By Zach Dennis, Courtney Anderson, Michael O'Malley, Jessica Carr, Diana Rogers, Ash Baker, Lydia Creech, Andrew Swafford, and Paige Taylor.
Note: These films are not ranked by quality, but rather in chronological order.
Read More
Clint Eastwood, star and director of The Mule
The Mule (2018) by Clint Eastwood
Review by Logan Kenny
Regardless of whether it is or not – I certainly hope it isn’t – this feels like the last film of Eastwood’s career. It feels like a goodbye. The film doesn’t attempt to justify him for his selfishness, nor redeem him for his failures and criminal decisions over the runtime, but rather it shows the beauty of someone trying to be better before it’s too late.
Read More
Abbie Cornish stars as Fannie Brawne in director Jane Campion’s film Bright Star
Bright Star (2009) by Jane Campion
Retro Review by Diana Rogers
The genius of this movie is that it takes a premise that's been done time and time again – by daytime drama and YA novels alike – and transforms it into something that is both accessible and transcendent. It's a viewing experience worth luxuriating in.
Read More
Steve Carrell stars in director Robert Zemeckis’s Welcome to Marwen
Welcome to Marwen (2018) by Robert Zemeckis
Review by Logan Kenny
Zemeckis is more interested in coating his actors’ faces in hideous doll CGI and referencing his past works in a disorientating cluster of explosions and overpriced imagery than he is interested in reckoning with the tragedy of his protagonist.
Read More
2019 Sundance Film Festival
Festival Coverage by Jessica Peña
We’ve all been young at some point. We’ve all probably loved something, someone, lost touch with ourselves, regained ourselves. To come of age can mean to relinquish your pains, trade them for new beginnings, and even let them simmer in the hopes that you’ll eventually figure this all out. It can mean finally putting yourself first, forgiving the past that’s shaped you, or finding common ground with others through mischief. Five distinctively unique films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival explore those desires and pains. From Chicago to a snoozy beachside town in Uruguay, these five films are examples of our evolving human experiences.
Read More
Olivia Coleman stars in director Yorgot Lanthimos’s The Favourite
The Favourite (2018) by Yorgos Lanthimos
Review by Diana Rogers
Sometimes the women don't look fabulous while they're going about the business of being complicated and fascinating. Sometimes they're middle aged and overweight, un-corseted, gout-ridden and wearing eye makeup that makes them look like a badger. Some of the most celebrated male roles are those that revel in their characters' flaws, their actual human-ness. It shouldn't be so uncommon for women to feature in similar parts, yet somehow it still feels revolutionary, because it happens far too infrequently.
Read More
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) by Dan Gilroy
Review by Reid Ramsey
Upon reflection, what first appeared to be a self-congratulatory commentary on art reveals itself to simply be a five dollar gore-fest; and the movie is all the better for this reason.
Read More
Best Hidden Gems of 2018
By Zach Dennis, Logan Kenny, Andrew Swafford, Jessica Pena, Lydia Creech and Diana Rogers
**NOTE** This is not in ranked order
Read More
Glass (2019) by M. Night Shyamalan
Review by Nadine Smith
M. Night Shyamalan has given us many twists over the past two decades. But there’s another twist waiting in the wings. M. Night Shyamalan got your attention and your dollars with Split, and instead of fulfilling your expectations or building a new cinematic universe, he’s used it to make one of the strangest studio movies of the last decade, a superhero movie that is everything superhero movies aren’t supposed to be.
Read More
Rami Malek stars as Freddie Mercury in director Bryan Singer’s Bohemian Rhapsody
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) by Bryan Singer
Review by Logan Kenny
This movie should have been something more, something uplifting and beautiful, but it is not, and all we can do is speak out about its problems together, to not stay silent.
Read More
Best Foreign Films of 2018
By Zach Dennis, Logan Kenny, Andrew Swafford, Malcolm Baum, Jessica Carr, Nadine Smith and Michael O’Malley
**NOTE** This is not in ranked order
Read More
Rhys Fehrenbacher stars as J in director Anahita Ghazvinizadeh’s They
They (2017) by Anahita Ghazvinizadeh
Retro Review by Ash Baker
I would love to have seen a movie about the struggle a young trans/non-binary person faces when they realize their body doesn’t necessarily match their mind. I would love to have seen a movie about how the world behaves in binaries even when some of us don’t fit into them—democrat or republican, gay or straight, male or female, Friends or Seinfeld.
Read More
ALTERNATE TAKE: If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) by Barry Jenkins
Review by Courtney Anderson
Everything about If Beale Street Could Talk shows that Barry Jenkins’ ultimate goal is to show how much he loves these characters and the Black people who inspired them. And he picked the perfect story to show that love.
Read More
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) by Barry Jenkins
Review by Rilwan Balogun
At the close of this movie, you don’t leave warm and fuzzy because they got him out of jail. But you sit with feeling uncomfortable and sad. This is the point.
Read More
Best Blockbusters of 2018
By Zach Dennis, Logan Kenny, Andrew Swafford, Malcolm Baum, Jessica Carr, Reid Ramsey, Michael O’Malley, Robyn C., and Lydia Creech
**NOTE** This is not in ranked order
Read More
Best Comedies of 2018
By Zach Dennis, Logan Kenny, Andrew Swafford, Malcolm Baum, Jessica Carr, Reid Ramsey, Michael O’Malley, Lydia Creech, Jordan Smith and Nathan Smith
**NOTE** This is not in ranked order
Read More
Cinematary's Top 25 Movies of 2018
In all actuality, making a list of the best movies of 2018 to cap off 2018 is misguided. We should really be looking back three years later to gauge the cultural impact that films have made on a grander level rather than compiling some group together to feed an insatiable need to fit into what qualifies as film criticism today.
That being said, here are 25 films that the group here at Cinematary have come up with.
Read More
Cinematary's Best Writing of 2018
This is not merely a list of movie recommendations.
This list includes video essays that took months to construct, festival coverage that required dozens of hours and thousands of words, powerful essays about writers’ personal identities and societal oppression, formalist analysis working out how movies are crafted visually, sharp critiques of the capitalist superstructure that the movie industry works within, a whole article structured around homemade .gifs, and much more. We hope you take some time to explore this list and catch up on some of the writing you may have missed this year. It would mean the world to us.
Read More
Matt Dillon stars in director Lars Von Trier’s The House That Jack Built
The House that Jack Built (2018) by Lars Von Trier
Review by Logan Kenny
Is The House That Jack Built the cinematic form of the manipulation that follows abuse? A work with the pretense of self-examination that is actually just another reminder of the pain that many women have went through? Or is it a genuine apology, a work of intense self loathing, an abuser longing with existential suffering and a desire for death because he can’t achieve the catharsis in this life anymore?
Read More
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman
Review by Zach Dennis
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse shows not only the endless visual prospects of the comic-book genre, but also the natural inclusion of diversity and representation that felt less like a business plot and more of a reminder that the hero’s identity is fluid because anyone can be behind the mask.
Read More