Review by Reid Ramsey
hillbilly examines our media representations of hillbillies and southerners while co-director Ashley York returns from L.A. to her original home in Eastern Kentucky.
Read MoreBilly Redden in Deliverance (1972)
The Mamma Mia! Maniac
Personal Essay / Review by Paige Taylor
This dumb musical was so infectiously joyful that I’ve been addicted to its euphoria since I’ve watched it. I have listened to ABBA every single day since. I have run to my car to get to work and blasted "Chiquitita" with the eagerness of someone who’s just discovered a love for crack. I am deep in this blissed out state of 70’s Swedish pop band delirium and honestly? I do not care to escape.
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Tom Cruise reprises his role as Ethan Hunt in director Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) by Christopher McQuarrie
Review by Lydia Creech
Maybe I misunderstand what other critics are responding so strongly to, or my tolerance for silly spy shit is just exceedingly low, but these “best action movie since X” reviews are really just damning with faint praise.
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Evangeline Lilly and Paul Rudd as Wasp and Ant-Man in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
ALTERNATE TAKE: Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) by Peyton Reed
Review by Zach Dennis
Ant-Man and the Wasp isn’t a vindictive or evil movie, but there’s something very half-cooked in its bones.
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Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) by Peyton Reed
Review by Courtney Anderson
Ant-Man and the Wasp is very straightforward, light-hearted film. Even though I find it odd that it was released so soon after Infinity War, it’s probably a good thing that it was: it’s a nice pick-me-up for Marvel fans who were shell-shocked.
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Lakeith Stanfield stars in director Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You
Sorry to Bother You (2018) by Boots Riley
Review by Michael O’Malley
Sorry to Bother You finds the exact wounds inflicted on American bodies by their own megacorporations and paints clown faces on the scabs. And it stings.
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American Animals (2018) by Bart Layton
Review by Reid Ramsey
American Animals treats truth as relative and unimportant, movies as fodder to be replicated, and youth as fleeting and worthwhile. Yet within these themes, whether noble or not, the movie is too often obsessed with its own gratification and has about as much cinematic consciousness of the college students at its core.
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Incredibles 2 (2018) by Brad Bird
Review by Courtney Anderson
Incredibles 2 feels like the filmmakers didn’t want to make this simply for movie or because they had no other ideas, but because they genuinely love the story they wanted to tell. I enjoyed it. I think most people will.
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Milly Shapiro stars in director Ari Aster’s Hereditary
Hereditary (2018) by Ari Aster
Review by Jessy Alva
Hereditary seems to be having its own identity crisis. Is this a psychological thriller about a family wrought with unshakeable trauma unraveling at the seams? Is it a supernatural horror movie about a conjuring gone awry? Is this a occult movie about worshiping the devil (et al.)? I think all three of those premises are great…separately. But piecing it all together left so much rich storytelling mostly unexplored.
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The crew in Ocean's 8
Ocean's 8 (2018) by Gary Ross
Review by Zach Dennis
It’s encouraging to see good returns on Ocean’s 8 because this cast earned it and demands to be given at least a trilogy of their own to delight and fascinate us with, but they also deserve some creativity — and that may start with an all-female reboot behind the camera as well as in front.
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Alden Ehrenrich as Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) by Ron Howard
Review by Reid Ramsey
For me, Solo: A Star Wars Story achieved what so many of the recent Star Wars movies can’t: it pulled me at warp speed (forgive me, I don’t really know the Star Wars terms) out of my chair and into a wholly new world, one not so burdened by the weight of a 40-year-old franchise but instead a world charged with hope and creativity.
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Action Point (2018) by Tim Kirkby
Review by Nadine Smith
The magic of Jackass was its relentless and unwavering commitment to never, ever giving a fuck, and it’s a magic Knoxville attempts to conjure once again with his latest bear trap—but Action Point is hardly a Jackass movie.
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Billy Howle and Saoirse Ronan star in director Dominic Cooke's On Chesil Beach
ALTERNATE TAKE: On Chesil Beach (2018) by Dominic Cooke
Review by Lydia Creech
Asexual audiences probably already know not to expect better, but I worry the general public will walk away thinking this scenario was a balanced argument and portrayal of an asexual character attempting to navigate (or not) a sexual relationship.
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Ethan Hawke stars in director Paul Schrader's First Reformed
First Reformed (2018) by Paul Schrader
Review by Nadine Smith
Like the Protestant God who offers forgiveness in exchange for good works, First Reformed is that rare American film that demands your attention and requires your reflection.
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Juliette Binoche stars in director Claire Denis's Let the Sunshine In
Let the Sunshine In (2018) by Claire Denis
Review by Nadine Smith
Let the Sunshine In has been described by many as Claire Denis’ romantic comedy, and while it’s not without its jokes, the humor one mines from this collection of exacerbated encounters may vary. Isabelle’s life is filled with superficial scumbags, but a film cannot live on superficial scumbags alone.
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Lise Leplat Prudhomme stars in director Bruno Dumont's Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc
Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (2018) by Bruno Dumont
Review by Nadine Smith
In the classic version of this story, the adult Joan faces a choice too, but a negative choice: she must either accept a lifetime of extended punishment and abuse or embrace martyrdom in all its fiery glory. Jeanette, on the other hand, faces an active choice. The anguish Jeanette reckons with is not the anguish of death; that’s saved for the sequel. It’s the anguish of life, of the choice between the life medieval society has written for her or the life God has offered. Oh, and there are headbanging nuns too.
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Amy Schumer stars in Marc Silverstein and Abby Kohn's I Feel Pretty
I Feel Pretty (2018) by Marc Silverstein and Abby Kohn
Review by Jessica Carr
After watching the trailer for I Feel Pretty, I worried that Schumer would be the butt of every joke because she thinks she is attractive and others do not. However, I think the film is smarter than people are giving it credit for.
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Tom Holland, Robert Downey Jr., Dave Bautista, Chris Pratt and Pom Klementieff star in Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers: Infinity War (2018) by Anthony and Joe Russo
Review by Courtney Anderson
Avengers: Infinity War felt like an amazing, dazzling, super fun exercise in futility.
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Zama (2018) by Lucrecia Martel
Review by Nadine Smith
One of the first words we hear in Zama, Argentine director Lucrecia Martel’s adaptation of the novel of the same name by Antonio di Benedetto, is “voyeur.” This frames the rest of the film and its perspective on colonialism: the indigenous and enslaved persons in the film are often pushed to the margins of the frame, but they are not absent; Martel shows them watching their oppressors as much as their oppressors watch them.
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John Krasinski and Noah Jupe star in A Quiet Place
ALTERNATE TAKE: A Quiet Place (2018) by John Krasinski
Review by Ben Shull
A couple weeks ago, a highly-esteemed/respected Cinematary critic published a write-up on John Krasinski’s latest sci-fi thriller, A Quiet Place. While I agree with a couple of the reviewer’s grievances, particularly regarding the scoring of the film, there were a few main points that I couldn’t get behind. The critique had a much more scathing tone than I felt it deserved and I wanted to throw my own opinion into the mix because I do believe this to be an important film among the modern cinematic canon and, ultimately, within the science fiction genre.
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