50 Most Anticipated Movies of 2018

January 4, 2018 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular, Uncategorized Tagged Most Anticipated Movies, Most Anticipated Movies of 2018 Leave a comment

Ahhh 2018. A year of promise. Of renewed hope. Of unlimited possibility. I advise you do your best to not pay attention to the commander in chief’s tweets and bury your hand in the collective sand that is an unhealthy obsession with movies. Tis the very best medicine and nothing gets me more jazzed about covering the industry than looking at the year ahead and seeing just how many potential gems lay in wait. Each and every year I tell myself I’m not going to bother doing a Top 50 Most Anticipated Movies List. That someone else will do the work for me and I can just retweet it. And yet every year we get the same retreads, boring, blockbuter-loaded lists ad nauseam. Here goes my attempt to right that wrong. Read More

Top Ten Movies of 2017

December 21, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular Tagged Best of Year, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Raw, The Disaster Artist, The Florida Project, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Top Ten, War for the Planet of the Apes 1 Comment

’Tis an annual (w)rite of passage for every film critic to force themselves into a pretzel declaring their top ten favorite films of the year. It’s a stressful, painful experience that almost always ends in regret. Looking back at Top Tens of years past, I always groan with certain inclusions – films that haven’t weathered quite so well – and lament other omissions – films that have grown on me like a fine wine or well-worn pair of slippers. But we toil on regardless, sure to churn out a list loaded with recency bias that we’ll look back on one, two, ten years from now, pockets loaded with exasperated groans. In short, it’s a pain rite of passage even though writing these passages is probably the most fundamental requirement for every critic and inevitably draw the most page views. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘THE SHAPE OF WATER’

December 13, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Alexandre Desplat, Best of 2017, Doug Jones, Guillermo del Toro, Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia Spencer, Paul D. Austerberry, Reviews, Richard Jenkins, Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water 1 Comment

Far and away the best of Guillermo del Toro’s English language features, The Shape of Water, like Dr. Frankenstein stitching together disparate appendages, conjoins the romanticism of the 1930s Classic Universal Monsters Movies, the conspiratorial grit of the 70s Hammer Films and a splash of Max, Mon Amour to craft a truly one-of-a-kind, genre-bending splat of modern monster cinema. Breathtaking, adorable and fundamentally weird as hell, The Shape of Water is a slice of well-germinated fan fiction that’s so much more than its leaflet thin description of Deaf Girl falls for Fish Man could possibly describe. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI’

November 8, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Abbie Cornish, Caleb Landry Jones, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Frances McDormand, John Hawke, Lucas Hedges, Martin McDonagh, Missouri, Peter Dinklage, Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Woody Harrelson 2 Comments

There are many words you can’t say on a billboard but in Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic and borderline brilliant Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri calling out the local sheriff for failing to bring to justice a rapist, arsonist and murderer is fair game. At least from a legal standpoint. This is the set-up for a crime saga unlike any other, McDonagh’s film a foul-mouthed mystery brimming with colorful characters, its jet-black tone and surprising emotionality capable of causing fits of laughter and bouts of urgent somberness in what is one of the best films of 2017. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER’

October 24, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Barry Keoghan, Collin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Raffey Cassidy, Reviews, Sunny Suljic, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Yorgos Lanthimos 1 Comment

No one makes ‘em like Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek auteur/comedic sadist responsible for such cinephelic gems as Dogtooth and The Lobster. Taking much of the same human-as-reporters-of-fact Wes Anderson forthrightness and filtering it through a lens of awkward depravity, The Killing of a Sacred Deer follows pace with The Lobster, wherein singles mingled forcibly lest they be hunted down by a strictly coupled off society. This is something even more dark, otherworldly and delirious where coupledom proves a debilitating battle of wits and parents have little loyalty. Read More

6 Killer New Horror Movies on Netflix to Get You Ready for Halloween

October 9, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular Tagged A Dark Song, Gerald's Game, Horror Movies, Netflix, Raw, The Blackcoat's Daughter, The Devil's Candy, The Survivalist, The Transfiguration Leave a comment

Every year, the month of October rolls around and with it an opportunity to binge watch all the horror movies that may have slipped under your radar thus far. 2017 has been an outstanding year for horror films with even studio flicks making waves – It became an overnight international smash hit and deservedly so; M. Night Shyamalan’s Split returned the once maligned director to twisty-turny prominence; A Cure For Wellness delivered an eerie ode to gerontophobia and medical centers; and it wouldn’t be too surprising to see Jordan Peele’s outstanding Get Out get some Oscar nods thrown its way by the end of the year. We’ve gone ahead and compiled a list of some of Halloween-season stuff you probably haven’t seen yet, all available at the click of a button for your Netflix streaming pleasure. We threw one from Amazon Prime on there as well, for those who take their streaming packages a little more robust. Watch one, watch them all, just go out and get in the mood for the best holiday of the year.

Out in Theaters: ‘BLADE RUNNER 2049’

October 4, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Ana de Armas, Barkad Abdi, Benjamin Wallfisch, Blade Runner 2049, Carla Juri, Dave Bautista, Denis Villenueve, Dennis Gassner, Hampton Fancher, Hans Zimmer, Harrison Ford, Lennie James, Mackenzie Davis, Michael Green, Out in Theaters, Phillip K. Dick, Ridley Scott, Robin Wright, Roger Deakins, Ryan Gosling 2 Comments

Let’s get one thing straight, Blade Runner 2049 is superb and stupefying. Dreamlike production design, fiercely thoughtful direction, poetic and often brilliant storytelling, sublime world building and excellent performances across the board all add up to a sequel that fits perfectly into the cinescape that Ridley Scott imagined nearly 30 years ago while carrying its story forward in exciting, imaginative and wholly fulfilling new ways. Expanding on themes of humanity and identity native to Phillip K. Dick’s novella “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, Blade Runner 2049 both expands a world wherein humanoid androids and their homosapien masters co-exist while narrowing it down to a small ensemble of meaningful characters, all who have their part to play. This time the focus is K (Ryan Gosling), a LAPD Blade Runner who struggles with his own identity while hunting down and “retiring” outdated android models. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘mother!’

September 13, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Darren Aronofsky, Ed Harris, Javier Bardem, Jennifer Lawrence, Matthew Libatique, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mother, Reviews 4 Comments

Nothing is as it seems in Darren Aronofsky’s relentlessly sinister religious parable mother! A jet-black tone poem about artistic and biological creation (and the entire span of history no less), mother! is Arofonsky firing on much the same enigmatic, musing, ethereal cylinders as he did with The Fountain and much of Noah, expect his conceit this time around contains far less about the ineffable powers of love and way more orgy murders and crowdsurfing babies and Old Testament spit fire. Part home invasion thriller, part inky-black dark comedy and all blood-stained metaphor, Aronofsky’s wanton allegory is a surreal and visceral experience, one characterized by ravaging production elements, stormy performances and a kick-you-in-the-teeth ending. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘DUNKIRK’

July 18, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Aneurin Barnard, Barry Keoghan, Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Dunkirk, Fionn Whitehead, Hans Zimmers, Harry Styles, Hoyte van Hoytema, Jack Lowden, Lee Smith, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy 2 Comments

A visceral sensation from start to finish, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk delivers the experience that 3D has promised to for so many years. Immensely immersive, Dunkirk envelopes you in its perfectly orchestrated chaos from the very first moments, surrounding you with the sights and sounds of war-torn Dunkirk as soldiers scurry for safety, hugging you in a sickly embrace of unease while Hans Zimmers’ sublimely nerve-inducing score tears at your composure. Hypnotic in its ability to put you on edge and suck you headfirst into the screen, Nolan’s sure-to-be Oscar juggernaut forces you to scour every inch of the screen for danger and refuses to relent for but a moment. A layered triptych that integrates three disparate narratives, all working on their own timelines, Dunkirk is nothing short of a verifiable masterstroke of cinematic construction and the lauded director’s most artistic and impassioned vision yet. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES’

June 27, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Andy Serkis, Mark Bomback, Matt Reeves, Michael Giacchino, Michael Seresin, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Steve Zahn, Toby Kebbell, War for the Planet of the Apes, Woody Harrelson 3 Comments

Let’s not split hairs – though with the sublime mane work the necromancers at WETA have accomplished here, splitting hairs is definitely within the realm of possibilities – War for the Planet of the Apes is a remarkable achievement on nearly any rubric. A narratively pulsating, emotionally turbulent survival epic complete with near-miraculous FX work and sumptuous production design, War sets itself so far apart from the average summer blockbuster that it risks being undefinable. As bleak as anything I’ve personally witnessed in a PG-13 effects-driven escape movie about apes, War for the Planet of the Apes is the Joseph Conrad-penned Schindler’s List of Apes movies. Dealing in genocide, slavery, exodus and death, War also finds room among its Old Testament adversity for growth, heroism and hope to take root. Perfectly culminating Caesar’s prequel trilogy and tying into the 1968 Charlton Heston-led original, War is everything fans of the franchise could hope for and more. And boy is it a breathtaking journey to be a part of. Read More