In the simplest summary, Burning is a thriller. It mingles mystery and menace in tracing the shifting, fraught relationships of three central characters. Motivations are elusive, mistrust swells, base human emotions emit low, ominous rumbles. Supposedly casual conversations gain greater … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number One
In the most accurate reflections of the modern workplace I’ve seen in quite some time, Regina Hall fills Support the Girls with a dazzling variety of borderline breakdown moments. Hall plays Lisa, the day manager of a moderately successful Texas … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Two
Roma is memory. It is the hard certainty of the testing moments that grind into the senses and the softness of incidents turned into impressions. Alfonso Cuarón has made no secret of the ways in which this drama draws upon his … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Three
Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is constructed with an approach that could go drastically wrong so easily, and indeed has many times in the past, even when employed by more seasoned filmmakers. The story focuses on Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau), a … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Four
I recently came to realize how short-sighted I’ve been in my admiration for Eighth Grade, the feature directorial debut of Bo Burnham. I marveled at the ability of a single, childless comedian in his mid-twenties to convincingly occupy the headspace … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Five
Director Yorgos Lanthimos surveys society and sees corroded souls, all of them sending out alternating waves of hurt and affront, like sonar that delivers wounds. He also, to the benefit of misanthropic cineastes everywhere, finds the resulting eternal struggle to … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Six
Shirkers is a movie that never was. Or maybe was, then wasn’t, then was again. And then, well after its journey seemed fully, decisively over, a dusty path ending at a sheer cliff face, Shirkers became an entirely different type … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Seven
Satire is punishingly hard to master on the big screen. It’s a tricky puzzle in any medium, but there’s an added degree of difficulty when the tapestry is so large and dynamic. Many skilled filmmakers have taken large gashes in … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Eight
The instigating action of the plot is so small and unassuming that it almost seems like a cheerful memory rather than a cinematic plot point. A little bear named Paddington (voiced marvelously by Ben Whishaw) longs to purchase a vintage … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Nine
Ari Aster brings a scalding intensity to his feature directorial debut, Hereditary. Unmistakably a horror film — in its nightmarish imagery, in its tone, in its unapologetic embrace of the gruesome — Hereditary is presented with a psychological acuity that is … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Ten
Coffee for Two 