My 20 Most Anticipated Movies of 2018

It's fun to think about what's coming out and which movies I'm most interested in, then compare that at the end of the year to what I actually enjoyed.  Of my 20 Most Anticipated last year, 12 of them turned out to be Top 20 movies for me, so that's pretty cool. One of them (Hostiles) was pushed back to this year and another (Jumanji 2) I just haven't been able to schedule yet, so that leaves 6 that were disappointing in some way.

Of those, I've seen and was underwhelmed by three (The Beguiled, The Mummy, and Justice League) and thanks to trailers and reviews, completely lost interest in three others (Dark Tower, Ferdinand, and Pitch Perfect 3) before they hit theaters.

So here's what I'm most eager to see this year. As always, these aren't the movies that I'm predicting will be the best; just the ones that I most want to see. Tell me what you're looking forward to in the comments!

20. Tomb Raider



I'm a mark for treasure-hunter movies and have enjoyed even the Angelina Jolie movies on some level. The trailer for this one is visually impressive and Vikander is a talented actor, so I'm just hoping that the story is up to snuff.

19. Mary Magdalene



One of the most fascinating characters in the New Testament, even without the Dan Brown nonsense. It's about time someone made a movie about her.

18. Mary Poppins Returns



I enjoy the classic adaptation, but it's not holy ground and I'm glad to see that the rest of the book series will get some attention, too. Not that I've read the books. And these movies will see that I don't have to.

17. Mowgli



I don't really need a new Jungle Book adaptation, but I'm interested in almost anything Andy Serkis does. And it'll be interesting to see what he does to avoid comparisons with the Jon Favreau Disney remake.

16. Incredibles 2



I've cooled off on Brad Bird after Tomorrowland, but I've still loved 80% of his movies and am interested in what he's able to do with this. I'm especially curious how a new Incredibles movie compares to the modern landscape of superhero movies. The first one was released the same year as Spider-Man 2, when we were just starting to figure out that great superhero movies were possible. The bar has been raised a lot higher since then and I'm not 100% confident that Incredibles 2 can clear it.

7 Days in May | Arthur and Austen

King Arthur (2004)



This post is about stuff that we watched the week before our Britain trip. Didn't watch any movies while we were traveling.

One of the things I wanted to see in England was Hadrian's Wall, so what better way to celebrate and learn about it than the totally historically accurate King Arthur?

I kid because I love. Not many people like this version of the King Arthur story, but it's probably my favorite. It's a cool idea to set it during the Roman occupation of Britain with Arthur being a Roman officer and his knights are indentured soldiers from the conquered region of Sarmatia. They protect Roman interests in Britannia by manning Hadrian's Wall against the Celtic Woads. Merlin is a Woad and so is Guinevere.

Calling it "the untold true story" is ridiculous, but the movie is clever and fun and the cast is awesome. Clive Owen plays Arthur, Ioan Gruffudd is Lancelot, and two of my personal favorites - Keira Knightley and Mads Mikkelsen - play Guinevere and Tristan. Guinevere kicks so much ass and Tristan is basically every fantasy RPG character I've ever created. There are tons of other great actors in it, too; more than I want to list.

On top of all that are some great set pieces and a thoughtful, touching exploration of loyalty and duty.

Northanger Abbey (2007)



We didn't get as many Britain Trip movies watched as we wanted to, but since one of our stops was Bath, we wanted to sneak in at least a Jane Austen. Austen spent time in Bath (though she didn't actually like the town much) and used it as a location in a couple of her novels. Northanger Abbey is one of those and since it's a commentary on gothic romances - a genre our whole family enjoys - it felt like a good way to introduce David to Austen's stories.

There aren't many adaptations of it, but the 2007 BBC version is pretty great with or without competition. It stars Felicity Jones (Rogue One) as the main character and does a great job showing how her world view is affected by the books she reads. If you've read the novel, you know that Austen wasn't a huge fan of gothic romance (I forgive her) and that Northanger Abbey isn't so much a parody of them as it is simply making fun. But to get there, the movie lets us into the main character's imagination and uses cool, gothic imagery to do it. It's the closest Austen gets to genre work, so it's a great introduction to her (even though the movie wasn't actually filmed in Bath).

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)



Technically, I watched this out of order since it's the second of Ford's Cavalry Trilogy, but I accidentally watched it last ('cause I forgot that Rio Grande was one of them and not just one of the billion other John Wayne movies named after rivers). Really though, I think it fits best as the final in the series.

The other two are in black-and-white, but Yellow Ribbon is in color, so it looks more modern. And John Wayne isn't playing the same character he does in the other two, but an older officer who's getting ready to retire. Ben Johnson, on the other hand, does play the same character he does in Rio Grande, but in Rio Grande he's a raw recruit and he's obviously more seasoned here. So if we're trying to put together some sort of chronology to this weird, extremely loose trilogy, Yellow Ribbon ought to come last.

It's a good film, but my least favorite of the three. The plot meanders and circles back on itself and I'm never super invested in the romantic triangle of Joanne Dru, John Agar, and Harry Carey Jr. I probably would've been more interested if Dru's character had been played by Shirley Temple from Fort Apache, but that's just because I love Shirley Temple. Dru does a fine job; it's just that Carey's character never really has a chance, so there's not really any tension around that part of the story. Mostly it's just Dru and Agar pretending not to like each other and Carey suffering the fallout from their shenanigans. Not that I feel bad for Carey, because he's pretty unlikable.

I also didn't feel the weight of bad orders like I did in the other two films. Wayne's superior officer does direct Wayne into questionable activity, but it's not like anything that Henry Fonda or J Carrol Naish make him do in Fort Apache and Rio Grande. But that also makes it the most pleasant of the three films. That's not a compliment (the grittiness of the other two are what I like most about them), but it's a true statement and John Wayne is typically charming (and in an atypical way for him) and Ben Johnson even more so.

The Gunfighter (1950)



Every Gregory Peck Western I watch makes him more and more my favorite Western star. In this one, he plays a gunslinger who visits a town for reasons I won't spoil. He has enemies hot on his trail, so the town marshal - who also happens to be an old friend of Peck's - is trying to get him to leave, but Peck insists on staying until his business is concluded.

Peck is awesome in it and it's another great movie that tears down the fantasy of gunfighting as a glamorous life. Unforgiven got a lot of praise for doing that as if it was some sort of new innovation, but the more Westerns I watch - like the original Magnificent Seven and even Young Guns II, for crying out loud - the more I realize how ununique Unforgiven was in that regard.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)



A classic and a favorite that I wanted David to see. It's too pretentious to be my all-time favorite '50s space invader movie (I like more cheese in them), but it's really well done and I love the design of the ship and of course Gort. It's an essential part of the science fiction canon.

7 Days in May | Spider-Man vs. Will Smith

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)



Amazing. Spectacular. The ultimate. Web of, even.

I'm not going to call it my favorite Spider-Man movie, because there's some apples-and-oranges going on here. But it's exactly the Spider-Man movie that I needed right now. No origin story and not even any universe building. In fact, it's the opposite of universe-building, because the whole point is to explain why Spider-Man needs his own special corner of the MCU. And I love that the explanation is built on the phrase, "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man." It makes sense, it's what the character needs, and it's exactly where I want to see him go.

Also, what a great, funny, diverse cast of supporting characters. And Michael Keaton is brilliant. Best movie interpretation of a Spider-Man villain so far, and I'm not forgetting about Doctor Octopus.

Collateral Beauty (2016)



I was warned, but wanted to see it anyway. Here's a written review that told me what I was getting into. Here's a whole podcast episode. David Chen of the Slashfilmcast describes it as "morally reprehensible," which I have to admit made me even more curious to see it. Nor was I dissuaded by having the entire story described to me, beat by beat, twist by weird and ill-advised twist.

"Morally reprehensible" is probably too strong, because I'm not as convinced as Chen that the movie endorses the truly abominable behavior of Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Peña's characters. But it certainly doesn't punish them for it either and it does seem super ignorant about just how awful they're being. That's the real problem with the movie: it's oblivious to the huge questions - both moral and logical - that it raises.

But great cast and Will Smith in particular is acting his ass off. It's a fascinating film to watch and try to figure out what happened to make it go so horribly, horribly wrong.

Kongo (1932)



This is an adaptation of a 1926 play by the same name, which had already been made into a movie by Tod Browning in 1928 called West of Zanzibar, starring Lon Chaney and Lionel Barrymore. I've seen West of Zanzibar and it's good. Chilling, but good. 1932's Kongo is, too.

Walter Huston (Chaney, in the first adaptation) plays a cruel, truly evil ivory trader who's looking for revenge against an old enemy. His plans have been brewing a long time and involve luring his enemy's daughter (Virginia Bruce) into the jungle with a forged letter supposedly from her father. Once she's in the villain's power, he does horrible things to her both onscreen and off. It's hard to watch, frankly, but then things get interesting when a doctor (Conrad Nagel) - outcast from society presumably because he's an alcoholic - shows up. He wants to help the woman, but is challenged by his own weaknesses as well as her hopelessness and lack of cooperation. And then there are revelations that turn the whole thing upside down and introduce all new threats.

It's dark stuff, but crazy compelling. It covers some of the same themes as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, but I like it way more.

The Narrow Corner (1933)



Based on a novel by W Somerset Maugham, who was a popular writer of the '20s and '30s. He specialized in melodramas set on tropical islands, particularly ones about British people trying to adjust to island life. He was one of Ian Fleming's favorite authors and "Quantum of Solace" is an homage to Maugham's stuff.

I liked The Narrow Corner well enough. Douglas Fairbanks Jr is a handsome dude and looks great tooling around in island wear. Patricia Ellis is super cute, too, and I liked them as a couple. I wasn't totally invested in the shenanigans going on around them - conspiring to keep them apart - but the setting is great and well-photographed and there are some cool special effects involved in getting a boat over a dangerous reef.

Jam of the Week: "After the Disco" by Broken Bells

Hard to pick one song - of even a few songs - from Broken Bells' After the Disco album that I like better than the others. Usually after listening to a record this many times, I've whittled down the playlist to a handful that I still want to hear over and over again, but with After the Disco it's still the whole album. The title track is representative, though. Deeply infectious and pleasant pop.

24 Movies I Missed from 2016

I did pretty well with 2016 movies. In fact, my list of seen movies should be double the list of ones that I missed (assuming that I'm able to catch up on a couple of more this week like I plan). But I did miss a couple dozen that I wanted to see, so here those are; mostly to explain why some movies didn't make it into my rankings. As usual, I'm listing them more or less in the order that they were released:

1. Swiss Army Man



I don't know why I'm so fascinated with Daniel Radcliffe. I like the Harry Potter movies a lot and am enjoying the books (which I'm just now reading for the first time), but I'm not so huge a fan that I want to keep up with everything everyone Potter-related is doing. And yet, I'll see anything with Radcliffe in it.

Of course, the premise of a dead body who goes on adventures with a despondent man would intrigue me no matter who's playing the corpse.

2. Captain Fantastic



I feel like this can only end in heartbreak, but I love the idea of Viggo Mortensen experimenting with raising his kids outside of cultural influences and I really want to see the kids' stories once they have to interact with other people.

3. The Love Witch



Throwback to and parody of the lurid, semi-gothic horror movies of the '60s and '70s like what Hammer used to make. It just hit some festivals and had a small, limited release last year, so I'm waiting for it to hit home video. Hopefully by this Halloween.

4. The Wild Life



I heard almost nothing about this after it came out, which can't be a good sign. Of course, neither can the 15% on Rotten Tomatoes. But I'm up for a silly, animated version of the Robinson Crusoe story.

5. In a Valley of Violence



Neither Hawke nor Travolta are favorites of mine, but it's a Western and I did enjoy Hawke in the new Magnificent Seven.

6. Don't Think Twice



I'll see anything with Keegan-Michael Key at this point, but I'm also into exploring the politics when someone from an improv troupe hits it big and how that effects their relationships with the other members.

7. Hell or High Water



A modern-day Western with Ben Foster and Chris Pine.

8. The Red Turtle



Another animated movie about an island castaway. Probably not as silly as The Wild Life. The animation looks beautiful and I'm intrigued by its not having any dialogue. I love wordless comics, so I'm curious to see if I'll feel the same way about a wordless film.

9. Blood Father



Such mixed feelings, but this is exactly the kind of movie that I used to love Gibson in. I don't know if his offscreen issues are going to make this impossible to enjoy.

10. The Secret Life of Pets



Haven't heard good things, but the trailer made me chuckle.

11. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates



I love all four of the people on this poster. Keeping my expectations low, though.

12. Ghostbusters



I was pretty stoked to see this and support the idea of it, but early reviews (from people who were also expecting to enjoy it) dampened my enthusiasm. I've also heard really good reviews though, so I'm eager to see it and form my own opinion. I just didn't make it to the theater.

13. Pete's Dragon



The original is cute enough, but it never grabbed me like the fully animated Disney movies from that time did. I think I always resented the live-action elements of it. So a remake was never something that I cared about one way or the other, but I've heard a lot of great things, including that it's an improvement on the original story. If nothing else, it's got Karl Urban.

14. Ben-Hur



Morbid curiosity. I love the silent version from 1925 and enjoy the '59 remake. I expect nothing but even more diminishing returns, but want to see what changes have been made and what's been kept for a modern audience.

15. Swallows and Amazons



Hasn't been released in the US yet, as far as I can tell, but as soon as it is, I'm all over this story of a bunch of English kids on vacation who split into rival factions and have adventures.

16. Imperium



My love for Daniel Radcliffe overcomes my disinterest in stories about undercover agents and white supremacist groups.

17. La La Land



You put Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in anything together and I'm there. Even more so if they're singing and dancing.

18. Nocturnal Animals



Wasn't sure about this based on the description, but the trailer nabbed me.

19. The Edge of Seventeen



Hailee Steinfeld is another person on my Gotta Watch list. And I've finally come completely around on Woody Harrelson. Used to not care a thing about his films, but then he made Zombieland and he's become increasingly endearing to me since.

20. Inferno



I've never read Dan Brown and I only sort of liked the previous movies in this series (Wait... did I see Angels and Demons? I forget.), but I like them enough - and I like the genre enough - to give Inferno a look, too. And hey, Jyn Erso.

21. The Rendezvous



Speaking of whatever genre the Dan Brown movies are in, here's one with Kate Beckett.

22. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back



Really like the first one. Heard this isn't nearly as good, but what the heck. It's Tom Cruise running with a gun.

23. Rules Don't Apply



Snow White and Young Han Solo. And it'll be nice to see Warren Beatty again. And crap, look at the rest of that cast: Haley Bennett, Ed Harris, Oliver Platt... and those are just my favorites of that list.

24. Collateral Beauty 



Was originally attracted to this as a feel-good, holiday film with some of my favorite actors in it, but I understand now that the trailer is completely misleading and that the movie itself is nuts (but not in a good way). So now I'm attracted to it as a crazy train wreck with some of my favorite actors in it.

My Top 10 Movies of 2014

10. X-Men: Days of Future Past



I don't know if I like it more for continuing the story of the First Class cast or for rescuing the original cast from the sourness I associated them with after Last Stand. I don't think I like DoFP as much as First Class, but it's a worthy sequel when it could have been an enormous mess. That's faint praise, I know, but I really love both generations of these characters and it was great to see them all treated well. And that Quicksilver scene alone earns it a spot in my Top 10.

9. Noah



I grew up with this story and I know it very well, so I'm extremely impressed and appreciative that Darren Aronofsky was able to make me think about it in a new way. And not just because he threw in some Ents. I wrote a full review of it, but to sum up: the movie makes powerful statements and asks deep questions about the relationship between humanity and nature, the inscrutability of God, and the perils of thinking you've got him all figured out. It has flaws, to be sure, but it moved and provoked me more than any other movie last year.

8. Begin Again



Wow, Keira Knightley had a good year. This is my favorite thing she did though. It looks and smells like a romantic comedy, but it's not. For one thing, though it's funny, it's not really a comedy. For another, though it'll try to fool you a couple of times, romance between the leads isn't the point. The point is about music: both the creation and the business of it. It's only 20% about the music industry though and 80% about what music is and what it means to us. There's a beautiful scene early on - really two different interpretations of the same scene - where Knightley performs a song live and we experience it first from her point of view as the nervous, insecure musician, and then from Mark Ruffalo's point of view as a music producer in the audience. It shows in a powerful way how the same song can give different experiences to different people. There's another moment later on that nails the feeling of putting on headphones in public and letting music change your perception of the world. With such wonderful groundwork laid about what music is, the movie's then able to comment on the way it's commercialized. And it does all this with some great and likable characters, including Knightley and Ruffalo's, but not limited to them.

7. How to Train Your Dragon 2



The first How to Train Your Dragon is one of my favorite animated movies of all time. It's funny, exciting, and emotionally stirring. I had no hope at all that the sequel would top it. And it didn't. But what it did do was go in a whole new direction: an epic fantasy that opened up the world of the first film and raised the stakes. It's a more serious, less joyful film, which means that I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one, but it's just as awe-inspiring in its own way.

6. The Lego Movie



When I was on the Nerd Lunch podcast last year talking about the 75th anniversary of Batman, one of the topics that came up was our favorite Batman movies. I'll never understand how I forgot to rank The Lego Movie just behind Mask of the Phantasm. In fact, since The Lego Movie is actually a Batman/Star Wars crossover, I may have to rethink that number 2 position.

5. Maleficent



I had to see this one twice to appreciate it as much as I do. There are some serious problems with Maleficent, starting with Sharlto Copley's unbelievable character and including some awful CG with Aurora's fairy guardians. That stuff really distracted me on first viewing, but what still stood out was Angelina Jolie's performance as a woman who has been hurt to the point of deeply wanting to hurt back, but hasn't yet lost all capacity to love. It's a powerful struggle and she shows it beautifully and movingly. Meanwhile, Elle Fanning grounds the movie perfectly as the tether that holds Maleficent to... well, "humanity" may not be the right word, but you know what I mean. Anyway, my second time watching it, those are the things I focused on and I loved it.

4. Guardians of the Galaxy



I'd want to call it the Star Wars for this generation if we weren't getting a new Star Wars movie next year. And besides, it's not really the same tone as Star Wars, is it? It's much more snarky and irreverent, but it balances that out with moments of humor, wonder, and just plain coolness. Even though it shares a basic plot structure with many of the other Marvel movies, it does so in its own, joyful way.

3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier



Speaking of plot, that's the reason Winter Soldier nudges ahead of Guardians of the Galaxy on this list. Winter Soldier takes some brave chances, not only by changing the status quo of the Marvel Universe, but also by not being about a bunch of people trying to get the same, all-powerful, cosmic object. Instead, it's a conspiracy thriller and a dang good one. I also love Anthony Mackie and that no one tried to force Cap and Black Widow into a romantic relationship. Boys and girls can be friends! Who knew?

2. Godzilla



I had this at number one for quite a while. It was easily the best time I had at a movie theater last year. A lot of that was manufactured by me and David though. We undertook a massive Godzillathon in the months leading up to May 16, filling in as many holes in our viewing as we had access to. We even made it to a local screening of the 1954 original. When it came time to watch the new one, we had a boys' night out (Diane had a previous commitment) at our favorite theater with the cushy lounge chairs, the Dolby Atmos, and the 30' x 70' screen. We were primed. And the movie didn't let us down. We loved the slow build to the final battle and the epic moments in that battle. When Ken Watanabe says, "Let them fight," we were screaming and whooping and we - and the rest of our audience - just got louder and more excited as the movie went on. The only thing that bumped it down to number two was Aaron Taylor-Johnson. I don't think he's bad in the movie, but he's certainly the only thing about it that I didn't find completely exciting. And that's a bit of a problem when he's the lead actor.

1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes



A perfect sequel. It continues the story of the first movie, expands on it, raises the stakes, and does all that in a way that's just as emotionally powerful if not more so. Incredibly, it met and exceeded my impossibly high hopes for it. I don't have one bad thing to say about it and that's why it's Number 1.

10 Movies I Dug from 2014

20. The Maze Runner



I was a bit disappointed that The Maze Runner is more interested in setting up a series than in telling a complete story on its own, but even though it's only a partial story, it tells it in a captivating way. I love how it dumped me into the world cold and made me learn about it along with the main character. And the supporting characters and group dynamics all held my attention, too. Towards the end, the movie gets ridiculous about withholding information to prolong suspense, but I like everything else enough that I'm looking forward to the sequel.

19. John Wick



Total surprise. I knew nothing about this before it came out and if I had known about it, I probably would've ignored it. I enjoy Keanu Reeves most when he's playing air guitar with Alex Winter, not as the wooden tough guy. Some positive reviews piqued my interest though, and I agree with them that John Wick is a fun and exciting movie that almost parodies '80s action flicks, but really ends up just hugging them.

18. Muppets Most Wanted



As a sequel to The Muppets, this was very disappointing. That movie set a high bar and I'm not sure that Muppets Most Wanted even tried to top it. As Muppet films go, it's average; neither among the best nor the worst. If I let it stand on its own though and compare it to most of the other movies I saw this year, its still very funny (especially the Ty Burrell/Sam the Eagle team-up) and I had a great time watching it.

17. The Expendables 3



I didn't enjoy the first Expendables movie really at all, except for the novelty of seeing those actors together in a single film. I was disappointed by the plot and by how little Bruce Willis and Schwarzenegger were in it. The Expendables 2 was a lot better, but Chuck Norris' goofy, squeezed-in-sideways cameo was a big downer. The Expendables 3 was the one I've been waiting for. Lots of my favorite action stars and some of them in small roles, but those small roles made sense for the story and everyone had at least one great moment. The story itself is nothing special, but man I love these actors and the final showdown is a legitimately great set piece.

16. Grand Piano



Like a few other movies on my lists this year, Grand Piano is technically a 2013 release, but I'm going by the dates the movies were made available to people in the US outside of just New York, LA, and film festivals. Grand Piano isn't a perfect thriller, but it's a really good one with Elijah Wood as a troubled pianist who has to save himself and others while playing a concert and not missing a single note. It's overrating it to compare it to Hitchcock's best work, but if you like Hitchcock-like thrillers with normal people trying to make it through someone else's outlandish scheme, I highly recommend this one.

15. Neighbors



Hilarious, but also surprisingly poignant. Could have just been a Revenge of the Nerds-style war between squares and popular people, but instead it takes the time to explore fears of growing up, on both sides of the battle lines.

14. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For



Coming out nine years after the first one killed this movie. If it had been released in 2006 or so, it would have been embraced as more of what people liked about Sin City. There's not a thing wrong with it that wasn't also wrong with the first one; it's a perfectly good companion piece. But waiting so long gave people the chance to forget the first one and wonder, "Why make a sequel now?" It feels kind of pointless. Unless of course you really dug the first one and are glad to have another movie just like it. Which is where I'm sitting.

13. Interstellar



Interstellar is both way more and way less than I wanted it to be. There's a lot going on in it, but at just under three hours long, it still doesn't pay enough attention to any of it's many characters and themes. There are things that I love, like Matthew McConaughey's relationship with his young daughter, and the questions the movie raises about the limits of selflessness and altruism. Sadly, it never develops these very well. But I like it for trying, I like it for its awesome cast, and I like it for its stunning visuals and unforgettable set pieces. I wish the final picture was better, but it's pieces are amazing.

12. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit



I almost forgot I reviewed this one, but I did, so I'll send you there. Short version is that the plot is pretty boilerplate (as is Kenneth Branagh's villain, sadly), but I like that Chris Pine's Jack Ryan is still an analyst first and gets dragged into the spy stuff sort of kicking and screaming. What makes the movie though are Keira Knightley and Kevin Costner, who bring a lot of heart and depth to characters who could have been nothing.

11. 22 Jump Street



As much as I was pleasantly surprised by 21 Jump Street, that's exactly why I wasn't excited about the sequel. Now that I knew what to expect, how could 22 Jump Street possibly surprise me again? Wouldn't it just be more of the same? Well, yeah, except that "the same" means that it's still really funny and has a pair of completely lovable leads. It screws around with the formula of the first one though just enough to be fresh and it also adds some great new actors (especially Jillian Bell who nearly steals the movie).