Let’s start off with the good. Panos Cosmatos knows exactly the kind of aesthetic he wants to project, which is a psychedelic, deep-toned phantasmagoria. It’s perfect for stoners and those who like their films vividly […]
Tag: 2018
The Haunting of Hill House (Flanagan, 2018)
This is certainly not your mother’s Hill House. Mike Flanagan has taken Shirley Jackson’s novel and re-imagined it as a family saga—something I was apprehensive about, because family sagas are so common nowadays. I’m rather partial to Jackson’s […]
Game Night (Daley & Goldstein, 2018)
There is not much originality in Game Night. It quickly devolves into a bunch of dupes running around like chickens with their heads cut off, caught up in a kidnapping plot that they initially believe is […]
Annihilation (Garland, 2018)
Will 2018 give us another film as strange, mesmerizing and uncompromisingly cerebral as Annihilation? As I sit here writing this, I am inclined to say no. I’m sure there will be films I’ll like better, and […]
Red Sparrow (Lawrence, 2018)
I don’t have much to say about Red Sparrow, so I’ll keep this review fairly short. With Russia being in the news so often now, a film like this was bound to come along eventually: one […]
A Wrinkle in Time (DuVernay, 2018)
I’m afraid I have to agree with the consensus here: A Wrinkle in Time isn’t very good. Mostly because it’s a mature film trapped in a Disneyfied body, needing to take flight but barely getting off the […]
Ordeal by Innocence (Goldbacher, 2018)
Of the three Sarah Phelps adaptations of Christie’s work thus far, this one is by far the most radical. In the others, she kept much of Christie’s plotting intact, and instead added her own modern […]
Isle of Dogs (Anderson, 2018)
It’s hard to articulate just why Isle of Dogs came up short for me. The backlash regarding the translation/non-translation dynamic of the Japanese dialogue is worth contemplating, though since this is a polemic from the eyes of Othered victims, […]
Life of the Party (Falcone, 2018)
It’s too bad Melissa McCarthy is caught up in the stale comedy machine, churning out these kinds of predictable crowdpleasers instead of hunkering down and doing something really special. She’s a big enough name now […]
The Tale (Fox, 2018)
On one hand, it’s a shame The Tale wasn’t given a theatrical release. The subject matter is more than topical right now, and one always wants to see a great talent like Laura Dern headlining the big […]
Book Club (Holderman, 2018)
Geared toward the twilight set, Book Club delivers a fair amount of laughs courtesy of its cast of American treasures. It’s a bit like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in the sense that its concerns are about the […]
Unsane (Soderbergh, 2018)
I wouldn’t say that Unsane is necessarily quality cinema, for a lot of it is of the pulp thriller variety that could pass off as an adaptation of a number of books with black covers with sinister […]
Nothing Like a Dame / Tea with the Dames (Michell, 2018)
Anyone who is a fan of acting legends should give Nothing Like a Dame (or, as it is now known in North America, Tea with the Dames) a spin. Ideally during a sunny afternoon, with a spot of […]
Ocean’s Eight (Ross, 2018)
This insanely talented cast deserved much better than this kind of straight-down-the-middle filmmaking that gives them only the bare minimum to shine. The pedestrian nature of this endeavour was a big shame. I, quite shamefully, […]
Hereditary (Aster, 2018)
Kudos to Ari Aster for making a film that is so unbridled in its insanity that it has the durability of Teflon. There are several images in Hereditary that will be hard to forget anytime soon. From […]
The Lonely Film Critic 