10. Deadpool
2
I wasn’t as crazy about Deadpool 2 as the first one, but it was still
a riot fest from start to finish. It takes everything that worked in the first Deadpool and doubles down on it: more
jokes, more fourth-wall breaks, more characters, more over the top violence,
and more taking the piss out of its contemporaries. The only major complaint I
have is that it’s guilty of recycling a few jokes. There’s one joke that’s a
blatant reskin of a gag from the original, but it had me laughing so hard that
I probably would’ve been kicked out of the theater if everyone else wasn’t
laughing just as hard. If you like the first one, there’s no reason you won’t
enjoy this
.
Sound was the first great
invader of Hollywood, and in an age where movies strive to be bigger and louder
than what came before it, quieter moments become much more valuable. John Krasinski
takes this horror thriller’s lack of noise and turns it into its greatest
asset. There were moments where everything was so deafly silent that I could
hear the air conditioner in the theater, and when there was noise, even
something as innocuous as something getting knocked over, it becomes jarring. It’s
genre filmmaking at its best: take a cool, strange concept, and wring as much
potential as you can out of it.
Thoroughbreds is a
tale of rich girls behaving badly in the vein of Heathers and The Bling Ring,
but never ceases to remind you how sociopathic this kind of behavior really is.
The writing is incredibly strong, especially in how it makes you understand the
inner-workings of its two protagonists, who were specifically designed to be thoroughly
unsympathetic. The humor is bone dry and pitch black, which may not be everyone’s
taste. Director Corey Finley has a background in theater, so it’s no surprise
that he has such a firm grasp of visual storytelling, but his filmmaking chops are
so finely honed that you’d think this was his fifth film and not his first. If
he keeps this up, he could be the best playwright turned filmmaker since Martin
McDonagh. It’s also a sad reminder of what a great talent we lost with the
death of Anton Yelchin, as this is supposedly the last movie he made.
In a time where it feels like
the whole world is plunging into hatred and bitterness, kindness has become a
virtue whose importance becomes greater as it gets harder to hold on to. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, the
documentary that celebrates the life, career and legacy of children’s
television icon Fred Rogers, a man whose entire ethos was instilling children with
their own innate sense of self-worth, is a great reminder that sometimes, being
kind is all one needs to be to succeed. It doesn’t exactly tell you anything new
about the man, but it’s one thing to hear and read about all those things and
another thing entirely to see them in action. If you’re feeling misanthropic
this summer and need your faith in humanity restored, this is appointment
viewing.
If you are looking for
something uplifting, you might want to stay far, far away from this one. The best way I can describe this is imagine
Taxi Driver as an arthouse film. Lynne
Ramsey presents us with a tough-as-nails thriller with a meat and potatoes
plot, leaving no room for bullshit, but uses its simple premise to delve into
the main character’s broken psyche. It’s brutal and gory when it needs to be,
but also surprisingly contemplative and beautiful. Joaquin Phoenix gives one of
his best performances ever as a depressed, emotionally disturbed hitman who
specializes in retrieving lost children. Never has the inner-workings
of such a thoroughly broken man been so visually stunning.
The fact that Disney and
Marvel were able to make this happen at all is a miracle. The fact that it
turned out as good as it did doubly so. Everything Marvel has been putting out up
to this point has been leading up to this universe shaking blockbuster. It
works phenomenally as an ensemble piece, Thanos immediately cements himself as
one of the most iconic movie villains in recent memory, and it goes in directions
you don’t expect it to. It would be the cinematic
mic drop of the first half of the year if not for…
When it comes to movies that
dominate the public conversation and establish their importance upfront, it’s
going to be pretty tough to top Black
Panther. Although it’s part of a franchise, Ryan Coogler treats it like a
personal passion project, full of ideas and statements about where we are and
where we need to go in the future. There’s a brilliant ensemble cast and a
fully realized, fleshed out world in the Afrofuturist utopia of Wakanda, a
place that could be the setting of its own franchise wholly removed from the
rest of the MCU. It’s the kind of movie we almost never see: an action sci-fi
fantasy epic set in Africa with a predominantly black cast and crew, a plot
full of political intrigue and a villain with super politically charged
motives. If there’s a movie from this year that will be more impactful than
this one, I don’t know what it would be.
3. Isle
of Dogs
Wes Anderson has such a
distinct and recognizable approach to filmmaking that you know exactly what you’re
getting into walking in. In his second venture into stop-motion animation, he
manages to maintain his dollhouse aesthetic and meticulous eye for neatness in
a movie that’s half set in a place that’s literally made up entirely out of garbage.
Beyond that, this is also probably Anderson’s darkest and most overtly
political movie to date, dealing with topics such as abandonment, authoritarianism,
animal cruelty and even genocide. It’s not hard to see parallels between what
happens to these pooches and what’s currently going on at the Mexican border.
The animation is spectacular, the voice acting is phenomenal (although the decision
to have all the dogs speak English and most of the humans speak untranslated
Japanese can be taken the wrong way, not helped by the fact that the only English-speaking
human character can be seen as a “white savior”, or the film’s tourist-y take
on Japanese culture), and it alternates between humorous and heartbreaking with
nary a hitch. Also, any movie that pays homage to Akira Kurosawa will always
find favor with me.
2. Hereditary
I gave this movie the coveted
10 score and I still stand by that decision. People have been as bitterly
divided by this movie as they have been about, well, everything else, but for me,
this hits all the sweet spots for what I look for in a horror movie. The craftsmanship
is impeccable. The tension is skin-tight. There were moments that were
genuinely nauseating. Throughout the majority of its runtime, I felt like I had
a hand squeezing my throat. The final moments are a sickening cavalcade of
truly horrifying and transgressive actions and images. Keep in mind, these are
all compliments when you’re talking about horror. It weaponizes the audience’s
familiarity with the genre, crossing just about every line of what you can or can’t
do in a horror movie, tightening the screws on your psyche before unleashing a
full-force assault. What really brings it home is Toni Collette’s tremendous
performance, easily the best of the year. Let’s hope the Academy remembers it
when the time comes to start voting for Oscar nominees.
Now I know what you’re
thinking: if this was the only movie you gave a 10 this year, why is it at #2?
Well, like I’ve said before, my opinions can change over time. And aside from Hereditary, no other movie this year has
burned itself as deeply in my mind as my #1 pick.
1.
Annihilation
Like Hereditary, Annihilation
is a movie that not everyone is going to groove with, but if you can get on its
wavelength, you’re in for quite an experience. This is a hauntingly beautiful
piece of science fiction the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Where Black Panther showed me a world that’s
never been seen in film before, Annihilation
showed me a world that’s never been seen anywhere. Where Hereditary made me tense, anxious and uncomfortable all throughout,
Annihilation compacted all that fear,
anxiety and uncomfortableness into a singular scene with one mind-scarring
combination of image and sound. There were movies that may have technically
been “better” than it this year, but none that left its mark on me like this
one did. It’s a cinematic experience in the truest sense.
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