Tag: Black Panther

Top 10 Movies of 2018 Ranked

With 2018 now in the rearview mirror, it’s time to reflect on and rank the movies that came out last year. 2018 was arguably the best year for movies since 2014 and it was especially hard to make my Top 10 list because there were a ton of movies I liked/loved that sadly didn’t make the Top 10 cut. Before I give my Top 10 list, I want to issue a caveat. I have (yet) to see movies like Green Book, If Beale Street could talk, Roma etc. that are getting Oscar Buzz. So if you don’t see those movies on this list, chances are I haven’t seen it yet or I simply didn’t think it was Top 10 worthy. That being said, here is my honorable mentions list, followed by my top 10 list!

Honorable mentions – Vice, Spiderman: Into the spider-verse, Hereditary, Unsane, A star is born, Black Panther, Eighth Grade, Won’t you be my neighbor, Love Simon, Bumblebee.

#10. Searching – Searching is a really good suspenseful thriller. Great performances, cool twists and a much better version of the ‘Unfriended’ series.

#9. Incredibles 2 –  While not as good as the first one, it’s still a dam great movie. Having Mr. Incredible stay home with the kids while Elastigirl is out doing superhero stuff really worked and made for great comedy. Jack-jack vs the poor raccoon fight is one of my favorite scenes of the year and I still contend, had Jack-Jack been in Infinity War, even Thanos with all 6 Infinity Stones would have been defeated.

#8. Mission impossible: fallout – Tom Cruise does what Tom Cruise does best – run (a lot), do insane death-defying stunts etc. While this entry in the franchise is not as good as MI4 and MI5, it’s still a great action movie with solid character interaction moments. Also, how great is Henry Cavill? From his now iconic “reloading his arms” scene to his sick multi-million dollar moustache that ruined Justice League, Cavill was a great foil to Cruise’ Ethan Hunt.

#7. Blindspotting – Blindspotting is a movie I just recently watched and man, it’s such a powerful, thought-provoking movie. Like Blackkklansman, it is a very relevant movie that is also extremely funny. This movie is fueled by stellar performances from Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, and explores the issues of gentrification, police violence against unarmed black people etc. A must-watch.

#6. Bohemian Rhapsody – Just like the Queen band themselves, 20th Century Fox rocked our world with a Queen biopic movie starring Rami Malek as the band’s lead singer Freddy Mercury. What could easily have been just a 2 hour long music video featuring all the iconic Queen songs, the filmmakers crafted a compelling story with well-developed characters and an Oscar-worthy performance from Malek. Lastly, the Live-aid concert left me wishing this was my real life rather than being a fantasy.

#5. Blackkklansman – A movie like this could have easily been a dark, serious movie but Spike Lee chose to add a comedic angle to it, making it a more palatable, powerful yet entertaining film. This is a very relevant movie and Lee had the chutzpah to take a firm stand against the current political administration and its tendency to attract white nationalists.

#4. A Quiet Place – You make a noise, you die. Definitely an interesting premise that makes you wonder how you would fare in a situation like this. However, the tension is palpable, the characters are so well-realized with terrific performances from John Krasinsky, his wife (both real life and on-screen) Emily Blunt, and the two kids. Like Get Out last year, here’s hoping the Academy ignores the fact that this is a genre movie and actually recognizes this movie to be worthy of a few accolades, because it is deserving of it.

#3. Game Night – Game night is one of the most original films of 2018 and is such a rollicking fun time at the theatres. The movie has a great ensemble cast coupled with a genuinely interesting story and most importantly, jokes that actually land and are funny.

#2. Avengers: Infinity War – What can I say that hasn’t already been said. I absolutely loved this movie. It had everything I could ever have hoped for – great action, wonderful character interaction moments, humor, a commanding villain in Thanos etc. With that epic cliffhanger, I am salivating over the next installment in the Avengers franchise, Avengers: Endgame.

#1. Creed 2 – Being a massive fan of the Rocky movies and Creed, I was a little nervous when they announced that Ryan Coogler won’t be returning for the Creed sequel and the movie would have Adonis go toe-to-toe with Ivan Drago’s son, Victor. However, this movie packed a number of punches, making it an emotional, exciting ride. Not only are the boxing scenes super hardcore and awesome to watch, there are a number of poignant, heartfelt moments between Adonis and his family.

 

Ranking the Comic-book Movies of 2018 (SPOILERS)

Since forever ago, many folks have been predicting the demise of the superhero genre. Well, they were proven wrong yet again. Being the dominant genre in Hollywood, the combined worldwide gross of all the 8 comic-book movies (Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2, Ant man and the wasp, Teen Titans: Go to the movies, Venom, Spiderman: into the spider-verse and Aquaman) is well over 6 billion dollars, with Spiderman and Aquaman just having released in theatres. Now that I have seen them all, I can now rank the 8 comic-book movies from least favorite to my favorite. Spoiler warning.

#8. Venom – a Tom Hardy-led Venom movie with the director of Zombieland at the helm and a solid cast (including Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed), what could go wrong? Well, it seems like pretty much everything went wrong with this anti-hero flick. Venom has a terrible script, weak performances (sans Hardy), cringe dialogue, poor villains (both Drake and Riot) etc. The only reason I didn’t hate this movie is because of Hardy, who goes “all out” and delivers an entertaining-to-watch performance. Eddie and Venom’s relationship and back-and-forth is one of the film’s strengths and it was very enjoyable when the movie just focused on the two. While I personally didn’t like this movie, the general audiences kinda did and the movie had great legs and well over $850 million at the box office. This is by far the weakest comic-book movie of the year but here’s hoping that they make a better Venom sequel.

#7. Teen Titans – this was a movie I had absolutely zero interest in. Never seen a Teen Titans episode and the trailers were pretty bad and looked extremely childish. Gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised. This is an extremely self-referential movie and has a pretty well-developed lead in the Robin. While this is definitely not a movie for everyone because of the juvenile nature of the movie, it has some great moments for the DC fan in me to ultimately have a good experience.

#6. Ant man and the Wasp – Like its predecessor, A&W is a good palette cleanser after the big Avengers movies. I love how our heroes use shrinking/growing and the visuals are really good! This is also a really funny movie with some good performances from Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly etc. Where this movie suffers is with the villains, especially the storyline with Sonny Burch. Also, Black Panther just opened our eyes to the incredible world of Wakanda and Infinity War was a large-scale epic movie, but A&W, unfortunately, is a pretty formulaic MCU movie .

#5. Deadpool 2 – Like most people, I loved the first Deadpool movie and was very excited for the sequel. After watching the movie, my initial reaction was “it’s good but no where as good as the first one” and this reaction mostly stands. I enjoyed this movie but this movie doesn’t have as good of a balance of humor and character work as the first one did. The pacing is off and some characters like Firefist are obnoxious. However, the emotional moments between Wade and Vanessa are powerful and this movie is arguably funnier than the first film, especially the X-force deaths sequence which had me cracking up. Not to forget, Cable and Domino are really interesting characters and I can’t wait to see them in X-force.

#4. Aquaman – Coming off of a string of divisive films (sans Wonder Woman), DC absolutely needed a win in Aquaman and they achieved it! Aquaman is the definition of a fun, popcorn movie. It has a ton of action, one-liners, comedy and decently fleshed-out characters. The effects on the underwater world are visually stunning and this movie does not hesitate to embrace its comicbook-iness.  Not to mention, Aquaman has a good lead in Momoa! Where this movie suffers is in its script, emotional moments and weak villains (notice the trend?). However, a win’s a win and DC is on the right path again!

#3. Black Panther – Before I say anything, I just want to preface this by saying Black Panther is a really good movie. It has some of the best performances and an uber-talented ensemble cast in the MCU, strong female characters (Okoye, Shuri, Nakia) and is a very relevant movie in our society today. Having a predominantly black cast with a black director is remarkable and what Ryan Coogler did with Black Panther is incredible! This is also one of those movies where the beliefs/actions of the villain actually changes our protagonist and by the end of the movie, T’Challa opening up Wakanda to the rest of the world works. However, I don’t love this movie, like most people do, and really don’t believe that this movie deserves to get a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. It is an important movie but that doesn’t make it an Oscar-calibre movie, in my humble opinion. This movie also has questionable CGI at times, messy fight scenes and a sudden villain turn. Killmonger makes some very good points about Wakanda not using its resources to help black people around the world, but he becomes a moustache-twirling villain by the end. Again, I really like this movie and do believe that it deserves technical awards nominations like “Best Costume,” “Best Sound Editing,” and “Best Sound Mixing” but just not more.

#2. Spiderman: into the spider-verse – This animated flick had a very difficult job – convincing us that a Spider-man movie with so many characters and villains can work. After all, neither Sony nor we have forgotten what happened with Spiderman 3 and Amazing Spiderman 2. I am very happy to say that this movie is amazing (no pun intended)! It had a lot of great character moments and the relationships between Miles and his dad, Miles and his uncle and Miles and Peter are heartwarming. There is a scene that takes place between Miles’ dad and Miles in a college dorm, which gives me chills just thinking about. The introduction of the secondary Spidey characters is super fun and infuses a lot of humor to the movie, especially from Spider-Noir (voiced by Nicholas Cage). This movie, at times, feels like a comic-book come to life with comic-book style panels and text on screen. If this movie does end up getting a ‘Best Picture’ nomination at the Oscars, which it very well may, I have no qualms about it as it is definitely deserving of any accolades.

#1. Avengers: Infinity War – Infinity War is the culmination of 10 years of storytelling and to celebrate this momentous occasion, Marvel essentially had “throw everything but the kitchen sink” mentality for this movie. It has basically every main character (sans Hawkeye and Ant Man) in the MCU facing off against the big baddie, Thanos and man, the Russos exceeded my already-high expectations. This is easily one of my favorite movies of the year and one particular reason for that is Thanos, who is now my favorite villain in cinematic history. He is such a complex, 3-dimensional character and even though you (hopefully) don’t agree with him, you totally understand where he is coming from. The action is incredible, the humor totally works and because of its scale, this really felt like the most epic movie of our generation. And of course, who can forget the ending? Our heroes turning to dust and Spiderman’s line “Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good.” Man, that is heartbreaking. Infinity War is easily my favorite superhero film of the year and I am (just a little) excited for Avengers: Endgame!

Now, what say you? Leave your rankings down below!