Tag: Sorry To Bother You

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The 25 Best (and One Worst) Films of the 2010s

It was a decade of great change in the film industry, with the digital revolution disrupting both the production and distribution ends, and corporate consolidation increasing its stranglehold on the business end. But there was no shortage of great works from both Hollywood studios and independent producers. Here’s my list of the best of the decade. But first, the worst.

Worst Picture Of The Decade: Dracula Untold (2014)
No movie epitomized the brutal cynicism and rampant executive incompetence that plague Hollywood like this abortive retelling of the Dracula story. Stripped of the sex and body horror that gives the vampire myth its beating heart, this piece of extruded corporate product was meant to kick off a Marvel-style series based on the classic Universal monsters by ripping of the worst parts of the 1999 version of The Mummy. It failed, but they’re still trying to get that series started, most recently with Tom Cruise’s woeful remake of The Mummy. I feel like I never recovered from this deep hurting.

And now, the good films!

25. Short Term 12 (2013)
Dustin Daniel Cretton’s autobiographical story of his time working in a mental health treatment facility for teenagers is the quintessential festival hit of the decade. Its empathetically drawn characters are brought to life by a stellar cast, including debuts by Brie Larson, Kaitlyn Dever, Rami Malek, and Lakeith Stanfield.

24. The Love Witch (2016)
Anna Biller’s cheeky tribute to Hammer horror is the ultimate DIY project. Biller wrote, produced, directed, and edited the film, while somehow also finding time to oversee the flawless production design, create the costumes, and write and perform the score. And did I mention she did the whole thing on 35mm film? In 2016!

23. The Social Network (2010)
Little did we know, in 2010, how big an impact Facebook would have on the coming decade. The final image of David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s film, with Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) compulsively clicking refresh, predicts a humanity devoured by its own information creation. We’re living in that world now.

22. Carol (2015)
Todd Haynes’ immaculate adaptation of the 1952 lesbian romance novel The Price of Salt is anchored by a pair of incredible performances by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. It’s as impeccably crafted as it is gorgeous and moving.

21. Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010)
The 2010s were the decade when the real and the fake finally collapsed into each other. Banksy’s sole director credit bites the hand that feeds it by deconstructing the high end art world with the story of the rise and fall of Mr. Brainwash. The fact that it might have all been a giant hoax just makes it juicier.

20. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)
Edgar Wright’s visually groundbreaking hero’s journey bob-ombed on release but gained a cult following over the decade as people discovered how much fun it is. Working from a graphic novel by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Wright’s film is the first to see the world through the lens of a generation raised on video games.

19. Little Women (2019)
I figured Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird would land on this list until I saw her adaptation of Little Women. The ensemble cast of Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, and Eliza Scanlen as the four March sisters growing up in the shadow of the Civil War, supported by Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, and a flinty Meryl Streep, combines with an expertly reimagined screenplay that brings out the contemporary themes in Louisa May Alcott’s novel.

Leonardo Dicaprio as Rick Dalton and Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth

18. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
Quinten Tarantino’s sprawling epic of the death of the 1960s stubbornly refuses to be what you think it’s going to be. A Pulp Fiction take on the Manson murders? Nah, how about a buddy comedy with Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as an aging TV star and his stuntman bestie.

This Is What Love In Action Looks Like

17. This Is What Love In Action Looks Like (2011)
Morgan Jon Fox’s documentary of the protest movement that shut down the ex-gay therapy program Love In Action was the best film made in Memphis this decade. What starts off as a raw and angry story evolves into a pean to understanding and acceptance when John Smid, the head of the operation imprisoning 16-year-old Memphian Zach Stark, resigns and comes out as gay himself. The film, seven years in the making, is a triumph of perseverance and feeling.

Elsie Fisher as Kayla in Eighth Grade

16. Eighth Grade (2018)
Bo Burnham’s directorial debut is kind of a small and unassuming movie, but it is elevated to greatness by Elise Fisher’s stunning performance as a girl dealing with the last week of elementary school. Her Kayla is the poster child for the age of social media anxiety.

Sorry To Bother You

15. Sorry To Bother You (2018)
Imagine Brazil set in a call center and you’re in the ballpark of Boots Riley’s sci fi farce. There are so many memorable moments, like Lakeith Stanfield’s rap debut at a corporate party and Tessa Thompson’s ever-changing earrings that comment on the action.

Director Agnés Varda in Faces Places

14. Faces Places (2017)
Director Agnes Varda’s penultimate film was as iconoclastic as the rest of her 50-year career. She partnered with the street artist JR to roam the French countryside, meeting people and creating artworks that were both monumental and fleeting—kinda like life itself.

13. Black Panther (2018)
Ryan Coogler proved himself to be the master of genre this decade. He rose above the bland competence of the Marvel machine with the Shakespearian story of the struggle between T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) and Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) for the throne of Wakanda. But it wasn’t just the fact that we finally got a black superhero that made it great. Coogler’s film has more in common with classic swashbucklers like The Sea Hawk and The Adventures of Robin Hood than it does with modern product like Justice League.

12. Cameraperson (2016)
Kristen Johnson has spent her career traveling the world, shooting documentaries for other directors. She saved the best bits that were cut out of those films and pieced together this collage of tiny slices of her life on the road, from shepherds tending their flocks in war zones to rape victims telling stories of trauma.

11. Paterson (2016)
Adam Driver has emerged as one of the best American actors of his generation, and he is never better than playing a bus driver named Paterson in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson. Driver is a shy poet in a dead end job who obsessively observes the people around him and loves his eccentric wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani). The little advances and setbacks in his modest life are blown up to big drama in this life affirming masterpiece from the Mystery Train director.

10. Booksmart (2019)
Not since the Blues Brothers have we seen a comedy team as brilliant as Beanie Feldstien and Kaitlyn Dever in Booksmart. The inseparable best friends have spent their entire high school careers toeing the line and over-achieving. Now, in their last night before graduation, they want to party. Director Olivia Wilde’s perfect film is the best pure comedy of the decade.

9. Inherent Vice (2014)
Was Paul Thomas Anderson’s best film of the decade The Master or Phantom Thread? Nope, it was his little-seen Thomas Pynchon adaptation. The paranoid neo-noir loses the plot in amusing ways as private eye Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) tries to unravel the intertwined mysteries of the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterson, never better) and a cabal of drug smuggling dentists known as the Golden Fang. Or maybe not. It’s complicated.

8. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Wes Anderson’s jewel box of a film sits on the poignant cusp between the death of the old world and the birth pains of the new. Ralph Finnes gives the performance of his life as M. Gustave, the greatest concierge in history, who defends the old hotel against the predations of time and encroaching fascism.

7. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
In the era of Disney dominance, as the corporate stranglehold on the film industry tightened, it was rare to see a singular voice cut through as effectively as Rian Johnson’s did with the middle passage of the Star Wars sequel series. His story examines where the decades of myth-making have gotten us, and offers a vision of a more positive future while giving Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker the heroic sendoff he deserved—and one that very few people in the audience were ready for—while sacrificing none of the fun you expect from the blockbuster franchise.

6. Inside Out (2015)
Pixar dominated the animation of the 2000s, but this decade was more of a mixed bag for the studio. Inside Out is Pixar at its most sophisticated, both psychologically and visually. Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) is an 11-year-old girl whose life is thrown into chaos when her family moves to San Francisco. The real action takes place in her mind, where her personified emotions, led by Joy (Amy Poehler) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) try to keep things in balance. Inside Out is a beautiful, and important, film.

Choi Woo-shik, Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-jin, and Park So-dam as a family of grifters in Parasite.

5. Parasite (2019)
Bong Joon-ho’s savage take on class conflict is a perfect film whose reputation will only grow over time. The underclass in his vision of Seoul lives literally in basements, while the top of the economic caste live in constant anxiety and discontent, despite being surrounded by luxury. The twisty, darkly comic plot is kept grounded by a bevy of great performances, the best of which is Park So-dam as the con artisté daughter of a family of desperate grifters.

Yalitza Aparicio

4. Roma (2018)
Alfonso Cuarón’s black and white remembrance of Mexico City in the 1970s is one of the great technical and emotional triumphs of the decade. The director’s peerless vision (he became the only person in history to win both the Best Cinematographer and Best Director Oscars for the same picture) is brought to life with a stunning performance by Yalitza Aparicio, a former schoolteacher who earned a Best Actress nomination the first time she ever set foot in front of a camera.

3. (tie) Get Out (2017) / Us (2019)
I couldn’t decide which of Jordan Peele’s twin masterpieces to include on this list, so I copped out and went with both of them. To me, they feel like companion pieces. Get Out is like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, a finely tuned, ruthlessly efficient machine. Us is more like Hitchcock’s Vertigo, an exploration of themes and images by a master artist trying to map the psyche of a nation. Both of them are horror films that transcend and transform the genre into something new and exciting.

Mahershala Ali in Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight.

2. Moonlight (2016)
Barry Jenkins is not only one of the best visual stylists of decade, but also our greatest romantic. The three part story of Chiron, a child of Miami’s Liberty City ghetto, is told with three different actors in three different eras of his life. He’s poor, he’s black, and he’s gay, and the film’s focus is his struggle to reconcile the identities that have been placed upon him and become a whole person. Moonlight, a transcendent masterpiece by any measure, features a career-making performance by Mahershala Ali and the most memorable cross-dissolve in the history of cinema.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
“Who killed the world?” is the question that hangs over George Miller’s post-apocalyptic epic. Released a month before Donald Trump began his campaign for president, it points a finger straight at a patriarchal capitalism that sacrificed civilization and the ecosystem  for short term profit and control. But this is no polemical think piece—Fury Road also happens to be the greatest action films ever made. It’s a direct descendant of Buster Keaton’s The General; Miller described its simple structure as “a chase, then, a race”. The editing by Margaret Sixel will be studied for as long as humans make filmed entertainment. In 2017, Stephen Soderbergh, one of film’s greatest craftsmen, said to Hollywood Reporter, “I don’t understand how they’re not still shooting that film, and I don’t understand how hundreds of people aren’t dead…[Miller] is off the chart. I guarantee you that the handful of people who are even in range of that, when they saw Fury Road, had blood squirting out of their eyes.”

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Radical Humanity: Indie Memphis 2018 Reflects Its Roots — and Memphis

When Miriam Bale came to Memphis last November to be on the jury for the 20th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival, she didn’t know it would change her life. “It was very well organized and warm,” she says. “It was one of my best experiences at a festival. There are a lot of places that don’t have that loving vibe.”

As the festivities wound down, she found out that festival programmer Brandon Harris had been hired away by Amazon Studios. “So a window opened up, and the sun came out,” she says.

Bale is a Bay area native who has interned for legendary documentarian Les Blank, programmed film for museums and venues on the East and West Coasts, and written film criticism for The New York Times. At first, she was hesitant to apply for the job of Indie Memphis programmer, but by the time 2018 rolled around, she found herself tasked with filling up multiple screens over seven days in November.

Miriam Bale

Along with shorts programmer Brighid Wheeler, she has assembled an ambitious and inclusive lineup for what promises to be the biggest Indie Memphis yet.

Asked if she had a guiding philosophy behind her film choices, she says “It was just to do what you guys had always done, but ramp it up. … The structure was already there, and so was the idealism. It’s not the Memphis Film Festival. It’s the Indie Memphis Film Festival. It’s all about independence.”

Indeed, many of the films on offer at Indie Memphis 2018 feel like a call back to the festival’s formative years, when heart was valued over polish, and unconventional voices were not only tolerated but embraced and celebrated.

Bale says working as a film critic opened her eyes to the predominantly white, male power structure that has historically dominated the mainstream film industry, shutting out the voices of women and people of color.

“As a writer, I would criticize that, but it seemed like I was writing the same thing over and over again. So instead of criticizing, I was able to work with [Indie Memphis Executive Director] Ryan [Watt] and Brighid [Wheeler] to create a utopian version of what film not only could be, but could be really easily with just the resources we have around. We wanted to create a utopian world, and that’s what we did. … We were very adamant about the festival reflecting the city. We’ve tried to make an effort to find programming that would appeal to everyone.”

Sorry To Bother You

Boots and Barry

When Bale was tapped for the Indie Memphis programming position, the first film she thought of was Sorry to Bother You. “I heard about this film when it was in grant stages,” she recalls. “I thought it was perfect. It’s smart and political, but at the same time it’s creative and imaginative.”

Director Boots Riley struggled for years to get Sorry to Bother You made. Riley first gained attention as the founder of The Coup, a hip-hop group from Oakland, California, whose songs are stridently anti-racist and anti-capitalist in the tradition of Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine. His debut film reflects the same concerns, but with a much more surrealist, satirical bent.

Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) is a struggling 20-something living in an Oakland that is at once familiar and hyper-real. Frustrated by his lack of opportunity and sick of living in his uncle’s garage, he applies for a job at RegalView, a telemarketing company that Green soon learns has some shady and sinister connections. He’s good at the job of selling strange stuff to random people, because he has an excellent “white voice” (dubbed by comedian David Cross), and is quickly promoted to the rank of Power Caller.

But when he is tasked with selling people on joining WorryFree, an all-inclusive community that treats its members as slaves in all but name, he comes into conflict with his girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson), a politically radical artist, and Squeeze (Steven Yeun), a union organizer who leads a strike against RegalView. Things turn wildly science-fictional once Green is introduced to Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), a Silicon Valley-style entrepreneur who inspires cult-like reverence from his employees/followers.

Sorry to Bother You debuted at Sundance, where it was quickly snatched up by Annapurna Pictures and became a surprise hit upon wide release last summer, earning $17.5 million on a $3.2 million budget. When an Indie Memphis screening with Riley in attendance was first announced for Studio on the Square at midnight on Friday, November 2nd, it quickly sold out, and the festival added a second screen to satisfy audience demand.

Earlier that day, Riley will deliver the keynote address at the first Black Creators Forum (November 1st, noon, Hattiloo Theatre), an event organized by Bale and produced by Jason Farmer. The highlight of the Black Creators Forum is a pitch rally where 12 African-American directors will put forth their ideas for films to be made in Memphis, with the winning pitch receiving a $10,000 grant.

Brazil

Riley will also host a screening of a film that was a major inspiration for Sorry to Bother You. Terry Gilliam’s 1985 masterpiece Brazil (November 2nd, 9 p.m., Studio on the Square) shares the theme of a somewhat timid man taking on an insane, surreal world gone mad.

If Beale Street Could Talk

In another big get for Indie Memphis, Saturday night will see the regional premiere of the highly anticipated new film by Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk (November 3rd, 6 p.m., Studio on the Square). Jenkins, who appeared at Indie Memphis 2006 with his first film, Medicine for Melancholy, won the 2016 Best Picture Oscar with Moonlight, an unprecedented feat for an independent film with a $1.5 million budget. If Beale Street Could Talk is an adaptation of the 1974 novel by James Baldwin, which, despite the Memphis-centric name, is set in Harlem, where a pregnant young woman played by KiKi Layne must prove the innocence of her finance, played by Stephan James, who has been falsely accused of a crime.

Bale says Riley and Jenkins are perfect fits for Indie Memphis. “To me, both of these filmmakers represent great filmmaking, great black filmmaking, and great political filmmaking that is imaginative and creative in different ways.”

Rukus

Bring the Rukus

Indie Memphis 2018 features work from a record 112 Memphis-based filmmakers. When Brett Hanover’s first documentary short “Above God” premiered at Indie Memphis 2006, he was one of about a dozen directors competing in the Hometowner category.

The subject of “Above God” was Gene Ray, who became one of the first internet celebrities when his strange website filled with borderline nonsensical ramblings about a “Time Cube” went viral. “I was interested in internet cultures,” says Hanover, who was 16 when he made the film. “I was interested in how this one guy’s words got spread and interpreted by so many people.”

Another internet subculture that fascinated Hanover was the Furries, a small group devoted to dressing up in elaborate costumes that transformed them into anthropomorphic animals. Back then, furries were picked out for ridicule as weirdos with an incomprehensible sexual fetish. But Hanover saw something deeper in their endless Livejournal posts and secretive conventions. That’s when a mutual friend introduced him to a person in the online furry community who called himself Rukus. “Initially, I had a lurid fascination with what he was writing, because it was really intense, personal, and raw.”

But Hanover soon discovered that Rukus was different things to different people. Little of his life story checked out, and he maintained a number of conflicting online personae.”It became an interesting mystery, to figure out what was real and what was embellished. … If he’s not telling the truth about something, that means he’s not telling the truth about it for a reason. It says something about him.”

Hanover and Rukus became online friends and even met in person after a Memphis furry convention. But eventually they drifted apart, and in 2008, Hanover got word that Rukus had committed suicide. “I became very obsessed with finding every trace of him online,” Hanover says.

In 2008, Hanover, with the help of his collaborators Alanna Stewart and Katherine Dohan, set out to make a documentary about Rukus and the online world where he had found connection. But Rukus (November 3rd, 6:30 p.m., Playhouse on the Square) could not be a conventional film. “If I’m going to make a documentary about someone else that’s really personal, I need to do the same thing with myself. I had not done that, put myself into my other films.”

Rukus, which Hanover worked on for a decade, in which he went to college and became a teacher of film and media, mixes verité footage, recreations of actual events, and fictional scenes. “The reason it’s like that is that everyone who is in it has different personae, who are all sort of real depending on what media they’re using to communicate or who their audience is. Rukus had all these different characters that he would use. I think now there’s more of a sense of, ‘here’s your real identity, and if you’re pretending to be something else online, that’s fake.’ Back then, it was understood that these different facets of you would be expressed through different identities.”

Hanover and Stewart co-wrote and acted in many of the staged sequences, some of which reflected the ups and downs of their own relationship. “I think the closest you can get to capital-T Truth in a documentary is to show your perspective. Give people a sense of your own biases, of how the thing you’re watching is being framed. Making myself into a character is a way of doing that, as opposed to saying that this is the story of Rukus. Which it’s not. It’s the story of Rukus told by this kid who was going through stuff.”

Mr. Soul!

He’s With The Band

Music documentaries have traditionally been popular at Indie Memphis, and this year’s opening night film is an exceptional one.

In 1968, Ellis Haizlip was a struggling producer in New York who got an opportunity to produce a talk show on the proto-public television station NET. But this would be no ordinary Tonight Show clone. Over the next five years, Soul! would become a vital voice in the African-American community, as the first and, at that time, only hour of television devoted to shining a spotlight on black culture.

Mr. Soul! (November 1st, 6:30 p.m., Halloran Centre), directed by Ellis’ niece Melissa Haizlip, begins with an electrifying performance of “Tired of Being Alone” by a 25-year-old Al Green. It’s just the first of the stunning array of musical guests Haizlip, who apparently knew everyone worth knowing, had on his show. Patti LaBelle, B. B. King, Wilson Pickett, Gladys Knight, Billy Preston, and Stevie Wonder all make an appearance in Mr. Soul! Many acts, including the Delphonics, Rasheed Roland Kirk, Kool and the Gang, and Earth Wind and Fire made their television debut in Haizlip’s well-appointed studio.

But the music, which serves as the hook for Mr. Soul!, was only part of the story. Haizlip was an intellectual who studied at Howard University, and despite a rough beginning as “about as bad an interviewer as you can imagine,” he booked fascinating guests, such as Harry Belafonte, Muhammad Ali, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. He put poetry and modern dance on the air when no other outlet would touch them. During one riveting sequence, Haizlip, who was gay, takes Louis Farrakhan to task for his homophobia while surrounded by uniformed cadres of the Nation of Islam.

Soul! sought to put black arts and culture on an elevated intellectual plane that it was afforded nowhere else, and Mr. Soul! is appropriately framed as a prestige documentary. But it’s equally fascinating and fun. As Haizlip says, “Place your hand on the television to feel the vibes we’re sending out to you!”

Clara’s Ghost

A Family Affair

One of the unsung heroes of David Letterman’s reign on network television is Chris Elliott. The writer and performer helped create the chaotic atmosphere of ’80s-era Late Night with characters like The Guy Under the Seats, before moving onto Saturday Night Live and a career in film and television that continues to this day.

Bridey Elliott, one of Chris’ two daughters, makes her feature-directing debut with Clara’s Ghost (November 4th, 4:30 p.m., Studio on the Square) , which features the whole Elliott clan, including her mother Paula, and SNL alum Abby.

Clara’s Ghost unspools like a darkly comic take on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Bridey and Abby play a pair of former child stars of a show called Sweet Sisters. One of the now-grown sisters continued to have an acting career after the show ended and is now preparing for her wedding. The other sister is struggling to get by, and dating an older man as a sugar daddy. Their mother, Clara, has retreated into alcoholism and has started seeing a mysterious woman who might be the long-dead wife of the sea captain who first built the family’s sprawling, old home in Connecticut.

Clara’s Ghost can be cuttingly comical and shockingly honest, often in the same scene. This is the kind of family who openly discusses mom’s cocaine habit around the dinner table, who waterboard each other for fun, and where the bride-to-be muses “I need to write an email to the bridesmaids with everyone’s goal weight.” Haley Joel Osment plays a weed dealer who gets drawn into the family’s drunken psychodrama and mom’s possible demonic possession. It’s an uncompromising, but ultimately endearing portrait of a showbiz family held together with equal parts love and dysfunction.

Cabin Boy

The paterfamilias Elliott will also host a screening of his Tim Burton-produced feature film Cabin Boy. It was greeted as a baffling mess when it was released in 1994, but the over-the-top nautical comedy has earned a cult following over the years and is now considered a founding document of contemporary alternative comedy.

DIY World

Since the 2000 debut of Craig Brewer’s The Poor & Hungry, Indie Memphis has been a champion of the scruffy, do-it-yourself digital film underground. The movement, which began in Denmark in 1998 with Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration, presaged both YouTube culture and the social realism of today’s prestige TV. Two very different films in Indie Memphis show the power and enduring appeal of street level digital rebels.

Korean director Sang-soo Hong is incredibly prolific, but his works are rarely seen in America. Indie Memphis is featuring four of his films that have never screened in the region for a special retrospective. Claire’s Camera (November 2nd, 7 p.m., Studio on the Square), was shot on location during the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. The delicate piece is a master class of elliptical storytelling and subtle character development that begins with a young woman Jeon Manhee (Min-hee Kim) losing her job as a film sales agent after her boss decides she is no longer trustworthy. The layered story plays out patiently through the eyes of Claire (Isabelle Huppert), a French woman whose photography hobby turns out to be a critical fulcrum in the lives of people she barely knows. The subtle story plays out in riveting long takes, and the bilingual production finds commonality in the human stories of characters who come from very different cultures.

Sepulveda

On the other side of the world is Sepulveda (November 3rd, 10:30 a.m., Hattiloo Theatre). Directed by Brandon Wilson and Jena English, it’s a tribute to friendship and a love letter to the trashy glory of Los Angeles. Kristina Amaya, Karla Jovel, and Leslie Reyes star as three old friends trying to navigate life five years after high school graduation. One night at a house party, they spontaneously decide to go on a road trip through L.A. by driving the longest street in the city, the 73-mile long Sepulveda Boulevard. Armed with raging hangovers and a trusty red Prius, the trio tackle gentrification, growing up Hispanic in America, and the urgent task of finding a place to pee in Los Angeles.

Sepulveda echoes the pleasures of Indie Memphis classics such as Blue Citrus Hearts and Team Picture — deeply considered characterization, improvised dialogue that spins off into either hilarious riffs or profound emotional revelations, and the sheer joys of getting your friends together and turning on a camera. It’s this radical humanity, so often lacking in mainstream film, to which Indie Memphis has always been passionately devoted.

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Blockbuster Season! The Flyer’s Guide to the Best Summer Movies

The summer blockbuster season was born on June 20, 1975, when Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was unleashed on an unsuspecting public. It was the scariest shark movie ever and launched the career of one of America’s greatest living filmmakers. And it set a template that studios have been following ever since: big budgets, high concept, and huge hype.

The industry release calendar that planted the budget tentpoles after Memorial Day has become less stringent in recent years, says Malco Theaters’ vice president and director of marketing Karen Melton. “It used to be concentrated in the summer and the holiday season — from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Now we have releases like Black Panther that come out in February, which throws that model out the window. There’s no reason that films should be pigeonholed, when Black Panther can perform like that on Valentine’s Day.”

Even so, the 2018 summer moviegoing season is jam-packed with releases big and small. Here’s a preview of some of the best bets between now and Labor Day.


Solo (May 25th)

The debut of Star Wars on Memorial Day weekend, 1977, set the precedent for the holiday as the traditional beginning of the summer blockbuster season. But since The Force Awakens bowed in December 2015, Star Wars movies have moved to Christmas season. The story of the meeting of Han Solo, his furry sidekick Chewbacca, and frenemy Lando Calrissian returns the franchise to the summer season. (See our review on page 34).

Ocean’s 8

Ocean’s 8 (June 8th)

One of the most unlikely franchises of the century began with Ocean’s 11, Stephen Soderberg’s 2001 heist film in which he defined the Rat Pack of the 21st century. This all-female spinoff, directed by Hunger Games helmer Gary Ross, seems timely in the Me-Too moment. Sandra Bullock leads the ensemble cast as Debbie Ocean, a member of the series’ family of master thieves. The rest of the powerhouse dramatis personae include Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Rhianna, Mindy Kaling, Helena Bonham Carter, Sara Paulson, and Awkwafina.

Hotel Artemis (June 8th)

Veteran Marvel writer Drew Pearce makes his directorial debut with this flick set in a dystopian, near-future Los Angeles ruled by warring organized crime houses. Jodi Foster stars as the nurse who runs a secret hospital fronted by the titular hotel where combatants different factions can come to get patched up between battles. The cardinal rule is no fighting, but I’m guessing that rule doesn’t last long. Sterling K. Brown, Zachary Quinto, Dave Bautista, Sofia Boutella, and Jeff Goldblum co-star. Will this be a cheeky sci-fi thriller or a look into the future of the American for-profit health care system? Why not both?

Hereditary (June 8th)

After a pair of intense screenings at Sundance 2018, the buzz is strong around this debut horror flick by director Ari Aster. Toni Collette and Gabriel Byrne star as a family who, in the wake of their mother’s death, slowly uncovers horrible truths about their ancestors. It’s currently sitting at 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with film critic A. A. Dowd describing it as “pure emotional terrorism” and “warped genius.”

Incredibles 2 (June 15th)

Brad Bird returns to Pixar to deliver a long-awaited sequel to his 2004 superhero spoof. Now that the family is out of the superpower closet, Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) finds herself more in demand than Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson), leaving him to adjust to stay-at-home dad mode. Trying to keep a lid on three kids, Violet (Sara Vowell) Dash (Huck Milner), and baby Jack-Jack is made even harder by a toddler who can shoot lasers from his eyes.

Superfly (June 15th)

Music video maestro Director X makes his feature film debut with this remake of the blacksploitation classic, transporting the action from Harlem to Atlanta. Broadway star Trevor Jackson struts as the titular well-dressed crime lord, and Future walks in the shoes of Curtis Mayfield’s all-time classic musical-scoring job.

Action Point (June 15th)

In the 1980s, there was a cheap amusement park in New Jersey called Action Park. The rides were so unsafe, and the staff so regularly and visibly intoxicated, that doctors at nearby hospitals took to calling it “Traction Park.” Now that it has passed into legend, killed by multiple class action lawsuits, it is commemorated with this Johnny Knoxville movie. Expect multiple injuries, real pain, and at least a couple hard shots to the groin.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (June 22nd)

Spielberg’s dinosaur dynasty continues his blockbuster legacy that began with Jaws. This time he’s executive producing, and Spanish director J. A. Bayona is replacing Colin Trevorrow, as the troubled amusement park adds volcanoes to its attractions. Chris Patt and Bryce Dallas Howard reprise their roles from 2015’s Jurassic World, as does the clever velociraptor named Blue, but let’s be real — we’re all turning out for Jeff Goldblum. The man’s a national treasure. Can we make him president?

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (June 22nd)

Summer blockbuster season doesn’t usually include room for documentaries, but this portrait of Fred Rogers is looking like an instant classic. Director Morgan Neville, winner of the Academy Award for best documentary for 20 Feet From Stardom, and who co-directed the Emmy-winning Best of Enemies with Memphian Robert Gordon, delves into the history of the PBS children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and the Presbyterian minister-turned-TV-host and national father figure. Even the trailer for this movie has been known to draw tears.

Sicario: Day of the Solodado (June 29th)

The A-team of director Denis Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins has moved on, but Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin are back as undercover narcotics agents operating on both sides of the Mexican border and the law. 2015’s Sicario was a tightly wound thriller with one incredible shot after another, so here’s hoping the magic repeats.

Uncle Drew

Uncle Drew (June 29th)

Something like Ocean’s 11 for current and retired basketball stars, this film started out life as a Pepsi commercial. NBA all-star Kyrie Irving stars as a bearded, aging playground baller who assembles his old team to settle a score with his rival Mookie, played by Nick Kroll. Shaquille O’Neal, Reggie Miller, Chris Webber, and Nate Robinson all try to make the leap to the big screen.

The First Purge (July 4th)

For the last five years, The Purge series has stealthily been one of the most subversive commentaries on contemporary America. Creator James DeMonaco steps out of the director’s chair, while horror powerhouse Blumhouse produces this prequel, which looks less and less like sci-fi horror with each passing day.

Sorry to Bother You (July 6th)

Boots Riley was making political hip-hop with the Coup while Kendrick Lamar was still in middle school. Now, the anti-capitalist rapper makes his debut as a director with a surrealist comedy about a supernaturally gifted telemarketer, played by Atlanta‘s Lakeith Stanfield, who finds himself drawn into a shadowy conspiracy. This one looks like a spiritual successor to Get Out, laced with a little aughts Spike Jones/Charlie Kaufman vibe.

Ant-Man and the Wasp (July 6th)

Marvel fired its big guns early this year. With Avengers: Infinity War and Black Panther, the blockbuster machine owns the top two grossing films of 2018. Ant-Man featured some incredible special-effects sequences, unlike anything else in the superhero genre. This time, Paul Rudd gets small with Evangeline Lilly as a partner. Michael Douglas as superscientist Hank Pym continues his quest to rescue his wife Janet, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, from the quantum realm.

Under the Silver Lake (July 6th)

For my money, the best of the decade’s art horror explosion is 2014’s It Follows. Director David Robert Mitchell follows up his atmospheric hit with a neo-noir set in Los Angeles’ hip neighborhood. Former Spider-Man Andrew Garfield stars as a stoner who uncovers a vast conspiracy while searching for his disappeared neighbor, played by Elvis’ granddaughter Riley Keough.

Skyscraper (July 13th)

It’s time for the latest entry in the increasingly overstuffed Dwayne Johnson Doing Stuff genre! This time, The Rock is doing stuff that looks like Die Hard, only in Hong Kong. Did we mention he’s an amputee? Because he is! That’s a big twist that will certainly separate this stupidly expensive disaster movie from all the other stupidly expensive disaster movies.

Mama Mia! Here We Go Again (July 20)

The most aptly named film of the summer is this sequel to the single-band jukebox musical hit of 2008. Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, and Colin Firth are joined by everyone’s favorite mononym Cher to sing all the recognizable ABBA songs not covered in the first one.

Mission Impossible: Fallout (July 27th)

Look, this is the sixth one of these. Tom Cruise as super spy Ethan Hunt always succeeds. Maybe the missions aren’t so impossible after all? Just throwing that out there. Anyway, these wank-fests are usually good for one or two balls-out action sequences, and you get can get a good nap in during the rest of it.

The Spy Who Dumped Me (August 3rd)

On the flip side of the super-spy genre is writer/director Susanna Fogel’s action comedy about a woman named Audrey (Mila Kunis) whose ex-boyfriend comes crawling back after ghosting her. Turns out, he was CIA, and now Audrey and her bestie Morgan (comedy genius Kate McKinnon) are caught up in the spy-jinx. The trailer for this one looks phenomenal, and with the talent on board, I’m hopeful.

BlacKkKlansman (August 10th)

Film legend Spike Lee directs and Get Out mastermind Jordan Peele produces this story based on, in the words of the director, “some for-real shit.” John David Washington stars as Ron Stallworth, Colorado Springs’ first black policeman, who, with the help of his partner Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) infiltrates a violent KKK cell led by future Republican politician David Duke (Topher Grace). BlacKkKlansman earned Lee the highest award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, so this one’s going to be a must-see.

Orpheum Summer Film Series

Seeing classic movies in Memphis’ greatest classic movie palace is a long-running summer tradition. This year’s lineup includes some sure-fire winners.

School Daze (June 2nd)

Spike Lee’s second film, a musical based on his experiences attending a traditionally black college, was mostly overlooked upon its 1988 release, but it’s become a cult classic with a huge cast that includes future stars Larry Fishburne and Giancarlo Esposito. Plus, it’s got the all time banger “Da Butt”! Sexy sexy!

Independence Day (July 3rd)

This crowd-pleasing alien invasion picture catapulted Will Smith to international stardom and features Randy Quaid’s greatest onscreen moment as a drunk fighter pilot and Jeff Goldblum as a hacker who figures out that the aliens’ master computer is Mac compatible.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (July 6th)

Where’s Jimmy Stewart when you need him? He’s setting an example of civic engagement in this classic film of patriotism and its responsibilities.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (July 13th)

Captain America: The First Avenger director Joe Johnston made the leap from special-effects wizard to the big chair with this one. Rick Moranis and a friendly bee became the breakout stars of the sleeper hit of 1989.

Selena (July 20th)

This biopic of martyred Tejano music phenom Selena Quintanilla-Pérez made Jennifer Lopez a household name. Edward James Olmos supports as her father in this new classic tearjerker.

The Wizard of Oz (July 27)

It just wouldn’t be an Orpheum summer without it! An absolute must. Take your kids.

Superman/Batman Double Feature

(July 28th)

Christopher Reeve is the definitive onscreen Man of Tomorrow, Michael Keaton originated the tortured genius take on Bruce Wayne, and Jack Nicholson’s Joker redefined the character. Wash the horrible memories of Batman vs. Superman out of your mind with two of the best superhero movies ever made.

Steel Magnolias (August 10th)

Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, and Julia Roberts: Is this the greatest female ensemble cast ever assembled? Get the girl gang together for this classic tale of Southern womanhood.

Love & Basketball (August 17th)

Director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s breakthrough film introduced Omar Epps to the world and inspired a dozen imitators.

Rogers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella (August 18th)

This 1998 Disney production retold the fairy tale with an multiracial cast including Whitey Houston as the Fairy Godmother and Brandy in the title role.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

(August 24th)

Sing along with your fellow freaks to the film that defined “cult classic,” led by a barn-burner drag performance by Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter. It’s the pelvic thrusts that really drive them insane!

IMAX Comes to the Paradiso

Late last year, Malco’s flagship theater, the Paradiso, got a huge upgrade — and I do mean huge — when the renovated Screen 1 became the city’s first theatrical IMAX theater. “It’s been in the works for a very long time,” says Malco marketing director Karen Melton. “It opened in December with The Last Jedi, and it’s been going gangbusters ever since. You have to buy your tickets as soon as they go on sale. And now we’re offering reserved seating, so you actually get to pick your seat before you get in.”

The numbers are staggering. The screen is three stories tall and more than 65 feet wide. The dual projectors are among the most expensive and technically advanced equipment in the world, delivering images 60 percent brighter and with 30 percent higher contrast than a standard-issue digital setup. The 315-seat theater was designed by IMAX so that there is not a bad seat in the house, and the seats are as comfy as your favorite recliner.

Melton says the reaction to the new theater has been “Very positive. We’ve got people lining up a long time in advance for the big releases. I can’t wait to see the dinosaurs of Jurassic World in IMAX.”