For me, Shyamalan’s brutally self-aware conclusion to his trilogy Glass was well worth the wait, and I’ll be curious to see how this series ends up getting assessed, debated and reinterpreted over the next few years.

“If we are unsatisfied with what is happening now, one of the things we need to do is remind ourselves what happened then and to my mind particularly look back at the lives of women in politics and how they are portrayed and presented and often undermined. We need to look back and say these heinous actions and policies actually had their roots in this period.”
– Josie Rourke

Not enough to feel like Pledge is worth a recommendation but still sufficient to admit I will admit that even with all my reservations there’s at least a couple of positives to be found here. Whether that is enough for a genre fanatic to splurge on a matinee ticket or pay the price of a VOD download I do not know, this bloody initiation into collegiate terror a purposefully exploitive mixed bag to say the least.

The downside to The Upside is that there just isn’t a lot that’s positive to say about it. Burger’s remake is a waste of time and talent, this tone-deaf misfire the first bona fide disappointment of 2019.

The first wide release of 2019, director Adam Robitel’s Escape Room is an inventive little horror-thriller that has a fair amount of fun with its somewhat familiar premise.

Rust Creek is a strong thriller that does both its central characters as well as the audience watching it proud, treating both with intelligence and respect for the entirety of its 108-minute running time.

Let me emphatically state 2018 was an extraordinary year for cinema.

It was a magnificent year for cinema in 2018. Here were ten motion pictures and five documentaries I absolutely adored.

A Second Twenty (because I can)