The Mule isn’t some profound film and even as a character drama, not terrible exceptional, but seeing Clint Eastwood back in front of the camera and delivering a great performance is well worth the cost of admission.
The Deadly Mantis is a bit of a lame 1950s sci-fi-fantasy film that is more boring though some of the small scale scenes with the mantis wasn’t half bad at least, it was far more interesting watching the “MST3K” episode included than the movie itself…
The Witches features a fine performance from Joan Fontaine but the story isn’t very engaging, even a little disjointed at times, though on the plus side, it is a different kind of Hammer picture.
King of Thieves had an interesting true story premise for sure and while the cast itself is filled with some legendary older actors, the script writing needed some work, the direction was pedestrian and seems like Michael Caine was miscast.
The Street Fighter Collection is a decent introduction to the martial arts genre and while none of them are truly ‘good’, I did find the first movie to be a lot of fun, the third one being so-so while the sequel was rather dull.
Accident was poorly conceived made worse thanks to stilted dialogue and some rather poor acting from the cast. The two leading ladies might be, ahem, nicely put together, and the director certainly gratuitously flaunts them but acting was not their strong suits.
Strip Nude for Your Killer was if anything dull and not very engaging, though at least lead actress Edwige Fenech was a lot of fun. It has its moments, however and might be worth taking a chance, just know you’re not getting classic giallo.
Dynasties is an incredibly well made documentary mini-series featuring engaging storylines with the animals and with only 5 episodes, this is worth binge-watching over the course of a day.
Aquaman is an outrageously fun superhero movie that might not break new ground in terms of story, it does introduce audiences to a relatively unexplored world. Jason Momoa was the perfect casting of a character that was once a joke.
The Vanishing is a well made if not also rather forgettable drama/psychological thriller that excels due to the performances from Gerard Butler and Peter Mullan making this worthy of a Red Box rental.
I wasn’t as big of a fan of Audition as some and don’t consider top-tier in the J-horror sub-genre mainly due to the surreal nature of the second half but the performances from the two leads were great.
The Favourite is probably one of the more disappointing movies of 2018 for me with a plot that became too tedious and despite being less than two hours, felt too long. That being said, the performances from the cast were all incredibly strong.
I so wanted to love The Last Mani but unfortunately due to a needlessly overstuffed plot spreading across different sub-genres, it never quite meshed very well but with some work, this could have been a solid film.
The Standoff at Sparrow Creek is a fun little independent film noir-thriller featuring some solid performances by James Badge Dale and Chris Mulkey and is worthy of a rental.