Archive for Release Year: 2018

51 posts from 09 April 2024 to 19 March 2018.

  • Tomb Raider

    Generic action film that happens to take some cues from the game, ignoring the Angelina Jolie continuity. No The Descent references, for shame.

  • Ready Player One

    Spielberg trolls a generation. With Cline on board, they turn the book into Wreck It Ralph for older manchildren. Feels like The Matrix from the POV of Agent Smith. Should have guessed from the book’s ending.

  • Pacific Rim: Uprising

    Lots of exposition to make sure you remember the last one. No major retcons that I noticed.

  • The Death of Stalin

    The Thick of It transplanted to Soviet nomenklatura. Funny and horrifying.

  • Incredibles 2

    More of the same with loads of callbacks and references. Doesn’t reach the level of the first one, it’s an action packed scene with an ironic plot.

  • Linhas de Sangue

    Ensemble parody of action films in general. Low budget doesn’t mean low quality, but in this case that is not completely off the mark.

  • Annihilation

    Another Transcendence mindfuck. This one is a more blatant Tarkovsky ripoff, mostly Solaris and Stalker.

  • BlacKkKlansman

    Powerful stuff, particularly the post-credit Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally. 50 years go by in a flash.

  • Utøya 22. juli

    In this “fake” single-shot film, the fascist is never seen up close, only the victims matter. Fuck fascists, you will not replace us.

  • Suspiria

    Remake in name only. This has more in common with mother! and Black Swan.

  • Raiva

    Cinema veritè, in 1930’s Alentejo. Structured like a revenge plot, mostly against metaphoric leeches represented by literal landowners.

  • Mortal Engines

    Snowpiercer for kids, as someone put it. I think it muddles its political points too much to warrant such comparisons, but it’s apt.

  • The Favourite

    Ace cast with an inspired script and visually gorgeous.

  • Mary, Queen of Scots

    A good biopic, sexually charged but not too much. Good, but not Oscar material.

  • Diamantino

    Shaolin Soccer meets Bourne, featuring Mediterranean refugees. Never thought that last sentence could ever make sense.

  • Hotel Império

    Über hipster tale of real estate speculation, smoky clubs where not-hookers hook up, and massage parlous, with requisite happy endings. Fuggedaboutit, it’s Macao.

  • Her Smell

    The Shampoo Film: Two in one. Birdman on loads of coke, but also sweet redemption decades later. Damn rad, grrl!

  • Elizabeth Harvest

    An old-school sci-fi horror B-movie, which turns out to be an adaptation of Bluebeard. The wetware Ex Machina.

  • Até Que o Porno nos Separe

    A crazy premise leads to a massive tear jerker. Nuts! No cockups here, I was unable to maintain a stiff upper lip.

  • Woman at War

    This is a very funny comedy, attuned to the Thunbergian times we live in (despite being done before that). Quirky, but full of heart.

  • The Happytime Murders

    Ironic that an “adult” film about discrimination and police violence contributing to a never ending circle grief ignores those themes for cheap gags. It was if The Big Sleep had an happy ending. The gags are very funny though.

  • Sleepwalk

    Filipe Melo does an Americana short. It deals with the fact that the death penalty is as American as apple pie.

  • Sicario: Day of the Soldado

    A pox on all these people. Trump-era plot where Islamic terrorists are coming through the Southern Border, leaving prayer rugs lying around? Alejandro is now a good guy and the spook has feelings? Just no.

  • Malevolent

    A bog standard horror film, but with Florence Pugh. Indistinguishable from any other.

  • Mandy

    Totally rad, man. It’s John Wick meets Fury Road, in the style of the cover of a metal band album. “Psychotic drowns, while mystic swims”.

  • Ocean's Eight

    Not a bad riff on the Ocean’s Eleven genre, with a great cast to boot. I find it most ironic that main cast’s salaries are similar amounts to what they are allegedly stealing, but they don’t split it equally. Life imitates art, badly.

  • Pedro e Inês

    Cloudier Atlas. The same story, slightly tweaked through the ages, entwined between themselves.

  • Mutant Blast

    Troma still exists? Wow. This is right up their alley, but spoken in Portuguese. A much better output than Linhas de Sangue, against all odds (budget, ensemble cast).

  • Vox Lux

    On the surface, this is just another Black Swan for Natalie Portman to get typecast in, or Her Smell for pop. But it seems more than that, with deeper thoughts about the world.

  • Aniara

    High-Rise meets generation ships, turning to ʻOumuamua. Did not know this is an adaptation of a sci-fi poem from the 50s.

  • In My Room

    An entire film dedicated to the common retort “Not even if you were the last man on Earth”. Shaun of the Dead meets The Hangover, with more dicks since this is a German film.

  • Climax

    Gaspar Noé on the cheap can still pay off. And his trademark craziness is toned down, despite the title, this is only a bit weird.

  • Anon

    A modern, post-Snowden, low budget Strange Days. The murder investigation framing device kinda defeats the point of the story.

  • Mia and the White Lion

    A tasteful anti-“canned lion hunting” screed, brought to you by Rolex.

  • Johnny English Strikes Again

    Again? The last one had funny moments, like laughing his ass off at Camero-bot 9000 being PM, and having MI6 brought to you by Toshiba, but this is just another low rent Bond-like with repeated jokes. I’m all up for sticking one up Silicon Valley twats, but this is not it.

  • Sorry to Bother You

    A left-wing film in which workers unionise and achieve their goals, even when scabs cross the picket line. Squint! Squint at the grandeur.

  • Vice

    A libtard look into the life of Cheney, with barely any mention of more explosive stuff, and only a small video of Hillary Rodham selling the Iraq War like the corporatist war criminal she is.

  • The Meg

    Yet another Chinese blockbuster like Mortal Engines. Based on a book, suure. Fun for the whole committee.

  • Red Sparrow

    Just like Salt, it’s incredible the amount of old scripts still floating around being just made acritically. This is neither Mission: Impossible, nor Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. It completely fails to choose a tone and stick to it.

  • Aquaman

    More like Amphibiousman. He fights just as good on land. More hippopotamus, less sea lion.

  • Suburbicon

    Same vibe as Mom and Dad, with an extra crammed up social commentary. The Coens contribution must be spicing up the script with nice dialogue, but that’s it.

  • Skyscraper

    Die Hard on a building. The Rock’s Reality Distortion Field approaches Arnie, he just has too much charisma.

  • Unfriended: Dark Web

    The quintessential millennial horror film, part of the “nihilist slasher” genre. Incredibly engrossing, naturalistic, and scary.

  • A Quiet Place

    As intense as Sicario. A family drama with aliens. And with little to no dialogue. But the ending is very abrupt, there’s no resolution. There’s plenty of sequels though.

  • Replicas

    A bunch of mixed messages here, particularly the ending that fixes (almost) everything.

  • Siberia

    Just a regular film noir, where the “mystery” is checking which groan-inducing pickup lines do not result in hot steamy sex. And that ending, does not resolve anything at all.

  • Hereditary

    Hail Paimon. Go ahead, chase me, I’ll run away to the attic.

  • First Man

    Now that’s what I’m talking about. Makes Apollo 13 look like a home movie, and it’s not even about the effects. Just sheer moviemaking ability and great performances. It’s also not a sausage fest, unlike the whole Apollo program.

  • The Wrong Daughter

    This is one of those Z-list direct to streaming releases, probably unearthed because Sydney freaking Sweeney stars in it. It’s not bad enough to become blackmail material, it’s just beige and anodyne. It’s not even the good kind of Z-list, just Hallmark shit.

  • Venom

    This is another origin story, but different from Spider-Man 3. Who can keep track anyway.

  • The Predator

    An R-rated Predator film written by Shane Black? With this cast? Sign me up, this is amazing.