Steve Stebbing

Hereditary – It’s kind of a bit of a genre week so let’s kick it off with this hotly anticipated horror film that is shaking everyone to their core. The reviews are hugely favorable for writer and director Ari Aster’s debut in a film that he says isn’t a horror movie. If the trailer’s slight ambiguity doesn’t rope you in, the Academy Award-worthy performance from the long-loved Toni Collette should or the terrifying performance from young star Milly Shapiro really should do the trick. As far as original and ground-breaking chillers go, Hereditary is one of those rare films you do not want to sleep on.

Hotel Artemis – Were you like me when you were watching John Wick and thought “Man, I’d love to see a film dedicated to that assassin’s hotel”? Well, it seems that Iron Man 3 and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation writer Drew Pearce was listening because, in a way, this is exactly what we got with this stylish, multi-character action-thriller. The cast is big, featuring Jodie Foster, Dave Bautista, Jeff Goldblum and the red-hot This Is Us star Sterling K. Brown, in a story set in the near future about a criminal safe house and hospital run by Foster’s character, The Nurse. Expect great action and deep character nuances. Yes, this movie will have any action fan’s money.

Love, Simon – We are over the halfway mark in 2018 and there have been only a couple movies that have outright surprised me and this was one of them. Nick Robinson shows his star power in the titular role as a popular teen with the deep seated secret that he is gay. Directed by CW head honcho Greg Berlanti, this film plays with the warmth of a John Hughes classic infused with today’s sensibilities and whatever faults the story has, maybe with a bit of pacing issues and predictability, it is still able to overcome and totally nail a satisfying ending. This is a definite must see and hopefully the step to even bigger things for Robinson as well as his co-star, 13 Reasons Why’s Katherine Langford.

The Strangers: Prey At Night – When Bryan Bertino’s first film came out ten years ago, I was a massive fan of its minimalist style so I was definitely on board with this follow up. Instead of just focusing on a single house, this film has our trio of masked killers who murder for convenience stalking an entire remote trailer park. The film is a bigger scale than the previous installment, not by a lot, but the shift of filmmaking style is where is gains most of its appeal. 47 Meters Down filmmaker Johannes Roberts takes over the director’s chair and delivers a film that has the feel of an 80s slasher, complete with a full scene within the glow of a neon sign. The use of music also plays a great atmospheric role and you may never hear “Total Eclipse of the Heart” the same way again.

South Park: Season 21 and Jericho: The Complete Series – I don’t usually talk about television in these pieces but the good people at Paramount hooked me up with these great box sets and I feel pretty lucky. South Park’s home video packaging is still top notch and the best part is that Trey Parker and Matt Stone still do mini-commentaries on each episode. Hearing the motivations behind their biting satire is always interesting. On the topic of the post nuclear series Jericho, this Skeet Ulrich show was the first network property to be revived after cancelation due to fan support. Why did this happen?

Black Cop – The tagging of Cory Bowles to the Canadian phenomenon television series Trailer Park Boys may pigeonhole the writer and director to a bit of low brow humor but once people get a whiff of this hard-hitting film all of that is sure to change. Black Cop is a film of fed up and frothing anger but one that is articulate enough to get its message across, losing nothing in its artful translation. Lead actor Ronnie Rowe Jr. plays a cop fed up with the treatment of his fellow black citizens by other police on his force and after listening to a brutally islamophobic rant by another officer, he is pushed too far. In a move slightly reminiscent of Michael Douglas in Falling Down, he decides to flip the treatment of the brutal treatment systemic in North America and employ those tactics on white people. This film is unflinching and will leave you slack-jawed and on the edge of your seat throughout. The narrative is split between the main action on screen and Rowe in a dark room breaking the fourth wall in almost a soliloquy style, delivering powerful commentary and statements, the final one absolutely shaking me to my core. Cory Bowles has an intense and well-formed bullet of knowledge delivered through the weapon of Ronnie Rowe’s acting. Go support this one now!

The Onion Movie – Ten years ago this week the best news satire of our time marched a movie out on DVD that no one saw and it’s really sad because the film is hilariously brilliant in the way that only the Onion could provide. Britney Spears parodies, Steven Seagal as the Cock Puncher and Len Cariou as your trusted anchor Norm Archer is a perfect baseline for a solid vignette film and it shouldn’t be any surprising that the director really isn’t the credited “James Kleiner”. In actuality it is Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire, the guys behind all of your favorite Electric Six videos but nothing since which begs the question “where’s the sequel?” Maybe our real existence feels like satire nowadays.

Big – It’s been thirty years since Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia danced across that giant piano in F.A.O. Schwarz and that information makes me feel old as hell. For me, when this movie was released, it was a cautionary tale of taking your youth for granted. As a kid, Josh feels fed up with his limitations and wishes it all away. Then as adult Josh, the crushing defeat of reality, work, relationships and the stigma that age gives comes crashing down on his naïve head. Hell, his own mother chases him out of the house believing him to be a sort of child predator. I’m describing this Penny Marshall comedy very darkly but it obviously had a very profound effect on me. Beyond that, the movie ages beautifully and still has that warm center to it, which is the humanity that Marshall brings to all of her movies. Give this one another spin with the family, you won’t regret it.

The Truman Show – It took master filmmaker Peter Weir to show the world the acting ability within Jim Carrey with this film that will break your heart but, at the same time, absolutely elate you. This film hits the twenty-year milestone this week and I think it’s become even more relevant today and I’m surprised that we haven’t received a real network version of this movie. How well would a television series that followed a human being raised under a microscope do? I’m sure it would have the entire globe captivated but maybe the fact that this movie exists is the reason we don’t. Like Big is a cautionary tale about the fleetingness of youth, Truman Show feels one about worldwide voyeurism, almost like a human zoo exhibit. Jim Carrey perfectly executes a story of essentially becoming “woken” to the work around him and rather than being driven mad by the complexity of this revelation he seeks answers and escape. It’s really quite inspiring if you think about it and it kind of brings the Talking Heads song “Once Ina A Lifetime” into my head.

The Kings Of Summer – A handful of years ago I discovered this brilliant little coming of age film that totally blew my mind. Headed by a the young rising stars Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso and Moises Arias, the film depicted boys being boys in the ways that my friends and I did, creating their own reality within the depths of a forest, far away from any authority. This story was told artfully and beautifully by director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, a filmmaker that quickly made it on to my favorites list and followed up big time with Kong: Skull Island but that’s a heap of praise for another article. What still amazes me is that this incredibly heartfelt script by Chris Galletta sat on the blacklist for four years before getting picked up. Seriously, find this one if you haven’t seen it.