Green Book

This is a solid best picture candidate with two unforgettable performances. It behaves like a road movie, and cruises along with a steady and engaging clip. Like Bohemian Rhapsody, it touches on some of the real-life characters more complicated qualities, but it never lingers for long. It’s expertly acted, directed, shot and edited and it might very well win best picture. And it’s also really human, depicting a heart-felt friendship in an era of change. You kinda wish some of our “leaders” liked movies. They might learn something from this.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Animated superhero stories were always the bargain basement it terms of quality. The cheap looking cartoons on Saturday morning had so much potential, but I’m sure were thought of as low-art or commercials for toys. It wasn’t until the Batman: Animated Series in 1992 that superheroes started getting some super-serious animated love. Sam Raimi’s live-action Spidermans started ten years later and it seemed like the comic books would be “live action” from then on. But then Pixar released The Incredibles, which was, in my mind, the most beautifully animated superhero saga to date. (Why did it take so long?) When I saw The Incredibles 2 this year, I was blown away and believed it was, at the time, the best animated thing I’d ever seen, in any genre. It’s absolutely gorgeous.

That is... until I saw Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, which is sublime in a way that’s almost impossible to describe. So, also and including Mary Poppins Returns, 2018 seems like it was a banner year for animation, because this is… ground-breaking and game-changing. It redefines the animated superhero model and obliterates the cartoons. The story is spellbinding, the voice acting is top-notch, and the use of music is unprecedented. Before I saw this, people were saying that this was the best movie of the year. I was skeptical, but the people are right. This is awesome. Steve Ditko and Stan Lee may rest in peace because their legacy is safely wrapped in a web with this: an achievement for the ages. DO NOT MISS IT IN THEATERS.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

As with any bio-pic, you have to wonder how much of it actually happened and how much is dramatized for effect. You could argue that if it’s an entertaining movie than it shouldn’t matter that much. But I still wonder about this: the story of Lee Israel and how it all went down. Be that as it may this is a very well-acted drama about a desperate (or was she?) and alcoholic author who’s strapped for cash and willing to swindle some collectors so she can take her cat to the vet. The main character is such an unlikable grouch that the movie runs the risk of not working, if not for the complicated and careful performance by Melissa McCarthy, who nails it. The story also dives into to an unfamiliar but surprisingly interesting sub-culture of collectable, old letters written by famous people. It’s like baseball cards for literary types and the world therein can be dark and seedy! Kudos to Richard E. Grant here, too, who shines as a breezy con-artist who conspires to hock the counterfeit goods. A strong and intimate character study well worth the time.

Mary Poppins Returns

Emily Blunt can’t sing like Dame Julie Andrews. You wouldn’t expect her to. But she CAN sing a little. More than a little. And as she takes on a more stern and disciplinary tone with the Banks children, she leaves a lot of the Disney showiness and sparkle to… the filmmakers. And the results are fantastic. The make-up, the costumes, the sets, the animation, and the songs are all glorious. The crew did an incredible job working, obviously for years, to craft one of the best movies of 2018. I can only imagine the numerous meetings at Disney headquarters fretting about the risk of fucking up one of the most beloved movies of all time by making a sequel. “Don’t fuck this up…” must’ve been the on-set mantra. They didn’t.