Review: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

Director: Wes Ball

Starring: Owen Teague, Freya Allen, Kevin Durrand

When the "Caesar Trilogy" ended with War for the Planet of the Apes, I remarked that the end of that film played like a Biblical epic. The set of stories beginning here in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes picks up that theme, with a title card directly likening Caesar to Jesus and then the remainder of the film continuing to push that idea in a very explicit way that informs some of the relationships and conflicts of the film. I'm not entirely sure that aspect works, but it gave me a lot to ponder as I walked out of Kingdom, a film that kept me engaged and entertained from beginning to end. While some of it definitely feels like a retread of War, that also makes it a nice, soft reentry into this world, giving the audience a sense of the familiar while introducing a host of new characters and establishing how this world has moved on from where we left it.

Review: The Fall Guy (2024)

Director: David Leitch 

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham 

Tough guys have feelings, too, and who better to explore those than Ryan Gosling, spending a second summer deconstructing the idea of masculinity – albeit not in quite as overt a fashion as he did in Barbie. Nor quite as successfully, judging by the box office, which is a shame because The Fall Guy is a hell of a lot of fun. Combining action – and making the case for good, old fashioned practical stunts – comedy and romance, it’s the kind of movie that should have something for everyone.

Oscar Nominees

Best Picture
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Roma
A Star Is Born
Vice

Oscar Nomination Predictions

Nominations will be announced tomorrow. My predictions:

Best Picture
BlacKkKlansman
Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Mary Poppins Returns
Roma
A Star is Born

Review: Aquaman (2018)

* * 1/2
Director: James Wan
Starring: Jason Momoa

Aquaman is dumb as hell and it doesn't even matter. It's fun and it's entertaining and demonstrates what Warner Bros/DC can do when it gets out of its own way and stops trying to reverse engineer a shared universe. At 143 minutes it's at least 30 minutes longer than it has any business being and it is way too over-stuffed with plot, but it succeeds largely on the strength of star Jason Momoa's charisma and on the fact that there's so much happening so fast that you never have the opportunity to be bored. It's not a great movie, but it's a pretty great watch, particularly on the big screen.

Review: Vice (2018)

* 1/2
Director: Adam McKay
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams

132 minutes is a lot of time to spend saying absolutely nothing. While Vice may mock the post-Nixon Republican party for believing in nothing but the power of power itself, the film is just as intellectually, emotionally, and morally empty. Dick Cheney, pulling the strings of the Bush II administration, stripped away many of the checks and balances that are meant to keep American democracy from slipping into tyranny, destabilized the middle east by invading a country knowing that the reasons for invasion were specious, and just generally left the world in a worse place than he found it when he became Vice President. These are things that we already know, though I suppose it may be worth the reminder given the recent trend towards taking a softer view of the Bush II years in light of the mess that's now in power. Vice says nothing new, nothing insightful, and actually laughs at the idea that there is an insight to be had. "What do we believe in?" a young Cheney (Christian Bale) asks his mentor, Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell), who can only burst out laughing in response. But nobody believes in nothing. Even the Joker believed in chaos, which is the absolute freedom of the individual to do as he or she pleases. A film that is content to argue that its protagonist believes in nothing is a film without a narrative rudder. It is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Review: The Favourite (2018)

* * * *
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone

Most movies are lucky if they feature one really great role for an actress. Yorgos Lantimos' latest, The Favourite, can boast of having three. It's a delight that is nearly unheard of. Setting its action at the court of Queen Anne (played with entertaining petulance by Olivia Colman), The Favorite is all about the dangerous game of social dominance and power, of how leverage can be useful only insofar as someone knows how to use it properly, of how one might not even realize that they were gambling until they see how badly they've overplayed their hand. It's a dark comedy about two ruthless women, one of whom tells the other, "We'll make a killer of you yet" and lives to regret it when she sees just how good the other is at the game. It's fantastic.

Golden Globe Winners

As they're announced:

Best Motion Picture - Animated: Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Best Score: Justin Hurwitz, First Man

Best Original Song: "Shallow," A Star is Born

Best Supporting Actress: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, Green Book

Best Screenplay: Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie, Peter Farrelly, Green Book

Best Actor - Musical or Comedy: Christian Bale, Vice

Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language: Roma

Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

Best Actress - Musical or Comedy: Olivia Colman, The Favourite

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: Green Book

Best Actress - Drama: Glenn Close, The Wife

Best Actor - Drama: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Best Motion Picture - Drama: Bohemian Rhapsody

Golden Globe Predictions

The awards will be given out tonight. Here are my predictions:

Best Motion Picture - Drama: A Star is Born

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: The Favorite

Best Director: Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born

Best Actress - Drama: Lady Gaga, A Star is Born

Best Actor - Drama: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Best Actor - Musical or Comedy: Christian Bale, Vice

Best Actress - Musical or Comedy: Olivia Colman, The Favorite

Best Supporting Actress: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, Green Book

Best Screenplay: Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Motion Picture - Animated: Incredibles 2

Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language: Roma

Best Original Score: Marc Shaiman, Mary Poppins Returns

Best Original Song: "Shallow," A Star is Born

Review: Roma (2018)

* * * *
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira

Alfonso Cuaron's last film, 2013's Gravity, was a cinematic experience that captured the vastness of space while telling what is, ultimately, an intimate story about a woman working through her grief. His latest film, Roma, is a story told on a small scale that suggests the great, wide world going on around it (and, while Gravity was a film that practically demanded to be seen on as big a screen as possible, Roma, which has been released in theaters and Netflix simultaneously, is intimate enough that it's impact isn't lessened by watching in on a smaller screen). Though he's made only five films in the last seventeen years including this one (the others being Y Tu Mama Tambien, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Children of Men, and Gravity), Cuaron is one of the most reliably great filmmakers working today and Roma makes a strong case for being his best film to date.

Review: Widows (2018)

* * * 1/2
Director: Steve McQueen
Starring: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell

Widows is more than the movie that you might be expecting, which stands to reason since it's directed by Steve McQueen, who is known for art films (Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave) rather than crowd pleasers. Widows is, perhaps, the happy medium between the two. It's a heist thriller of no small amount of skill, filled with tension and action and reliant on some of the familiar tropes of the genre, but it's also a character piece about four women who are underestimated by everyone around them. Only three of them are widows (there is a fourth widow, but she takes a different path), but they are all women that the men around them take for granted can be walked all over. Now is the time of year when the studios release the last of their great big blockbusters for the year and the last of their great big award hopefuls, which might leave little time left to catch up on films that have already been in release for several weeks, but Widows is a movie worth making the time for.

Review: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

* * *
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Starring: Tim Blake Nelson, Liam Neeson, Zoe Kazan, James Franco, Brendan Gleeson

Ever since Netflix began acquiring and developing its own library of films the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has, with the exception of Netflix's documentaries, resisted recognizing Netflix pictures as legitimate, award worthy content. This changed last year when Mudbound broke through to get 4 nominations and one imagines that this year, with the release of Roma, already so thoroughly lauded with awards from critics, and with filmmakers like the Coen brothers turning to the platform with their latest, the notion that films released through Netflix aren't "real" movies will be obliterated. The Coen's latest, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a great challenge to the idea that Netflix removes the "cinema" from films, as it is a thoroughly cinematic piece of work even when viewed on a small screen thanks to the sumptuous compositions of cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, who previously lensed the Coen's Inside Lleweyn Davis. Telling a series of tales set in the old west, Buster Scruggs hearkens back a time when the Western was as big as all outdoors while being told in the wry, modern voice of the Coens.

Screen Actors Guild Nominations

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role:
Emily Blunt, Mary Poppins Returns
Glenn Close, The Wife
Olivia Colman, The Favourite
Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born
Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role:
Christian Bale, Vice
Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Viggo Mortensen, Green Book
John David Washington, BlacKkKlansman

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role:
Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Timothee Chalamet, Beautiful Boy
Adam Driver, BlacKkKlansman
Sam Elliott, A Star Is Born
Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role:
Amy Adams, Vice
Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place
Margot Robbie, Mary Queen of Scots
Emma Stone, The Favourite
Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture:
A Star Is Born
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
Crazy Rich Asians

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture:
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Avengers: Infinity War
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Black Panther
Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Winners

The winners of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards, announced earlier today:


Best Film: Roma

Best Director: Debra Granik, Leave No Trace

Best Actress: Olivia Colman, The Favourite

Best Actor: Ethan Hawke, First Reformed

Best Supporting Actor: Steven Yeun, Burning

Best Supporting Actress: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Screenplay: Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Best Cinematography: Roma

Best Editing: Joshua Altman and Bing Liu, Minding the Gap

Best Animated Film: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Best Foreign Language Film: Burning and “Shoplifters (Tie)

Best Documentary: Shirkers

Best Music/Score: If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Production Design: Hannah Beachler, Black Panther

Golden Globe Nominees

Announced earlier today:

Best Motion Picture, Drama
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Star Is Born

Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Crazy Rich Asians
The Favourite
Green Book
Mary Poppins Returns
Vice

Best Director, Motion Picture
Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born
Alfonso Cuarón, Roma
Peter Farrelly, Green Book
Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
Adam McKay, Vice

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama
Glenn Close, The Wife
Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born
Nicole Kidman, Destroyer
Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Rosamund Pike, A Private War

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama
Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born
Willem Dafoe, At Eternity’s Gate
Lucas Hedges, Boy Erased
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
John David Washington, BlacKkKlansman

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Christian Bale, Vice
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mary Poppins Returns
Viggo Mortensen, Green Book
Robert Redford, The Old Man and the Gun
John C. Reilly, Stan & Ollie

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Emily Blunt, Mary Poppins Returns
Olivia Colman, The Favourite
Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade
Charlize Theron, Tully
Constance Wu, Crazy Rich Asians

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Timothée Chalamet, Beautiful Boy
Adam Driver, BlacKkKlansman
Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Sam Rockwell, Vice

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Amy Adams, Vice
Claire Foy, First Man
Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Emma Stone, The Favourite
Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

Best Screenplay, Motion Picture
Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, The Favourite
Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk
Adam McKay, Vice
Peter Farrelly, Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie, Green Book

Best Original Song, Motion Picture
“All the Stars,” Black Panther
“Girl in the Movies,” Dumplin’
“Requiem for a Private War,” A Private War
“Revelation,” Boy Erased
“Shallow,” A Star Is Born

Best Original Score, Motion Picture
Marco Beltrami, A Quiet Place
Alexandre Desplat, Isle of Dogs
Ludwig Göransson, Black Panther
Justin Hurwitz, First Man
Marc Shaiman, Mary Poppins Returns

Best Motion Picture, Animated
Incredibles 2
Isle of Dogs
Mirai
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse

Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language
Capernaum
Girl
Never Look Away
Roma
Shoplifters

New York Film Critics Circle Winners

Announced earlier today:

Best Film: Roma

Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma

Best Actress: Regina Hall, Support the Girls

Best Actor: Ethan Hawke, First Reformed

Best Supporting Actress: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Supporting Actor: Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Best Screenplay: Paul Schrader, First Reformed

Best Cinematography: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma

Best Foreign Film: Cold War

Best Non-Fiction Film: Minding the Gap

Best Animated Film: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Best First Film: Eighth Grade

Review: Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

* * * 1/2
Director: Marielle Heller
Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant

Likeability is a very overrated quality in a protagonist. We don't need to like someone to find their story compelling and engaging. We don't even have to like them in order to root for them to come out of things alright. Good thing, too, since Can You Ever Forgive Me?'s Lee Israel, played with marvelously jagged edges by Melissa McCarthy, is pretty difficult to like most of the time. She's a nasty, misanthropic drunk who doesn't think twice about using people, screwing them over, and manipulating them. She's also a lonely person who tends to self-sabotage relationships because she fears connection/expects rejection, adores her cat, and is capable of deep compassion for people who are (somehow) worse off than she is. She's also pretty damn funny ("Oh to be a mediocre white man who doesn't realize how full of shit he is," she laments at one point and, lord, truer words have rarely been spoken) and the movie itself offers a great balance of seriousness and humor. It's one of the year's lowkey delights.

Review: Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

* * *
Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Rami Malek

Early in Bohemian Rhapsody Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) argues that Queen shouldn't be conventional, a moment that, even at that early stage in the narrative, is hilariously lacking in self-awareness given how conventional the film itself actually is. Yet as formulaic as the film's opening stretch is, by the time it reaches its conclusion Bohemian Rhapsody has managed to overcome its flaws (of which there are many on a basic storytelling level) to become something deeply moving. Maybe it's the music, so familiar, so catchy, so capable of amping a person up. Maybe it's the lead performance by Malek, which transcends mere imitation and hits on something intensely and beautifully true. Whatever it is, once Bohemian Rhapsody gets going it doesn't just take off, it soars.

National Board of Review Winners

The best in film from 2018 as selected by the National Board of Review, announced earlier today:


Best Film: Green Book

Top 10 Films
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Black Panther
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Eighth Grade
First Reformed
If Beale Street Could Talk
Mary Poppins Returns
A Quiet Place
Roma
A Star Is Born

Best Director: Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born

Best Actor: Viggo Mortensen, Green Book

Best Actress: Lady Gaga, A Star is Born

Best Supporting Actress: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Supporting Actor: Sam Elliott, A Star is Born

Best Original Screenplay: Paul Schrader, First Reformed

Best Adapted Screenplay: Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Animated Feature: Incredibles 2

Best Foreign Language Film: Cold War

Top 5 Foreign Language Films
Burning
Custody
The Guilty
Happy as Lazzaro
Shoplifters

Best Documentary: RBG

Top 5 Documentaries
Crime + Punishment
Free Solo
Minding the Gap
Three Identical Strangers
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Breakthrough Performance: Thomasin McKenzie, Leave No Trace

Best Directorial Debut: Bo Burnham, Eighth Grade

Best Ensemble: Crazy Rich Asians

William K. Everson Film History Award: The Other Side of the Wind and They'll Love Me When I'm Dead

Top 10 Independent Films
The Death of Stalin
Lean on Pete
Leave No Trace
Mid90s
The Old Man & the Gun
The Rider
Searching
Sorry to Bother You
We the Animals
You Were Never Really Here

The Other Side of the Wind (2018) and They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (2018)

The Other Side of the Wind Director: Orson Welles
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead Director: Morgan Neville

Rarely has an artist been so astonishingly talented and so stunningly unlucky. Orson Welles was only 25 when he made Citizen Kane, a masterpiece among masterpieces, and while it certainly wouldn't be accurate to say that it was all downhill from there, his filmography boasting several great post-Kane movies, things certainly started to get a lot more difficult almost immediately. By the time of his death in 1985, his film work consisted of projects made just for the money so that he could fund his own personal projects, and those personal projects, which were largely left unfinished. One of those projects was The Other Side of the Wind which was filmed off and on from 1970 to 1976, embroiled in various legal battles for decades thereafter, and has now been completed by a team overseen by Peter Bogdanovich and Frank Marshall. They'll Love Me When I'm Dead is a documentary companion piece to The Other Side of the Wind, detailing its troubled production as well as touching on several of his unfinished projects. Both are available on Netflix.