2020: The Year in Reviews (Part I)
Well, this has been a weird one, huh? We’re four months into the year, and theaters have only been open for about, two-and-a-half of those months. Most stuff has been pushed either to VOD or rescheduled altogether. Though I guess the byproduct of that is that most, if not all stuff that came out this quarter has been made available to stream quicker than usual. So, if you cared enough to do so, you could have seen pretty much everything that’s come out. Normally by this time, I’ve usually got like 15-20 films I haven’t seen. This year? Five. I’ve seen all but five movies that have come out, and one of them came out today and I just haven’t been able to watch it yet. The other four are ones that hit theaters before the pandemic hit and haven’t yet been put online for streaming
Though the situation does also leave us wondering what’s gonna happen in these next four months. I can’t even imagine what the next third of the year is gonna look like if theaters don’t open during that time. There might only be like 30 movies that come out. I guess we’ll see. Until then, let’s all try to not die.
Here are reviews of everything I’ve seen between January and now: (more…)
Five Word Film Reviews (2019)
One of my (admittedly very few) good qualities is that I will make some dumb joke and it’ll be funny for a minute and then later on, I’ll think, “You know, what about that…” This article started as a joke. I made a bad joke while reviewing a movie at the movie’s expense and said, “There’s the five word film review of it. Take that, Hemingway!” And then, cut to a few months later, I think, “What if I tried to do that for all the movies?” And now this is the sixth year I’m doing it.
To give you an example of what I do with this, here are some five word reviews from last year: Bird Box — The Apocalypse Will Be Blindfolded; Creed II — Baby Creed vs. Baby Drago; Ready Player One — Charlie and the VR Factory; A Quiet Place — Don’t Procreate During the Apocalypse; The Grinch — This Movie Stink… Stank… Stunk; Red Sparrow — Not a Natural Atomic Blonde; The Wife — So Far, Yet Glenn Close; Incredibles 2 — Where Are We on Capes?; The Hurricane Heist — Features Zero Tropical Storm Thefts; Acts of Violence — For Sale: Bruce Willis. Always; Can You Ever Forgive Me? — *Insert Fyre Fest Blowjob Guy*; Studio 54 — Don’t We All Miss Drugs?; Summer ’03 — That’s When Seabiscuit Came Out; 6 Balloons — *Count Voice* AH AH AH!; Ralph Breaks the Internet — Ralph Really Broke My Heart; Bad Times at the El Royale — It Was a (•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)… Bad Time; Dude — Where’s My Car? (Applause Break); The Old Man & the Gun — *Chekhov Sits Forward* “Go On…”; Mary Poppins Returns — And She’s Out for Revenge.
And one more, just because I can’t believe I managed to get that far with it: A Star Is Born — I’m Off the Deep End (or: Watch As I Dive In) (or: I’ll Never Meet the Ground) (or: Crash Through the Surface) (or: Where They Can’t Hurt Us) (or: Far from the Shallow Now). So yeah, you get the idea.
Oh, and for those keeping track, I started working on these a month ago! So I didn’t wait til the last minute this time! I mean, sure, I wrote most of them in the past like, week, but still. Some responsibility was had.
Here are my five word film reviews of the films I saw in 2019: (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (The Wrap-Up)
We just wrapped up the year, month by month, and now we get to my favorite part… analyzing it all.
The last thirteen days were for everyone else, but today is for me. Today is where I see how well I guessed everything back in January, how all the films I saw this year shook out. Where all the ratings went, what the average ratings for each month were… stuff that I’ve been tracking for a decade now.
Here’s all the previous articles in a handy chart so you can crosscheck anything I’ve said to this point, should you want to:
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2019 Film Release Calendar |
2019: The Year in Reviews |
2019: The Year in Reviews (Films That Didn’t Get Released)
Now that we’ve gone over everything that came out this year, it’s time to go over the stuff that didn’t.
Of course not everything you track is gonna come out. Stuff gets pushed, stuff never gets picked up… shit happens.
I do this article mainly so I can keep track of what’s still left to come out, so I can organize the 2020 Release Calendar and figure out which movies are gonna roll over and which I’m just gonna let go.
So here’s all the 2019 films that weren’t released: (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (December)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
Today is December. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (November)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
Today is November. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (October)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
Today is October. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (September)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
Today is September. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (August)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
Today is August. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (July)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
Today is July. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (June)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
Today is June. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (May)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
Today is May. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (April)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
Today is April. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (March)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
Today is March. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (February)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
Today is February. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (January)
You know what it is. It’s the last half of December, which means we’re wrapping up the year.
Like most things in my life, it’s built around a pun. What I do in January is preview everything I can possibly find that’s set to come out that year. And then what I do is watch as many of them as I can, dropping reviews each third of the year. And then in December, we recap how that all went, month by month and see how I did/what I liked.
Mainly I do this for me, just to see how accurate I can guess on stuff up to a year out (I used to hope for a solid 2/3 percentage, but at this point I generally hit above 70% and really wanna see if I can somehow get to 75%), but it also keeps me honest, since I don’t read anything I write after it goes up until I compile these articles and my reviews are done based on how I feel as I write them up. So really this is bringing the two together and considering my feelings as they stand at this moment in time. And then hopefully others can maybe find some cool stuff they didn’t know about or previously consider from it all.
We begin with January and the films from either last year that I only got to this year or (more likely) the films I tracked that didn’t come out in the U.S. this year and probably will next year. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (Part III)
What a weird third of the year this one’s been. That last reviews article went up at the end of August. And by the time that posted (I’d say, about a week before), I stopped watching movies. Literally, for a full month, from the end of August through the end of September, I watched only one new movie, and that was because I went to a theater with a family member to see it. Otherwise I did not watch a single movie that was not already on TV in the background of the room in which I was in. Which is crazy. The amount of stuff I watch each year, having a full month of nothing was… well, I do that basically every year anyway in January. But you know what I mean. Even in that month I’m usually finishing up the previous year and just not watching anything new. It’s a lighter month, but I still watch stuff. This time… nothing. But then I started again, had like 50 movies piled up and it’s been basically nonstop since. But hey, that one month.
Anyway, this is the final batch of reviews containing everything from this year that I’ve watched between September… well, October.. and now. There’s still two weeks left to the year and I’ll still be watching stuff throughout those weeks, even as the recap articles start going up (and even into January, as is always the case). But, just so we have something to reference in those wrap up articles, here’s everything I’ve seen up until this point in time. (more…)
The Films of 2019 That Disappointed Me
While yesterday was about the films that surprised me in a good way… today’s about the ones that didn’t fare so well. The ones I saw and went, “Oh, that’s a shame.” Well, that’s the kind version. Usually it’s more like, “Holy shit. Come on guys.” I’ll specify what each one was as I get to them.
But today is for the films that just did not meet my expectations. Either because they made me think they were gonna be better than they were, or because they fucked up a good idea/cast/concept, or just because “What the hell was that?” I will specify that this does not mean I disliked the films. In fact, there’s 5one film on here that I really liked that still disappointed me. Mostly it comes down to which films most made me think, “Yeah, it could have been so much more.”
So here are the films of 2019 that most disappointed me: (more…)
The Films of 2019 That Surprised Me
A staple of my year-end articles. I like looking back over everything I’ve seen (to this point. There’s still almost a month to go) and pinpointing which films ended up being better (or worse. That’s tomorrow) than I expected them to be. Or, I guess, more specifically, it’s more about — I thought I was getting one thing, and in today’s case, I saw the films and went, “Wow, that’s actually not what I was expecting.” (Tomorrow’s list is more, “Holy shit… that was not what I was expecting.” It’s all about tone.)
Of course, the list is completely subjective to me and what my personal feelings were on the films back in January and going into them. But that’s every list. They’re all subjective. This one is subjective to what ended up impressing me more than I thought it would.
So here are the pleasant surprises of 2019 (for me): (more…)
Some Hidden Gems from 2019
And thus begins the end of the year lists. We’ve got a truncated Oscar season this year, so things are gonna be all over the place. Some of the articles you wouldn’t normally see until January are gonna happen this month and some of the stuff that normally happens in January is gonna happen after the Oscars. It’s a weird year, guys, so just roll with it.
The first thing I do always do is kill all the lawyers when I’m starting to wrap up the year is to start broadly recommending stuff. Mostly because rating performances and things of that sort is pointless when there’s still a month of films left to watch. These articles allow me to go over things without the fact that some things are missing from the sample pool doesn’t really matter as much. Since they’re not meant to include everything, just some stuff that fits under the heading of the article.
The ones we’ll begin with over the next few days are Hidden Gems, the Films That Surprised Me, the Films That Disappointed Me and my usual Overrated, Underrated and Underseen Films lists. I try to not overlap the lists too much, so typically something that appears on a Hidden Gems lists won’t appear on the Underseen list if I can help it (though there are some overlaps, mostly on the films I really wanna promote. Which I could eliminate by shortening today’s list, but fuck it. The goal is to get people to watch stuff). But typically I try to spread the wealth as much as possible.
Today is the Hidden Gems list, with a sampling of films I think are gonna be cool little discoveries for people from this year that didn’t necessarily make a splash when they initially came out. Some are more hidden than others, but generally they’re stuff that I thought was really wonderful that deserves a wider audience. (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (Part II)
Second batch of reviews for 2019. This will cover everything I watched between May and August.
I feel like I’ve watched a lot less in this portion of the year than I have in years past. I’ve even straight up got about 15 movies sitting on my desktop, waiting to be watched, that normally I’d have made sure I watched specifically for this article. But this year, watching movies has been secondary to me to watching other stuff and writing. I’ve routinely not watched anything for 2-3 weeks and let stuff pile up. Though at this point, I’m just watching what I watch and that’s that. Though I think less movies came out this year than last year. I’m not gonna go look, but that’s what it feels like.
I’ve also been doing my best to get the last of the Top Ten lists done, gearing up for next year, which — next year is balls to the wall content. Til then, you’re just gonna have to make due til Thanksgiving. It’ll be worth it.
Here’s all the stuff I saw between May and now: (more…)
2019: The Year in Reviews (Part I)
I was really interested to see how this part of the year turned out. Last year was insane. I barely watched movies for the first two months of the year, then somehow managed to get to 100 movies by the time we finished April. This year, it went about as it usually does — I spend most of January finishing off the last of the previous year’s movies, writing up Oscar stuff and not really watching much of anything. Then about third/fourth week, I start the new stuff. That’s about where we were this year. Though not on a particularly strong pace. I had a bunch of movies pile up as we got through Oscar season, and then I started watching stuff in earnest once it was over whenever I could. And yet, somehow…hit 100 movies over the weekend (and I’ve watched about that number in non 2019 films already too). I guess moral is, I’m still gonna do the same shit no matter what the situation.
This, as I’m sure we all know by now, is the first reviews article of the year. I’m writing everything from 2019 I’ve seen thus far. I left ratings for it all back in January and promptly forgot about them. I write up reviews now and will be promptly forgetting about them. Then I’ll write up the second third of the year in August, and then we’ll put up the final batch in December just before we do the year-end wrap up articles where I pull all this stuff together and go, “Huh… that was all pretty accurate.”
So here’s what I’ve got for 2019 so far: (more…)
Five Word Film Reviews (2018)
This went from a joke I made in a review once to something I do every year. I love doing this article. It got tough for a year when I forgot to work on it and had to scramble to do it in like, a week, but now that I moved it from top of January to just before the Oscars, it makes it way easier for me to not start writing them until the last minute and pull it off more easily.
The premise behind this is simple. You know the famous Hemingway six word short story? Well, I’m doing that for movies. Only with one less word. Some people say brevity is the soul of wit. I say fuck that.
Notable examples of five word film reviews from last year, to give you an idea of what we’re going for: The Shape of Water — Sally Fucks the Fish Man; xXx: The Return of Xander Cage — He Never Left My Heart; The Lost City of Z — Hunnam, the Wrath of God; The Space Between Us — The Fault in Our Mars; Moomins and the Winter Wonderland — *In Seinfeld Voice* Hello, Moomins; Call Me by Your Name — Elio and the Giant Peach; Woodshock — *Kirsten Dunst Does Weed Once*; Wonder Wheel — *Pulls Out Acoustic Guitar* Anyway….; The Emoji Movie — 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩
So yeah, those are nine examples. Now you’re about to get about 500 more. (Also, I know this has become a bit of a running joke with me. 2016 I forgot about it and had to write all my reviews in about ten days. Last year, I pushed the article later to prevent that, still forgot and had to write them all in two weeks. This year… totally forgot I had to do these until exactly two weeks ago. Yet somehow… finished it early! Eight days early! That’s called growth.)
Here are five word film reviews of the movies I saw in 2018: (more…)
2018: The Year in Reviews (The Wrap-Up)
We spent two weeks wrapping up the year to see what I thought of everything versus what I thought I’d think back in January. Now we get to my favorite part of the scientific method: analyzing the data.
What I do here is lay everything out and see just how well I did at guessing stuff, and what I thought of everything this year, by rating, by month, by just about any metric I can think of. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I greatly look forward to doing this every year.
Before we begin, here are all the articles for easy referencing, to show you it’s all legit:
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2018 Film Release Calendar |
2018: The Year in Reviews |
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Films Without Release Dates (A-L) |
