Regarding The Movies That Were Released In 2018

this year i saw sixty (60!) films before the calendar flipped, mostly due to the charity--and cruelty--of moviepass (american wide releases were a wasteland!). here they all are, with an occasional note:

(1) pariyerum perumal (mari selvaraj)

(2) paddington 2 (paul king)
sally hawkins dives in to save dearest paddington

(3) the 15:17 to paris (clint eastwood)
peculiar to see in a theater with a bunch of boomers. love that eastwood rounds up producers to make films like this and the mule. it's a portrait of boys maturing in red america that's neither jingoistic nor dismissive. it's an embodiment the bro culture i grew up with; being surrounded by boys who have nothing to say, yet company provides them the permission to do so anyway. people doing delightfully boring things on a multiplex screen. it grows in my mind each time i think of it

(4) instant family (sean anders)
flawless

(5) october (shoojit sircar)
a strange movie about being unmoored until you're not

(6) manmarziyaan (anurag kashyap)
mythic

(7) the other side of the wind (orson welles et al)
the sex? scene in a car during a downpour..

(8) padi padi leche manasu (hanu raghavapudi)
too much going on here to really get a good handle. sampath raj plays a jordan peterson type; perhaps this falls apart if i'm forced to produce an exegesis, but he's truly a daddy to all the boys. broadly, this is a case where lower budget cgi yields a superior product

(9) vada chennai (vetrimaaran)
dhanush is immutable

(10) maari 2 (balaji mohan)
not much communicable here. i appreciate the clichéd villain to remind us that the only thing that counts is dhanush and sai pallavi together. at least one (1) delightful movie set song, several straight-forward t-shirts, and a single twist that forces a slight derail :(

(11) detective dee the four heavenly kings (tsui hark)
one very large polar bear gloats on the failings of a decade's worth of american cgi

(12) pari (prosit roy)
surprisingly gross though not particularly scary. has some weird romantic fatalism that really works

(13) naachiyaar (bala)
jyothika plays one of the great mysterious characters. really no reason to ever aspire to more than this

(14) zama (lucrecia martel)
measured excellence

(15) tomb raider (roar uthaug)
alicia vikander grunts and falls like someone learning her craft; afoot the path to competency, but wavering very well enough

(16) chekka chivantha vaanam (mani ratnam)
ccv is knock-off budget shakespeare that ratnam wrings into something strange and charming. all its likable characters are in the fringe, each presenting their own case for a moment or two, driving the film to heights it has no business reaching

(17) mamma mia here we go again (ol parker)

(18) antariksham 9000 kmph (sankalp reddy)
spectacular outer space filmmaking, indian jingoism that borders on parody, deconstruction of narrative laws

(19) kgf chapter 1 (prashanth neel)
a disorienting orgy of images

(20) a star is born (bradley cooper)
a first act that feels remarkably fresh and original

(21) the mule (clint eastwood)
i saw this with my dad, who was bored

(22) the worm has turned (porsalin)
the scariest movie i saw this year, merely by depicting modern media circles/types.. jim norton: dark web

(23) 2.0 (shankar)
certainly lesser shankar, but for much of this, the screenplay moves with an ease i still don't comprehend. something odd and rote occurred after akshay the birdman's backstory. all them rajinis in that stadium..

(24) tumbbad (rahi anil barve)
too storyboarded for my taste (literally), but the sanctum scenes are a delight

(25) laplace's witch (takashi miike)

all the rest, loosely ranked:

before we vanish, annihilation, hereditary, the predator, hotel artemis, mahanati, rangasthalam..

(33) first reformed (paul schrader)
i wish this were messier. the digital 4:3 frame left me cold. for most of the film i couldn't find anything to parse. the only thing that stands out is seyfried. it still lands high because of its ending, which could only be made by someone who loves movies

.. ready player one, pacific rim uprising, the meg, unsane, avengers infinity war, night school, skyscraper, diya, u turn, nartanasala, the package, cam, mission impossible fallout, padmaavat, sicario day of the soldado, fifty shades freed, death wish, 14 cameras, paataka, kaala, the commuter, burning, wobble palace, jurassic world fallen kingdom, the day after, incredibles 2, deadpool 2, bhaagamathie, ant man and the wasp, first man, the equalizer 2, black panther, andhadhun, a quiet place, the first purge, adrift, solo a star wars story, ocean's eight, american animals, sorry to bother you, mile 22, isle of dogs, red sparrow