I was thinking about movies I should watch again, looked one of them up in my own writing history, and here we are. These aren’t complete lists but they’re the gist of what I wrote. I don’t remember if I wrote anything for 2020 but before about 2015 I wasn’t writing about the subject in a cohesive wrap-up style.
2022
Favorite Movie of 2022:
Nope
Favorite Horror and Horror-Adjacent:
Titane
Benedetta
Fresh
Blood Red Sky
X
Men
Crimes of the Future
The Black Phone
Prey
Lamb
You Won’t Be Alone
Pearl
Piggy
We Need To Do Something
A Wounded Fawn
Favorite Non-Horror:
Power of the Dog
Love and Leashes
The Batman
Cyrano
Good Luck To You Leo Grande
The Northman
2021
Recommended:
Sound of Metal – drummer loses his hearing, finds himself in the process – excellent representation of both heavy music and deaf culture
The Father – hard play-like drama showcasing the effects of dementia on a family
Willy’s Wonderland – ridiculous horror about a guy who works overnight at a murderous chuck e cheese
Nobody – puts Baby in a corner, with bonus next-level action filmography
Cruella – dramatic imagining of fashionista’s backstory
Lapsis – slower sci-fi about a guy who takes a job working for a tech company – very Black Mirror
Favorites:
Dune – epic dramatic sci-fi about a kingdom come to ruin and the immediate aftermath for a noble family – if this doesn’t win awards for sound, I’m suing
The Green Knight – creative mythological adventure about a guy who goes on a journey to change the circumstances of his life – this fresh weird thing took me back to dark 80s fantasy
Settlers – blackened sci-fi about a family who takes up residence in a barren desert with the world’s #1 creep
2019
1. Lords of Chaos
If you’ve got it in you to completely remove any sort of real life history from your movie-watching experience, this was a good movie, akin to a dry horror-comedy except watching kids act like idiots. Retrospectively, it was my favorite movie-watching experience of the year. That says a lot about how terrible this year was.
2. Joker
They did a fantastic job of modernizing Joker without pulling fully from either The Dark Knight or Tim Burton’s Batman. If you like movies like Taxi Driver, you’ll love this.
3. Midsommar
The hype machine got this movie pretty hard, so I was expecting to be disappointed. I was feeling kind of blah about it, maybe because I was still expecting more, but the ending was satisfying. By comparison to last year’s Hereditary, this one was a literal walk through a field of flowers.
4. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Again, remove yourself from actual history, and this was a cool movie.
5. Hail Satan?
This might be the first time I’ve ever put a documentary on my list, but it’s worth watching if you’re into religion/psychology and is on par with Tickled.
2018
- Hereditary (2018)
As I said before, this was a slow burn sort of movie that I didn’t realize had gotten under my skin as much as it had until it was over. It took me several weeks before I stopped picturing the shadowed visuals from the final scenes of this movie lurking behind or above me. I’ve seen so many horror movies and even generally find the supernatural element to this genre of movie kind of dull, so I don’t know how this got to me as much as it did, but it all-around made me super anxious and paranoid. I don’t generally rewatch movies, but I hope that if I ever see this again, I’m in a better environment to deal with those feelings. That said, given how rare it is to feel anything other than brief disgust or amusement with horror, this movie wins out.
- Annihilation (2018)
Psychedelic sci-fi with horror elements? What’s not to like? If you haven’t seen this but you’ve been anywhere near people discussing recent movies this year, you’ve probably heard about the bear scene and how disturbing it is on a primal level. I also recommend watching this for the visuals.
- I, Tonya (2017)
Technically I saw this at the tail end of last year, but it wasn’t on last year’s movie list, so it’s been forwarded to this one. I should say that this movie likely holds a more unique spot in my heart because I lived in Portland for the majority of the time that the actual events were going on, and I was seeing all of the news back then in addition to having seen her perform on ice prior to the Olympics. The dramatizing of what happened felt appropriate and not weird or uncomfortable for someone who knows better, and the story itself was well-told.
- Mandy (2018)
Psychedelic horror with metal elements? What’s not to like? It combined the basic revenge story from Conan with Nic Cage’s usual crazy-ass eyeball meltdowns and a touch of Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas into a cohesive little ride that felt like one long High on Fire music video. Given the actor and some of the visuals, this movie does have a corny side to it, but the half-SunnO))) soundtrack kept it pretty grounded. The current 12 year olds who grow up on this year’s horror ought to be making some pretty insane movies in a couple of decades.
- The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)
It seemed like this movie disappointed a lot of folks when it came out, but for all its flaws and lack of cohesion, I loved it. It was just the right amount of fucking dumb that I prefer in my horror and the trapped-in-space plot setting is one of my favorites. I laughed, I said “ew”, and the world took a vacation from my brain for a bit. Perfect.
- The Ritual (2018)
Moderately fresh take on the horror genre? Don’t mind if I do. This movie did switch gears somewhat which altered its overall atmosphere, but it was well worth the watch.
- Prodigy (2017/2018)
If you enjoy movies that take place almost entirely in one room, this hard-to-pin sci fi movie is up your alley. The intellectual battle the two mains have sells this one.
- Leave No Trace (2018)
I think this was the most “Portland” movie I’ve ever seen, and there’s not a single quirky asshole with a coffee/beer/brunch fetish in it. It perfectly encapsulated how I felt about SW when I moved there and how I feel about it right now today from the warmth of my 24/7 neighbor noise glorified cardboard box.
- Mom And Dad (2017)
Another great horror movie, also featuring mister eyeball tantrum.
- To The Boys I Loved Before (2018)
Cute and timely teen romance movie that cleverly borrows from similar movies from the 80s with updates for the new gen. I didn’t hate it… other than that it’s a bit jarring to see a mountain range in the background.
2017
10 Movies I Saw This Year That Weren’t Entirely Awful
Train To Busan
korean. this movie didn’t hold back at all – you knew what you were going to get from it in the first minute and it didn’t let up until the final scene. the stereotypical korean fetish for soap opera crying gives it an odd character, but even including that, it’s one of the best movies i’ve ever seen.
The Devil’s Candy
metal. if you fancy yourself a fan of doom/drone, you’re probably going to love this as much as i did.
Wonder Woman
xena. i don’t really need to say anything about this given it’s ubiquity in our culture right now, but it was a much better movie than i expected. we’ve had a whole lot of disappointing blockbuster superhero movies, but the flaws in this one (how does she not know about _ if she’s well-read?!) were easy to ignore and i felt way more engaged than i do with wolverine sequel #59 or batman molests.
Arrival
octopus. i love how this insane idea got turned into a big popular movie and it’s just so normal despite being fucking insane. this could have been another terrible sci fi b-movie, but instead we got pretty and well-directed.
The Girl With All The Gifts
zombie. just when i get sick of zombie movies, someone twists the idea on its head and again i’m like, god damn it, i’m back on the zombie escape train. will it ever end? what’s next?
The Handmaiden*
porn. korean/japanese (i don’t remember) drama-thriller thingamajig reminded me of a somewhat less disturbing nymphomaniac meets blue is the warmest color. the switch up in the middle of the movie was rough on the soul.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe*
horror. slow burn is nice sometimes.
Raw*
cannibalism. the fuckin’ french really know how to make a movie experience feel wrong. while this is not as off the beaten path as elle was, it was still a hell of a lot more interesting than i expected from knowing in advance that it was going to be about eating people.
Soylent Green
poverty. this year was perhaps the most timely year yet for me to watch this movie for the first time, and i hope it’s the last one. the death scene was too much.
Mother!
anxiety. i’ve never related so much with a movie character before, never watched a movie wondering if it was going to give me a full-on anxiety attack, never sat there after a tough scene in silence trying to guess what percent of this movie’s unsuspecting audience became bigger anti-art christians because they thought they were going to get hunger games 4 and got this awful shit instead. hey hollywood, can we do this more often?
* Movies to never watch in mixed company unless you’re a sadistic weirdo.
Other recent movies worth a gander:
Horror/Sci Fi:
Phoenix Forgotten
Life
A Dark Song
Drama:
A Ghost Story
Lady Macbeth
Dunkirk
Christine
2016
I basically covered my favorite movies this year when I did the horror series. 10 Cloverfield Lane was way better than I expected and then some. Triangle was great, Coherence was interesting, I liked the idea behind Cell even though the movie sucked, Devil’s Pass and Willow Creek were cool, The Circle was fun, Circle was AMAZING, The Visit was n3470, and I hope Viral gets a part 2.
[a bunch of movies I didn’t like]
I think the only really big and highly rated not-horror movie that I loved was The Hateful Eight. That’s probably not surprising, considering how much I’ve talked up Four Rooms, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Django Unchained.
2015
[I didn’t write a cohesive list because I wrote about every movie I saw that year in one post. This was just the final statement.]
So, with a week left in the year, that’s where I’m at. I recommend The Martian and The Revenant (if you’re not vegan-for-moral-reasons and can handle gore) for sure, and my favorite new-to-me movie this year was It Follows. Jurassic World was cool, Only Lovers Left Alive was new and different and worth watching as a music-friendly movie, and if you haven’t seen Interstellar or Birdman, they’re worth a shot to be up on cultural references. Don’t watch Inside Out without tissues if you have a history of feeling at the movies, and neat, X-Men didn’t suck.