The Worst Movies of 2018
As we close in on this Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, it’s about time for Wylie Writes to weigh in with their year-end rundowns. First, the worst. Click on the blue highlighted titles to read the critic’s review.
Trouble in the Garden
Possibly influenced by Rachel Getting Married and August: Osage County, writer/director Roz Owen makes her feature film debut with Trouble in the Garden, a condensed drama about a family’s black sheep returning “home” to unexpectedly face her conflicted past.
52 Words for Love
The best choice made about 52 Words for Love concerns its release date. Whoever decided to release this movie on Valentine’s Day deserves a big box of chocolates.
Wylie Writes @ TAAFI ’19
The Toronto Animation Arts Festival International (February 15-17) is an essential stop for movie goers who indulge in worldwide animation.
Sharkwater: Extinction
Circling back to the achievements he made wth his breakout doc Sharkwater, filmmaker/conservationist Rob Stewart checks in in the status of sharks in his final film Sharkwater: Extinction. The documentary, however, takes on a parallel meaning because it’s not only a swan song to an endangered species, it’s also a touching goodbye to Stewart and his career in activism.
Pogey Beach
Pogey Beach offers a predicament: it’s a comedy that’s not necessarily funny, but you’ll still laugh for the right reasons. Jeremy Larter’s slacker comedy will put the viewer in more of a fugue state than sun stroke ever could.
High Flying Bird
Netflix’s sports drama High Flying Bird is exactly the film you expect from Academy Award winning director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic). Using the experimental “look” of last year’s underrated Unsane and the foreboding “feel” of Contagion, High Flying Bird gives a fly-on-the-wall perspective of a sports agent (André Holland) as he senses fast-forming cracks in his career during an NBA lockout.
Wonders of the Sea
NOTE: Wonders of the Sea is currently being screened in 3D across Canada, but this review reflects the 2D version of the film. Wonders of the Sea has everything that you would get out of an uninterrupted computer screensaver of the ocean floor: opulent underwater visuals of fish and undefinable critters, and crossover transitions that meld everything together. The screensaver is better, however, because it’s quiet. Wonders of the Sea is informative, but there are too many…
Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch
I’ve been hard on Illumination in the past, but for a good reason. Universal’s animation company always seemed to be borrowing from other brands, from copycat plots to specific character designs. This makes the studio’s version of Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch a bit of an anomaly. It’s an existing, well known property that could’ve been another clone but, instead, Illumination has provided a new take on the popular Dr. Seuss curmudgeon, which also includes luscious animation…