THE OPTIMIST - MOVIE REVIEWS

     Another year has come and gone, and with it a slew of awesome (and not so awesome) movies! 2018 featured some of the greatest pieces of cinema to date, with story arcs that have been building over many years, to new and excitingly original stories for the masses. It’s no small thing to say that I love movies, and the cinema is my home away from home. I’ve really enjoyed this year’s bout of films, and though there were many, only a few have risen to the top of my list. For this year’s list, I’m not sharing, necessarily, what I think were the “best” films of 2018, but ones that ended up being my favorites  of the year. Coincidentally, a lot of these picks I could easily argue were some of 2018’s best and will probably be talked about in depth come award season. At any rate, here is my Top 10 of 2018, in no particular order. Annihilation   When you go to the movies, or at least when I go to the movies, I want to be transported away. Movies are pure escapism, set withi

        The summer movie season is here and I could not be more excited! This weekend marks the opening of three new films, one of which I was able to check out last night. I decided to go scare myself with the highly anticipated Hereditary , a film that has been gaining huge amounts of praise throughout the festival circuit. Being hailed as this generation’s The Exorcist , Hereditary aims to capture that cult following of horror lovers, and let me just say right off the bat that this movie…this movie shook me to my core. A little behind-the-scenes moment here: I live a few blocks down from my local theater, a smaller 12 screen cinema right in the heart of downtown. It takes me about five minutes to walk there from my apartment. Now, I consider myself a fairly macho guy, despite the calm, cool, and collected nature I tend to portray. I walked to the theater last night to catch the 7:00pm showing. I watched the movie, tried desperately to process what exactly I had seen once the c

      The highly anticipated follow up to the immensely popular Deadpool has arrived, and does so with all the pizazz you would expect. Deadpool changed the movie-making game in a lot of ways. As a character, he’s a bit unconventional with his fourth-wall breaking and acute awareness of his reality as a comic book character. However, with the ingenious pairing of Ryan Reynolds and the audacity of Marvel, Deadpool has become more than what he’s previously been. Instantly an icon, Deadpool has found his niche as the self-righteous barometer that pokes fun at the seriousness we give every other comic book movie. From the films to the marketing, this has become a franchise worth the price of admission. Those who have followed the marketing campaign for this film, in particular, have seen what a tremendous job they’ve done at amping things up to eleven this go-around. In the case of Deadpool 2 , the film doubles down on everything: the jokes, the fourth-wall breaking, the action, t

     Okay. It’s been a week since the opening of Avengers: Infinity War . In that span of time I have seen the film three times, and every showing has been vital in the processing of the film. It has taken me a while to figure out how to approach a review for what is truly a one-of-a-kind cinematic experience. No other movie in history that I can think of has attempted to do what this movie has done. Marvel has practically serialized their cinematic universe, with interweaving story threads that almost give each individual movie an episodic feel. It’s as if the MCU is one giant TV show, and each movie serves as an epic episode, pushing the narrative towards a turning point that will shape that universe in the future. Infinity War is in every way the season finale. The genius of this movie, of its creators, and the crews that worked on it, will go down in history for playing such a huge narrative step forward within the lore of cinematic storytelling. I believe, as of the posting o

     It is without question that Steven Spielberg is a living embodiment of a master filmmaker. As a kid of the 80s and 90s, I grew up on the adventures of Indiana Jones and the Goonies, I learned the importance of friendship with E.T. and experienced the characteristic whimsy of Hook and many others that helped to shape my love of movies and stories. Steven Spielberg has been behind some of the greatest films of all time, and even though his filmography over the last handful of years has been mediocre at best, his work will forever stand the test of time and continue to amaze and excite viewers young and old. His latest film Ready Player One , an adaptation of a beloved book by the same title, has been hailed as a return-to-form, a masterful epic, and a joyous time at the cinema. I stand here before you, having seen and experienced Ready Player One , as a witness that these claims are indeed true. People...this movie is straight up awesome!    Set in the year 2045, the film tel

     From the moment I first laid eyes on the trailer for A Quiet Place , I was immediately hooked. This idea that silence is life-saving is really quite ironic when you consider the time in which we live, where the world is a constant buzz. So, once you grasp that idea, throw in a couple of monsters, and you've got yourself a fun time, am I right? Well, let me just shake off this loosy-goosy perspective, because I finally got to see A Quiet Place and it was riveting! Honestly, this film is one of the most original thrillers I've seen in a long time. It's heart-pounding, gut-wrenching, edge-of-your-seat fun that hearkens back to an age where horror films were just as much about the quality of their stories as they were about their scares. Writer/director/actor John Krasinski has created a film that I want, more than ever, to become a sensational phenomenon, because it deserves to be.    The premise is simple: a family is forced to live in silence while hiding from cre

      In the wake of Black Panther 's massive success, films are striving to find any semblance of longevity at the box office, and this week's newest release hopes to possibly gain favor over the King of Wakanda. Highly unlikely, but a worthy endeavor nonetheless. A Wrinkle in Time is a family-friendly fantasy-adventure adapted from the well-known book most people read in junior high. I went into this movie expecting a visually-stunning and heart-felt story, and what I got was most of one of these and less of the other. The book is a weird narrative to begin with, so adapting it would leave plenty of room for inspiration and liberties to be taken. This movie is stunning to look at...and that's about it. What seemed to be a film with promise, ends up being nothing more than a beautiful, hot mess.    After the disappearance of her scientist father, three peculiar beings send Meg (Storm Reid), her brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), and her friend Calvin (Levi Mille

  It is that time of year once again, and I have never been more ready! For the first time in years I've finally finished viewing all of the Best Picture Nominees BEFORE the Oscars actually air! I'm excited this year because there doesn't seem to be a true front-runner for the big take-away! After much deliberation and many, many viewings, here are my predictions for this year's winners! Let's see how many I can get right! Check back Monday for the results! *UPDATE - So I beat my record from last year and guessed 20 out of the 24 categories! Not too shabby! My correct guess are in BLUE and the ones I missed are in RED . Until next year... BEST PICTURE: Call Me By Your Name Darkest Hour Dunkirk Get Out Lady Bird Phantom Thread The Post The Shape of Water Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri OPTIMIST'S PICK: The Shape of Water BEST DIRECTOR: Guillermo del Toro - The Shape of Water Jordan Peele - Get Out Greta Gerwig - Lady Bird Chr