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) |
2018: The Year in Reviews (The Films That Didn’t Get Released)
So we jus spent twelve days going over everything that came out. Today we go over what didn’t.
At this point I track like 500 movies a year. Not all of them are gonna come out. A lot of stuff is gonna get pushed throughout the year. This is just me reorganizing that so I can be more targeted in a few weeks when I start over and start tracking for 2019. I can see if some movies look any closer to coming out, and decide which ones I want to stop tracking altogether.
So, this is a list of everything that was either pushed or hasn’t come out. I’ll tell you what each one is, look at what the current status is (if any) and decide whether or not it’s gonna be a part of 2019’s Film Release Calendar. Mostly this is record keeping for me, but should you be so interested, it’s all here.
Here are the films of 2018 that didn’t get released: (more…)
2018: The Year in Reviews (December)
After Thanksgiving, most people get happy because they know Christmas is around the corner. I get happy because I know these articles are around the corner. Even if a year is absolutely atrocious and I get absolutely nothing done on this site (like this one), I know that once December rolls around, I have things to say until March. But before we get into the Oscars, we gotta wrap up the year.
Here’s the skinny for the newbies: every January I preview an ungodly amount of movies. And then, from then through December, I watch an ungodly amount of movies, tracking along the way what I thought of each of them. Then, when we get to this point, I recap everything and see how close I guessed my eventual rating back in January. That part is mostly for me, but along the way you get my thoughts of all the stuff I watched (which will probably give you a bunch of stuff you didn’t even know about). So everybody wins.
Today is December. (more…)
2018: The Year in Reviews (November)
After Thanksgiving, most people get happy because they know Christmas is around the corner. I get happy because I know these articles are around the corner. Even if a year is absolutely atrocious and I get absolutely nothing done on this site (like this one), I know that once December rolls around, I have things to say until March. But before we get into the Oscars, we gotta wrap up the year.
Here’s the skinny for the newbies: every January I preview an ungodly amount of movies. And then, from then through December, I watch an ungodly amount of movies, tracking along the way what I thought of each of them. Then, when we get to this point, I recap everything and see how close I guessed my eventual rating back in January. That part is mostly for me, but along the way you get my thoughts of all the stuff I watched (which will probably give you a bunch of stuff you didn’t even know about). So everybody wins.
Today is November. (more…)
2018: The Year in Reviews (October)
After Thanksgiving, most people get happy because they know Christmas is around the corner. I get happy because I know these articles are around the corner. Even if a year is absolutely atrocious and I get absolutely nothing done on this site (like this one), I know that once December rolls around, I have things to say until March. But before we get into the Oscars, we gotta wrap up the year.
Here’s the skinny for the newbies: every January I preview an ungodly amount of movies. And then, from then through December, I watch an ungodly amount of movies, tracking along the way what I thought of each of them. Then, when we get to this point, I recap everything and see how close I guessed my eventual rating back in January. That part is mostly for me, but along the way you get my thoughts of all the stuff I watched (which will probably give you a bunch of stuff you didn’t even know about). So everybody wins.
Today is October. (more…)
