Midsommar

I’ll preface this review by saying that this was definitely the wildest experience I’ve ever had in the movie theater.  While I won’t spoil the juiciest details, I will warn audiences that this movie can be gruesome, graphic, and unsettling at times for even the toughest audiences.

It’s not easy to convince me to leave the house for movies anymore unless the film in question is a must-see.  Most people who know me understand that Midsommar is not my typical must-see; in fact, before Monday night, I had never seen a thriller or a horror in the theaters before (note: Midsommar is somewhere in between these two categories – more on this later).  Yet, after a week of hearing about this movie nonstop from coworkers and family members, the hype was too hard to ignore.

The Oscars 2019: An “Albert’s Movie Reviews” Special!

For movie buffs, the Oscars are the prestigious culmination of the 2018 film season, whereby the cream of the crop receives its due recognition in the Academy’s 24 categories.  For more casual viewers, the Oscars showcase a handful of recognizable movies but otherwise fail to resonate.

There is a happy medium here.  While I myself am more of a casual viewer, I enjoy the Oscars and I like reading about the nominees.  That’s why I’ve collaborated with friends and siblings to review some of the most popular movies of the year from our own informal perspectives.

As a team, we’ve reviewed the following films (scroll down to read the reviews):

The Favourite (10 nominations)

Roma (10 nominations)

Vice (9 nominations)

First Man (4 nominations)

Free Solo (1 nomination)

Ralph Breaks the Internet (1 nomination)

Ready Player One (1 nomination)

Special thanks to John Gunnison, Matthieu Manzoni, and Nour Wood for contributing.  The Academy Awards will be held this coming Sunday, February 24th at 8:00 PM eastern time.

Ranking the Films of 2018

When I look back at the 12 movies I saw in 2018, I realize how much more I relied on streaming services than actual theaters for movies throughout the year, a trend that I will likely continue in the future.  Most of the films below are either blockbusters or Netflix specials, while award-season dramas and independent projects are unfortunately absent.  As such, I mostly prioritized movies I knew would be good and I largely skipped out on obviously bad ones like Holmes & Watson, for example.  I’ll probably get to some of the more critically acclaimed films as the Oscars roll around this spring, but for now, I’m totally in the dark concerning the Best Picture race, among others.  So, keep in mind that this is only a personal ranking, and admittedly not a comprehensive one.

Here we go: ranked from worst to best, my 12 movies of 2018.

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch introduces a new kind of movie, and when I say new, I mean completely out-of-the-box new.  The latest project from Netflix’s Black Mirror series is not a television episode like the others, but rather an interactive film that lets you control the actions of the main character, a young programmer from 1984 named Stefan who is in the painstaking process of creating a revolutionary interactive game called Bandersnatch.  The British teenager grows increasingly paranoid as the viewer alters his journey through a range of binary choices, which can be as simple as choosing his bus ride playlist or as devastating as destroying his computer and threatening to drive him insane.

Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse

Spider-Man is a character we’ve seen in eight blockbusters since 2002, so it’s not surprising to see Sony and Marvel Studios continue the Spider-Man saga in 2018, with Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse this weekend and Venom earlier this year, which, despite not actually featuring Spider-Man, targeted very much the same audience.  Once upon a time, Tobey Maguire introduced us to Spider-Man in the beloved Sam Raimi trilogy; then, Andrew Garfield reprised the role in a forgettable reboot and its atrocious sequel; and finally, Tom Holland made the character fun again with the incredible Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2017.  Since these movies are so common, I can see why some people are bored with Spider-Man as a whole, especially since the Andrew Garfield reboot was so entirely unoriginal.  Yet, Spider-Man continues to evolve before our very eyes.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Three years ago, Jurassic World helped Universal Studios break annual box office records with its $1.6 billion in earnings – other 2015 Universal hits included Furious 7, Fifty Shades of Grey, Straight Outta Compton, and Minions – and revived the Jurassic franchise with gusto.  Now that they’ve released a fifth installment in the Jurassic series, I know that I should be feeling more excited than I do.  After all, I enjoyed the first Jurassic World quite a bit, and I particularly enjoyed Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard in their roles (not to mention Jeff Goldblum).

Incredibles 2

I’m going to have to make a conscious effort not to use the word “incredible” as an adjective for this whole review.  I can already tell that it’s going to be incredibly difficult.

I love The Incredibles.  It’s a serious contender to end up in my top ten films of all time.  The Incredibles is not only an amazing kids’ movie, with its silly humor and fast-paced animated action sequences to boot, but it’s also a touching story of mid-life crisis and family struggle that is sure to please people of all ages.  I believe we can all connect in some way to its story.  What makes it so amazing, though, is how re-watchable the movie is.  The night before Incredibles 2 was released in theaters this past Thursday night, I prepared myself by watching the first, and I fell in love with the story then just as I had 14 years ago in the theaters (one of my earliest memories).

Solo: A Star Wars Story

This was always going to be an uphill battle.  It’s incredibly difficult to cast young versions of iconic Star Wars characters and craft a compelling narrative that both incorporates canon and drives home an independently praiseworthy story.  If this new era of Disney-controlled Star Wars cinema has taught us anything, it’s that the creative direction of the studio and its president, Kathleen Kennedy, can often conflict with that of the filmmakers, which presents huge problems for the overall path of the Star Wars saga.  There are too many examples of this.  For example, upon reviewing Rogue One director Gareth Edwards’ completed work, Disney paid writer Tony Gilroy $5 million to rework large parts of the story.  Colin Trevorrow was replaced as director of Episode IX by J.J. Abrams over creative differences.  Boba Fett’s standalone movie director Josh Trank was canned in 2015 for a number of reasons, and was only this week replaced by James Mangold.

Avengers: Infinity War

If you’re reading this, you’re probably familiar with the idea that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is kid-friendly and bright, yet it’s liable to lack depth and produce shabby villains.  This popular conception of Marvel films is largely correct, with some exceptions – see my ranking of the MCU that I published a few weeks ago on my site for full details.  With this assessment in mind, Avengers: Infinity War is a huge curveball.  Instead of focusing on the heroes’ plight with overwhelming humor and lightheartedness in the vein of Ant-Man and Thor: Ragnarok, it comes strikingly close to replicating The Dark Knight’s tone to outstanding effect, and moreover, it puts supreme emphasis on the villain’s arc over all else.  Its quality notwithstanding, it undeniable that Infinity War represents a massive tonal shift in the MCU.

Ranking the Marvel Movies

Given the rave success of Black Panther recently and in anticipation of Avengers: Infinity War – which hits theaters on April 27th – I thought it would be fun to post my updated rankings of the Marvel superhero movies.  As of this ranking, there have been 18 movies released in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Marvel President Kevin Feige has somehow gotten me to see each and every one of them.  I’ll give Marvel a lot of credit here, to the extent that their marketing strategy wields a huge amount of influence.  For example, I was not motivated to see Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2, or The Incredible Hulk out of excitement, but rather out of an interest to get up to speed with the MCU as a whole.  The fact that I saw those films at all just goes to show how powerfully the Marvel sphere of influence has pushed moviegoers like me to “complete the picture” of Marvel lore.

This is not to say that all Marvel movies are inherently fantastic just because of their successful advertising campaigns.  There have certainly been some disappointing projects offered by the MCU since 2008 to go along with the highlights, and I’ve reviewed a fair number on this site.  Opinions change over time, though, and I’ve now come up with a list I feel is pretty accurate with the big picture in mind.  So, without further ado, here are my updated rankings on every movie released in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as of March 2018.