Ranking the Movies of 2018: Week 13

Seemingly every year since the invention of internet-based film criticism and social media, a horror movie comes along and is met with praise befitting a game-changing work of art. Rarely is the movie in question worthy of such hype but it happens regardless. This year it is A Quiet Place, John Krasinski’s outstanding post-apocalyptic, family in danger thriller. A Quiet Place is a very good movie but it must be said that it is no ‘game changer.’

A Quiet Place is a quite good horror thriller in which monsters murder people who make too much noise. We join the story 89 days into this post-apocalypse era and immediately we are thrust into a near silent universe. We see children playing but no laughter, no carrying on loudly, and the silence is oppressive and unsettling. Marketing for the film has prepared us for the quiet, but Krasinski’s skillful direction nevertheless puts us off balance from the start of the film.

Again, I have plenty of praise for A Quiet Place but I have to take issue with the ludicrous hype around the movie. The film is clever but it should be noted that what Krasinski does so well in A Quiet Place is built upon classic horror movie tropes. Silence, for one, is a staple of the genre. Usually it’s the killers like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers who are the silent ones in horror movies, whereas in A Quiet Place it is the victims who must be silent.

It’s such a stupid simple inversion of a horror trope that people are mistaking it as innovation. And don’t be mistaken, it’s damn clever and under Krasinski’s sure handed lensing, it works. But this is not game changing. Last year it was Get Out that took a classic horror trope, using horror to comment on societal ills, and was similarly hailed as game-changing. Like Get Out, A Quiet Place is simply a highly skilled take on something horror movies have been doing since the early 1970s.

Other new releases this past weekend include the slightly disappointing but funny enough comedy Blockers starring John Cena and Leslie Mann. The best bits in Blockers are unfortunately in the film’s quite funny trailer. The film itself has one great gag that isn’t in the trailer, a filthy funny cameo from Office Space star Gary Cole and Showgirls sexpot Gina Gershon. Otherwise, Blockers doesn’t have a single set piece that you don’t already know from the trailer. This doesn’t render the movie bad, but it does stunt the movie and keep it far from greatness.

A Miracle Season is a sports movie that is good at nailing emotional bits but not so great at being much more than rote, by the numbers manipulation. What The Miracle Season does have though is a nearly transcendent performance by Helen Hunt who plays coach to a volleyball team whose inspiring captain is killed in an accident. Hunt plays few of the inspiring sports movie coach beats, choosing instead to stay true to the real life person her character is based on, an awkward, rigid woman forced to embrace the emotions overwhelming her otherwise reserved nature. It’s a tremendous performance that elevates The Miracle Season from otherwise existing as an uplifting Lifetime movie conflated to a theatrical release.

Finally, among the new releases is Chappaquiddick, a historical drama about the night Senator Ted Kennedy’s negligence took the life of a woman named Mary Jo Kopechne and the ill-advised attempt to cover up the negligence. Jason Clarke plays Ted Kennedy but never finds the heart of the character. Clarke is fine as a historical stand in for the real Ted Kennedy but beyond repeating things we know about Kennedy, there isn’t much there. Ed Helms is the best part of Chappaquiddick playing a disillusioned Kennedy family friend who leaves the family behind following Chappaquiddick.

This week’s classic on the Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review Podcast was The Mist, Frank Darabont’s other Stephen King adaptation. The Mist is a silly movie with terrible special effects and a bland lead performance by Thomas Jane. I don’t understand the appeal of The Mist, despite my co-hosts attempts to explain their affection for it. Many claim the film’s bummer ending is something special but it played as comically dark for me when I saw it in theaters and remained comical to me seeing it this week.

Next week we will talk more about supposedly game changing classic horror movies as another Friday the 13th comes across our calendars and offers another chance to revisit Sean S. Cunningham’s beloved horror franchise. We will discuss the merits of the original Friday the 13th and rank the Top 5 movies in the Friday the 13th franchise on the next Everyone’s a Critic. New releases will also include Rampage starring The Rock, Jon Hamm starring in Beirut, Wes Anderson’s controversial Isle of Dogs, and the teen horror movie Truth or Dare.

New rankings below and new additions to the list are in bold type…

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
3. Black Swan
4. Phantom Thread
5. Black Panther
6. His Girl Friday
7. Best F®iends
8. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
9. Annihilation
10. Unsane
11. Just Charlie
12. Columbus
13. The Death of Stalin
14. Hostiles
15. A Wrinkle in Time
16. Boogie Nights
17. Foxy Brown
18. Becks
19. A Quiet Place
20. Game Night
21. Are We Not Cats
22. The Ballad of Lefty Brown
23. 12 Strong
24. Red Sparrow
25. Act & Punishment
26. Ready Player One
27. Los Angeles Overnight
28. Salome & Wilde Salome
29. Switching Channels
30. Actors of Sound: A Foley Artist Documentary
31. Tomb Raider
32. War Games
33. Insidious: The Last Key
34. Sheik Jackson
35. Gringo
36. Love, Simon
37. Hurricane Heist
38. Samson & Delilah
39. Heat
40. Hell’s House
41. The Last Movie Star
42. The Miracle Season
43. Blockers
44. Early Man
45. Almost Paris
46. Bloodsport
47. Reds
48. Play Misty for Me
49. Frantic
50. 7 Days in Entebbe
51. Taffin
52. Samson
53. Last House on the Left
54. Burnt Offerings
55. Paddington 2
56. Pacific Rim Uprising
57. Sherlock Gnomes
58. Chappaquiddick
59. Cloverfield Paradox
60. Peter Rabbit
61. Proud Mary
62. The Mist
63. God’s Not Dead: A Light in the Darkness
64. Den of Thieves
65. Death Wish 1974
66. Death Wish 2018
67. The Commuter
68. Fifty Shades Freed
69. Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built
70. Midnight Sun
71. Forever My Girl
72. Every Day
73. Strangers Prey at Night
74. 15:17 to Paris
75. The Greasy Strangler
76. Maze Runner: The Death Cure