Month: December 2018

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Best Films of 2018, Part II

1. If Beale Street Could Talk Directed by Barry Jenkins Making a follow-up to Best Picture winner Moonlight would have been a daunting enough task, but choosing to adapt James Baldwin is an especially courageous undertaking. TheRead Full Review

decentmaybe.2018.1

Best Films of 2018, Part I

As a film year, I would probably describe 2018 as incredibly deep, if missing those unmistakable masterpieces that define certain other years. Even last year, films like Phantom Thread and Lady Bird established an immediate enduring qualityRead Full Review

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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

We don’t need a new Spider-Man movie. I’m not sure we ever have. The reason Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse works so well is that it seems to understand that. The film – which is produced byRead Full Review

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Cold War

The stark, black & white world of Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War belies an incredible tenderness, a passionate love that perseveres over years and across countries on both sides of the Berlin Wall. This is not aRead Full Review

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Vox Lux

The ideas are aplenty in Vox Lux, as are the choices, very specific choices made by writer-director Brady Corbet and star Natalie Portman. The film – a histrionic take on the poisonous aspects of fame andRead Full Review

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If Beale Street Could Talk

The merging of Barry Jenkins and James Baldwin is as serendipitous as it is joyous, a wondrous meeting of historical talents. The Oscar-winning Jenkins could have made anything he wished after his second film, Moonlight tookRead Full Review

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Roma

Alfonso Cuarón is one of maybe half a dozen filmmakers considered by many to be amongst the best living directors on the planet. He is the foremost figure in the trifecta of major Mexican directors,Read Full Review

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Ralph Breaks the Internet

Surpassed by its sister company, Pixar Animation, in terms of prestige and trophies, the standard-bearing Walt Disney Animation studio has climbed back into equal footing over the last few years. Starting with 2010’s Tangled and culminatingRead Full Review

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Green Book

What does one make of Green Book? The film has won major prizes from the National Board of Review and at the Toronto Film Festival, but feels like a certified crowd-pleaser straight out of 1967. In thatRead Full Review

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The Favourite

Yorgos Lanthimos is always aiming to unsettle. It’s impossible to guard against the ways in which he reflects the horrors of humanity upon the audience, and it speaks to his strength as a storyteller that you needRead Full Review