Ranking the Movies of 2018 Week 5

The two movies that made an impact this week were a pair of indie movies that have little hype and little attention compared to the massive mainstream releases that are being shoved down our throats. Becks, a romantic dramedy about a woman recovering from a break up, and The Ballad of Lefty Brown, a western about a sidekick brought to the fore, are the movies that should be making a splash in theaters but instead are already available for streaming.

Don’t get me wrong, streaming is great. Streaming services are making it possible for smaller movies to get made and find an audience. My problem isn’t with streaming; it’s with the mainstream distribution model. This week a movie arrived in theaters nationwide that is as bad as any movie I have seen outside of The Maze Runner. 15:17 to Paris is egregiously misguided and doesn’t deserve to be shown on the big screen.

It stinks that just because a movie was directed by Clint Eastwood it can be put into nationwide release while actual great movies like Becks and The Ballad of Lefty Brown can’t get into more than a handful of theaters before being shuffled off to streaming services and home video. Hollywood’s distribution system has grown desperately flawed and needs a correction.

Perhaps streaming services can be that correction. Maybe if Netflix continues to find success as a home for original movies, they can scare movie theater chains into taking more risks and booking smaller movies and giving a chance to good movies just because they are good and…. Oh, who the hell am I kidding, this will never happen. Movie distribution is not a meritocracy.

Making a good movie, in a perfect world, would be the only way for a movie to get a wide mainstream release but this is a decidedly imperfect world. Becks and The Ballad of Lefty Brown are exceptional movies and can’t get screens while Fifty Shades Freed, Peter Rabbit, and 15:17 to Paris get to play on thousands of screens and disappoint audiences on the biggest platforms possible.

Speaking of Fifty Shades Freed, it was surprisingly not the worst movie in theaters this weekend. In fact, I didn’t completely hate this final movie in the Fifty Shades franchise. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the movie is good or worth seeing in theaters, but compared to the other two Fifty Shades movies, it’s more tolerable. Dakota Johnson continues to grow into a movie star and director James Foley does what he can with this weak material.

But the main reason I appreciate Fifty Shades Freed, just a little bit, is that it is the rare sex positive movie about a female protagonist. For all of the flaws of Fifty Shades, Fifty Shades Freed shows Ana Grey as a woman decidedly in control of her sexuality. Dakota Johnson gives Ana the power and freedom to enjoy sex and the movie doesn’t shame her for it. It’s stunningly rare for a movie to allow a female character to explore and enjoy sex outside of straight up pornography, and for that, I have a very slight appreciation for Fifty Shades Freed.

This week’s classic on the Everyone is a Critic podcast was Play Misty for Me and it was yet another classic disappointment. Play Misty for Me isn’t bad, it’s certainly better than Burnt Offerings and Last House on the Left, two previous failed classics, but it fits a sad trend in 2018 of trying out potential classics and finding them to be less than their reputation.

The classic for next week has the potential to continue this awful trend. This week we will celebrate the release of the latest Pureflix movie, Samson, with a look back at the 1949 Cecil B. DeMille epic, Samson and Delilah. The last time we tackled a Cecil B. DeMille epic we suffered through arguably the worst Best Picture winner in history, the exhausting Greatest Show on Earth. Here’s hoping Samson and Delilah is at least shorter.

As for new movies next week, I am really looking forward to Black Panther and I expect it to challenge Phantom Thread and Just Charlie for the top spot on this list. The hype is outstanding, but the reviews seem to really back up the hype. Chadwick Boseman has already proven that he’s a great actor in 42 and Marshall and proven that he’s a movie star in Captain America: Civil War, so I expect Black Panther to deliver him to superstar status.

Here are this week's ranking of every movie I have seen in 2018.

1. Phantom Thread
2. Just Charlie
3. Hostiles
4. Boogie Nights
5. Foxy Brown
6. Becks
7. The Ballad of Lefty Brown
8. 12 Strong
9. Act & Punishment
10. Insidious: The Last Key
11. Sheik Jackson
12. Heat
13. Almost Paris
14. Play Misty for Me
15. Last House on the Left
16. Burnt Offerings
17. Paddington 2
18. Cloverfield Paradox
19. Peter Rabbit
20. Proud Mary
21. Den of Thieves
22. The Commuter
23. Fifty Shades Freed
24. Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built
25. Forever My Girl
26. 15:17 to Paris
27. Maze Runner: The Death Cure