The Year 2018 in Movies and Television

Cinema and television were two joys that entertained me for much of my life. Through the year, we at Matt Lynn Digital averaged reviewing roughly two movies or television shows per month, even as we enjoyed more than this. On a rating scale of 1-star to 5-stars, Matt rated 19-films as well as the first season of a television series that debuted in August.

Four (4) films outshone the rest by rankings of 4.00 or higher. These simply were films of the highest quality that we would like to watch again and again. The gold rated as reviewed in 2018 include:

1 The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

2 One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (1975)

3 Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

4 It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) tells the story of a friendship and humanity forged behind the bars of a Maine prison as one of the two was completely innocent of the charges raised against him. The endearing quality of the film is that the true bonds of decency can persevere even against the strongest of odds.

Eight (8) films earned rankings of 3.75, which would commend repeated watching, enjoyment, and discussion among friends. While not the all-stars among all-stars, the great movies included are:

1 Hoosiers (1986)

2 The Shape of Water (2017)

3 Logan (2017)

4 Dunkirk (2017)

5 Wonder Woman (2017)

6 Platoon (1986)

7 First Man (2018)

8 Vanilla Sky (2001)

Hoosiers (1986) told a story of friendship, redemption, and community in small town Indiana where high school basketball was king. Checkered pasts were the tale as we also were gifted the chance to see a recovering addict stand up and redeem himself in his big screen community as well as Hollywood.

Six (6) movies and one (1) television show were reviewed this year as engaging with passing grades of 3.5-stars on a 5-point scale. Redeeming qualities were present, yet these features might not muster repeated watches from the good folks at Matt Lynn Digital.

1 The Post (2017)

2 The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)

3 Live By Night (2016)

4 Atomic Blonde (2017)

5 Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

6 Deepwater Horizon (2016)

1 Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (2018)

The Post (2018) tells us of the widow Katherine (Kay) Graham, who takes over leadership of The Washington Post following her publisher husband’s death. Not only was Graham facing 1960s era chauvinism and misogyny, she also was facing a president competing with the media for control of the political narrative coming out of the nation’s capitol.

Finally, one movie came in at slightly less than the rest with a grade of 3.25-stars on a 5-star scale. This movie tells of a man manipulated into doing a random string of unethical behavior at the behest of another. The outcome is less than satisfying, and thus the lowest ranked movie review of the year.

1 The Commuter (2018)

Matt – Wednesday, December 19, 2018

The X-Men movie ‘Logan’ entertained this reviewer

Logan (2017) is the latest foray into the X-Men movie universe, having been released in March of 2017. The movie is as emotionally mature as any movie in the franchise, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, surpassing the original X-Men (2000) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) in this regard. Rating well among critics and audiences alike, if you enjoy action movies coupled with a compelling story that tells a compelling conclusion to compelling characters, you could do much worse than the story offered by Logan.

(Hugh Jackman)

Hugh Jackman reprises his role as Wolverine, or Logan, as the namesake of the movie Logan. We encounter an aged Logan in Mexico as a limousine driver and caretaker to the mentally and physically deteriorating Charles Xavier, played by Patrick Stewart. Logan and Charles are clearly suffering from health issues. Charles has Alzheimer’s Disease, though we never learn of the illness of Logan. Both took medicine to keep their symptoms under what semblance of control can be had.

(Patrick Stewart)

Feeling morally corrupted for hunting mutants before the beginning of Logan, the character Caliban has taken to supporting and hiding out with the very mutants he once pursued. Portrayed by Stephen Merchant, Caliban tries to confront Logan on the source of his disease. He (Caliban) had aimed to help Logan, if only Logan would trust in the friendship that Caliban attempts to offer.

(Stephen Merchant)

Boyd Holbrook plays the antagonist pursuing the three mutants we’ve met already in this review, namely Logan, Charles Xavier, and Caliban. As Pierce, Holbrook forwards the agenda of ridding the world of mutants while a cabal of his friends assist him in this work and other dastardly plans. Part of those plans include the continued experimentation on the child Logan never knew he had, namely Laura.

(Boyd Holbrook)

Laura is played by Dafne Keen, a child less than 13-years-old in the movie who appears to Logan in Mexico seeking safe travel with Logan to North Dakota and then on to Canada. It was Keen’s fluency in Spanish and English that helped land her a role as Laura. Charles Xavier knows of Laura being Logan’s child. Charles finds a way to communicate with the apparently mute Laura. It isn’t until after much traveling, and some unfortunate circumstances befalling Caliban and Charles that we learn Keen can talk.

(Dafne Keen)

The film Logan is filled with action and the kind of fighting scenes that would attract many action film fans. Much of the action bears away from the traditional X-Men fighting into territories of intense hand-to-hand combat. That there is the expected X-Men flare of Wolverine-style action from Laura, Logan, and younger variants of Logan do not disappoint.

There were thoughts of Terminator 2 that came to mind with the Spanish language dialogue, the Mexican border action, and the prolonged indestructibility of Logan. This part struck true to much of the Logan / Wolverine character  that we came to know throughout the series of X-Men movies. This is also true of much of the self-loathing and ambivalent dysfunction between Logan, Charles, and Laura.

The terminal outcome for characters who were critical to the X-Men series in Logan provided a degree of satisfying finality and closure; mostly the outcomes for the characters of Professor Charles Xavier and Logan are the ones I mean.

The movie Logan felt like a parting chapter in a way that was true to their larger narrative while not compromising the story that preceded it. In a sense, a fitting tribute for carrying on their legacy with another generation of characters was a seed we’re also planted.

I came away satisfied with the story told by Logan. If you had some doubt about watching a movie series based on comic book characters, let me say that there are plenty of choices of lesser caliber than X-Men. Consider the X-Men series, with Logan last, if ever you would be so inclined.

My appreciation here for the direction and writing for James Mangold. I further appreciated the added writing efforts of Scott Frank.

Matt – Friday, February 9, 2018