Summer’s over, and with it, summer movie season. Before we start seeing period pieces, indie dramas, and auteurs delivering masterpieces, they need to know the current best stuff of the year so far, as some sort of marker to hit. Special props to August, slowly becoming my favorite movie month will all the ambitious, boundary pushing releases big studios are too scared to market.
My Top 10 is a weird list of stuff from all over the world, in all sorts of genres. Including, slashers, martial arts epics, sci-fi ripoffs, and of course, non Jason Statham beekeeping flicks.
And without further adieu, the weirdest list of movies people like Martin McDonagh, Dennis Villeneuve, and Chloe Domont are going to have to try to top as far as I’m concerned:
An incredible feat of indie horror! 26 year old Curry Barker gives us a tale all women and “nice” guys should be wary of, wishing the girl we secretly pine for love us more than anyone else in the world. Inde Navarrette made herself the next big thing with her performance here, shapeshifting scene to scene to showing her unprepared dipsh*t nice guy what loving anyone more than anything else in the world terrifyingly looks like.
Andrew Patterson is 2 for 2. With his sophomore feature he creates Oklahoma folklore of the highest order. Matthew McConaughey plays a beekeeper and bluegrass singer happy in his lot in life, trying to build that happiness in others as well, from the ground up. Patterson’s tale really feels like we take a journey together, twisting and turning the way life does, but always with a hop in our step and a song in our heart.
I can’t believe this movie came out. Matt Johnson’s not even homage, straight up rip off of Back to the Future time travel movies is an incredible feat of Borat like mockumentary filmmaking, herculean editing of old and new material, and arguably the funniest movie of the year. This movie makes no sense; I loved every minute of it.
Olivia Wilde’s bounce back. Channeling John Cassavetes 70s chamber pieces, she proves as long as you cast your movie perfectly, magic can happen. The foursome of Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz, and Edward Norton have the most adult, fascinating feeling out party in a long time. Rashida Jones’s script and Olivia’s direction elevate the story, using incredible simultaneous dialogue/reaction shots of various pairs to dig deep into what goes on in middle age malaise of frayed and evolving relationships, accompanied by the biggest laughs of the year.
Can an iconoclast actually have a heart? I don’t know about them all, but Radu Jude does. That acidic wit is still there in this one, but Eszter Tompa’s performance reminds us that cynical societal laws have real consequences, that take good hearted people and send them down emotional spirals, questioning themselves and their place in the cosmos. A modern fable that’s equally a comedy and tragedy, a Radu Jude staple.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have the magic touch. From the Jump Streets to the Spiderverse, everything they make is exciting and a joyous celebration of going to the movies. This Andy Weir adaptation is the same, a great sci-fi tale of Ryan Gosling in space, and James Ortiz’s 5 armed Rocky, an alien submitting his candidacy for the pantheon of great puppeteered characters of all time. Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!
Epic in every sense of the word. Legendary Hong Kong director Yuen Woo-ping takes us back to 600 AD, sending us on a samurai like journey through the Chinese desert. This manga adaption becomes your classic hero’s journey as the outcast adrift Dao Ma (Wu Jing) finds himself embroiled in a tale for power and glory, with some of the biggest baddest martial arts action on the planet. Even some of the legends came out to be in this one, a testament to Blades’s majesty and grandeur.
The biggest surprise of the year is also the best movie of the year so far! A prequel (do NOT watch the Cartoon Network show if you haven’t already) that completely stands on its own, uses every peso of its independently financed stop motion animated Netflix budget. The movie looks spectacular; each new scene brings a new breathtaking visual, on top of a complex fascinating tale about creating art, female expression, and breaking through glass dimensions, and you have a recipe for a must see film, especially if you have a misunderstood 9 year old daughter who loves to make any type of art.
Jane Schoenbrun shows why no one can make movies like them. The movie is somehow a deeply personal study of the director as well as a sexy gory slasher movie and an intellectual study of the effects of humanity through a prism of pop culture. A movie like that shouldn’t work at all, but Jane Schoenbrun, Hannah Einbinder, and Gillian Anderson inject this movie with an energy that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. With a killer soundtrack to boot.
Of course the Christopher Nolan movie was gonna be in the Top 3. But The Odyssey completely earns this spot. Now finally with his Oscar, Christopher Nolan directs this like the assured master he is. He weaves together a wonderful adapted screenplay, terrific acting across the board including career best stuff from Matt Damon, visual majesty, mind boggling practical effects, and stupendous editing to take Homer’s epic and make it feel as special as it must have been thousands of years ago, but relevant enough for an audience today to feel like the story is eternal as ever.
