Ranking the Movies of 2018: Week 17
'Juno,' 'Tully,' and the Remarkable Team of Reitman and Cody
Watching Juno, the classic on the latest Everyone’s a Critic Movie Podcast, was a revelation. It was an experience for me similar to the revelations I had watching Amadeus and There Will Be Blood as re-watches for the podcast. These were movies that I had always been aware that I liked but watching them with fresh eyes, a more mature perspective, changed the way I looked at them.
Juno is now one of my all-time favorite films. The characters, dialogue, and scene setting is so smart, and so much more sophisticated than its reputation. I wrote an essay about my new perspective on Juno and director Jason Reitman which is linked below in the rankings where Juno stands as the second best movie I have seen in 2018, behind another of my all time favorites, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
New releases this week include the reason why I watched Juno this week. Tully is the latest collaboration between director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody. This exploration of motherhood and mental health is yet another brilliant example of Reitman and Cody’s magical pairing. Tully contains the best of both Reitman and Cody with biting dialogue, near perfect rhythm to the storytelling, and Reitman’s remarkably underrated eye.
I am excited to look at Tully again when it arrives on DVD later this year so I can give it the kind of look I gave Juno this week. I have a feeling the experience will be even more memorable the second time, even knowing the film’s central conceit. My co-host on Everyone’s a Critic called it a twist and at its most basic definition that fits, but I think what happens in Tully is so much more than that.
The other new releases from this past weekend are a great deal less memorable. Overboard, the remake of the Kurt Russell-Goldie Hawn abomination from 1987, is barely better than the awful original. Eugenio Derbez continues to baffle me with his remarkable lack of likability while Anna Faris continues to dim her star qualities in projects below her talent.
Then there is Bad Samaritan, a movie so bad that it makes poor David Tennant look like a rank amateur. The former Doctor Who mugs his way through a shallow villain role by gnawing the scenery as if he were channeling Nicholas Cage in Vampire’s Kiss. The premise of this Dean Devlin directed thriller is a mildly clever ‘what would you do’ scenario, but the comically bad performance of Tennant and Devlin’s shovel to the head subtlety bury the whole enterprise.
Next week, Mean Girls is our classic on the Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review Podcast. My co-host, Josh Adams, has never seen it so that should be a fun experience. It’s been a while since I have watched Mean Girls and while I remember enjoying it, I don’t remember much about the plot or characters, despite their continuing place in modern popular culture; especially Rachel McAdams’ Regina George who has become a shorthand for bitchy alpha-girls.
Also joining the ranks next week is the new Melissa McCarthy comedy, Life of the Party, and Gabrielle Union’s new thriller Breaking In. Life of the Party appears to be Melissa McCarthy’s take on Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School while Breaking In looks like it could have some solid cheap thrills.
Finally, a note on Ali Fear Eats the Soul. I am a big fan of the Film Struck app and while I haven’t had much time to watch many movies there, I was lucky to find time to watch this unique and strange romance about a Muslim man falling for a much older, German cleaning lady. Director Rainer Werner Fassbender loved challenging audiences and he definitely has quite a challenge here in crafting this bizarre love story that combines Douglas Sirk with taboo breaking racial and sexual themes.
I was hoping to have more to say about Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, but really, I wasn’t inspired to write much beyond the last paragraph. It’s a challenging film, quite provocative with a fascinating backstory about how Fassbender and his leading man were lovers at the time of filming, but in the end, there is little more than the provocation. The film is artful, incredibly shot, and beautifully staged, but the story seems to rest after the initial provocation, not providing much insight into either character.
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul still feels provocative today, but it has been mostly forgotten. Fassbender’s work remains appreciated by scholars and film historians, but the lasting impact of Ali Fear Eats the Soul is limited by the fact that it is little more than artful, heavy breathing melodrama combined with the provocative hook of a young Muslim man falling for a much older white woman.
New rankings below and new additions to the list are in bold type…
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Juno
3. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
4. Black Swan
7. Tully
9. Best F®iends
10. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
11. Annihilation
12. Kodachrome
13. Unsane
12. Just Charlie
14. Columbus
15.Young Adult
16. The Death of Stalin
17. Hostiles
19. Foxy Brown
20. Becks
21. A Quiet Place
22. Captain America Civil War
23. Game Night
24. Are We Not Cats
25.Boogie Nights
27. 12 Strong
28. Red Sparrow
29. Act & Punishment
32.Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
33. Actors of Sound: A Foley Artist Documentary
34. Switching Channels
35. I Feel Pretty
36. Tomb Raider
37. Stormy Monday
38. Ready Player One
40. Sheik Jackson
41. Gringo
42. Love, Simon
43. Isle of Dogs
44. War Games
45. Samson & Delilah
46. Heat
47. Hell’s House
48.Hurricane Heist
50. Blockers
52. Early Man
53. Almost Paris
54. Bloodsport
55. The Last Movie Star
56. Play Misty for Me
57. Frantic
58. Reds
59. 7 Days in Entebbe
60. Taffin
61. Beirut
62. Super Troopers
63. Super Troopers 2
64. Samson
65. Friday the 13th
66. Rampage
67. Last House on the Left
68. Burnt Offerings
69. Paddington 2
70. Traffik
72. Sherlock Gnomes
73. Chappaquiddick
74. Cloverfield Paradox
75. Peter Rabbit
76. Overboard
77. Proud Mary
78. The Mist
79. God’s Not Dead: A Light in the Darkness
80. Den of Thieves
81. Death Wish 1974
82. Death Wish 2018
83. Bad Samaritan
84. Knowing
85. The Commuter
87. Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built
88. Midnight Sun
89. Forever My Girl
90. Every Day
92. 15:17 to Paris
93. Truth or Dare
94. The Greasy Strangler
About the Creator
Sean Patrick
Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.
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