Don't Bogart My Blog: Movies Update: 2018: The Year in Movies

Plus, Alfonso Cuarón visits the old neighborhood.

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Friday, January 4, 2019

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Kyle Buchanan

Pop Culture Reporter

Hey, movie fans! It's your faithful Carpetbagger.

There really isn't much new to see this week besides the horror entry "Escape Room," but I suspect most of you movie lovers are still working your way through the year-end films, or planning to open a bottle of wine for the Golden Globes this Sunday.

The day after the Globes, voting for the Oscar nominations begins, and lobbying has been intense as of late. One key element of that push is coaxing other celebrities to add their cachet to your film by "hosting" a party in its honor. Sometimes this can be a soft-sell — last year, Quentin Tarantino hosted a party for Sofia Coppola's "The Beguiled" and didn't show up until most of the guests had left — and sometimes, it can represent an intense lobbying effort: When precursors basically ignored Javier Bardem's best-actor bid for the 2010 film "Biutiful," celebrities like Julia Roberts and Sean Penn began to beat the drum on his behalf at screenings and receptions, and Bardem ended up an Oscar nominee.

So who are lending their star wattage to the cause this year? Over the next few days, Ryan Murphy and Matt Bomer will be throwing a bash for "The Favourite," Angelina Jolie will tout "Roma" and Daniel Craig plans to host a reception for "Green Book" in New York just a few weeks after Quincy Jones held one in Los Angeles. "A Quiet Place" snagged Chris Pratt and Paul Thomas Anderson as hosts, David O. Russell recently feted "BlacKkKlansman," and "If Beale Street Could Talk" played up its love story with a screening hosted by five Hollywood couples, including Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis. But no movie managed a better get than "Black Panther": Disney's chief Bob Iger enticed Oprah Winfrey herself to host a party for the film in mid-December. For one of the biggest movies of all time, Disney thought even bigger.

The Good, the Bad and 'Black Panther'

"Black Panther," starring Chadwick Boseman, left, and Michael B. Jordan, cheered our chief movie critics for introducing ideas and characters far beyond what we normally see in superhero movies. Matt Kennedy/Marvel and Disney

By MANOHLA DARGIS AND A.O. SCOTT

Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, the chief film critics of The New York Times, look back at a year of rage, silliness and sublimity at the movies.

Movie Reviews

Jay Ellis, left, and other members of the cast of

'Escape Room': Puzzle Your Way Out, or You're Dead

By GLENN KENNY

Six players — a war veteran, a grocery stock boy, a finance guy — navigate challenges that turn deadly in this less-than-inspired thriller.

Critic's Pick

'Grave of the Fireflies': A Pioneering Animated Classic

By GLENN KENNY

Isao Takahata's 1988 masterpiece finally gets a proper theatrical run in New York.

Gerard Butler, Peter Mullan and Connor Swindells in

'The Vanishing': To the Lighthouse, and Into Temptation

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

In this middling good-guys-gone-bad thriller, three lighthouse keepers turn savage when a shipwreck ignites a series of calamitous events.

'Rust Creek': A Woman Is Stranded in the Backwoods of Kentucky. What Could Go Wrong?

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

A resourceful college student is hunted by a drug operation in this so-so survival thriller from Jen McGowan.

Hunters of mammoth tusks in the documentary

'Genesis 2.0': How to Clone a Mammoth

By BEN KENIGSBERG

Is it possible to bring back the mammoth? The documentary "Genesis 2.0" investigates.

'State Like Sleep': A Suspicious Suicide Drives This Suffocating Thriller

By TEO BUGBEE

A woman seeks answers to her husband's death in this film where every setting that was once familiar has become loaded with a sense of dread.

Critic's Pick

'The Venerable W.': A Buddhist Monk Preaches Hate

By GLENN KENNY

The director Barbet Schroeder follows Ashin Wirathu as he foments racial hatred and violence against Myanmar's Muslim population.

News & Features

Why is Boseman the go-to actor to play icons like Black Panther or Jackie Robinson? The director Brian Helgeland says,

How Chadwick Boseman Embodies Black Male Dignity

By REGGIE UGWU

The star of "Black Panther," "Get On Up" and "42" is a peerless performer of moral authority. That's no accident.

The director in Roma, near where he grew up. In the film he wanted to explore personal wounds, family wounds and wounds he shared with the country.

Mexico City as the Director of 'Roma' Remembers It (and Hears It)

By KIRK SEMPLE

Alfonso Cuarón revisits the sights and sounds of the neighborhood that inspired his critically acclaimed film.

Critic's Notebook

Queen, Ally and the Alchemy of Musical Stardom on the Big Screen

By WESLEY MORRIS

What Rami Malek tries — and fails — to capture in "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the same elusive quality Lady Gaga gets right in "A Star Is Born."

Viola Davis speaking with Colin Farrell in

The Script Secrets of Gillian Flynn, John Krasinski, Barry Jenkins and Christopher McQuarrie

In their own words, the screenwriters behind "A Quiet Place," "Widows, "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" and "If Beale Street Could Talk" explain their approaches.