie I always hoped would be made above all others: an animated one that takes advantage of the medium to do things that can’t be done in live action. (I suppose at this point that line is incredibly blurred given how many “live-action” films are just people surrounded by computer animation, but you could at least still say things that would be harder to pull off outside of PURE animation.) The comic book staple ideas and tropes and out-of-left field humor established in this film are the kind of concepts that Marvel itself felt it had to warm audiences up for almost ten years to get them ready for. Spider-Verse achieves this in 20 minutes. It’s also one of the few films of the last five years that I would beg you to see in 3-D because of the impressive use of depth of field for an animated film.  Oh, and it features the single best use of a post-credits tag I’ve ever seen.

1. AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
It’s honestly hard to give a true critical response to this, the third Avengers film and 19^th “MCU” entry, because of its status as a culmination of other films and the fact that it’s really questionable whether it could stand on its own without the gravitas or the plot points of the other Marvel franchises. That said, for those who are familiar and invested, and I count myself among them, it is an experience which fulfills all of the requirements for a satisfying popcorn movie with stones to spare, including an ending that hit a lot of the audience like Mjolnir to the face. Call it Return of the King Syndrome: the fact that Marvel simply pulled this off is part of the reason that it’s topping my list, despite feeling that it’s not even necessarily the best Avengers movie. This is the Ben Hur of modern spectacle cinema. I honestly believe that Marvel has gotten so good at making this kind of thing look easy, that people somehow don’t realize just how impossible it is that this film exists, let alone functions. The fact that it doesn’t just function, but works in every capacity is, frankly speaking, a goddamned miracle that not nearly enough people seem to appreciate. Regardless of what superhoncho Kevin Feige has said, this is the first part of a two-part film, and as such it is like the Lord of the Rings movies or Kill Bill; while my initial reaction is extremely positive, it’s going to be tough to truly assess it until we see how well the House of Ideas can stick the landing next year. Thankfully, the Russo brothers (veterans of Arrested Development and Community, of all things) have shown themselves to be not just very good filmmakers on their own, but to have a chameleon-like ability to mix in the styles of other filmmakers, including the fairly idiosyncratic Taika Watiti, Ryan Coogler and James Gunn, even when they probably shouldn’t go together as well as they do. It’s part of what really makes this feel like a summer comics crossover event writ large on the big screen; something which seems like it should be a pipe dream, but has been wrangled together somehow by the folks at Disney; a victory in a year full of controversy and questionable decisions. Because of this, and because of my enjoyment, I can’t help but put it on my “best of the year” list, and I really hope it keeps its shine in the years to come.

<Top 6-15 of 2018 …………………………………………….The Best of the Rest>

Now it’s time for the good stuff. My top 25 favorite films of last year. Keep in mind, these are solely my opinion based on what I like, and that I did not even come close to seeing everything I wanted to. (I managed to finagle about 80 new films last year.)

The Best o’ the Best Part 3

25. THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
This Coen Brothers anthology is pretty good all the way around, but the first two segments are so entertaining that, admittedly, the rest of the movie ends up being a bit of a letdown. The second story, in which James Franco plays a would-be bank robber who escapes a hanging only to have irony kick him in the pants, has one of the best punchlines in cinema this year. The title segment, with Tim Blake Nelson as a Roy Rogers-inspired singing cowboy, is every bit a classic Coen comedy, but by way of Sam Raimi, taking a classic Hollywood  B-movie hero and injecting splatstick-style gunplay in a fashion that left my mouth hanging open and my eyes bulging. This was immediately followed by belly laughs. It also features a brilliant Looney Tunes visual gag in which he pats the dust of the trail off of himself, leaving a cloudy doppelganger behind. This first segment is quite frankly one of the best, and most entertaining things I’ve seen in any film all year. It’s not higher on the list because of some problematic tone shifts between the tales and the fact that it kind of peters out at the end with a dialogue-heavy segment, but for Coen fans, this Netflix-distributed film is absolutely a treat.

24. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE- FALLOUT
With all of his flaws, one thing that can’t be said against Tom Cruise is that he let the Mission: Impossible series grow stale as it entered it’s later phases. In fact, the the last four installments have all been far better than the first two, in my opinion; the series peaking with Brad Bird’s Ghost Protocol. Yes, it’s laughable the way he continues to try to deny his age in a similar way to how classic Hollywood actors would wear their pants approximately nipple high to hide their bulging guts, but it’s hard to argue with the amount of fun the film provides. The stunts remain the pedigree that the rest of the industry would aspire to if they had the desire to try to keep up. Meanwhile, Henry Cavill is such a great addition to the M:I cast that it’s a shame they use him the way they do. With two more sequels currently being filmed back-to-back (assumedly the last ones with the current cast), it will be interesting to see if the crew can go out on top with these kinds of thrills.

23. BLACK PANTHER
Ryan Coogler topped my list in 2015 with Creed, and he has managed to make my list again with his debut blockbuster tentpole film, Black Panther. Despite being the most formulaic of the three Marvel Cinematic Universe films to come out this year, it left a strong impression with its storytelling, its cast, and Coogler’s direction, which helped coax a personality out of Wakanda and its King. It also managed to have two of the best villains in the entire MCU. Michael B. Jordan’s angry Killmonger wows with his barely restrained performance. Meanwhile, Andy Sirkis’ hilariously evil Ulysses Klaw (who previously appeared in Age of Ultron) adds some levity, which is needed before things get darker for the finale (unfortunately, the weakest part of the film.) A production design that infuses traditional African style with Jack Kirby helps give it a look unlike anything else that you’ve seen, allowing Marvel to still show us things that are new in this universe of theirs, even though it’s set terrestrially. This was a particularly good year for superhero cinema, and Black Panther is only the first on this list.

22. A QUIET PLACE
Horror has a reputation as being a bit of a film ghetto, yet so many of the most exciting voices in the movies come from the horror genre, going back to Steven Spielberg parlaying Jaws into a huge career. Today, names like Panos Cosmatos, Jordan Peele, and James Wan have been making exciting, critically acclaimed inroads through the genre, and for every couple of garbage films like Truth or Dare? or another Saw sequel, you’re getting something genuinely interesting like John Krasinski’s film about a family trying to eke out a post-apocalyptic life in a world where you can’t make noise, lest you attract man-eating monsters. Monsters which resemble a centaur if a centaur had a spider’s body instead of a horse’s, and the man part was a latex fetishist. It defies convention in multiple ways. It is a film that was a hit despite largely being told in subtitles as the characters communicate through sign language. It is a tense, sometimes scary film, despite being rated PG-13. It features a silo full of corn that doesn’t act like corn, but rather quicksand, which bothered me because apparently my agricultural background makes me the Neil DeGrasse Tyson of grain bins. The film feels like it has a lot of character development, despite its snappy runtime. It has an ending that doesn’t answer questions and leaves plot threads dangling, but feels wholly satisfactory, and unneeding of a sequel. When all that is put together, it amounts to a pretty cool piece of cinema with a chance to see its reputation grow with time.

21. SUMMER OF 84
It’s an unfortunate fact of our times that anytime something gets popular, anything similar that is less popular gets caught up in its wake and suffers from near immediate online dismissal and derision. The Canadian directing trio known as RKSS has been on both sides of this phenomenon; their tongue-in-cheek melding of Mad Max and early Peter Jackson-style splatter Turbo Kid has become a touchstone for low-budget post-apocalyptia, invoked for films like the Dutch indie Molly. On the other hand, their newest project was swept up in a wave of Stranger Things backlash where everything that takes place in the 80s is now automatically called a ripoff of the popular (and derivative, though not necessarily in a bad way) Netflix show. It’s a disappointing situation, because the setting is part of what really differentiates it from other Rear Window updates like Disturbia. They take advantage of familiar touchstones of the era to really drive the story and the paranoia: missing kids on milk cartons, for example, may be a thing of the past, but they still make for a powerful and instantly recognizable visual that you just don’t get with Amber Alerts. Amblin films may have been the inspiration point for the vibe they go for in establishing the story of a boy who thinks his neighbor is a killer, but Spielberg didn’t really go as dark at the time unless a shark was involved, and the ending should stick with you. The chemistry of the boys’ friendships helps sell it, along with some other great performances and some really good looking cinematography that works for the mystery. This is a little movie that deserved better than its truncated theatrical run, and hopefully it finds its audience now.

20. HOLD THE DARK
One of the better films that streaming giant Netflix has released to the market outside of theaters, Jeremy Saulnier’s Hold the Dark is a gripping arthouse horror film trapped inside a crime thriller. It’s no wonder it started out in A24’s hands before it moved over. It’s also understandable why they let Netflix take a crack at it; there’s no easy way to sell this film. As it opens, an author who studies wolves is answering a letter from a woman in a small Alaskan village regarding hunting a wolf who has taken children. It gets pitch black from there. It’s been described as a mystery, but that wraps up within a half-hour or so. It’s not an exploitation film with a hook, like Green Room. It’s filmed in an atmospheric way that is informed by Saulnier’s more overtly genre work, but it never lets itself be pigeon-holed to one in particular. One of the characters is practically a villain from a slasher film, but he’s got much more of a backstory than a normal movie monster. There’s social commentary regarding rural Alaska and the native population, and it’s too artsy and pretentious (admittedly, its biggest flaw) to serve the “I just want to be entertained” audience who wants violence and gore. At the same time, it may be too ultraviolent to appeal to the intellectual indie crowd. So it stands alone as a strange movie that dares you to look away as it washes unease over you and leaves you unsettled; plot threads dangling in the frozen Alaskan wind.

19. I KILL GIANTS
I think this film’s advertising may have done it a disservice. By throwing around “Harry Potter” in association with it (on the basis that it shares a producer), any viewers who saw it in its short theatrical run, or picked it up on blu ray, probably thought they were in for a whimsical fantasy about a child wearing bunny ears literally doing as the title says. Not to say that sort of thing isn’t in the film (and some of the sequences are pretty darn entertaining), but it’s much bleaker than one may expect from that premise, and it is ultimately a character study of a young girl dealing with sadness and loss, creating her own set of rituals and rules that allow her a sense of order amidst the chaos and turmoil of her life. She is obviously troubled, but sympathetic, creating a complex portrait of someone who you like, even as she has a propensity do stupid or terrible things. She also has a case of the Calvins; being a young child who tends to speak like a grown-up, much like the character from Bill Watterson’s comic strip, but not in a way that manages to make her less endearing. Admittedly, it can be a fine line. Overall I found this to be a better version of the kind of sadcore film that was peddled by “When a Monster Calls,” with some fine performances by the cast.

18. THE RITUAL
Born of a brutal act of violence, The Ritual is a movie about healing after tragedy, disguised as a creature feature in the dark forests of Sweden, wherein four lads from England, following the death of one of their own, go on a hiking trip through Scandinavia. When one of them gets hurt, they take a detour through some primeval land and end up in the crosshairs of a supernatural terror that may invoke such disparate titles as The Blair Witch Project and The Grey. The monster itself is unlike anything I’ve seen before, and is very effective, even though they actually do show it at the end instead of keeping it hidden and shrouded through the entire film. It’s always nice when horror filmmakers have both restraint and confidence in their craft, which is on display here.

17. WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?
For decades, Sesame Street has taught pre-school children about letters and numbers, but right alongside them, Fred Rogers’ children’s program Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood taught them emotional intelligence and patience. This glimpse inside the life of the ordained Presbyterian minister and his TV show allows us to see just what kind of person he was who could make a show that endured despite breaking all the traditional rules of what makes for good television. Told in documentary style, with a little animation and a lot of interviews, we hear from people in front of, and behind, the cameras, as well as family, friends, and those who have tried to preserve his legacy. I think it may have been the first documentary I’ve actually gone out of my way to see in theaters, and (as evidenced by its placement on this list), I’m certainly glad I did. There are few things that can stir the hearts of Generation Xers (and beyond) like the opening piano flourish that begins “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” and there are few films I’ve seen this year which were able to do the same for audiences like this one did. In a time where incivility is always in our faces, leading the news cycle, and blighting social media, it’s nice to spend a couple of hours with a gentle soul like Mr. Rogers who believed that it was always a beautiful day in the neighborhood so long as you were there.

16. UPGRADE
The biggest surprise of the summer, for me at any rate, turned out to be this little sci-fi thriller from a Blumhouse subsidiary which proves that you can’t always judge a film by its trailer. With a largely unknown cast (the biggest name is the guy who I jokingly refer to as “Store Brand Tom Hardy: just as good, but cheaper”) and a small budget, it managed to put together enough blood and action to really excite me when combined with some solid storytelling and a Twilight Zone-style twist. Set in a slightly dystopian future with shades of Robocop (minus Verhoven’s stinging satire), and engaging in some of the same elements as Venom, but, you know, without the suck factor, it posits a plot of a wronged man left crippled, then exposed to a scientific breakthrough which allows him to look for revenge. It has just the right touch to make it feel lived in despite the sterility of much of the “futuristic” production design and, despite their fleeting nature, I cackled at the gore effects. I love that a film can still sneak up on me the way this one did.

<Most Disappointing Films of 2018………………………………………Top 6-15 of 2018>

That’s right, friends. Kent here, and while we talked about some of the best and worst films of the previous year on the podcast last month, I’ve been finishing up my longer list of the 25 best and 10 most disappointing films of the last year. In addition, I’ve got a list of some of the other highlights in the world of cinema to grace us in the year of our Lord 2018. So strap-in and hold on. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

I’m Not Mad… I’m Just Disappointed

I hate to say things are the “worst” of the year, but lets just say I was disappointed in how these films landed with me.

10. VENOM
Venom is not as bad a movie as it probably deserves to be. Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer is at least able to make the proceedings glib enough to be more entertaining than should be rightly allowed. That said, it is an example of a movie that is so utterly confused by what it is, that’s it’s a complete mess. It’s shot as a neutered R-rated film. It’s a movie that should be an R-rated film, if we’re being honest. Making a PG-13 film about a goo monster that graphically bites people’s heads off has to be one of the most wrong-headed moves in the name of the almighty dollar that a Hollywood studio has made in a long time. What’s truly amazing about Venom is how it can be so god-awful weird, yet so completely riddled with clichés, simultaneously. It also features one of the worst CGI boss fights since Michael Bay rammed nearly identical computerized robots at each other, as two amorphous blobs slam together in a mystifying finale where it doesn’t seem like anyone actually cared about making things understandable, as long as it was swiftly edited. Overseeing all of this is Tom Hardy as Marvel villain Eddie Brock, now sporting a more steadfast moral center to make him cuddlier, spouting the world’s strangest would-be Brooklyn accent. Perhaps Sony was scared of questioning his decisions since it was considered a casting coup, but someone should have pulled him aside and told him that it just wasn’t working. That’s most of the film though. People doing things that don’t work, and nobody apparently caring enough to actually do something about it.

9. BONEHILL ROAD
Honestly, I feel a little bad about putting this on the list (and a little awkward because a couple of people associated with it followed our Facebook page.) Basically what we’re dealing with is an example of a person’s ambitions outstripping their budget and ability. It may not be fair to say that when the movie in question cost about $13 grand to make, most of which almost certainly went towards hiring Linnea Quigley for a small part. But it’s true, and I watched other films this year that cost less, yet worked better. Some of the issues here aren’t budget related, though some are; like the mismatched werewolf costumes that simply don’t work together, or the make-upped one that looks more like a member of the cast of Cats than a wolf, post-transformation. (I felt the same way about Oz in season four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to be fair.) A lot of the other problems are just related to the filmmaker’s decisions, however. Things making the lead characters fairly unlikable, or filming choices, like shooting a person getting hit with a cast iron skillet in a way that makes it obvious that the actress is barely dinking the guy on the head. These are things that should be addressed in the script, or the editing room, or while filming. Doing this is what makes the cream rise to the top. I applaud the guy for finishing his movie, and I hope he learned a lot for his next feature. But hey, part of the reason I checked it out in the first place was its good reviews on Letterboxd, so decide for yourself.

8. THE HOUSE WITH THE CLOCK IN ITS WALLS
When the Amblin logo appears before a film like this (as well as the 80’s version of the Universal Studios globe), it sort of promises certain things. “House” did not meet any of them. A poor kids ghetto version of what looks like it could have been a genuinely great, spooky, family film, it works hard to set an atmosphere and to be charming, but every time it starts to succeed, it’s interrupted by an awful recurring poop gag, or an annoying, CGI armchair who pales in comparison to Pee-Wee’s Chairy. Most of the blame undoubtedly lands on director Eli Roth, who has yet to make a film that I have truly enjoyed, and who has a lot of trouble juggling the tone as it careens from a plot involving murder and a key carved from human bone, to a topiary statue farting. Jack Black and Cate Blanchett absolve themselves fairly well (their chemistry is one of the film’s saving graces), but a lot of the cast feel like rejects from Edward Scissorhands. This film is even less subtle than that one about the “evilness” of normality as well. At least it played with the 3D version of Thriller if you saw it in IMAX.

7. TOMB RAIDER
I would not have picked Alicia Vikander for the role of Lara Croft, but she’s a good enough actress, and the material they were mining was strong enough, that I had hopes for this third attempt to cash in on the venerable video game franchise. Alas, while there are a few well-thought out twists to the original narrative, the filmmaking is so completely bland and without critical thought behind it that the film ends up being the epitome of “meh.” Tomb Raider finds itself dogpiling on top of the spate of uninspired Indiana Jones-style adventure films that have appeared over the last 30 years; films which don’t understand that a Maguffin and a jungle do not automatically equal pulp thrills. (Even when you have as great an actor for your villain as Walton Goggins.) This is especially sad given how the game it is largely based on is such an eerie and dark bit of post-Lost pop culture that, if they’d only captured that feeling, it could have been a much, much better film by sheer virtue of its atmosphere. On top of that, it falls into the depressingly common “seed a sequel” trap that implies more confidence than it deserves when an ending twist a small child can see coming is very poorly lobbed at the audience like a water balloon in a softball game. Sure, it’s better than the original Angelina Jolie flick that Simon West vomited up twenty years ago, but that’s really damning it with faint praise.

6. SKYSCRAPER
I argued with myself over mentally putting this in my internal “worst” or the “most disappointing” category because I didn’t have hopes of it being particularly good thanks to the Rock’s wildly fluctuating track record of being in movies that tend to hang around in the quality matrix between “good bad” (see: Rampage) and “bad bad” (see: Tooth Fairy). Without expectations for quality, can a movie be disappointing? Perhaps the biggest issue is that it takes itself too seriously to even be entertaining for the wrong reasons. Johnson cracks wise a few times, but he doesn’t get to show much of his comedic skill the way he does in his truly fun movies. It’s also just well-made enough to not be a “so bad its good” film. Odd that something shoddy would be a much better watch, but that’s just the place this movie finds itself. So it ends up on this list because it’s so frustratingly milquetoast in the manner of many ready-made blockbusters designed specifically for the overseas market, and is so derivative of previous films without adding anything new to them outside of making the building taller. So sorry, Skyscraper. You get to be a poster boy for the plodding numbness brought on by mediocrity.

5. THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX
The Cloverfield Paradox was competently made and acted, I’ll give it that. But there’s good reason for it being dumped on Netflix; it’s, to paraphrase the great Tom Servo, less of a movie and more of a movie loaf, made of chunked and formed movie parts. This wouldn’t be so disappointing if it were going by its given name, “The God Particle,” and had not been retrofitted with a Cloverfield veneer that turns it into an extraneous prequel, explaining things that do not need the slightest bit of explanation and making it a narratively worse film. “The God Particle” is a mediocre sci fi film with a good cast that would have been watched and forgotten in the course of a few years. “The Cloverfield Paradox” comes with expectations brought along with its name; expectations from two good movies that preceded it and had made for a solid foundation for a fledgling anthology that could have become an annual event, marrying what Blumhouse achieved with the Paranormal Activity movies every fall, to the idea John Carpenter had for the Halloween franchise with the third entry. Sadly, what they’ve done is grafted a bunch of bad mythology-building material onto an otherwise forgettable but inoffensive film. Unfortunately, in their effort to repackage this film and dump it on an unsuspecting public, they’ve done a great disservice to themselves and, thanks to the sheer size of the Super Bowl stunt they pulled, put the Cloverfield name in jeopardy of being soiled for future releases that may be much better.

4. THE GRINCH
When I reviewed this film for the podcast, I said that The Grinch Who Stole Christmas had been “Shreked” for this cookie-cutter tentpole of name recognition. There was a time 20 years ago when a TV show like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Kevin Smith’s Jersey Trilogy making references to the shared pop culture of the viewing audience was refreshing and hip. Unfortunately, it has since become commonplace for this to happen in things that have no business doing so as a crutch for a lack of story-based humor; case in point, The Grinch. When combined with an expansion of the world that manages to extinguish the whimsy and uniqueness of Dr. Suess’ creation in the name of backstory and a bloated narrative, it amounts to a mess, meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator, but unlikely to appeal to most anyone. We see the title character go to “Who Foods.” (Har-dee-har.) The narration is done by the “he deserves better than this” Pharrell Williams, sounding something like a black Jack McBrayer. (Just… Why?) Children ride their winterized big wheels down the street while Christmas in Hollis by Run DMC plays on the soundtrack. (Huh?) Worse yet, the Grinch himself has been watered down from a… well, Grinch… to someone who’s kind of a jerk, but already has a heart of gold from the beginning, leading to the most feeble character transformation I have seen in any kind of “Scrooge” tale. Most of the film feels like this kind of wrong-headed attempt to graft a modernist revisionism to a fantasy world, and the more the real world intrudes, the more magic leaves it. The animation is technically beautiful, but it’s hard to recommend purely on the watered-down Suessian visuals when everything else feels like such a bad decision.

3. FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD
If I’m looking for a silver lining in the fact that I did not like this movie at all, it’s that it makes me feel less like an outsider for reacting to the first one with a big fat, “Who cares?”  Picking up a few years after the ending of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, it is very much a continuation of that film with David Yates continuing to adapt JK Rowling’s scripts that serve as prequels to her Harry Potter series. Unfortunately there are some major issues that serve as problems for these films; it’s like every complaint fanbases in general have regarding prequels applies, but writ large due to the literary nature of the original series’ source material. First, I simply don’t care about any of the characters, who are seemingly more important for their names than who they are as people. Newt Scamander, ostensibly the hero, has alienated me so much, that I was hoping he’d be killed off to move the focus of the films to someone else. The rest of the returning players run around for two hours, and largely spin their wheels doing dumb things, until they all end up at the same Magic Nazi rally with Johnny Depp as Voldemort Prime. Unsurprisingly, he is one of the weakest parts of the film, although not as bad as the unearned twist ending that was more dumbfounding than shocking, leaving me with questions, but questions I really don’t want or care about the answers to. This isn’t really a good sign, considering I’m a moderate Potter fan that has read all the books and seen all the films.  I find myself wondering how much anyone else who isn’t an obsessive Potterhead can possibly care, either.

2. TREMORS: A COLD DAY IN HELL
I don’t begrudge Michael Gross for making a living. God knows he doesn’t get the amount of work he deserves and Family Ties can’t be bringing in the residual checks that it used to. But man, these Tremors sequels went from good-natured and pretty fun with Aftershocks, to slowly circling the drain, and the last two entries have been drinking Draino. This one is about on par with the terrible African installment that introduced Jamie Kennedy as survivalist Burt Gummer’s estranged son, but that character is somehow even worse in this one, looking like he’s homeless and a couple of months into a meth habit. Meanwhile, the original film’s characters Val and Rhonda have a previously unknown daughter make an appearance which is both surprising and head-scratching, especially since they wait to reveal her lineage for reasons unknown. Not nearly as dumbfounding as making a flea-bitten Kennedy a romantic lead opposite a beautiful woman, though. They also make a decision that makes me take on the same face as the confused Jackie Chan meme when they imply that Graboids are looked at as a hoax by the scientific community despite the fact that they’re documented (in National Geographic, no less) and there’s physical proof. And the valley surrounding Perfection, Nevada, the setting of half the films, is a Federal Graboid refuge. While the first film has one of the best screenplays of any monster film ever made, Cold Day is a loose collection of garbage clichés half-inspired by the previous films, but made cheaper and worse. The effects feel recycled from the last movie and what is supposed to be the Arctic Circle is clearly a desert in the American Southwest with a cheap-looking blue digital filter applied to it. The Thing from Another World was made 70 years ago and has vastly more convincing snow effects. Considering the pilot for a new Tremors show with Kevin Bacon was supposed to be better than this, and SyFy still passed on it, I wonder if this awful chapter will finally mean the end of this franchise. (At least until some suit decides it’s ripe for rebooting.)

1. A WRINKLE IN TIME
This is probably the film I feel worst about putting here, despite it being a terrible movie, because I appreciate the fact that they chose a somewhat bold direction and went with it. Sadly, that bold direction ends up feeling akin to being slapped in the face by Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers. As a general rule, the harder you swing, the more likely you are to strike out. It’s the complete opposite issue that permeates a film like “Skyscraper.” Believe me, I appreciate this thing going for the fences. It’s just not a good movie and those choices simply don’t work. The secularization and naked commercialization of the story empties it of any deeper meaning and make it feel like eye-rolling, new age platitude fluff. Fluff that is probably supposed to be propped up by bombastic visuals, but unfortunately these also fall flat. They end up looking cheap and ugly, though not on quite the grotesque level of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast remake of 2017, or Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Also flat; the majority of the performances, especially Oprah, Reese Witherspoon and the main character, who is wooden, unsympathetic and unlikable. Ava Duvernay just doesn’t seem to be a strong fantasy filmmaker. It’s possible that her approach could work for the right property, but it doesn’t work here and it leaves me worried about her stepping into a franchise as unapologetically kooky and weird as DC’s New Gods.

Top 16 through 25 of 2018>

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