Early Man Falls Short of Past Aardman Feature Films

Aardman Animation (the outfit behind Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run) have been trying to make a caveman comedy for well over a decade now. Back when they had a deal to produce films with DreamWorks Animation, one of their proposed projects was a feature called Crood Awakening that John Cleese had written the script for. Once Aardman left DreamWorks, the latter studio turned the film into The Croods while Aardman finally got around to delivering a caveman project (albeit without the involvement of John Cleese) with Early Man, which was released in the first few weeks of 2018 to underwhelming box office results.

The Ritual Takes Cue From Past Horror Movie Staples To Create Something Intriguing

Don't go into the woods alone, that should be up there with not opening the door to discover where that creepy noise is coming from as go-to pieces of knowledge for horror movie protagonists looking to stay alive. That's what the lead characters of The Ritual decide to do as they head off on an extensive hike through Sweden and they want to take a shortcut to help ensure they can get proper medical help in a hurry for one of their injured friends. Part of the group is the film's protagonist, Luke (Rafe Spall), who is racked with guilt over not doing anything to help his friend during a robbery that ended up costing that friend his life.

Sally Potter's The Party Is An Agreeable Gathering

Dinner parties rarely go according to plan in the movies and Sally Potter's The Party is no exception. A gathering for Janet (Kristen Scott Thomas) to celebrate her being appointed to the position of minister of the UK Health Service ends up spiraling into a lot of chaotic drama that rarely involves Janet. First her husband, Bill (Timothy Spall), announces he's dying and later states that he's also been carrying on an affair. then a coked-up Tom (Cillian Murphy) has his own insecurities relating to his marriage to hash out while Jinny (Emily Mortimer) and Martha (Cherry Jones), who are expecting a child, find themselves caught up in a potentially devastating argument.

Peter Rabbit The Movie Is Decent, Though The Titular Character Is A More Flawed Creation

The marketing for Will Gluck's live-action/CGI Peter Rabbit movie made the feature it was advertising look like a nightmare. Loads of pop songs, rampant slapstick and Peter Rabbit tossing out lettuce like it was dollar bills at a strip club, this looked like a parody of DreamWorks Animation movies from 2004-2007, not an actual motion picture coming out in 2018. Thankfully, Peter Rabbit is nowhere near as bad as its trailers would suggest, which is a good thing because 90 minutes of just that initial teaser trailer would likely be classified as a form of torture. The actual movie isn't anywhere close to a Paddington level success but it does register as a decent family movie that works way better at comedy than one would expect.

A Fantastic Woman Is A Fantastic Motion Picture

Hailing from director Sebastian Leilo, A Fantastic Woman is the most recent winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, with its victory nearly a month ago cementing it as the first Chilena film in history to win that prestigious award. That put the motion picture and its star, Daniela Vega (who was also a presenter at this year's Oscars ceremony), on many people's radars. For those eager to know if A Fantastic Woman is indeed living up to the hype it's generated, I can say confidently that A Fantastic Woman (my first foray into the world of Chilean cinema) is indeed a great movie on its own terms.

Game Night Is A Highly Enjoyable Comedy With An Outstanding Jesse Plemons Performance

Well now, Game Night is quite a surprise and a very funny surprise at that. Jason Bateman, after starring in a recent string of subpar live-action comedies like Office Christmas Party and Horrible Bosses 2 (though, to be fair, more unorthodox roles in the likes of Zootopia and The Gift have made excellent use of his many talents as an actor), has hit upon another winner here and he's not the only actor who works exceptionally well here, far from it. Before we dive into the specifics of which cast members excel and why, let's get the story of Game Story straight, which, like many comedies, wring humor out of plunging normal people into heightened circumstances.

Annihilation Is A Well-Made Intentionally Disorienting Thriller

Alex Garland already had a solid foothold as a noteworthy name in American science-fiction cinema with his work as a writer on projects like Sunshine and Dredd, but with 2015's Ex Machina, he made a high-quality leap into the world of directing. His follow-up directorial effort to that feature is Annihilation, a feature film adaptation of a novel by Jeff VanderMeer, that allows Garland to expand his scope as a filmmaker without losing the contemplative nature of Ex Machina. Interestingly, despite having a larger canvas to work with this time, as well as a major studio footing the bill, Garland has written a film that engages in more unorthodox narrative techniques than Ex Machina, believe it or not.

Mute Silences All of It's Potential

In their 28 month long period of doing feature films, Netflix has released a bunch of high-quality smaller-scale films like The 13th, Blue Jay and Mudbound that show the streaming service is quite capable of putting out some top-notch cinema. If only such quality extended to their attempts to release more high-profile blockbuster fare, as those (admittedly few) attempts have fared quite poorly. Bright was, of course, a disaster and now comes another subpar bigger-budgeted effort from the studio in the form of Mute, which hails from director Duncan Jones, a man responsible for two of the best science-fiction films (Moon and Source Code) of the last decade.

The Phenomenal Feature Black Panther Is A One-of-A-Kind Thoughtful Superhero Feature

Back in 2013, I had two separate screenings of then-new theatrical movies that introduced me to talent I'd never seen before. One of these films was 42, the first starring role for Chadwick Boseman, while the other motion picture in question was Fruitvale Station, the feature film directorial debut of Ryan Coogler. Boseman immediately stepped onto my radar with his performance as Jackie Robinson while Coogler showed an adept hand at depicting everyday life brought to a tragically early end in his inaugural directorial effort. Leaving both individual movies, I hoped I would see further work from both Boseman and Coogler in the near future.

The 15:17 To Paris Goes Off The Rails In Thoroughly Lifeless Ways

On August 21, 2015, an extraordinary event happened on a train departing from Amsterdam and heading to Paris, France. As a man got his gun ready and planned to commit an act of terrorism, three ordinary Americans, Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone leaped into action and took down the man before he could actually execute his plan.  The trio subsequently became heavily publicized heroes with their actions resulting in a book chronicling that fateful day as well as a film adaptation of that fateful day entitled The 15:17 To Paris starring the three men as themselves. While the actions of this trio were incredibly noble and admirable, tragically, the film adaptation of those actions is all around dismal.

Good Ideas For Character Backstories Get Lost In The Vacuum of Bad Writing That Is The Cloverfield Paradox

For the longest time, third movies were considered to be the place where movie franchises hit their creative low, likely inspired by how Return of The Jedi was considered such a step down from its predecessor back in the early 1980's and not helped by early 21st century third entries in blockbuster franchises like Spider-Man 3, Shrek The Third and X-Men: The Last Stand. Of course, this is a silly misconception on the most basic level, third movies in a series aren't inherently going to be worse than any other type of movie, it's the elements you use to tell that third movie that matter. Of course, those who believe third movies are destined to be the nadir of their respective franchises will have a new go-to example to utilize for their arguments with the release of The Cloverfield Paradox.

My Thoughts On The Black Panther Trailer

We've been waiting for this for so long.

People have been eagerly awaiting a feature film adaptation of Black Panther for so very long, to the point that any reference to the character, no matter how small, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe drew profound excitement (I remember the mere off-hand mention of Wakanda in Avengers: Age of Ultron drew excitement from the packed auditorium full of moviegoers I was seeing the film with). Now, after eons of anticipation, a film based on this legendary superhero will finally arrive in February 2018. Before that though, we do get to see some footage from the feature in the form of a teaser trailer that dropped last night. Check it out below!


I mean....

Really?

What even needs to be said?

This looks outright flat-out incredible, holy goodness. Every frame of this trailer is jaw-dropping and that's really no exaggeration here. The look of Wakanda is obviously fully embracing the art of Afrofutirism to some stunning results, the costumes look bright, colorful and like nothing else we've seen in a blockbuster before, the action looks fantastic and oh boy, so many amazing actor get to grace the screen in this trailer alone! Lupita Nyong'o! Forest Whitaker! Michael B. Jordan! Angela Basset!!! And the shots we see of Black Panther himself in action are so great, the guys got an agility and grace to his hand-to-hand combat skills that are unlike anything else we've seen in an MCU superhero before.

 I'm chomping at the bit to see the full movie Ryan Coogler and co. have created after this phenomenal trailer! Kneel before the king of Wakanda folks because his movie looks quite incredible!