Boy, did I want to love this movie. Bradley Cooper’s debut directorial performance was so close to perfect and yet so far away at the same time. I have so much admiration for his vision and ambition for this movie that I want to give it credit even in the areas it struggled with. Watching it through the lens of a moviegoer looking for an escape rather than that of a wannabe movie critic would have allowed me to see past some of its many errors. Ultimately, however, this film was far too flawed to be a legitimate contender for Best Picture or Best Director, despite what many seem to be already predicting. I will touch on all of the good and all of the bad in what will be one of my more thorough reviews. From a personal standpoint, this movie will stick with me for a long time, and it will be a movie that I purchase on DVD in the future. It’s a movie that I will continue to admire for decades to come. It is also a movie that I will continue to have those “What If” questions about. The difference between A Star Is Born, and many other movies that I have “What If” questions about is I don’t necessarily have a band-aid fix on what Cooper could have done to improve his film. Instead, I have some general thoughts and ideas. But these thoughts and ideas are more easily said than done, and I completely understand that. Oh, and this review is full of spoilers without warning. Therefore, let this be your warning as you read my review.
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Category Archives: Top 10 Movie of 2018
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
Mission Impossible: Fallout should be looked at as the template for how action movies are created. This is everything you want in a pure action movie that is wrought with the same suspense, mystery, and comedic tones that you would expect from this top-of-the-line franchise. Tom Cruise (Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men) reprises his most recognizable character (people, Top Gun came out over 30 years ago…Maverick is great, Ethan Hunt is the identifiable Cruise character…at least for anyone younger than 35). I’ve spent a good part of the last two decades knocking Tom Cruise for his choice in roles, wishing he would return to the types of roles that earned him three Academy Award nominations between 1990-2000. And I honestly, at the time, though he was phoning it in for box office dollars. I understand an action flick here and there. I understand that action is the niche for various A-listers (Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone) but not Tom Cruise. He has more depth than these other actors, and I felt he was repeatedly resorting to variations of the same role (Jack Reacher, Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow). But I was wrong. I’ve watched all of these movies, and while, yes, they are all action movies, he never phones it in. He actually might bring a more consistent intensity to his role than any other actor out there. And this was no exception. Although it is hard for us to see anyone else play Tony Stark/Iron Man than Robert Downey Jr., it would be challenging to see anyone besides Cruise play Ethan Hunt.
Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)
Sicario: Day of the Soldado, not so much a sequel to 2015’s megahit Sicario that you have to know exactly what happened in the first one to appreciate the second as it is its standalone movie. The only thing you really need to know to go into the 2018 movie fresh is that (spoiler), the drug war in Mexico has escalated to the point where the United States government is forced to use questionable tactics that force some of its operatives to question the morality of what they are doing and that the US is aided mystifying man with a unique set of skills but a checkered past named Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro – The Hunted, Traffic) whose family is killed after an order by a Mexican Cartel Kingpin named Carlos Reyes. That’s it. This man’s men kill Alejandro’s family, and he wants revenge. If you accidentally read that brief spoiler, shame on you for going at least three years without yet seeing the phenomenal Sicario. And just because I gave a brief spoiler definitely doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check it out if you have not already.
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Adrift (2018)
Meticulously crafted and tenderly executed, Baltasar Kormákur’s (Everest, 2 Guns) Adrift is a journey not to be best on the largest screen you can find at your nearby cinemas. Lost at sea is one of my favorite genres of movies. This movie stands on its own against such classics as The Perfect Storm, Dead Calm, Life of Pi, Lifeboat, All is Lost, The Deep, and even academy award-nominated pictures like Cast Away and Life of Pi in the sense that it is based on a true story and that the true story is real in the sense that we know exactly what happened because, spoiler, the survivor lives to tell the story. While such stories as Titanic, The Perfect Storm, Open Water, and The Heart of the Sea are based on true stories and are fantastic movies, there is so much fiction added to these stories because we don’t have full accounts of what actually did happen because there either wasn’t someone left at the end to give the proper details or there were so many fictional elements added to the anecdotes that the plot from which the movie was based on has been entirely changed. That is not the case with Adrift, and that is what makes this movie so great. It isn’t “based on” or “inspired by” a true story. It IS a true story, and, ultimately, that’s what we want in the end.
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Tully (2018)
Tully. Wow. Way to toy with me, Jason Reitman (Up In the Air, Juno). I will definitely have a spoilers section for this movie, but I will let you know when it happens. I can start by saying that this definitely hit me with an emotional punch. And I say that sort of tongue and cheek because I did not find this movie all that emotional. Reitman has a way of writing and directing his stories in a way where you are completely invested, but also in a way where you don’t need to keep your tissues nearby. Instead, he tells his stories in a way that gets you interested from the get-go creating characters who you wrote for and then hitting you with a gut punch when you least expect it. Ultimately, this results in his movies staying with you long after most movies you’ve seen have been forgotten. In Tully, he reunites with Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road, A Little Trip to Heaven) when the two teamed up for the fantastic Young Adult. I wouldn’t say that the Academy has shut out Theron (certainly not in the way that Jake Gyllenhaal has), but to have just two Academy Award nominations (Monster, North Country) is, if nothing else, a little surprising. I don’t know if her performance in this film will be enough to land the coveted acting prize, especially with an April release. But I will say that she carried this movie, and it goes in a couple of different directions along the way that is held together by her evenness and Reitman’s adherence to the story when it sort of felt like things were untangling a bit.
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