Media Man

So far, this is the first year I've seen enough movies to fill up a top 10 worst list. Either that sends a message about the qualitative state of films today or I'm just very unlucky with my ticket money. Readers are advised to remember that the entries in this list are chosen from the films I actually saw this year. I'm told there are worse movies that came out this year like "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" or "Venom". However, since I haven't seen them, it would be dishonest of me to put them here. 10. "Bad Times at the El Royale" This is going on here for sheer level of disappointment. The film spends a half an hour building up superb suspense and intrigue. Afterwards, it turns into an entirely different plot. That might've worked in a "From Dusk Till Dawn" sense, but unfortunately the new plot isn't nearly as interesting as what we were presented with. What a letdown. 9. "Mile 22" Speaking of was

Every year in film has its unique level of quality that it will always be known for. 2016 will be remembered as the year of the bland blockbuster. 2017 will be recalled as a year of solid quality. And along those lines, I think 2018 will only be remembered for a few exceptionally bright spots. It was extremely difficult to pick out 10 films that were actually worth caring about this year, but I managed to pull through. Readers are advised to remember that these entries are entirely based on the subjective opinions of the reviewer and only partially based on objective quality. With the disclaimers disclaimed, let us begin. 10. "Bumblebee" Honestly, "Bumblebee" is only here because I'll be damned if I let The Incredibles 2  on the list. While the story and characters were relatively engaging on their own, the film mostly works because it's a bright spot in the unpleasant Transformers film series. Still fun, but the novelty won't carry the sequel. 9. &

Among seasoned cinefiles, the Transformers  movies have become punchlines in their own right. While they're not exactly incompetently made, they're generally unpleasant to watch and lack any respect for its source material to the point where it just ceases to be a Transformers  movie. However, even though everybody seems to generally agree how horrible they are on an entertainment or even moral level, the movies have continued to make money hand over fist regardless. Nobody seemed to be figuring out that the movies were awful. That is, until the last one, which at that point was the lowest grossing film in the Transformers franchise. This sudden realization is the reason I think nobody is going to see Bumblebee ; the film hasn't even made its modest $100 million budget back. Was it deserving? Set in the 1980s, an Autobot scout is sent to Earth to defend the planet and prepare a new base for his fellow Autobots. However, his memory is damaged and he is forced to take the

I've never had much of an opinion of Ryan Reynolds. He seemed like a dime-a-dozen movie star with impossibly good looks that have helped him survive several stinkers that would've been career-destroying flops for anybody else. While I did enjoy him in both  Deadpool  movies it looked to me like he was playing off his natural charisma and personality rather than employing any acting talent. However, after watching 2014's  The Voices  I feel as though I've underestimated him. Reynolds stars as Jerry, a good-natured man working in a bathtub factory suffering from particularly intense schizophrenia. His cat and dog (also voiced by Reynolds) often talk to him, giving him both good and bad advice. After a date with his office crush goes wrong in the bloodiest of ways, his hallucinations become more intense and Mr. Whiskers becomes more insistent that he continue killing people as a way of life. The main reason to see the film is Ryan Reynolds as Jerry. He plays it a lot l

In narrative fiction, the subject of family is often used as a plot device. Either the family is perfect at the start of the story so that it can be torn apart in the inciting incident or it's the worst family in the world so it can be fixed by the end. To this point, there has not been a film which chooses to depict the average family, showing the bond of love which keeps them together through the best, worst and even average times of life. It's amazing that it took a post-apocalyptic monster thriller to paint an honest, endearing, relatable portrait of the average American family. Some time after an invasion by a mysterious alien race, a family of four is attempting to survive their newly hostile environment. While they try to lead literally quiet lives to avoid being detected by the aliens' super sense of hearing, they attempt to lead relatively normal lives, with their family at the center of their survival. While the film was advertised as a horror/thriller with an

The team up of actor Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg has been responsible for filling a specific niche in film: patriotic movies. From Lone Survivor  to Patriots Day , the duo have concerned themselves with making no-nonsense political dramas emphasizing the virtues of America and Americans. They continue this thematic streak with Mile 22 . Unlike their previous efforts, however, the duo's project was met with neither critical acclaim nor box-office success, currently only having made $31 million worldwide, a major loss when weighed against its estimated $35 million budget. Were people right to stay away from this one or does it deserve more than its gotten? The premise is simple: James Silva (Mark Wahlberg) and his black ops team need to escort Indonesian police officer Li Noor (Iko Uwais) to an airstrip 22 miles away. Standing in there way is an army of local police who want their traitorous officer back. That sounds like a good idea for a no bullshit action film and it