Top Ten of 2018!

I always put a great deal of thought into my top ten movies every year, because I always use it as a touchstone for this moment in my movie watching journey. If a certain movie lands in my "top ten," it enters a special place in my heart forever. So here are ten of my favorite films from 2018 that have entered into the "Peter Waters" pantheon!

10. Green Book
Dir. Peter Farrelly

Dumb and Dumber is (abashedly) my favorite movie of all time, but even after defending that 90s goofball comedy for years, even I was surprised that director Peter Farrelly could pull a movie like Green Book off! The film, based on a true story, follows the budding friendship between Dr. Shirley (Mahershala Ali), a world-class African-American concert pianist, and his driver Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), a tough-talking Italian American from the Bronx, as they embark on a concert tour through the Deep South in 1962. Although it's a little hokey, it's the good kind of crowd-pleaser. Funny, heartfelt, and socially-conscious, Green Book is a pleasant deviation from Farrelly's typical low-hanging slapstick material!

The Talkies: 2018 "Best Of" Superlatives!

Welcome to my 7th annual movie blog superlatives: "The Talkies!" Leading up to my official Top Ten of the year, here I will honor the year in movies through different categories, from acting to music to cinematography! At the end, also enjoy a special Spotify playlist of the tracks featured in this post! Thanks again for reading, you loyal blog readers!

BEST ACTOR - Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread

Supposedly Daniel Day-Lewis's "final" performance before his announced retirement (we'll see how long that pans out), his portrayal of Reynolds Woodcock, a meticulous, strict, self-absorbed dress designer in 1950s London, is yet again up to the master-class level we expect of him.

Despite his extremely particular tastes, Woodcock winds up courting a bright-eyed waitress unaccustomed to his lifestyle and is one of the few people to challenge his routine. Similar to Hitchcock's Rebecca, their mutual attraction and distrust lends to some tense scenes as their small rebellions build off of each other. It's such a particular, specific, genius, and subtly comical performance and although I don't believe it's the last we'll see of Day-Lewis, it would be a fantastic note to end his career on!

Review Round-Up: December

Happy holidays everyone! These will be my last reviews of the year before I post my "Best Of" Superlatives, Top Ten of the year, and most anticipated of 2019. I just want to say thank you to all my readers out there! I may not be writing as frequently as I once did, but I have been super busy! Whether you're reading this in a waiting room or on your laptop or sitting on the toilet - I hope you enjoy!

Aquaman

Dir. James Wan

Aquaman, with his gaudy orange and green costume and ability to talk to fish, has sort of been the laughing stock of DC Comics characters for a long time. But in the latest DCU film from director James Wan, Jason Momoa ups the character's "cool factor," making him a hulking, tatted-up surfer bro with a Rob Zombie beard. Simultaneously embracing Aquaman's innately silly concept while giving the character a "badass" revamp, this latest superhero flick does do a considerable job bringing the character to new places - but the story of this half-breed Atlantian/ human and his adventures trying to unite the surface world and the water world is a mostly incomprehensible, CGI-filled mess with cringe-worthy acting and insane plot devices that make no sense at all (this movie argues that, yes, dinosaurs are alive and well, living in the Earth's core).

Final Verdict:

SKIP IT

Review Round-Up: October and November

To all the people that say the first year of teaching is the most difficult: I hope you're right. My life has been practically a constant stream of lesson planning, grading, meetings, e-mailing, disciplining, and losing sleep! Despite all that, I've been able to sneak in a bunch of movies! So I may not be able to write full-length reviews like I used to, but hopefully these bite-sized "review round-ups" will satiate you loyal blog readers! Thanks for reading!

25 Scariest Shots in Horror Movies

Halloween is coming up, and us film nerds around the globe are prepping our horror movie marathons. For this blog post, however, instead of making a typical horror movie review or "best of" list to ring in the season, I wanted to focus on the smallest building block of film: THE SHOT. Movies are more or less just a series of pictures flashing by your eyes, and some of these single images have the ability to conjure our deepest, darkest fears. This blog post is a celebration of 25 iconic, unsettling, downright creepy-crawly shots that have haunted our dreams over the years and the cinematographers who helped immortalize them on screen.

* = Oscar-nominated cinematography

NONA-REVIEW: I've Been Busy

Hello Blog Readers:
My life has been pretty hectic lately. I just started a new job as a high school English teacher, teaching three blocks of Freshman English and two blocks of Essay Writing, rendering my "free time" very limited - including the time to write full-length movie reviews! I've seen so many movies since my last batch of reviews in August(!), but I haven't found the time to properly sit and write them. But instead of letting that backlog of theatrical experiences fester, I wanted to get my opinion out there on all the movies I've seen over the past months in one giant post!

So this won't be as in-depth as some of my other blogs, but I don't want to let this passion of mine wither and die just because I finally have a "real" job! Also, keep an eye out this October, I have a special, epic Halloween-themed blog post planned!

Thank you for reading and enjoy,
Peter Waters

RESULTS: 2018 Summer Box Office Predictions

While I'm happy to have my best summer box office prediction year on record, it's depressing that there is not a single non-sequel film on the top ten! The only big shocker this year - in my opinion - is how Solo: A Star Wars Story under-performed. Its relatively low opening for the franchise is interesting to consider. Are people getting sick of Star Wars? Were people turned off by a different actor playing Han Solo? Or was it released in too crowded a season, between The Avengers and Deadpool? Besides that the usual suspects (Marvel, Pixar, Dinosaurs) all made out great, making this a particularly unsurprising year!

Here are my final results:

Mission Impossible: Fallout, Christopher Robin, Mamma Mia 2, Blindspotting Reviews

Mission Impossible: Fallout
Dir. Christopher McQuarrie
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At this point, the Mission Impossible series is less about its main protagonist, Ethan Hunt, and more about its star, Tom Cruise. With each film, the line between character and actor is blurred, with Cruise doing his own stunts, constantly one-upping himself by dangling from the highest building in the world in Ghost Protocol, or holding onto a plane during takeoff in Rogue Nation. For over 20 years(!), Cruise has put his body on the line for our entertainment, and in that respect, even at the ripe age of 56, Mission: Impossible - Fallout totally delivers on the running, jumping, ass-kicking, death-defying madman that is expected with the name "Tom Cruise" on the marquee!

Ant-Man and the Wasp, The First Purge, Sorry to Bother You, Whitney Reviews

Ant-Man and the Wasp
Dir. Peyton Reed
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Coming off of the epic crossover event Avengers: Infinity War where the fate of the universe was in the balance, Ant-Man and the Wasp is a refreshingly smaller adventure, in more ways than one! It's light and funny and takes everything that worked about the first Ant-Man and expands the world and characters in fun new ways. Although the movie nerd world will forever question what Edgar Wright's Ant-Man would have looked like had he not been given the boot - Peyton Reed more than stepped up to the plate!

Jurassic World 2, Sicario 2, Tag, Gotti Reviews

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Dir. J. A. Bayona
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At this point in the Jurassic franchise, the movies have no choice but to be insanely idiotic. By this fifth movie, the fact that the humans still haven't learned their lesson not to EFF with nature, I have to say I'm siding more with the dinosaurs at this point! While there's room in my heart for stupid-fun action movies (I will continue, against logic, to sing the praises of xXx: Return of Xander Cage), this movie feels like a group of Hollywood moguls collectively pissing on Michael Crichton's grave.

Incredibles 2, Hotel Artemis, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, Nancy Reviews

The Incredibles 2
Dir. Brad Bird
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In 2004, when The Incredibles was released, we were just at the beginning of the superhero movie tidal wave - with only Spider-Man 2 also hitting it big that year. We're now in a completely different cinema landscape, one where superhero movies seemingly come out every week (Marvel alone has FIVE properties being adapted in 2018), which means that Incredibles 2 has a much more difficult job to set itself out from the rest of the pack. The way in which Brad Bird accomplished this was by making his heroes not gods fighting for the fate of the universe - but instead a typical nuclear family concerned about paying bills, getting homework done, and trying to keep the baby in its crib. The juxtaposition of the mundane and the fantastic is what makes The Incredibles 2 so hilarious and relatable. It's by far the best superhero movie this year!

Ocean's 8, Hereditary, RBG, The Gospel According to André Reviews

Ocean's 8
Dir. Gary Ross
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Heists are almost inherently cinematic. You get to watch a group of criminals play against the rules and plan an elaborate scheme in which there's a high probably of being caught. There are obviously a lot of stakes involved, and usually the more creative the plan and its execution, the more fun there is to be had. Steven Soderbergh understood this with his rat pack remake Ocean's Eleven, but this gender-swapped sequel, despite featuring a great, star-studded cast, misses the mark when it comes to the heist itself, which is as bland and rote as a plain donut with nothing on it.

Action Point, Upgrade, First Reformed, Filmworker Reviews

Action Point
Dir. Tim Kirkby
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Since the inception of the MTV show Jackass in the early 2000s, Johnny Knoxville and his team of "stuntmen" have come under fire for encouraging dangerous behavior. I always felt, as a fan of the show and films, that the Jackass crew never promoted their own behavior, they simply put themselves on display like human crash test dummies. However, at this point, as the guys get older, these reckless stunts have started to lose their charm. Action Point seems like a desperate attempt by an aging Knoxville to hold onto his youth - which in this case comes in the form of excessive, 80's-style binge-drinking and point blank shots to the groin.

Solo: A Star Wars Story, Disobedience, The Rider, Beast Reviews

Solo: A Star Wars Story
Dir. Ron Howard
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Star Wars movies used to be major cultural events. With long gaps between the films' release dates, the hype was strong with this franchise - the 16 years between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace, and the 10 years between Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens, gave fans the chance to speculate and mouth-froth for a good chunk of the calendar. Now, risking quantity over quality as well as audience hype, Disney plans to release a new Star Wars film once a year, and it remains to be seen if this decision to oversatiate people's willingness to see yet more lightsaber duels, "pew pew pew"-ing, and nostalgic references to past films will continue to thrive. It's concerning to see that this is the state of the modern blockbuster, but at least Solo: A Star Wars Story is a ton of fun!

Deadpool 2, Breaking In, Tully, You Were Never Really Here Reviews

Deadpool 2

Dir. David Leitch

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The first Deadpool movie came as a subversive revelation for the superhero genre - from the opening credits it brought a biting, self-referential humor into the mix, with a witty script and hilarious performances that combined the pop culture-obsessed raunchiness of Family Guy with hyper-violent, R-rated action previously unseen in any Marvel movie. Fox took a risk and it paid off big-time, meaning a sequel was inevitable. But while Deadpool 2 has its moments, it fails to recapture that same "lightning-in-a-bottle" punk rock energy as its predecessor.

Avengers: Infinity War, Rampage, Truth or Dare, Chappaquiddick Reviews

Avengers: Infinity War

Dir. Anthony & Joe Russo

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NOTE: Minor spoilers ahead, so if you want to know nothing, you may want to skip this review!

The epic crossover movie to end all epic crossover movies, Avengers: Infinity War was inspired by one of the biggest crossover series in comics, 1991's The Infinity Gauntlet. Much like its source material, the film features dozens of Marvel characters, most set up in the preceding 18(!) films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and brings them together to fight the hulking, purple-headed alien conqueror Thanos, who literally wants to kill half of all the beings in the universe in order to save resources (how eco-friendly of him!). He'll have the power to do it if he finds all the infinity stones for his gauntlet, so practically every single Marvel superhero - from Earth-bound characters like Iron Man, to the space-traversing Guardians of the Galaxy - must come together to stop Thanos and his minions from enacting his sinister plan. It's a total comic book story, for better or worse.

Summer 2018 Box Office Predictions

Summer is starting a little early this year - at least when it comes to the annual Summer box office game! This is my sixth year predicting what movies will make the top ten highest-earners, and it never really gets easier. But that unpredictability is what makes it so fun! If you want to play along, read the rules below and leave your predictions in the comments!

A Quiet Place, Isle of Dogs, Oh Lucy!, The Death of Stalin Reviews

A Quiet Place
Dir. John Krasinski
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Who knew Jim from The Office would deliver what might be the most unique monster movie of 2018? In A Quiet Place, John Krasinski writes, directs, and stars alongside his wife Emily Blunt in this horror film with a great hook: there are alien creatures who hunt using only sound, making it essential for Krasinski, Blunt, and their children to be as silent as possible. The result is a tense, well-executed film that ingeniously uses sound (and the lack thereof) to ratchet up the suspense.

Ready Player One, Unsane, Death Wish, Thoroughbreds Reviews

Ready Player One

Dir. Steven Spielberg

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So often I hear complaints from people: "Hollywood doesn't make original ideas anymore!" Yet, like flies to a light, these same whiners continually pack in to see the hundredth mindless Marvel, Star Wars, or Harry Potter movie. We're a culture obsessed with nostalgia and the past, and Ready Player One, based on the popular book by Ernest Cline, both celebrates and criticizes this very notion. It's both a blast from the past, a dazzling action flick filled top to bottom with pop culture references rewarding the mindless absorption of decades-worth of movies and video games, but it also argues not to lose sight of our connections in the real world. 

Red Sparrow, Annihilation, A Fantastic Woman, The Insult Reviews

Red Sparrow
Dir. Francis Lawrence
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One of the oldest spy movie cliches is the love affair between two secret agents. From classics like Hitchcock's Notorious in 1946 to more modern fare like 2016's Allied, it's a well that's been run pretty dry by this point. But that didn't stop the dynamic Hunger Games duo Francis Lawrence and Jennifer Lawrence (no relation) from adding to the pile with Red Sparrow, a thriller based on the book of the same name. In this case it's a Russian and an American spy cautiously eyeing each other in a dull, lifeless game of "can we trust each other?"

Predicting the 90th Academy Awards [UPDATED]

The Oscars are almost here! The biggest, most glamorous movie awards ceremony is celebrating its 90th anniversary this Sunday (March 4th, 8:00pm EST!), and even though it's way cooler to not care about it, I'm kind of obsessed with Oscar season. While I'm disappointed in some key snubs (The Florida Project deserves much better), I'm glad to see "offbeat" genre movies like Get Out and The Shape of Water making a big splash (literally in the latter case).

This year also marks one of the most diverse Oscars ever - with the 5th-ever female director nominated (Greta Gerwig) and the 5th-ever black director nominated (Jordan Peele, who also made history by also being nominated for Picture and Original Screenplay). There's also the first female ever nominated for cinematography (Mudbound), and the first trans director for the documentary Strong Island.

The Oscars may not be so white anymore, but the real question is who will get the gold? Below are my predictions - leave yours in the comments to play along!

* = I haven't watched it yet

Black Panther, The Greatest Showman, Paddington 2, Hostiles Reviews

Black Panther
Dir. Ryan Coogler
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At only 31, Ryan Coogler is the youngest person so far to direct a Marvel movie. Why did the Disney brain trust invest so much good will in someone with only two other directorial features under his belt? Because those films were Fruitvale Station and Creed! Two of the best movies of their respective years, each with a fantastic sense of drama and character, I found it tough not to hype myself up for Coogler's Black Panther. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1966, Black Panther was the first mainstream black superhero - before Falcon or Luke Cage - and Coogler seemed like the perfect choice to bring him into the 2018 cultural zeitgeist. After the hype-dust settled, I admit that huge parts of this movie disappointed me - it's not even in the same ballpark as his previous two films - but Black Panther is still a promising new direction for the Marvel brand.

The Post, Phantom Thread, Molly's Game, Mary and the Witch's Flower Reviews

Hello all! Welcome to my first review post of the new year. I've decided to experiment with a new rating system that may or may not simplify things. There are now only three ratings: SKIP IT, SEE IT, and WAIT FOR NETFLIX. Let me know if you like this new method or prefer the old fashioned A-F scale!

The Post
Dir. Steven Spielberg
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Steven Spielberg is such an efficient, workman-like director that he made The Post while still in post-production on his upcoming special effects extravaganza Ready Player One. Not unlike the newspaper reporters depicted in the film, Spielberg's style is straightforward, sensational, and fast-paced. He's the seemingly perfect director for the material, and with a cast filled top-to-bottom with amazing talent, I thought The Post would have been a slam-dunk. Unfortunately, this intriguing true story of the Washington Post's ethical dilemma in regards to publishing the top secret Pentagon Papers feels a little too pat and easy for its own good. It lacks the paranoia of All the President's Men, the authenticity of Spotlight, and the urgency of Citizenfour, settling for a hum-drum, nicely polished history lesson.