Where'd You Go, Bernadette Is Shockingly Lifeless

After more than a decade doing independently financed arthouse fare, director Richard Linklater, one of the best directors currently working today, uses a film adaptation of the Maria Semple-penned book Where'd You Go, Bernadette as his return to more broadly appealing commercial fare, a domain he hasn't traipsed into since that Bad News Bears remake in 2005 that history has left to be forgotten. Linklater has been on an incredible hot streak in the 2010s with films like Bernie, Before Midnight and Boyhood, which makes it all the more profoundly disappointing how underwhelming his final feature of the decade ends up being. Linklater's well-known for making quiet films but they've never been as lacking in a pulse like Where'd You Go, Bernadette.

Like Be Kind Rewind, Hearts Beat Loud Is An Exceptionally Endearing Movie About How Unifying Art Can Be

Hearts Beat Loud is 2018's answer to Bernie in that it's a sublime indie movie that totally would have been a big box office hit in both arthouse and mainstream movie theaters if only it had been distributed by a more high-profile movie studio that had actually given it a noteworthy theatrical release. Oh well, Hearts Beat Loud (as well as Bernie for that matter!) will live on long after a woefully small theatrical release thanks to just how entertaining it is. This is feel-good cinema done impeccably right that shows how well-realized characters, not unearned schmaltz, are what's needed to get one's heart soaring.

Last Flag Flying Is The Newest Thoughtful & Heartfelt Accomplishment From Director Richard Linklater

Some of the most famous movies made by director Richard Linklater tend to center on youthful protagonists, like the High Schoolers in Dazed and Confused, the college-aged fraternity boys of Everybody Wants Some!!! or the lead character who inhabits numerous stages of youth in Boyhood. Linklater has a knack for writing both realistic and dramatically involving younger characters, but Last Flag Flying shows he doesn't lose his talents as a screenwriter when he's dealing with older individuals (fellow entries in Linklater's dynamite 2010's run Before Midnight and Bernie are similar showcases for this), on the contrary, he seems to thrive when given the opportunity to explore more life-experienced human beings.