Ranking the Movies of 2018

In what I can only assume is some fit of temporary insanity that will eventually break and leave me having forgotten that I ever conceived of such a notion, I’ve decided to keep a ranking of every movie I watch for the first time in 2018. This means new releases as well as the classics we feature each week on the Everyone Is a Critic Podcast. Every movie for the year will be ranked and I am going to attempt to document it all in a weekly column.

It’s a silly, superfluous, and completely subjective notion but I figured, why not try it out and see how it goes? The goal is in part to make yearend lists less time consuming and to also track my movie watching in a way that I never have before to see if perhaps I can form more coherent and intriguing ideas to write about in other columns about the way the year’s movie watching effect the way I think.

I also like the idea of tracking reactions to our classics versus the movies that inspired us to choose said classic. Thus far in 2018 I have one classic, Burnt Offerings, that I absolutely loathed and wished I hadn’t chosen and another classic, Foxy Brown, that left me wondering why I hadn’t had this movie in my life sooner. Foxy Brown is the best movie I have watched so far in 2018, not that it has much competition thus far.

This being my first attempt at such a list, it will be short. Thus far in 2018 there have only been four new wide release theatrical movies; I’m not counting The Post which I saw last year. I did see two other minor theatrical releases which will be on this list, even if no one has heard of them and thus far no one seems all that interested in what I’ve written about them.

So, with the preliminaries out of the way and the standards established for this admittedly odd and highly subjective piece, let’s commence with ranking 2018 best to worst with minor commentaries along the way. Each week I will offer a few comments on the movies I add to the list including the upcoming Everyone Is a Critic classic Heat starring Al Pacino and directed by Michael Mann and each weekend’s new releases as they arrive in my small corner of the Midwest.

1. Foxy Brown: I kid you not; this Blaxploitation classic had eluded me for the entirety of my 41 years on earth. I was always aware of Foxy Brown as a cultural icon but I had never taken the time to actually watch the movie. With the release of the similarly themed though thoroughly homogenized Proud Mary, the Everyone is a Critic Podcastchose to feature Foxy Brown as our classic and I am so glad we did. Foxy Brown is exciting, sexy, and charmingly under-funded. It’s a classic of low budget silliness but with star Pam Grier it has a focal point that you can’t help but take seriously and seriously root for. Yes, the film is low budget, but the ways in which Grier’s sheer force of personality overcomes the budget and the lower watt actors around her, is remarkable. I absolutely adore Foxy Brown and thus far in 2018, I haven’t seen a better movie.

2. Insidious The Last Key: I have liked each of the Insidious movies and The Last Key is my favorite of the four. Lyn Shaye makes for a terrific horror movie lead. Competent, compassionate, strong, and motherly, Shaye is so easy to root for and fear for. Shaye is completely awesome and she elevates every minute of Insidious The Last Key. Read my full length review here.

3. Sheikh Jackson: This surprising Egyptian drama finds a Muslim Cleric struggling with his faith in the wake of the death of Michael Jackson. It’s one of the more unique and intriguing premises I have seen in a movie. I loved being able to identify with a character who was so different from me in terms of background yet so similar to me in terms of our complicated relationship with being a fan of Michael Jackson. Sheikh Jackson is charming and funny as well as being emotional and cathartic. My full length review is here.

4. Almost Paris: I didn’t love Almost Paris but I certainly didn’t hate it. Caterina Scorsese, the daughter of the legendary Martin Scorsese, has a terrific sense for good characters, sympathetic figures you don’t mind spending time with. Yes, the cutting of the film is bizarre and the addition of a subplot about the housing crisis that is tacked on to the end is awkward but I didn’t outwardly loathe watching Almost Paris which is more than I can say about what remains on this list. My full length review is here.

5. Burnt Offerings: Burnt Offerings is a 1976 horror movie starring Karen Black, Oliver Reed, and Bette Davis. The film was the first classic of the new year on the Everyone is a Critic Podcast, chosen to coincide with the release of Insidious The Last Key. I chose it as the classic because it came up when I googled demonic possession movies. When I saw the exceptionally pedigreed cast I thought for sure I was in for something special that had been lost to time. It turned out that Burnt Offerings deserved to be lost to time because it is truly awful. Burnt Offerings is a camp mess of silly performances that never goes anywhere. As my co-host Bob noted afterward when putting our episode together nothing in Burnt Offerings was either Burnt or Offered.

6 Paddington 2: For the rest of this list I will link you over to my full length reviews but I will note that as of Monday, January 15th, I remain the only film critic to have written a negative review of Paddington 2. I don’t say that with pride and I did not set out to be the lone voice in the wilderness on Paddington 2. It just sort of happened that I hated every minute of Paddington 2 all the while unaware that it possessed that rare 100% positive rating on RottenTomatoes.com. Check out my review here.

7 Proud Mary: Not much to say here, check out my full length review of Proud Mary here.

8 The Commuter: Again, not much to say that I did not say in my full length review of The Commuter Here.

Next week we will add several more movies to this list including the Everyone is a Critic Podcast classic for this week, Michael Mann’s Heat. We chose Heat to coincide with the release of the Gerard Butler-50 Cent action movie Den of Thieves because both movies are about cops and criminals and my co-hosts have been desperate for a reason to bring Heat to the podcast. Also this week, the music drama Forever Your Girl, the 9/11 themed action drama 12 Strong and if I get really lucky, Phantom Thread, a movie I was supposed to see last year but I did not.