Everything I Watched in 2020
141 Movies & 10 Limited Series
UNCUT GEMS (2019)
This is the movie equivalent of going on a roller coaster. I have whiplash. I’m a bit nauseous, a bit dazed.
When the ride stopped — I mean, the movie ended — I just sat in my seat for a while, gathering my senses, preparing myself to step back onto solid ground.
LITTLE WOMEN (2019)
I have one big problem with this movie: The fact that it’s only 135 minutes long.
Greta should have really considered the fact that I could watch these characters for 8 hours straight before she made the selfish decision of making her movie this short...
1917 (2019)
The thought of prepping this film would have scared me out of ever getting to the point of actually stepping onto a set with cameras and mics and actors.
Good on you, Sam Mendes.
I LOST MY BODY (2019)
What struck me first was the sound design.
Then, the animation.
Next thing I knew, I was knee-deep in this story about a boy (and his hand) traversing this rough-and-tumble world at ground level, both on their own journeys to find their place in it all (figuratively and physically), despite the pieces of themselves that they lost along the way.
WALL-E (2008)
Let me just say that I almost lost it when WALL-E ran the cockroach over in the beginning. Disney has scarred me.
Where do I even start with this? The worldbuilding, both visual and written. The physical comedy. The heartwarming love story. The heart-wrenching tale of loneliness.
Do I like robots more or less after this? I’m not sure...
MONEYBALL (2011)
I love sports. I love behind-the-scenes looks at sports.
Take that, mix in a touching father-daughter connection, an underdog story involving one organization filled with Davids who break through a century of conventional wisdom to stand toe-to-toe with twenty-nine Goliaths, smart writing that makes statistics and contract figures sound like poetry, tight direction, and characters that feel full and larger than life.
I don’t know how this movie became one of my go-to feel good movies of choice, but here we are.
COLD WAR (2018)
How is every shot so perfectly composed? Frame after frame, I wondered how this film could get more beautiful. I almost want to watch this on mute one day, but then I’d miss all the music, and that would be a damn shame.
This movie is almost hypnotizing. It’s incredibly sexy. It’s funny. We watch as this couple tries and fails to get their hearts and minds around this doomed love of theirs. Before you know it, the 90 minute runtime has reached its end, and you think to yourself, “Maybe they finally figured out a way to be with each other forever.”
LOVE, ROSIE (2014)
I’m glad to finally get this off of my queue. I was starting to get tired of Sam and Lily’s beautiful faces constantly nudging me to watch this thing.
That “fuck you very much” song is a bop.
HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE (2016)
Taika was operating with a really unique tone with this one. I found myself getting pleasantly surprised by it every few minutes or so.
A lot of interesting, unexpected choices were made where it would have been easy to just take the mundane, bland route to make the same point.
GRETEL & HANSEL (2020)
Osgood Perkins clearly had a strong vision for this movie. The lighting, the colors, the production design, the compositions within the frame, and the aspect ratio all combine to make this a visual treat. It was appealing in how moody and stylized it was.
This film definitely doesn’t look like a PG-13 horror movie released in January.
MISS AMERICANA (2020)
I love music documentaries. I love Taylor Swift.
It’s important to see that one of the most successful musicians on the planet has their struggles — emotional and artistic. We’re all human out here, including the megastars.
BIRDS OF PREY (2020)
It’s silly. It’s colorful. It’s loud. It’s energetic.
Margot Robbie is such a great Harley Quinn. I hope they double down on her soon and embrace a Hard-R approach. More violence. More profanity. Wishful thinking. *shrug*
TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE (2018)
As a rom-com set in high school, it wouldn’t have been crazy to see them just skim the surface of these characters. I was glad to see them dig a bit deeper than that.
It’s really smart at times, playing with the nuances of romance in this generation without it feeling overly cliché or heavy-handed.
TO ALL THE BOYS: P.S. I STILL LOVE YOU (2020)
Lana Condor is a star. So is Jordan Fisher, for that matter. I aspire to be as lame in a cool way as them.
The ‘Ocean Eyes’ cameo was appreciated. So were the emotional complexities that Lara Jean was experiencing in this movie. Her feelings were never black or white. They made this high school rom-com feel really fresh.
HORSE GIRL (2020)
What a delightfully strange movie. Alison Brie was so hopelessly sympathetic throughout.
Honestly, I found this character’s gradual disconnection with reality kind of terrifying, especially considering her family history. The decline in her mental health was truly troubling to watch — that is, until it started to dip into the absurd. But even then, I was in for the ride.
THE ASSISTANT (2019)
The time and space was provided to make me feel like I was in her shoes, at her job, going through the day-to-day problems that she was facing.
There weren’t any heroics. No big scene showing first-hand everything being hinted at. Just a day in the life of a girl who has to keep her mouth shut and pretend nothing is going on, just like everyone else who works there.
Her dad saying “It gets easier” at the end is incredibly unsettling — there are other women that work there, and they know what’s going on too. Did it get easier for them?
WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE (2019)
Is this what happens when an artist retires and stops creating? Or just a midlife crisis in general?
The monotony and mundanity of everyday life can start to feel like a cage, and it gets worse by the day, until a change is made. Change is terrifying to some people, and it’s exciting and exhilarating for others — even freeing.
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (1989)
I could have listened to Nora Ephron’s dialogue come out of Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan’s mouths for hours on end. It freakin’ sings, man!
PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (2019)
All I can say is that this was one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen, in more ways than one.
PARASITE (2019)
Tonally engrossing. Allegorically fascinating. It has heart, it has soul. It’s disturbing. It’s entertaining. It’s most certainly the best picture of 2019.
THE INVISIBLE MAN (2020)
This went from a psychological drama to a monster movie, back to a psychological drama, to a thriller, to a revenge flick. And I enjoyed every part of it. There are parts of this, when I knew that the monster was winning, where dread filled me up to the point that I had to smile, acknowledging the number that the filmmaking was doing on me.
At the heart of this film is a story about the victim of an abusive relationship. This woman has been gaslit so bad that we start to get gaslit as an audience watching this movie from her point of view.
EMMA (2020)
There are levels to this comedy shit. This comedy is a step or two above most of them. Not only is it funny throughout, it’s well shot and delightfully acted. The production and costume design set the scene, but the words coming out of these performers’ mouths are the show.
Anya Taylor-Joy is predictably wonderful in this layered web of a romance — one that serves her character, giving her room to explore and grow.
ONWARD (2020)
A charming adventure story with classic fantasy elements embedded in it. At a tight 102 minutes, not a minute was wasted, and it flew by.
Pixar has a tendency to make me want to go home and wrap my arms around all of my family members — this film was no different. As the oldest of two boys, this one hit home, and it hit hard.
THE WAY BACK (2020)
It hits most of the beats we’re familiar with for a story like this, but it hits them with honesty, with intimacy, and with soul. Ben Affleck anchors this all with a performance that’s full of feeling and devoid of any over-the-top showiness.
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)
Does Sneezy have the novel coronavirus?
PINOCCHIO (1940)
My man Geppetto pulled a whole ass musket out from under his pillow when Pinocchio showed up.
FANTASIA (1940)
I’m fairly certain I just watched our beloved Mickey Mouse commit a gruesome murder with an axe.
DUMBO (1941)
Dumbo is in the upper echelon of cute Disney characters. And that makes this already sad movie even more painful.
BAMBI (1942)
Humans fucking SUCK!
CINDERELLA (1950)
The cat was a piece of shit, and the dog saved the day. What else is new?
ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1951)
There’s a lot of anxiety in the world nowadays. Has anybody tried just putting jam on their nose?
PETER PAN (1953)
This guy Mr. Smee shaved a bird’s ass raw and then patted it with both hands while admiring his work.
LADY AND THE TRAMP (1955)
These two dogs had a better first date than you and your significant other did, and you know it.
SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959)
Maleficent really did all this because she wasn’t invited to a party. That’s an unfathomable amount of pettiness.
ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIONS (1961)
Somebody freakin’ feed Rolly before I get mad!
THE JUNGLE BOOK (1967)
For 75 minutes, Bagheera struggled to bring Mowgli to the humans, but it wasn’t until he saw a pretty girl in the final 3 minutes that he decided the human life was the life for him.
THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989)
The characters are complex, the songs slap the hardest, and Ariel is the best Disney princess — I will hear absolutely no arguments to the contrary.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991)
Watching Belle and the Beast bicker like an old married couple is endlessly entertaining.
ALADDIN (1992)
This is Robin Williams’ cinematic magnum opus. This movie doesn’t exist without him — and if it did, it would have been stillborn. The Genie is the main attraction here.
THE LION KING (1994)
People always talk about how tragic Mufasa’s death was but they forget to mention that Scar looked a vulnerable young Simba in the eyes and told him that his father is dead because of him. That feels just as fucked up, honestly.
POCAHONTAS (1995)
John Smith and Pocahontas wordlessly stared at one another for fifty-eight unbroken seconds when they first laid eyes on each other. Take notes. Eye contact shorter than that is a sure sign of a doomed relationship.
TOY STORY (1995)
Name a better duo than Disney and Pixar. This beautiful contribution to cinema ushered in a new era of animated filmmaking that’s still going strong today.
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1996)
Quasimodo was destined for greatness. His mother straight up outran a horse for quite the long distance with his infant body firmly in her arms.
HERCULES (1997)
People aren’t aware of this little known fact: Hades started the “WHAT ARE THOSE?!” trend when he saw Pain wearing some fire Hercules merch on his feet.
MULAN (1998)
If that “Be a Man” sequence doesn’t make you feel like running through a wall, you’re not wired properly.
A BUG’S LIFE (1998)
We are all gonna be Heimlich at the end, coming out of his cocoon as a “beautiful butterfly” when we’re finally released from this quarantine.
CARS (2006)
“I’m in hillbilly hell! My IQ is dropping by the second!”
UP (2009)
Yeah, those first ten minutes hurt like hell, but the tears really start flowing when Carl looks through Ellie’s adventure book and sees that it’s filled with pictures of their life together. Her adventure was the years she had spent with him.
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG (2009)
R.I.P. Raymond the firefly. May his light shine bright forever.
TANGLED (2010)
“Did I mumble, Mother?” I stan a rebel Princess.
BRAVE (2012)
I need this coronavirus to fuck off like those three adorable red-headed little boys needed those pastries.
INSIDE OUT (2015)
I can’t think of a movie line that affects me quite like “Take her to the moon for me” does. It hits me in the feels so damn hard, man.
MOANA (2016)
City of Stars, imma let you finish, but How Far I’ll Go was one of the best original songs of all time. #2017Oscars
COCO (2017)
It is only fitting that I end this month-long Disney marathon in a puddle of my tears. *wails in tune* REMEMBER ME!!!
LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE (2020)
I really liked Celeste Ng’s novel, but as I was reading it, I was constantly thinking about how the best things about the book wouldn’t be able to translate to the screen. It’s a novel bursting with beautiful subtleties, and the show just dialed everything up to eleven for the sake of Drama.
Some of the changes they chose to make really boggled my mind as well (the end?), but I won’t get into that. This’ll end up being a rant, not a review.
I must say, AnnaSophia Robb and Tiffany Boone are incredible as the younger Elena and Mia.
GOOD OMENS (2019)
This series started absurd, got more absurd, sprinkled in absurd dialogue, went different absurd routes, all the way to an absurd end.
What a lovely, relentlessly eccentric six hours this was.
NORMAL PEOPLE (2020)
This beautifully shot, soulfully acted half-hour romance drama doesn’t sound like it should work. But “should” be damned, it absolutely fucking works. I felt all the feelings.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a happy ending for two characters more in my entire life.
MANIAC (2018)
This was a fascinating series — perhaps too ambitious for its own good. It explores what it is to be human in a way I haven't seen before.
While it does feel like there’s a disconnect between the story that takes place in the real world and the story that takes place in the patients’ heads, it was exciting to watch these seemingly arbitrary worlds and winding roads that had to be taken to make the real world problems more palatable — more solvable. All paths, no matter how far we think we are from the “trauma”, or how hard we think we're running away from it, lead back to the trauma. It lingers everlasting in the back of our minds until we confront it, once and for all.
Nobody in this show is mentally stable — not even the machines. And nobody in life is walking around without carrying some shit...nobody. It was fun to watch this limited series try and bring that to light.
ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953)
Is it a wonder that Audrey Hepburn’s star was launched into the stratosphere after this film? It’s not to me. She’s absolutely (predictably) magnetic in this.
Gregory Peck was a charming co-star, and with the help of a modest sprinkling of comedy and just enough chaotic energy, this was a good bit of early-50s entertainment.
THE EVIL DEAD (1981)
Just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any sillier, it did exactly that. Just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get much gorier, it did. Just when I thought the makeup couldn’t get more absurd, it did. Just when I thought I would never hear anything more annoying than Shelley’s screams, I heard Linda’s giggles.
LES MISERABLES (2012)
There’s an imperfection that comes along with the live performances — they’re unclean, unpolished, just like the characters that are doing the singing. We’re following people who have to fight, scratch and claw for their lives. A studio recording just wouldn’t feel right. The live singing is filled with the emotion of a genuine performance — and the emotion is paramount, not the quality of the singing.
THE LAST DANCE (2020)
Ask any die-hard sports fan: “If you could choose any player, any team, in any particular era to make a documentary about, what would you choose?” They’d shake their heads at their answer before saying it, because they’d think it was already impossible. But then, they’d shrug and say, “Michael Jordan, the Chicago Bulls, during their run of six championships from ‘91 to ‘98.”
The fact that this ten part documentary exists is a treat beyond the english language’s capacity to describe. The fact that it was released in 2020 is nothing short of an absolute miracle.
THE WICKER MAN (1973)
Allow me to quote John Mayer (stick with me here) to emphasize a point that this film works to make: “Everyone believes in how they think it ought to be. Everyone believes, and they're not going easily.”
I’m always here for stories that highlight the insanity of the concept of religion — especially when the insanity is demonstrated by pitting two religions (along with their beliefs) up against one another.
The insanity that we were drip-fed for most of the movie reaches a glorious crescendo in the final fifteen minutes, when we get the first and only mention of The Wicker Man.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019)
I’m not quick to rewatch movies. I often wait until I’ve forgotten a lot of the movie before I rewatch it, because I want to re-experience it fresh. I’ve seen only a handful of movies twice in theaters. I’ve seen only two or three (maybe four?) movies thrice in theaters — this is one.
I saw this long ass movie three times in its theatrical run. And then I saw it a fourth time on a plane (on my way to Los Angeles, no less). I’ve seen a lot of movies in my day. There aren’t many that I’ve seen five times. And this one made that list in like ten months.
HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE (2001)
The main thing that stood out to me after reading this book for the first time was how quickly the film moved the story forward, as opposed to the novel. Everything felt like it was moving in fast forward — story beats were flying by, one after another, given little (if any) room to breathe. It dashed on with remarkable efficiency, all the way through its tight two and a half hour runtime.
HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS (2002)
Book and movie, this is just one of the weakest stories of the bunch, I think. From the annoying Gilderoy Lockhart, down to that climax absolutely riddled with plot conveniences. Oh, and also, Lucius Malfoy was in broad daylight at the end of the film, just outside of Dumbledore’s office, about to literally murder Harry with an Avada Kedavra — Jesus Christ.
I do really like the mystery surrounding the Petrified victims. I liked the part that Ginny played in this story, although I wish she was shown at least one or two more times throughout the movie. Finally, I really appreciate that this story dipped its toe into far darker tones than Sorcerer’s Stone did.
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (2004)
I love the way this movie juggles tones (a few really comedic bits, and some of the darkest sequences in the whole series). I love the score, which at one moment is fluttering like a butterfly, and the next is filling you up with dread. I love the cinematic visual motifs, and the purposeful and poetic nature with which the scenes are blocked. I love the way the camera is used — with elegant frames and fluid motion. This is my favorite Harry Potter movie, and I truly believe it’s the best one.
TRIGGER WARNING: *whispers* I like the movie more than the book...
HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE (2005)
This is the first Harry Potter movie that had to make significant cuts to its source material. Changes also needed to be made to save time — and for the most part, I think those changes were deftly handled. It is unfortunate, however, that we’re forced to lose a few characters, either by completely removing them from the film, or by scraping out almost all of their essence, leaving only a shell.
The passage of time plays a fairly large part in this book: How Harry uses the time to prepare for the tournament tasks, or how he uses the time to make excuses to push his preparation off. But what’s missed most of all in the movie is the time that Harry spends drowning in his anxieties over everything — the ball, the tasks, the ever-looming presence of Voldemort, etc. For that reason, in addition to the fact that Harry was instantly up and at ‘em after the climax, the stakes often fall flat in this adaptation.
SHIRLEY (2020)
Stanley: “You can’t expect me to indulge this, can you? Staying in bed all day...”
Shirley: ”Well, the party was too much! It set me back!”
My introverted ass felt quite seen by Shirley in distress, suffering through severe writer’s block.
I also felt tension take up residence in my body throughout this watch. Every few minutes, between the overwhelming score, the on-edge performances, and the irritable characters’ clashing personalities, it felt as though there was always a ticking time bomb on screen, threatening to blow at the mere utterance of a stray comment.
FREE FIRE (2016)
I genuinely have no idea why this movie exists. But you know what? I bet somebody had a lot of fun writing this. I bet a lot of people had fun making it. I turned off my brain and was adequately entertained, listening to these idiots spew dumb jokes in a variety of accents, and watching them fire bullets at each other for almost an hour straight.
READY OR NOT (2019)
I ranked this movie as my third favorite of last year. I’ve been putting this rewatch off since then, afraid it wouldn’t hold up on second watch, afraid the fact that I was so pleasantly surprised by it might have clouded my judgement. This movie snuck up on me last August by how fresh and how fun, and how absolutely wild it was.
I’m so relieved to say that it absolutely holds up. The cinematography immediately stands out as impressive, the lighting being the most remarkable part. The family members are fascinating caricatures, all incredibly strange in their own way — some more malicious than others, some more complex than others. Absurd elements like secret doors and weapons hanging on the walls surround this absurd game of hide-and-seek and fill the movie with invaluable details to help build this world owned by the ultra-rich — this world where the exceptional Samara Weaving has to traverse and fight for her life.
This movie could have fallen prey to countless clichés but it either actively dodges them or uses them to its advantage, constantly making interesting choices, consistently side-stepping expectations and exceeding them as it does.
FROST/NIXON (2008)
It’s not an accident that there were several allusions to boxing in this film. This was a high-stakes boxing movie dressed up as a smartly-written political drama.
Two men, both at low points in their careers, face each other on the grandest of stages, in front of television cameras, under bright lights. They sparred, exchanged blows, had each other on the ropes, and evaded heavy hooks. They both stumbled, consulted their corners, reviewed strategies, and attacked weak spots in their opponent. They fought for their lives because their lives were on the line — until finally, one of them registered a remarkable combination, and followed it up with a knockout blow. Both of these men needed to win this fight, but only one of them did.
BUFFALOED (2019)
Everything in this movie felt one level too exaggerated — the people, the conversations, the situations, etc. All of the people felt like written characters. All of the conversations felt like written dialogue. All of the situations felt like written scenes and sequences.
I never had both feet planted firmly on the ground of the world in this story. I was never able connect with any of it. I was never able to find its pulse.
That being said, Zoey Deutch makes it all tolerable — even enjoyable at times. I wouldn’t have made it all the way through this movie if a lesser actor was at the helm.
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT (2019)
You know those scenes in movies when an uplifting song starts playing in the background (in this case, a whole lot of Bruce Springsteen), reality becomes heightened and dream-like, and the protagonist breaks character and does something bold or brave or impulsive, and then we’re sent back to the exact moment before the protagonist did all that because it was actually just in their head — it was all just their deepest desires imagined?
Now, picture that, but two hours long. That’s what we’ve got here. Except, this time, we never get snapped back to reality. Everything I just described was his reality.
CHARLIE’S ANGELS (2019)
Kristen Stewart admiring a dog from the top of a building while she was supposed to be doing recon for a mission is a whole mood.
This is a good example of what I liked about this movie. When it’s having fun, being goofy, when the characters are bantering, I was enjoying myself. When it was dipping into the drama or when it was fancying itself a high-stakes spy movie, I felt my enjoyment level plummeting.
WATCHMEN (2019)
Behind the costumes and superpowers is a story fueled by racial and political unrest that spans multiple generations. Past generations affect the present generation, and the present affects the future. One doesn’t end for the next to begin. It all flows into each other, overlapping and mixing itself into everything we know and everything we are and everything we will be. The characters are grappling with their pasts and their futures, sometimes all at the same time. Just like how the stories of the show’s past were reflected in the stories of the show’s present, the stories in this show that takes place in present day America, in an alternate dimension, often felt eerily similar to the present day America that takes place in the dimension we are all living and breathing, here in the year 2020.
HAMILTON (2020)
The year is 2015. I’m living in Los Angeles. I’m sitting on my couch one early afternoon with nothing to do, so I decide to download the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Hamilton. I lay down, I close my eyes, and I listen to the whole thing through. Since then, I’ve listened to it so many times that I can’t even begin to guess the number. Few works of art have affected me quite like this musical did. From that first listen, I’ve been saying that Hamilton is the single greatest work of art I’ve ever consumed, and I never even got to see the musical performed live. Lucky for me, I was given this gift to finally experience the stage performance all these years later. It was everything I hoped it would be and more.
Just like how Alexander Hamilton’s legacy widely revolves around his prowess with the pen, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s will too. What he did with this musical is all-time great. Hamilton is the best piece of narrative writing I have ever seen or heard, and quite possibly will ever see or hear in my lifetime. I’m so grateful I’m able to consume these words, and all of the stories that are being told with them, whenever I desire. The Original Broadway Cast Recording has always been enough for me, but now I have options for how I want to experience this masterpiece.
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (2007)
This movie takes the gargantuan, bulky book, chops out a lot of the fat, and explores the characters in a way that the other films don’t. For the first time, we’re seeing all of the traumatic events of the previous four years catch up to Harry and finally really affect him. While I think the book does a better job exploring that (I LOVE CAPS-LOCK HARRY), this movie uses its medium to add to it, or to take a second, fresh swing at the material.
For example, they use cinematic ways of showing how Voldemort has crept into Harry’s mind, like the moment on Platform 9 & 3/4, and when Voldemort was trying to convince Harry to kill Bellatrix, and most effectively after the duel with Dumbledore: “You’ll never know love, or friendship. And I feel sorry for you.”
Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange is on the all-time list of casting decisions in film history. She really breathes new life into the character that was written on the pages of the novel. She’s mesmerizing.
Padfoot’s death was beautifully done. The sound cuts out and all we can hear is his last breath as he slips through the veil to join the other voices within the archway, leaving us with the image of Moony watching one of his best friend’s die, holding Harry tightly within his arms.
While the book had a powerful scene in St. Mungo’s hospital that didn’t make the film, Neville’s added involvement in the final battle in the Ministry of Magic was instrumental toward fleshing out his character for the movies — especially for the end of the series.
Finally, and most importantly, Harry saying “I must not tell lies” as Umbridge is being carried away might be the single best change to the books that the movies ever made. It’s absolutely fucking delicious.
SUCKER PUNCH (2011)
I would say that this movie is better viewed with the sound turned off but the soundtrack is actually pretty fire.
Okay, I get what this movie is going for — it’s pretty obvious from the beginning. But there had to be a more elegant way to get the point across. I’d love to see what this film would have looked like if a female wrote and directed it. Maybe it wouldn’t be as stylish as Zack Snyder’s vision, but I bet the storytelling would be more nuanced, more thoughtful, and more, well, elegant.
CASINO ROYALE (2006)
Holy shit, that chase in the beginning was nutty. The evasion tactics were incredibly inventive, the choreography and stunt work were nothing short of mind-boggling, and the location changes throughout gave each section of the foot-race its own compelling visual appeal. It was like an action short film in itself. Now, that’s the way to kick off a new chapter in this long-running franchise.
The interactions between Daniel Craig and Eva Green were utterly scrumptious.
QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008)
That fight with all the ropes early on in the movie was pretty dope — and what a button it ended on: Daniel Craig shooting up at the camera while upside down.
A heartbroken Bond drives, flies, runs, shoots, and punches his way through this sequel that’s completely lacking the heart of its predecessor. The ghost of Vesper just isn’t enough, unfortunately.
SKYFALL (2012)
No movie character will ever be as cool as the dapperly-dressed middle-aged man who tore open a hole at the top of a tram filled with people with the claw of a hydraulic excavator, and then climbed the arm of that machine, which sat atop a moving train, jumped off of said claw, landed cleanly on both feet in said tram, and then fixed the cufflink on the wrist of the arm that he just got shot in. Ever.
The cinematography took a step up with this entry, which is evident from the film’s very first shot of Bond. It’s also strangely funnier — I actually giggled at several one-liners.
From his introduction at the movie’s midpoint, Silva proved to be easily the most interesting villain thus far in the Daniel Craig era. M being targeted throughout kept the stakes sky high all the way to the end. This also put her center stage quite often, which was not only welcome but enthralling.
SPECTRE (2015)
These Bond movies work best when there’s something on the side for us to root for — something that raises the stakes past the normal, inconsequential “oh no, he’s getting shot at” kind of stakes. For example, Casino Royale had me hoping that James’ relationship with Vesper would work out. And in Skyfall, I was always on edge, worrying about M’s safety. James Bond isn’t going to get shot and die. He just isn’t. But he may have his heart broken. And he may lose a close friend and advisor, because her life is actually in danger when bullets are spraying in her direction.
This movie does an okay job at bringing pieces of all the other Daniel Craig films together, which sort of makes this feel like a culmination, instead of just another episodic installment. That makes us feel more invested in the story, just as we would be if there was something happening on the side for us to root for — which this film feels like it’s missing, just like Quantum of Solace.
Madeleine and Bond don’t have the electric chemistry that him and Vesper had, so that romance doesn’t quite land. There’s the potential of rooting for the successful protection of a dying man’s daughter which Bond promised he’d see through, but Madeleine is far from a helpless. For the most part, she’s able to hold her own. These potential sub-stories don’t do the job of raising the stakes past what the default is for a 007 movie.
*whispers* C stands for Cunt.
PALM SPRINGS (2020)
“Today, tomorrow, yesterday — it’s all the same.”
When the days pile up and they start to blend together, you’d better like the person you wake up with every morning. Every day until the day we die is a lot of days. May we all be lucky enough to “learn how to suffer existence” with somebody who makes it worth doing.
This movie is self-aware, it’s funny, and it’s relentlessly charming. Sometimes it makes the time-loop feel like a bottomless pit, devoid of all hope and joy. But most of the time, it almost makes one want to be stuck in a time-loop.
LAST CHRISTMAS (2019)
This romantic comedy was perfectly adequate, albeit more so comedically than romantically. Emilia Clarke is delightful in this, delivering the heart and (alongside Emma Thompson) a healthy helping of laughs. I chuckled when she hit that reindeer with a right hook. Also, she uses a lot of British slang. I love British slang.
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE (2009)
I am currently in a state that can only be described as a cocktail of perplexity and disappointment.
First of all, the film spends so little time on the Potions textbook that they may as well have renamed the movie. Because as it stands, Half-Blood Prince just seems like a silly title for this film. The book spends a lot of time on the textbook, and therefore, on the Half-Blood Prince.
It also spends a lot of time with Dumbledore — specifically, Harry does. They share a large portion of this book together, visiting memories of Tom Riddle and discussing them afterward. In the film, they only visit two of Tom’s memories. TWO. We don’t spend nearly enough time with Dumbledore in this adaptation, especially considering how it ends.
You know what the movie spends a lot of its time on, instead of the Half-Blood Prince and Dumbledore? The teenage romances. GOOD LORD. We spend so much time on this that one would think 80% of the novel is focused on teenage romances. It’s hard to say off the top of my head, but I’d venture to guess 70% of this film is either vaguely or explicitly exploring the romances (at least, that’s how it felt), while no more than 25% of the book is spent exploring that topic. It’s mind-boggling to think that this was the aspect of the book that they felt required the most screen-time for the sixth of an eight film series.
Since we’re on the subject of the romances, I might as well mention that they are EX-CRU-CIATING in this movie. While the connection between Ginny and Harry is sweet in the book, it is absolutely nothing if not cringe-inducing in the film. There isn’t a shred of believable romance to be found, and their attempts to manufacture it made me want to look away from the screen. Actual relationship building was replaced by moments where Ginny is feeding Harry cookies, or bending over to tie his shoe.
Speaking of Ginny: What in the name of God have they done to my precious Ginny? By this point in the books, she has grown to become a beautiful strong character who is sought after by many, can hold her own in any situation, and isn’t afraid to mouth off at anyone. The movie version of Ginny is unrecognizable. She’s almost the same little girl that couldn’t even utter a word around Harry — except now she can, even though she has nothing to say.
Having seen the films multiple times each throughout my life, I have always said that I wished they were darker than they were. I always saw the potential for it, and never felt fully satisfied by the way they turned out. This movie cements that feeling. Because now that I’ve finally read the first six books, I’ve learned that the story of Harry Potter does indeed descend into the darkness — I’ve just never experienced it until now. Half-Blood Prince, the novel, dives into the darkness in a way none of the other books had up to this point. From beginning to end, you feel the weight of everything in a way that brilliantly builds to the finale, leaving you emotionally wrought, with a sense of true loss.
The reason I had never experienced this depth of darkness before is because the film adaptation for Half-Blood Prince is basically a romantic comedy. This may sound like hyperbole, but it honestly, genuinely, is not. This movie goes miles out of its way to try and be funny. They turned the darkest book in the series into a poorly-executed comedy.
The film kicks off on the correct tone, as we watch the Death Eaters terrorize both the Muggle world and the Wizarding world. I really appreciated the way Draco’s inner turmoil was portrayed throughout. And I must say, Katie Bell’s episode with the cursed necklace was exquisitely done — it was properly horrific to watch. That should have been the tone throughout. We’re approaching the series’ climax. This was not the time to experiment with comedic elements. No, it was not a good idea to have Ron joke about the female race being the death of him immediately after he LITERALLY almost died by poisoning.
My mind is a bit cloudy from being completely blown by this viewing, but I think I’m willing to say that while Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince might be my favorite book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is probably my least favorite movie.
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011)
The exchange expressing Lisbeth’s reputation seconds before we actually meet her is a fleeting stroke of genius — one of countless strokes of genius in this film.
I can’t believe more of you sons of bitches didn’t buy a ticket to watch this in theaters. We’re never going to see the sequels that David Fincher would have made.
ZODIAC (2007)
Honestly, I’m mildly tempted to write a long glowing review of the six minute opening scene. Thankfully, the next 151 minutes consist of every part of this story being told in exactly the best way possible — be it with comedy in low-stakes moments, or the exclusion of music in the most tense moments.
It’s uncanny how the parts where characters are talking in an office are just as gripping as the parts where bullets are being fired or knives are being jabbed into bodies. Fincher has a way of using the reveal of important information to make the viewer feel like a bomb is about to go off.
CHEMICAL HEARTS (2020)
Look, I was able to consume this film with more ease than a lot of others like it. It wasn’t at all hard to get through. It just didn't trigger sparks in my heart and soul like I think it wanted to. I’m kind of a brain chemical junkie, so all of that was very welcome — even if it wasn’t exactly elegantly seamed in.
This movie is dripping in heavy-handed metaphors, both in word form and through symbols — some were symbols but became even more heavy-handed when they were eventually verbalized. Sometimes it felt like these people were just characters built to churn out quotes about how a teenager views the world around them, romantic relationships, and life as a whole. They didn’t feel like full humans. They felt like shells, decorated to convey a message. This created a disconnect between me and these characters that I was supposed to feel so strongly toward (and for).
THE NICE GUYS (2016)
The first half is about as fun as movies get for me. The second half is solid, but it does lose quite a bit of steam — especially as the action ramps up, ironically enough.
This is legitimately one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. There aren’t many films that make me laugh out loud as consistently as this one does. It’s so crazy how heartthrob Ryan Gosling, star of moody dramas, is actually a comedic powerhouse.
The chemistry between Gosling and Russell Crowe is intoxicating. I wish I could watch fifty more hours of March and Healy speaking Shane Black’s dialogue.
BATMAN BEGINS (2005)
How I would love to have been a fly on the wall when Chris Nolan told Warner Bros that he wasn’t going to show Batman until after the one-hour mark of their newest reboot... First, we got to know the human being beneath the cowl. When we finally see the Batman, he’s a figure to be feared — and not just because he’s intimidating. The first time we see Batman, he’s this mysterious figure in all black, hiding in the shadows, attacking from places unseen. Bruce Wayne’s original vision for the Dark Knight was to make his enemies share his dread toward bats. He certainly succeeded in that.
Is it fair to say that without Rachel Dawes, we wouldn’t have gotten Nolan’s trilogy? She played an enormous hand in creating this universe’s Caped Crusader, as we know him, in that scene with the car ride to Falcone’s after Joe Chill’s hearing. Without Rachel Dawes, her vicious tongue, and her quick slapping hand, we never would have gotten Heath Ledger’s Joker. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)
Heath Ledger’s Joker is the best performance by an actor I’ve ever seen. The man disappeared. He’s gone. There is not a trace of the thespian left on screen.
The nuances of his performance are countless. The way his eyes dart around, the way his tongue sporadically slaps his lips, his hunched-over posture, his laugh, his voice, and the way he talks — fluctuating in pitch and the pace of his words. His actions are spastic: He grabs a cup of champagne, spills it all, and still goes for a sip. He seems to flip a switch when offended, turning off the lights, losing control of whatever reins might be left within the mind of the character: His immediate reaction to “You’re crazy” during the Group Therapy Session never ceases to put a smile on my face — it’s such an impressive choice by Heath.
The Joker is as compelling a villain as they come — especially in contrast with the protagonist. Hans Zimmer’s score is epic and unsettling in all the best ways — Joker’s theme is the musical equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. The dialogue isn’t just great because it’s so quotable — the scenes where it’s just two or three people in a room arguing are just as fun as the scenes where the Joker is shooting a bazooka into cop cars.
This movie is so genuinely entertaining. It’s the ultimate popcorn flick. It’s the pinnacle of the superhero genre. It’s two and a half hours long, and it chugs along like a bullet train. This is a landmark movie — a modern classic. It’s as fresh now as it was 12 years ago. We’ll be talking about this one for generations.
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)
One unfortunate thing that time has done to this movie is make every single word that Bane uttered in the opening scene sound like a cringy parody of itself.
Catwoman, on the other hand, aged far more gracefully. Her motivations are strong, so her choices carry weight. Her morals are complex, her desperation is palpable. Her movements and fighting style are unique, her dialogue is sharp and spicy. I think Anne Hathaway was an incredible Selina Kyle. All in all, she’s my favorite part of this movie.
Hans Zimmer’s work remains a highlight. A funny thing happens in my soul when we abruptly transition from Bane’s theme directly into Batman’s theme at the end of the scene with that rooftop brawl, where Catwoman and Batman should have died to those “trained killers.”
For a long time, this movie feels like it isn’t going anywhere, and then we arrive somewhere and we don’t know how we got there — then we look around and we wonder if we even care. At that point, Batman’s in a pit, the bridges are collapsing, there’s an armed nuclear bomb somewhere, ready to blow Gotham to bits, and we’re not sure what the point of all of it actually is.
I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (2020)
There is a fascinating line being walked here, where this movie is so disorienting and so disturbing at times that you get the unshakeable feeling that it’s going to suddenly turn into the scariest horror movie you’ve seen all year. In some ways, it’s as scary as the scariest horror movies.
There are few things more terrifying than the speed at which time moves us through life. You can think about how you want to do something (like ending a relationship) forever. You can talk yourself into inaction by thinking of the few pros, knowing deep down that they don’t outweigh the cons — but those don’t matter if you push them aside and ignore them all the way to the alter in favor of making the easier, less painful choice. If you don’t plunge the knife in, time will roll over you like a train until the person you don’t love has become a part of you in a way that makes it difficult to see what your life even looks like without them. Your identity will become inexorably linked to that person, to the point that your memories of life are the same, and your everyday experiences are the same. Your name doesn’t matter anymore, your job doesn’t matter anymore. Time has rid you of who you are. Indecision when the stakes were still low has morphed into a behemoth that you can’t even imagine defeating — something you’ve passively ceded your life to. What was once a flake of snow on your windshield is now your car buried beneath a blizzard in an empty school parking lot.
And all you have to do to prevent any of that from happening is make the tough choice. Stab him in the heart. With time, he’ll come back around and sweep his blood from the snow where he once laid, his reality crushed.
TO CATCH A THIEF (1955)
This movie gave us the explanation to one of the world’s greatest mysteries: Why did the chicken cross the road? As it turns out, it crossed the road to make sure John “The Cat” Robie doesn’t get caught by the police.
That fireworks scene was so wildly sexual that if I didn’t know any better I’d think I just watched Grant and Kelly make love on screen in a movie that came out smack dab in the middle of the Motion Picture Production Code era.
Also, what is the science behind the fact that the moon's light is green in France? I thought we all shared the same moon.
UNPREGNANT (2020)
I must say, that political advertisement starring Haley Lu Richardson on train tracks in the middle of the desert was really quite effective.
There’s a mildly disorienting motif that’s prevalent in this movie: Whenever you think people are going to pose a threat to our protagonists, they end up being the most wholesome of human beings. That is, until a couple of vehement pro-lifers turned this film into a horror movie for two minutes.
It’s like the filmmakers did everything they could to make it feel like there were antagonists, or substantially obstacles, but there actually weren’t, because everything was either a red-herring or the problem was solved instantly. Maybe this was always just supposed to be a fun film where a girl goes to get an abortion across state lines and things don’t actually go all that wrong, but they felt like they did because of the moments of uncertainty that are really just exposing our inherent distrust toward strangers and our expectations for conflict in the films that we watch. Instead of making us feel dread and tension, this film just holds us tight as we go for a ride — like at a carnival.
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 1
Having finally read the novel, I think that I actually kind of like this movie now. Its loyalty to the source material made this viewing much more enjoyable than all the ones that preceded it. As an adaptation of the first half (or so) of the final Harry Potter book, it’s pretty solid — but as a film that had its own release date a year before the finale, and clocks in at almost two hours and twenty minutes, it really does feel like we only got half of a story.
There’s sort of a reason why Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was a single 759 page novel and not two far shorter ones. It’s telling a single story: Beginning, middle, and end. For context, this movie ends at around page 481 of the book. It was only the beginning and part of the middle. There’s simply no way you can be totally faithful to the source material AND make this as satisfying a standalone film as it needs to be to justify splitting the novel in half. Those two things are, unfortunately, mutually exclusive.
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2
While Part 1 was remarkably loyal to the source material, Part 2 was not so much. Some of the changes are real head-scratchers, but a lot of them seemed to have been done to make a scene or sequence more capital-e Epic (see: when Snape was ousted from Hogwarts, and the final showdown against Voldemort). While I wasn’t offended by these changes, they certainly didn’t strike me as improvements to the decisions made for the novel. The climax, specifically, was obviously changed to look better in trailers — and of course, eventually, the big screen. Harry’s face-to-face with Voldemort at the end of the book was far from cinematic.
The biggest change this movie made was arguably the most welcome one: Since we were allowed to stray from Harry’s point of view for the film, we got to see what all of the supporting characters that we’ve learned to love are doing during the Battle of Hogwarts. That being said, it’s bewildering to me that not only would they avoid showing us Lupin and Tonks’ deaths, but they would also, inexplicably, kill Fred off-screen. What’s the point of breaking POV to show us Neville taunting a horde, and McGonagall casting spells, and the Malfoys running away, and Ron speaking parseltongue he learned from Harry’s sleep-talking if we weren’t also going to watch more of our favorite characters meet their ends? And why see all of that but not see Fred’s death — which on a handwritten list of expendable details from the book would not have even been on the piece of paper?
Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is a satisfying close to an eight-film franchise. Its biggest downfall is that it has to compete with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the novel. At the end of the day, believe it or not, we’re allowed to have both. We’re allowed to like both, and treat them as the separate entities that they are.
Oh, and Albus Rubeus Potter > Albus Severus Potter.
ENOLA HOLMES (2020)
This movie’s soul resides in Enola’s relationship with her mother, and the contrast between her life with her and her life without her. If nothing else, it really does feel like Enola bursts out of childhood and into adulthood throughout this film, triggered by the disappearance of her mom, who at the same time prepared her for adulthood but also kept her anchored into childhood.
This was a coming-of-age story first, and a Sherlock Holmes mystery second — the former being delightful, and the latter being just entertaining enough to bridge the sections of this film where its beating heart could be felt.
BATMAN: ASSAULT ON ARKHAM (2014)
This DC Universe Original Movie came out two years before that utterly atrocious live-action Suicide Squad music video — uh, sorry, movie — exposed itself to poor unsuspecting cinema-goers worldwide. A couple of beats in this are copy-and-pasted into the 2016 movie. What wasn’t copy-and-pasted though includes (but isn’t limited to): The humor; the entertaining characters and relationships; the worthy use of the PG-13 rating; the coherent, interesting plot; and the fun.
This film could have been a blueprint for that live-action obscenity — or at least a jumping-off point — but instead, WB opted to settle for having their superior Suicide Squad movie be the animated one.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (2008)
There’s something remarkable to be said about how this child grew up among the elderly, constantly learning one of life’s most important lessons: Death comes for everyone, and that’s not such a bad thing.
His was an ordinary life lived extraordinarily, and although we can’t age backwards, we can live a life worth living — a life worth living at standards we each set for ourselves. There’s no way I can say it any better, so I’ll let F. Scott Fitzgerald sum this thought up:
“Some people were born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people, dance.”
THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME (2020)
What an utterly joyless two hours plus this was. None of the characters were sympathetic enough to latch onto, to get me through this brutal ride with any emotional connection. As the credits were rolling, I was thinking to myself, wondering what the moral of this unrelentingly grim tale ended up being. For the life of me, I couldn’t say — unless it’s that God doesn’t give a fuck about you.
ANNABELLE: CREATION (2017)
There are many benefits to having a sympathetic protagonist — and I’m not sure it gets easier to sympathize with someone than an orphaned little girl who’s been crippled by polio. No matter what absurdities take place, no matter how silly the premises for the story and the scares are, you’re rooting for Janice to get through it. Her disability does wonders for this film’s ability to build dread and a real sense of helplessness in the face of the evil presence haunting the people of this home.
It’s through his characters that David F. Sandberg made a watchable — even somewhat engaging — movie out of what should have been a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck.
THE LOVE WITCH (2016)
A bizarre technicolor wet dream that happens to be a nightmare starring a siren in the form of a witch who uses her powers to make men fall head-over-heals in love with her, only to move on to the next pathetic, desperate, horny victim when she learns that having a man fall in love with her is only half the battle — she has to love them back, which is just as difficult, if not more so, especially if they all end up dead by the time she’s done with them.
Love is a wild thing.
THE SOCIAL DILEMMA (2020)
I feel like I need a shower after watching this. There’s something profoundly gross about the fact that my hand gravitated to my phone two or three times, for literally no reason, while this documentary was playing before my eyes on a big screen television. At about the halfway point, this film goes from gross to downright terrifying. I wasn’t ready.
THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR (2020)
No, I’m not literally bawling as the credits to a horror series roll on my television, you are. That last episode pushed and pulled on my emotions in a way that few movies or shows ever have. It positively fucked me up.
This is a love story. It’s about trauma and depression, but also recovery and hope for the future. Time takes everything at the end of the day: The people we love, their smells, the sound of their voice — but until it takes us, we have to continue on. We have to bring along all that once made us feel a love so strong that it imprinted itself onto our souls in such a way that wherever we go, no matter how much time passes, like a gentle hand on our shoulder, it’s there, always.
SECRET WINDOW (2004)
The tone of this movie makes it incredibly difficult to feel any real anxiety or dread regarding the health and well-being of our protagonist. There are times where it leans into the silliness, then it turns around and hopes suspense will do some heavy lifting (it doesn’t). Nothing about this is egregiously bad, but man, it’s as bland as an unsalted, unbuttered ear of corn.
NOCTURNE (2020)
Black Swan meets Whiplash, but with a piano. Except this movie lacks the driving force that made those other two so compelling, and so nerve-wracking, and so painful to watch: This film’s protagonist lacks the desperation of those other two. You don’t get the feeling that she wants success so badly that she’s willing to play her fingers raw, or work her body to the bone, or give up everything and everyone to be successful. Unrelenting ambition didn’t drive her mind to a breaking point. She just stumbled upon a book, then passively sat in the passenger’s seat while taking a ride with the Devil.
POLTERGEIST (1982)
Is this the Steven-Spielberg-iest movie not made by Steven Spielberg to ever exist? His fingerprints are all over this thing. For an early-80’s film with a PG rating, it was actually fairly unsettling when it wanted to be. If that stuff is the attraction, the price of admission would be the tiresome chatter by waves of paranormal experts brought in to suck the fun out of the film like they’re the closet with the light.
SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999)
The visuals carry this film all the way through to the credits, dragging this shell of a story with its scant heartbeat over the finish line. Emmanuel Lubezki‘s cinematography was consistently pulling me back in when my brain wanted out.
Arguably the most memorable part of this film was the kill choreography. It’s not a wonder why the most compelling scenes were the ones with the Headless Horseman.
TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016)
“Thanks to our government’s rapid response, a number of outbreaks are being contained. Fellow citizens, please refrain from reacting to baseless rumors... We must stay calm and trust our government... To the best of our knowledge, your safety is not in jeopardy.”
That was said by a government official on television, speaking to the people, only a half an hour into this movie. I cannot believe this wasn’t inspired by the events that have taken place in 2020. This movie hits so fucking different seven months into a global pandemic.
Above all, this is an incredibly smart and compassionate film — not only for a zombie movie either. The most remarkable part for me was the introduction of the zombies. It was executed better than I think I’ve ever seen it done. You’re teased in the beginning with an animal, then you’re eased into seeing the first person turn — you see how excruciating it is. Then, she infects a sympathetic worker on the train. From there, everything goes to shit, and it doesn’t let up until you’re in tears.
THE HOST (2006)
Movies involving both a monster and a virus causing everyone to fear those who cough around them and to wear masks everywhere they go hit different in 2020.
From the hilarity of the scene in which a family mourns the loss of their little girl, to the fact that everyone is sleeping while her grandfather pours his heart out, to her father alternating between blubbering and blaspheming while a drill is being prepared to enter his skull, the tone consistently feels like it’s a notch too light for what’s happening in the story. Because of this, the film is constantly reminding you that you’re watching an honest-to-goodness monster movie by making you think about how strange these elements are for a monster movie.
TRICK ‘R TREAT (2007)
If this movie with several interweaving scary stories were made today, I bet it would be made as a show — and to be honest, I think that show would be an absolute hit. Just gory enough, just spooky enough, this 82 minute film was exceptional Halloween fun. It’s too bad there’s only this one movie because this feels like just the tip of the iceberg — the possibilities are endless with a concept this rich.
MAMA (2013)
This is a story about human connection — specifically that of the mother and child. These characters aren’t overwhelmingly easy to fall in love with — especially Annabel and Lilly. But that’s what makes this journey so satisfying. As we’re constantly reminded of the connection between Lilly and Mama, we’re watching the connection between Victoria and Annabel grow right before our eyes. In fact, it isn’t until Victoria began protecting Annabel from Mama that I finally got fully invested in this film. The stakes were raised because real human connections were starting to be formed and threatened simultaneously.
The ending is heartbreaking, but ultimately inevitable. It would have felt forced and disingenuous for the sake of making it sweet to throw out all of the breadcrumbs sprinkled throughout the movie, which all led to the same bitter outcome. It is who we feel safest with that we cling to. It is who shows us motherly love that we call mother.
CRAWL (2019)
Alligators really are just dinosaurs that didn’t die, aren’t they? When you make them the villain in a movie, they’re honestly just as terrifying as any fictional monster.
A film like this is incredibly execution dependent — you’re not selling anybody on a pitch for this. Luckily, what we have here is an improbably well-executed thriller with as simple a premise as they come.
BETTER WATCH OUT (2016)
Crazy how they really tried the Save The Cat routine with that instantly intolerable kid ten minutes in using a spider. Nice try, but spiders suck and so does he.
I wanted to hate this movie — it’s so fucking easy to hate because of that fucking kid — but I think this was actually a really effective twist on the home invasion sub-genre. The only reason this film didn’t go completely off the rails was because Ashley and Garrett were consistently hanging a lantern on the insanity of the situation at hand. Levi Miller’s performance was always dialed up to eleven which made it difficult to anchor the movie back down when he wasn’t speaking. In my opinion, they ended up walking that line fairly well, with merely a stumble here and there.
CAM (2018)
This tech/psych thriller creatively explores the life of somebody who streams online for a living — projecting a person that looks like them and sounds like them but isn’t really them to entertain hundreds, if not thousands, of people. We see their unique goals, their unique struggles, their unique anxieties, and their unique fears.
The internet is a scary place. Making your living as a personality on the internet — always at the mercy of your audience, constantly putting on a show, singing for your supper — makes it even more terrifying.
THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974)
The seven minutes where the hitchhiker was in the van with them in the beginning could have been a great horror short film all by itself. I was squirming the whole time.
What a creatively bold decision to have absolutely no score when Leatherface first pops up and kills his initial victim. The only sound to be heard was the squealing of a pig. The filmmakers knew what they had here — they knew they didn’t need help making this villain any more menacing. I mean, come on, did you see how casually he stuck that girl onto that hook? I think the scariest part about this murderer is that he doesn’t play with his food. If you see him, you’re dead — this makes you dread every second of peace, knowing that he might be right around the corner, all but sealing the fate of yet another character.
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008)
From the need to be invited in, to the fact that they get set ablaze in the sunlight, to their unrelenting hunger for blood, this is a vampire movie and it’s proud of that fact. But it’s not a vampire horror movie. It’s a vampire coming-of-age drama. It’s a vampire young-love story. It’s about friendship, and what it really means to let someone in. It’s about feeling like you belong somewhere — like you matter, at least in the eyes of one other person.
This is a vampire movie that cares just as much about showing us the troubles of being a vampire as it does showing us the troubles of being a human.
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999)
It rinses and repeats one too many times for my liking, but other than that, the pace is rock-solid, consistently ramping up to the climax. But what ramps up the tension is not the witch, or anything supernatural. What ramps up the tension is the crippling sense of helplessness one feels when they’re lost somewhere unknown, stuck, and all hope of getting out is gone with the wind. That’s where the fear comes from in this film — it’s present and it’s palpable.
JENNIFER’S BODY (2009)
Appreciate the Needys in your life. Find someone that’ll tolerate your bullshit as long as she does. Not the opposite though — ditch your Jennifers as soon as humanly possible. They’re toxic as tick.
Tonally, this thing is nearly pitch perfect. It knows what it is and goes all-in on it. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Megan Fox was nearly pitch perfect too. She might have been born to play this role, and she absolutely killed it.
THE WITCHES (2020)
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance more extra than Anne Hathaway‘s in this film. If her performance was already dialed up to an eleven out of ten, Zemeckis’ visual effects helped it reach a twelve or thirteen.
Speaking of those VFX — I’m pretty positive that I would be scarred for life if I saw this as a six or seven year old. Conversely, as an adult, when Hathaway wasn’t onscreen, I was bored.
LET ME IN (2010)
This remake is so similar to the original that the moments or elements that are altered become worth taking note of and dissecting. One such element is the fact that Abby’s “caretaker” seems so genuinely conflicted about his role in her life. This is a fascinating twist on the Swedish film — especially considering the dark implications associated with how both films end.
HALLOWEEN (1978)
Michael Myers missed the two easiest layups of all time and has spent the last 40 years trying to make up for it. Laurie has yet to let him live it down.
SALEM’S LOT (1979)
Just like the enormous novel, this three-hour adaptation is a slow burn. And just like the enormous novel, you’re rewarded for your patience. Appreciating this story is to learn about this small town and its inhabitants. When those people start falling prey to forces of evil, we start to really feel like the walls are closing in on us, and fast.
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (2018)
This limited series is everything I love about the genre wrapped within ten episodes. It uses horror as a vehicle to tell a story about family, about death, about grief, about trauma, about mental illness and the personal battles that we all struggle with on a daily basis. Behind the dreamy cinematography and the air-tight direction is a tale about these seven individuals who are all fighting their unique demons. It’s a tale about these people all making their way through the dark, peering into the depths of their souls, and finding the will to continue on in search of the light.
I consistently marvel at the way this non-linear story is weaved together — so perfectly stitched for optimal effect toward whatever part of the story is being told at the time. It takes your hand and wanders around with you, but always brings you safely back to where you need to be.
The single greatest jump-scare I’ve ever experienced is in this series. If you’ve watched this, you know exactly where it is. This being a rewatch, I knew it was coming, so I may not have jumped, but I still got goosebumps from my neck to my calves. It chilled me to my core. The scare is rooted in story, and it’s rooted in character. It’s earned, and it’s extraordinary.
At 70 minutes, Episode 5: The Bent-Neck Lady, might qualify as my favorite horror movie of all time if we just pretend it stands alone. With nine other exceptional episodes, I think it’s safe to say that this series is easily my favorite piece of horror storytelling ever created.
BORAT (2006)
Absurdly outrageous. Insanely audacious. It swings as hard as a movie can possibly swing, and its batting average is impressively great. This movie is in the upper-echelon for quotability, and its rewatchability is through the roof.
P.S. Azamat was speaking Armenian the whole time and the closed caption translations were often very wrong, to the point that the words that were coming out of the actor’s mouth were actually so much funnier than the mundane lines that were written out on screen. That was a real treat for a fluent Armenian speaker.
BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM (2020)
Somehow, someway, this sequel is even more cringe-inducing than the first one — and I mean that as an unequivocal compliment. Sacha Baron Cohen has done it again, over a decade later.
This was not only a movie built of the stuff that made its predecessor great, but there was also a touching father-daughter tale in there, and sort of a coming-of-age story.
Maria Bakalova was a revelation. Tutar was tasked with carrying just as much weight as Borat for this film to work, and Maria carried it well.
YES, GOD, YES (2019)
It was tough for me to get fully into this because every time a character that wasn’t Alice took up even a second of screen-time, I got pulled out of the movie. Alice’s internal struggle is wonderful and nuanced and explored in increments — but when another character was speaking, all of that nuance went out the window. Everyone except Alice was a frustratingly hollow caricature, while Alice was a sympathetic protagonist with proper depth.
REBECCA (2020)
With shots that hold on objects, via the score, or with lingering stares, I found myself constantly under the impression that I was supposed to be feeling something or another without ever feeling what the film wanted me to feel. In fact, I’ve rarely felt so little for so long without turning the movie off before the end credits.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S LETTER TO YOU (2020)
I wish every album I love had a documentary like this one to go along with it. The audience is just hanging out in the studio with Bruce and the band, watching as a masterpiece is created, note by note, chord by chord. And in between, we listen as the Boss poetically reflects on his life and adds background color to each song, and the album as a whole.
THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 (2020)
This is a timely film — an infuriating one, a cathartic one, a motivational one.
With a cast as wide as this and characters as uniquely interesting as these, it’s a gift that not a single performance felt underwhelming. They all captivated my attention when the attention was placed on them. They rose to each other’s level and to the level of the dialogue that was written for them with the predictable snap, crackle, and pop that we’ve come to expect from Aaron Sorkin over the years.
TOTALLY UNDER CONTROL (2020)
I purposefully waited until after the election to watch this, so I wouldn’t dive into a deep pit of anxiety and despair. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure I would have ever watched this if Trump had been re-elected. With how depressing this documentary was, I think it’s safe to say I made the right decision — and so did the American people.
THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT (2020)
The sailing was a bit too smooth for the vast majority of this series. The story would have benefitted from the injection of more conflict in the form of some severe stumbles in Beth’s climb to the top of the mountain. She’s mostly dominant throughout, because she’s the best — that’s made abundantly, overwhelmingly, exorbitantly clear.
Beneath the compelling performances, pleasant score, beautiful production, set, and costume design, lively cinematography, and creative visualizations of the chess board is a study in obsession and what’s required to be the best, as well as a study in the responsibility that rests on the shoulders of one who is gifted with immense talent — responsibility toward herself, to fulfill that dream of being the best in the very subject of her obsession; responsibility toward those that lifted her up, so that she could take her first steps onto that mountain; responsibility toward those who root for her to live up to her potential — those who feel as though they have a stake in her success and her happiness. It’s not always easy being truly great at something, and this limited series explores that with satisfying depth.
JOKER: PUT ON A HAPPY FACE (2020)
Writers of comics, television, and film join illustrators, actors, movie directors, producers, executives, and historians to talk about the Joker — his origins, his countless interpretations, his place in pop culture (then, now, and every time in between).
There’s not much in the way of a coherent narrative and it’s all pretty lazily patched together, but hell if I didn’t enjoy every second of its insanely short runtime.
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1967)
What an absolute stroke of brilliance it was to close this film out with a television in the foreground, showing Nixon taking the oath of office, beginning his second term, while Woodward and Bernstein were in the background, clicking away on their typewriters, hard at work on the story that would lead to him never seeing the end of that term.
Throughout this movie, the images and sounds coming from the various televisions seemed to always be portraying a world that contradicted the one these journalists were living in. It’s just so perfect to have them share the frame this way to close it out.
TRUMP: AN AMERICAN DREAM (2017)
A four-hour portrait of a sick man. The origin story of a sociopath, a con-artist, a cult leader, the 45th President of the United States.
DOCTOR SLEEP (2019)
When this thing is fun, it’s as entertaining as studio horror gets. When the performances are good, they’re firing on all cylinders — McGregor is sharp, Ferguson is captivating. There’s a really solid movie buried in here, under an overly-long runtime, meandering plot threads, and the overbearing ghost of its predecessor.
FOLKLORE: THE LONG POND STUDIO SESSIONS (2020)
As if it wasn’t enough to have this surprise record in such a shitty year, now we have this filmed intimate concert with conversations about each and every song with Swift and her collaborators. If not a single other positive thing comes from this pandemic, at least we got this album, at least we got this film.
I can’t believe Disney muted some of Taylor’s curses. I’ll never forgive them.
MANK (2020)
I just watched a David Fincher movie about a successful screenwriter working on a cinematic classic during the Golden Age of Hollywood on Netflix in its opening week, in my bed. What a time to be alive.
AVENGERS INFINITY WAR (2018)
The opening moments so effectively set the tone for what’s to come. The rest of the opening scene establishes the grand stakes of the story to follow better than any superhero movie I’ve ever seen.
On the eve of opening night, I saw this movie, then tweeted: “A strong argument can be made that Thanos is, by definition, the protagonist of Avengers Infinity War.”
The language in that tweet wasn’t strong enough — maybe because I was so surprised and caught off-guard by the direction the Russos went with this film. Thanos is without question the protagonist of this story. He’s actively pursuing a goal with sympathetic motives, he sacrifices that which he loves to move forward, he fights through obstacles known as the Avengers, until finally achieving his goal, bringing his arc to a close, making sure the rest of the universe doesn’t fall victim to the crises that plagued his homeland. The movie begins and ends with Thanos — we just spend a lot of time with the antagonists because the movie is named after them.
AVENGERS ENDGAME (2019)
In 2018, I thought Marvel had hit peak Avengers Theme Needle Drop when Thor came down from the heavens to help with the fight in Wakanda. And then, one year later, when the theme didn’t kick in after Cap caught Mjolnir, you just knew we were in for something special. The Avengers Theme Needle Drop to end all Avengers Theme Needle Drops occurred when all of the Avengers assembled. Love superhero movies or hate them, that is one of the greatest cinematic moments in history.
This movie, more than any other I can think of, feels like one that’s far greater than the sum of its parts. The emotional pillars are more than strong enough to hold up the rest of this story’s uneven architecture. If nothing else, this film is an incredibly fun, incredibly satisfying finale to MCU’s decade-long Infinity Saga.
“You can rest now.” Dagger to the heart. So perfect.
MISERY (1990)
Annie Wilkes is one of the most emotionally unstable characters to ever grace the silver screen, and Kathy Bates performs each outburst and tantrum and psychopathically tender moment in mesmerizing fashion.
You really feel the helplessness and dread of Paul Sheldon’s situation every time Annie is standing above him. She doesn’t need to be torturing him for you to feel it.
I don’t know what was worse: When Annie forced him to burn the only copy of the novel he had just finished writing, or when she took a giant sledgehammer and slammed it into each of his ankles. Honestly, it’s too close to call.
CATS (2019)
I have a severe soft spot for songs in films, so I thought the music in this much-maligned movie might have made this a tolerable first viewing. I was wrong. We mercilessly go from one boring, perplexing musical set-piece to another for two hours. The whole time, I’m listening without an ounce of pleasure, watching all of this absurdity, perpetually wondering what the fuck is going on.
MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM (2020)
Naturally, given the fact that this was an adaptation of a stage play, the performances were going to make or break this. Every actor came with their best, but Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman were the stars of the show — they shined bright whenever the spotlight was on them.
Exceptional lighting made every shot of these actors look like a painting. Makeup, set design, and costume design helped bring this stage play to the big screen with the flair required for it to stand up on its own, as its own unique piece of art.
HAPPIEST SEASON (2020)
Sure, Mackenzie Davis and Kristen Stewart are great and all, but I was never more entertained than when Dan Levy was on screen. He’s electric.
This properly portrays the chaos that comes along with getting a family together for the holidays. On top of all that, you can really feel the tensions rising with every second that Harper spends holding onto her secret. It bubbles and bubbles until it boils over in a scene that brings the chaos to a truly unhinged head.
WOLFWALKERS (2020)
Stunningly detailed, uniquely beautiful, classically hand-drawn animation. Every frame looks like it was eternally worked over, filled edge to edge, foreground and background, with a meticulous attention to detail and deep care for the project. In particular, the shadows, wide shots, and the depictions of the wolf’s senses are breathtaking.
On top of all that, it’s a touching tale exquisitely told. The desires and intentions of all these sympathetic characters are constantly in conflict with one another, making it easy to empathize with every single one of them at any given time. So when their desires and intentions start lining up, the story becomes all the more powerful, leading to an incredibly satisfying end.
WONDER WOMAN 1984 (2020)
During the first half-hour of this, a sufficient amount of time is spent with Kristen Wiig’s Dr. Minerva, building sympathy for a character that will (eventually) become one of the villains. It swiftly becomes very easy to root for her. Even though the movie explains it away, it’s too bad the character that we learned to empathize with disappears shortly after she obtains her powers.
I had a really hard time finding my footing with this film. For an absurdly long while, I had no idea what this movie was even about and what the central conflict even was. When that conflict finally presented itself, it felt too abstract to firmly grab hold of. I found myself unsure of what any of the characters actually wanted during any given scene. I never felt as though I was in for a ride, heading toward a clear goal. I felt like I was being violently dragged through the dirt, without being told where it was I was being taken.
The man standing amid a crazed crowd proclaiming that all of the world’s chaos was due to everybody’s greed was a nice touch, if more than a little on the nose.
SOUL (2020)
That fifteen-second anecdote about the fish and the ocean is going to stick with me for the rest of my life, I just know it.
Given the context of the entire film up to that point, there’s something so profoundly beautiful about the image of Joe playing music from his soul, reading the everyday items that made him feel alive, instead of a book of notes. It’s not the art that makes him feel alive. It’s being alive that makes him feel the need to create his art — just regular old living.
ONWARD (2020)
This movie is a masterclass for writing set-up and pay-off. All throughout, knots are being tied from string that was introduced earlier in the film. The third act is as incredibly satisfying as it is because it pulls together things that were set up all across the first two acts and pays them all off, one by one, showing growth and proving that all of these little things along the way were vital to arriving at the place these two brothers needed to be.
HAMILTON (2020)
The Story of Tonight: The clock was ticking away toward midnight on the final day of this horrendous year and I could think of no better way of waving goodbye to 2020 in quarantine than by watching my favorite film of the past twelve months.
