The Traditional Top 10 for 2018

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Green Book

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When I first saw the trailer and concept for this movie, I was tempted to refer to it as "Driving Mr. Daisy". There are some parallels to the Oscar winning film of 1989, but the superficial comparisons stop pretty quickly. Although the racial component is certainly a key component in the film, "Green Book" explores the relationship between the main characters in a much more diverse manner. Viggo Mortensen plays a man on the fringes of society in the urban jungle of New York circa 1962, but in many ways he represents the whole country at a moment in time when the world might change. Mahershala Ali is more mainstream in the City, but even there he is a lonely figure, who is an imperfect vessel for a message of change, but one that he has decided to deliver. The movie is a polemic waiting to happen but it steps back from being a political film at it's core and instead focuses on the tentative friendship between the two men of such different backgrounds.  There is p...
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Toy Story 4

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The most unasked for movie of a series becomes the most essential film of the year. You know that when this film was announced, everybody said "whaaat? We already have the perfect conclusion to the Toy Story Series, we don't need a return visit to screw it all up." Then the teaser spots were weird, and the new main character is a plastic fork? You gotta be kidding, right? Well leave it up to Pixar to get it right in the end. They usually know what they are doing and this film might give you the confidence to even feel a Toy Story 5 could be justified. Many of the same themes that were covered in the first films are raised here as well. All of us have a need to be needed. Maslow seems to be right in this regard, even when it comes to the toys. From early on, Woody has been the key character in the adventures of the Toys. He is a fussbudget with a need for control and a strong desire to be at the top of the toy pile heap. He is so likable that we overlook his selfish...
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60 Years of Watching Movies

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This site is always personal. I inventory every film I see in a theater, I share my history with films, and every review is always based on MY reaction, and expressed in my voice. So having achieved the milestone of reaching six decades of life, I want to share a little nostalgia from sitting in a movie theater. I had a different plan originally, but I chose to tighten it up, which may sound odd when you see what comes. Scary Movies I am a horror fan, though maybe not deeply enough for all those Gallo fans out there. The first time I remember being scared at a movie was seeing "The Time Machine".  My Mom's friend that we always called Aunt Ginny, took us to a summer series of films at the Rialto in South Pasadena, maybe four blocks from where I lived at the time. Morlocks gave me nightmares. The scariest movie I ever saw however, continues to this day to be the Exorcist. I was fifteen when it came out and I wanted to see it because my Dad and his adult friend Rusty had go...
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