My Favorite Movies of 2018

2018 was a pretty terrible year by many measures, but it was a damn good year for movies. While big budget sequels of varying quality continued to dominate the box office, there was still room in theaters for new and original stories to stand out while streaming options give them a shot at reaching the wider audiences they deserve—including me, in a couple of cases. My top 10 favorites (plus 4 honorable mentions) were unexpectedly tough to sort out, but they represent a more varied list than I would have initially guessed at the beginning of the year.

The Avengers, John Carter, and “A little old fashioned…”

Joss Whedon reached deep down and tapped into what made the comics of the 60s and 70s so much fun, inspiring a generation of creators who were subsequently side-tracked by a misunderstanding of Alan Moore's Watchmen. It's the kind of movie DC's stable of characters (other than Batman) are best-suited for and will likely never get, and in some ways, it reminded me of the unfairly maligned John Carter (of Mars).

How John Carter MIGHT Get a Sequel, Despite Disney’s Apparent Efforts to Kill It

Licensing decisions are made well in advance of the release of a movie, so I have to wonder if this had anything to do with Burroughs' estate, what's considered public domain and who has the rights to what's not, but it's difficult to justify treating this movie like a niche play—not with a reported $250m budget on the line.

On Inception, The Passage, and Writing in The Obama Era

The weakness of "It's all a dream" — why we hate that, why we feel cheated when narratively anything is revealed to be all a dream — is that you've just asked me to spend so much time and emotional capital investing in the stakes of this, and you've now swept it away with the … Continue reading On Inception, The Passage, and Writing in The Obama Era

RIDDICK’s Big Screen Return | GeekTyrant

About 10 years ago a relatively unknown actor, by the name of Vin Diesel, starred in a scifi/horror movie about a group of stranded travelers on a planet where hungry giant bat like creatures come out to feed in the middle of the night. Four years later that same character comes back to fight a … Continue reading RIDDICK’s Big Screen Return | GeekTyrant

The Unbreakable Dark Knight Double Feature

I have the house all to myself for the next couple of days, and a rainy Sunday is the perfect time for a double-feature of the best "superhero" / "comic book" movies ever: Unbreakable and The Dark Knight. The former is highly underrated (and still holds up), the latter justifiably lauded; both are the best … Continue reading The Unbreakable Dark Knight Double Feature