Brief thoughts on Tully.

Our mothers: The most significant people in our lives. The most unconditionally loving souls imaginable. But also often the most undervalued. The life of a mother is rewarding, but it is also a very rough ride paved with exhaustion. Through each splinter, changes in schools, balancing work and home life, and every individual quirk in the household, our mothers are forced to don those brave faces for the benefit of their children, never letting the cracks that come with the territory show. It can be a frustrating, joyous, but also uneventful experience, one captured superbly by the Young Adult trio of Jason Reitman, Diablo Cody, and Charlize Theron in Tully.

Avengers: Infinity War movie review.

There was an idea to bring together a group of remarkable characters. To see if they could become something more. So that one day, when we needed them, they could launch a universe that no one else could. When Marvel set forth to do just that, everyone assumed they were crazy, and yet ten years later, they've achieved the impossible. With back to back hits Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, Black Panther, culminating in two Avengers crossovers, they've turned what many thought was a surefire trainwreck into a gargantuan event series.

For ten years, Marvel has been hard at work breeding their characters for the eventual culmination of their journeys, and the steady stream of Infinity Stone introductions, at the hands of Thanos and the restoration of the Infinity Gauntlet. Gargantuan a task it was, perhaps one that could have undone Marvel despite their success. It's all inevitable that Marvel will eventually fall victim to the hype they themselves generated, and with what a bloodbath and earth-shattering climax the Infinity War would be, this could have been the place to do it. No doubt, with the sheer number of characters and personalities at play, this is an exhausting movie. But one with a titanic bravado, and even if hitting road bumps, succeeds at hitting the expectations of those devoted fans who've followed their exploits for a decade.

Isle of Dogs movie review.

Few directors are as idiosyncratic as Wes Anderson. Warts and all, his signature style is unmistakable, crafting obsessively layered films both in craft and in concept, with the likes of The Royal Tenenbaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Moonrise Kingdom standing out as some of his finest highlights. Given what a hands on filmmaker he is, it certainly made sense for him to venture into stop-motion, previously adapting Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox to the screen in 2009.

It's been far too long since his last feature, and now he returns again to stop-motion with Isle of Dogs. Any animal lover would likely be put off by that very premise, given the grisly fates that animals and pets in his films usually meet, which is only one area where Anderson has proven himself a distinctly macabre visionary. But even if it's likely to test your sensitivity, Isle of Dogs certainly proves no less an outstanding effort from the prolific filmmaker.

Brief thoughts on A Quiet Place.

Sound and silence are often taken for granted. With movies, in particular, since films have ironically evolved from no audio at all, to sound and dialogue becoming a huge part of our stories. Nowadays, silence tends to take a back seat to the big budget spectacles, with studios at war with and one-upping each other to see who can have the biggest explosions and mayhem. But silence is never truly gone, simply buried, waiting for a truly special film to make use of it. And so does A Quiet Place, director John Krasinski's eerie and terrifying feature.

Ready Player One movie review.

I am, and I assume many of my readers are, a nostalgic lover of the 80's and its pop culture. The decade of Duran Duran and Michael Jackson still continues to resonate with a great many for its iconic achievements and shifting social attitudes, that obsession continuing to follow us to today, as 80's franchises find new life in continuations and reboots, and generating brand new pop culture phenomenons like Stranger Things, that wear their old-fashioned setting like a badge of honor.

And if you were a lover of the 80's, chances are you were also a lover of Amblin and Steven Spielberg, for crafting some of the most endearing and memorable franchises and films of the decade. But, fun as nostalgia may be, to leap into it blissfully unaware of the world's larger problems can be a danger all on its own. That's an issue Spielberg himself tackles, in his adaptation of Ernest Cline's fanboy favorite book Ready Player One, of a world crumbling to pieces as that nostalgia dominates.

Congratulations, Roger!

14 nominations and 23 years later, you finally earned your gold! Who could ever forget the final traitorous moments of Jesse James’ life, the foreboding snowy mood of Brainerd, when Those We Don’t Speak if surrounded a small village, or when freedom was finally won from Shawshank? These are just a few of the iconic images to grace our screens and burn themselves into our memory, finally earning his due through the intoxicating world of Blade Runner. Congratulations, Deaks, and thanks for all the memories.

Now let’s give Thomas Newman and Greg Russell one.

My official predictions for the 90th annual Academy Awards.

"I'm so glad we've had this time together," but now the pay-off to a long Oscar season concludes this Sunday with the upcoming Academy Awards telecast, and man am I excited! I know I made it clear last year that the Academy Awards are nothing to get too enraged or invested over, but there's always something about that friendly sense of competition between viewers with difference in personal preferences, and the joy to correctly guess your most long shot predictions on your ballot.

But boy, does the telecast itself have a lot to live up to. Last year's ceremony was the best I'd seen in quite a long time, thanks to the charisma and bite of host Jimmy Kimmel, who'll be trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle. He certainly has the chance, what with the wealth of burn material handed to him on a silver platter (expect some scathing jabs at Trump and Weinstein). But how on earth they'll address and poke fun at last year's bewildering Best Picture slip-up? We'll have to wait and see.

But putting aside the telecast, here I am once more to list out my predictions in all 24 competitive categories. Last year saw me hit a personal low of 14. I thought that by playing it safe, I'd be able to get a decent score, so imagine my surprise at shocker wins like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and of course Moonlight's big upset. This year, I've decided I want to be more risky with a lot of my picks, so we'll see if that bolsters my tally. Here are the selections!