Films that rose above the fray in 2018

This was a particularly good year for films. At first I didn’t think so but after I reviewed the films I watched and wrote about this past year, I was pleasantly surprised. I was entertained by outstanding acting, strong and poignant films about racism, and out loud laughs. My next post will be about the Oscar nominations.

Game Night: This film was funny from the get go and I laughed out loud all the way through.

Leaning Into the Wind: Andrew Goldsworthy: If you liked the film River and Tides, you’ll love Leaning....

The Death of Stalin: There are very funny moments, but I couldn’t help but wonder was his regime filled with that much personal corruptness? Probably.

Flower: The acting lifts this bizarre storyline to funny, engaging and entertaining levels.

Red Sparrow: Although long at 2h 19min, it had enough twists, turns, and detail to keep me fully engaged.

You Were Never Really Here: Beautifully shot scenes, dynamic soundtrack, but this oddly paced film tells a story of redemption, salvation or deeper despair.

Beirut: I really liked the way this film was put together and came to fruition.

A Quiet Place: Well done film and the silence of the actors made all the difference in the world.

Deadpool 2: First Hit: This film is fun, irreverent and filled with out-loud laughs.

RBG: Excellent film about a woman who lives within her strength and defined and changed U.S. law.

Disobedience: Extremely well-acted film about how antiquated thinking can split families and a loving relationship.

Hotel Artemis: Who says Hollywood cannot create a unique and well-acted film.

Blindspotting: Extremely powerful and pointed film and raises the bar for Best Picture of the Year. In my view this unnominated film is by far and away the best film of 2018.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot: A unhurried film revealing the power of how forgiveness of others and self, can make one’s life different.

Three Identical Strangers: A truly amazing story about how sciences’ curiosity didn't take into account the effects on human beings.

Sorry to Bother You: What I liked about this film is that it is funny, unique, and unlike any other film I’ve seen.

Leave No Trace: Sublimely acted and evenly paced film about a man and his daughter living in a public forest.

Puzzle: I thoroughly enjoyed this poignant film about a woman finding herself through a passion.

BlacKkKlansman: Fantastic film about race relations in the United States while reminding the audience about how far we have to go.

Eighth Grade: Outstanding acting and script gives us an insightful view of what it is like to be in the Eighth Grade today.

Fahrenheit 11/9: Covers a lot of stuff but I think it was mostly about Presidents and people in power managing and acting poorly.

Pick of the Litter: It was an fantastic and interesting way to learn about how guide dogs are taught to be amazing caretakers for the blind.

First Man: Compelling reenactment of an audaciously brave time in the 1960’s where we were challenged by President Kennedy to go to the moon.

The Hate U Give: A fantastic film about the existence of racism and, as indicated here, in our police departments as well.

Green Book: Excellent acting, engaging story, and both funny and thought-provoking make this film fun to sit through.

Boy Erased: Outstanding cast delivers sublime performances in a powerful story about LGBT conversion programs.

A Private War: Rosamund Pike (as Marie Colvin) gives a deeply complex performance of a war correspondent who brought personal stories of war victims to the forefront.

Bohemian Rhapsody: Accurate or not, this film was fun, well-acted, engaging, and joyful.

Can You Ever Forgive Me: Excellent acting about a caustic, friendless author that finally finds her voice.

Mary Queen of Scots: Saoirse Ronan (Mary Stuart) and Margot Robbie (Queen Elizabeth 1) give powerful performances in this adaptation of how Mary Queen of Scots tried to claim her title to the throne of England and Scotland.

Vice: I liked this oddly created film about a powerful yet enigmatic man who really ran our country for a period of time.

Ben is Back: Extremely well-acted story based on 24 hours of a mother and her addicted son’s return for the holidays.

Roma: Outside of the beautiful black and white photography and languid movement of the story, I left the theater with little.

The Favourite: A stark, intense musical score underscores the bizarre and tension filled interrelationships between the queen and her court.

Shoplifters: Wonderfully engaging film about a Japanese family who chose each other while fighting to stay nourished and together.

Unfriended: Dark Web

First Hit: This was an interesting and reasonably solid attempt to use the world of personal technology as the vehicle to create fear and horror.

A group of friends gather weekly at one home or online to play games. In this group we’ve got Matias (Colin Woodell), Serena and Nari together (Rebecca Rittenhouse and Betty Gabriel respectively), Dj Lexx (Savira Windyani), Aj (Connor Del Rio), and Damon (Andrew Lees). When the film begins they are gathering together online using a facetime app.

Matias is also attempting to create a program that will allow him and his deaf girlfriend Amaya (Stephanie Nogueras) to communicate better. He’s hoping that his speaking will end up as printed words on her screen. However, he’s done nothing to help her communicate with him. This frustrates Amaya. While he's online with his group, he's also attempting to communicate with Amaya.

To help him with the program he's trying to create, he’s picked up a newer computer that was left at a coffee shop. Using this computer, he runs out of space for his program and his buddies guide him to explore the hard disk and delete some files. In doing so he finds some very disturbing files.

In the meantime the group is connected and deciding what game to play together on facetime.

As a movie watcher you think you’re looking at this film from the viewpoint of Matias, but in the end you learn differently.

The lifted computer he's working with really belongs to someone who exploits the dark web. And unbeknownst to the group, they are being watched and played themselves in a game that is about life and death.

I was fascinated by the quick alternating points of view Matias was taking when he becomes engaged with juggling the group facetime, a separate facetime with his girlfriend Amaya, and with Charon IV whose computer he’s taken.

Woodell was sufficiently paranoid and taken aback when he gets caught by his friends for lying and leading them into this path of horror and death. Rittenhouse was wonderful as the young woman flush with excitement to be engaged to Nari. Gabriel was perfect in her anxiousness towards the events as they were unfolding. Windyani was strong as the independent woman doing her own thing. Del Rio was good as the young man still living at home and wanting to strike out on his own. Lees was very good as the computer geek of the group that they all looked towards for technical guidance. Stephen Susco wrote and directed this ambitious story and script. I was torn between being caught in the story and fascinated by how the story was presented.

Overall: This film is and will not be everyone’s cup of tea, however aspects of how easily people fall into electronic set traps was fascinating to me.

Hereditary

First Hit: A rather complex or complicated horror film that worked reasonably well.

This is a dark film and attempts, in its own way, to pose question about evil being hereditary. The story revolves around the horrible death of Charlie (Milly Shapiro). She is killed in an accident (or is it) when her brother Peter (Alex Wolff) is driving her to the hospital.

Although this scene is early in the film, the strangeness of the family and their dynamics are shown because Annie (Toni Collette), the mother, makes models of the house and other things in her work studio. Charlie sleeps outside in a tree house that's very cold. The main house itself is way out in the country and is given the feeling of being a bit dark. Peter is shown to be somewhat ambivalent about life, school, and spends a lot of time high on pot.

We learn later that this Annie’s accurate models are her art and livelihood. Her husband, Steve (Gabriel Byrne) is rather stoic about the family’s oddness and acts as the solid foundation of the family.

After Charlie’s death Peter and Annie have fights blaming each other for Charlie’s death while Steve tries to referee these fights.

Annie meets Joan (Ann Dowd) who speaks with her about losing a child and quickly becomes Annie’s confidant. But things become more bizarre and sinister when Joan teaches Annie about how to conjure up the spirit of her deceased Charlie.

From here the film takes some bizarre turns and outside of the strong performances, the story is not believable or, in the end, horrifying.

Collette is amazingly and bizarrely strong in this role. She’s required to portray a wide range of feelings and emotions and she does this very well. Wolff is the other prime role and his lack of outward rage was either script driven, or he didn’t have the ability to share this. His actions after the accident didn’t seem to fit the event and that was disconcerting to me. Byrne was OK as the stoic father who rarely ventured out of this role’s comfort zone. Shapiro was good in her short-lived part. Dowd was excellent as the friendly helpful person who also had a dark side. Ari Aster wrote and directed this film. I trust he got what he wanted but for me, the horror in the film was the shocking accident that killed Charlie, the rest was just oddly bizarre.

Overall: This film was unique in its storytelling that had strong performances.

Bad Samaritan

First Hit: Although the title was a turn-off, this film is suspenseful and reasonably well done.

I had a lot of reluctance going to see this because the title sounded as if it would be a poorly made film.

I’m glad I went because it was much better than the title. The title reflects how poorly Sean Falco (Robert Sheehan) reacted to finding Katie (Kerry Gordon) masochistically bound to a chair in the house he was robbing. As a samaritan helping his fellow man, he failed by not freeing her nor did he do enough to bring in others to help her obtain her freedom.

Katie was being held in a home owned by a very rich Cale Erendreich (David Tennant). Cale, it seems, had some childhood crush on an older horse trainer and when she spurned him, he killed her horse. Cale was and is into control of people and the things around him.

You can tell early on, he’s done this to a woman before and in one scene we see the tools he probably uses to dismember his victims when they don’t act the way he wants them to.

Sean isn’t a horrible young man, but he’s taken to petty theft with Derek Sandoval (Carlito Olivero) to keep his photography dreams alive. He and Derek run a car valet business in front of Nino’s restaurant. With certain rich folks, they take that person’s car to the owner’s home use the keys to open the home and steal what they can. Bringing the car back in-time for the owners to use when they leave the restaurant.

This is how Sean runs across Katie, searching a home to steal something.

Sean also has a girlfriend Helen Leyton (Lisa Brenner) who has been fooled by Sean and ultimately, he ends up owning this and his behaviors to Helen.

The film being shot in Portland was fun, as Portland is a city I like visiting. The story is not necessarily new; however I liked the way it was told because Sean’s character of really being a good guy does come through.

Sheehan was very good as Sean. I thought his facial expressions and expressions of fear and determination really worked and made the character one I could believe. Tennant was excellent as the psychotically pushed person. His behaviors were right in line with an excessive control freak. I liked the moment when Sean tricks him to look at a phone and Sean takes a picture. Brenner was sweet as Sean’s girlfriend. Olivero was strong as Sean’s sidekick and fellow petty theft buddy. Condon was excellent as the captured bounded woman of Cale’s attention. I loved the end when she says, “it’s not enough.” Brandon Boyce wrote a strong screenplay which was effectively directed by Dean Devlin.

Overall: Film is sufficiently creepy and scary to keep your attention through to the end.

A Quiet Place

First Hit: Well done film and the silence of the actors made all the difference in the world.

The film takes out all the drama of how these aliens arrived and take over the planet by starting at day 89.

We surmise through captions of their sign language, that the Abbott family is one of just a few families surviving the alien invasion. Husband Lee (John Krasinski), wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt), and children Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe), and Beau (Cade Woodward) are introduced scavaging through an empty store, in a vacant town, for food and supplies.

The aliens cannot see but have a highly-developed sense of hearing. They hunt for their food by listening and attacking. Therefore no one talks and uses sign language. Due to a child’s curiosity and desire to play with a toy, he turns on one of the toys they get from the store and the noise elicits a swift response and killing of Beau early in the film.

This was an effective way for the audience to become anxious of any noise the characters make during the scenes. When Evelyn becomes pregnant with a child, I sat their shocked because I know how much noise a baby makes let alone the noise the mother may make giving birth.

The film moves along in time by showing a graphic of how many days have gone by; we assume that it’s the number of days after the alien invasion.

We learn that there are other survivors because in the evening Lee lights a fire on top of a tower and as he looks around the valley and hills we see other fires.

The careful laying of sand on the paths they walk show a thoughtful detail that enhances the films successfulness. Adding to this is a family drama of Regan thinking her dad doesn’t love her because she assisted her youngest in getting the toy that caused his demise. She’s also deaf which did two things: Created a way for the family to be very adept at sign language and for Lee to find ways to help her daughter by experimenting with hearing aids that also sent signals to directly through her skull.

Suspense is high in this film and the noise level is low which made for a great combination.

Krasinski was wonderful as father, husband and champion of keeping his family alive and well. Loved the hike he took with Marcus to help him move through his fear. Blunt was fantastic. Her expressions of love and fear were remarkable. Having the baby in the circumstances the film sets up, was amazing. Simmonds was truly a gift in this film. She carried her struggle at being different, smart and independent in a sublime way. Jupe was excellent as the middle child who feared their circumstance the most, yet became heroic. Bryan Woods and Scott Beck wrote a wonderful screenplay that elicited curious suspense. Krasinski did an excellent job directing this story, wife and himself.

Overall: One of the better horror films I’ve seen in that loud noise wasn’t used to try to shock and scare me.