Adam McKay’s (The Big Short, Anchorman – The Legend Of Ron Burgundy) Vice almost suffered from a trailer depicting a movie resembling a spoof. With The Killers’ hit song Who’s The Man playing in the background and a nearly unrecognizable Christian Bale (Hostiles, American Hustle) almost dancing to the beat in between intermittent lines of him hyping himself up or talking about how he’s going to break all the rules when he becomes Vice President of the United States, McKay’s latest movie plays more like the Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis underrated comedy The Campaign that it does a biopic in the realm of Nixon, Lincoln, or Thirteen Days. Its nomination category at this year’s Golden Globe Awards was “Comedy.” But while Vice is constantly entertaining and is filmed in a way that, at times, feels like a mockumentary, it is very much a drama that you’ll sometimes feel guilty laughing at, even purposely designed humorous moments.
Category Archives: Year of Release
A Quiet Place (2018)
Though it is not one of the ten BEST movies of 2018 (it is just on the outside looking in), there is a place for a movie like John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place because of its originality, creepiness, and ability to keep you on the edge of your seat for its fast-flying 90 minutes. In a time when Hollywood struggles with original storylines, we find a first-time director and still novice movie star in Krasinski (NBC’s The Office, Promised Land) delivering a downright knockout punch in his debut effort. I love gritty movies. I love movies that are rich in their characters. I love movies where the tone doesn’t change from opening credits to ending credits. A Quiet Place had all of this and more, and thus, it has found a spot in my Top Ten Movies of the Year for 2018 over other movies that might have been less flawed but were also far less original.
Welcome to Marwen (2018)
Meh. I hide decent hope for Robert Zemeckis’s (Cast Away, Allied) Welcome to Marwen. Parts of the trailer looked corny, but so did parts of his trailer (as well as the movie) for Forrest Gump, the Oscar winner for Best Picture in 1994. Zemeckis has also succeeded with unique films such as Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Death Becomes Her, The Polar Express, and more. Combined with the exceptional talent possessed by Steve Carell (Beautiful Boy, The Way Way Back), there was a legitimate chance that the pair could make this odd story work.
Ben is Back (2018)
Lucas Hedges (Lady Bird, Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri) had much early Oscar buzz surrounding his name for his work in Boy Erased. I was as hyped as anyone for that movie and that performance. As I mentioned in my review, Boy Erased was based on a book I had read before, and I knew there was a movie to be made on it (which rarely happens). I liked the book and appreciated its adaptation into a film. It deals with a controversial issue that I have strong thoughts on, and I wanted to see how it played out on film. And with a cast of Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Joel Edgerton, and Russell Crowe, I thought it would definitely be a Top 10 contender. However, it completely underwhelmed, and Hedges’ performance in the film was not as great as I expected. I did not expect Hedges to dominate every screen he was in during two other 2018 performances after the release of that October. However, he was fantastic as the bully of an older brother in the handful of scenes he was in Mid90s (a film that had no other name actors besides him. He set the screen on fire, matching Hollywood’s finest actress over the last 25 years, Julia Roberts (August Osage County, Erin Brokovich), in the under-the-radar, poignant Ben is Back.
Bird Box (2018)
A Quiet Place meets The Mist meets The Happening meets The Road meets I Am Legend (specifically with one of the alternating endings). That’s a quick and easy way to describe the effective Netflix release Bird Box. Many people will compare A Quiet Place to this film because of its proximity to release dates. I would have been upset if this was a cheap rip-off of, perhaps, the biggest surprise hit of 2018, replacing not making noise with being unable to see the change. But Bird Box is based on a 2014 debut novel of the same name by Josh Malerman, years before previews of A Quiet Place were even created. This makes the movie even more enjoyable. You get to wonder about Malerman’s inspirations rather than assuming that it was the novel he was trying to emulate.