2018: The Year in Reviews (Part II)
It’s the second batch of reviews, guys.
I’ve been gone for most of the summer, recharging my batteries after the pile of shit that was the first 60% of this year. Which really means that I’ve been laying low and watching so many movies it’s disgusting when you put a number to it. (Which I will: Blade Runner 2049, last October, was my 5,000th new movie since I graduated college. As of Tuesday, I’ve crossed 5,800. I was also at 100 movies for 2018 in April’s reviews article. Now I’m at 260. I started this year seven weeks late and I’m currently seven weeks ahead of last year’s pace. Go figure.)
In terms of 2018 as a movie year, it’s pretty much been a giant dumpster fire. I’ve hated every year of the past few pretty much up through this point (since almost all the good movies come out between September and December), but this year in particular has a very special kind of diarrhetic quality to it that makes it stick out. I can’t think of a weaker year in the last ten.
To put a finer point on it: while I disliked previous years through the summer, last year I’d already banked what would become two top ten films and three 11-20 films. 2016, I had four top ten films and two 11-20 films. 2015, three top ten films… you get the point. This year, there’s only one film I’d even consider letting near my top ten, and if it does end up making it, it would be pretty historic (more on that later). At best, everything else I’ve liked so far is at best tier two in any other year.
So, yeah, spoiler alert, this year sucks, and my thoughts on most things are pretty much, “It’s just fine” or “I don’t care.” There’s so little that stands out, the final quarter of the year better be really good, otherwise we’re looking at the weakest overall year in almost thirty.
But hey, at least you can all read what I thought about Book Club, right? (more…)
Pic of the Day: “What you have to understand is, four days ago he was only my brother in name. And this morning we had pancakes.” (30th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Everybody, try laughing. Then whatever scares you will go away!” (30th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “This is the place I was telling you about. It’s real fucked up. Got just one window facing a brick wall. Used to rent it to a blind man… damn shame what they did to that dog.” (30th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Do you really think you have a chance against us, Mr. Cowboy?” “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.” (30th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “And I have no right to be in your cabin.” “Why?” “I’m married.” “But so am I, darling. So am I.”
Pic of the Day: “Airplanes are beautiful, cursed dreams, waiting for the sky to swallow them up.”
Pic of the Day: “What’s the show about?” “It’s all about the Depression.” “We won’t have to rehearse that.”
Pic of the Day: “How about you, Harry, did your father love you?” “Ah, sometimes, you know, like when I dressed up like a bottle. How about yours?” “Well, he used to beat me in Morse code, so it’s possible, but he never actually said the words.”
Pic of the Day: “Gloria?” “Yeah?” “How would you like to do something difficult and terribly dangerous?” “I’d love it!”
Pic of the Day: “So often, are you as a blazing torch with flames / Of burning rags falling about you flaming / You know not if flames bring freedom or death / Consuming all that you must cherish / If ashes only will be left, and want Chaos and tempest…” “…Or will the ashes hold the glory of a starlike diamond… / The Morning Star of everlasting triumph.”
Pic of the Day: “You wouldn’t kill me in cold blood, would ya?” “No, I’ll let ya warm up a little.”
Pic of the Day: “Did you ever enter a writin’ contest?” “Yeah, once.” “Did you win?” “Well of course I won!” “You win like money or somethin’?” “No.” “Well, whadchu win?” “The Pulitzer.”
Pic of the Day: “You put him to death? Then why are you risking your life for him?” “I owe him more than my life.”
Pic of the Day: “I see a long, straight line athwart a continent. No chain of forts, or deep flowing river, or mountain range, but a line drawn by men upon a map, nearly a century ago, accepted with a handshake, and kept ever since. A boundary which divides two nations, yet marks their friendly meeting ground. The 49th parallel: the only undefended frontier in the world.”
Pic of the Day: “You’d be killing a horse – that’s not first degree murder, in fact it’s not murder at all, in fact I don’t know what it is.”
