The Films of 2020 That Disappointed Me
So yesterday I talked about the films that surprised me in a good way… today’s the other list. The ones that I had some hopes for that just did not meet them. Not that I necessarily disliked them, but they just felt like they didn’t achieve what I was hoping they’d achieve, to varying degrees of disappointment. I’ll specify just how each of the films disappointed me, but in each one’s own way, it disappointed me. Again, I’ll specify that the list is only based on my own personal opinions, before you get all butt hurt about me putting something on here (hence the word “Me” in the title).
Here are the films that disappointed me most in 2020: (more…)
The Films of 2020 That Surprised Me
This is a list that’s slightly harder in a pandemic year, when a lot of the calendar was pushed to next year, but it’s not impossible, since if you’re gonna try to watch every movie that comes out, you’re gonna have some ones that you go into thinking will be one thing and come out going, “You know, that was way better than I thought.” I think the variance will probably be smaller this year, and the lack of big budget blockbusters will hurt it, but overall, I think I was able to find some movies that did, to some extent, made me go, “Oh, that was better than I was expecting.”
To put a finer point on it: this is mainly about why the films surprised me. The fact that they’re here is an implicit recommendation to go see them, and they count just as much as the Hidden Gems or any other list that I’ve put out around this one. I’m just trying to turn people on to some good movies here.
As usual, I’ll remind you that this list is entirely subjective and based solely on me and my own personal opinions on what I thought the films were gonna be versus what I actually thought of them. That said, here are the films that felt like pleasant surprises to me from 2020: (more…)
Some Hidden Gems of 2020
And so the lists begin. In a year like this, I feel like these lists are actually more important than they usually are (even though some of them will be made incredibly more difficult without having the theatrical experience and audience reaction to draw on), especially this one. Given that for the majority of this year, all the films that mattered essentially came out on VOD, a streaming service or PVOD, I’m guessing most people didn’t do a whole lot of movie watching. Maybe you watched some stuff here and there, but I’m thinking most people, if they could overcome the general dread and anger from the social and political events of 2020 and bring themselves to actually watch things, probably spent the majority of the year catching up on stuff they’d been meaning to watch from previous years and a lot of TV. Which means that you can use a list like this to tell you about all the cool stuff you probably missed.
Normally this list comes before my month wrap-up lists, so if you actually read those (doubtful, but possible), you’ll be aware of my feelings on most of these. But it’s still nice to have them out there. The next few lists (Films That Surprised Me/Disappointed Me and the Overrated and Underrated lists) are trickier, since they are more based on a shared viewing experience and reaction, but this one isn’t. So let’s just focus on this one.
Though I will say — I endeavor to only use films on one list. So if you see a movie on this list, you won’t see it on the, say, Underseen list. I try to spread the wealth as much as I can (with the possible exception being the Overrated list. That feels like it can afford a double entry if that’s how I feel).
Anyway, here’s just a sampling of some films I thought were really good and worth seeing that maybe you might not have seen or heard of: (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (The Wrap-Up)
Okay. We went over all the months and what I thought in January versus what I thought when I saw everything, and now I get to analyze it. It’s a lighter year than usual, but that doesn’t change anything. So we’ll begin with links to everything, just so it’s all on the up-and-up. And then we’ll get right into it.
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2020 Film Release Calendar |
2020: The Year in Reviews |
2020: The Year in Reviews (The Unreleased Films)
And now for the bookkeeping. We went over all the stuff that did come out, now for all the stuff that didn’t.
I always cover way more films than actually come out. Most years I’d say there’s about 100-150 that don’t end up coming out for various reasons. Last year was around 140. This year we’re at least 90-100 films above that. Of course, we all know why, but that just means we’ve got an abundance of stuff to deal with presently. Which, as I said, is just bookkeeping. The real interesting step is gonna be when we start going over next year, when we consider how few things shot this year and whether that affects next year’s totals.
But, before all that, let’s go over all the stuff I previewed that didn’t come out this year. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (December)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
Today we go over December. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (November)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
Today we go over November. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (October)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
Today we go over October. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (September)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
Today we go over September. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (August)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
Today we go over August. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (July)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
Today we go over July. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (June)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
Today we go over June. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (May)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
Today we go over May. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (April)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
Today we go over April. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (March)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
Today we go over March. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (February)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
Today we go over February. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (January)
No matter how strange the year is, we still gotta do the thing. You know how it works: in January I preview and guess ratings for a bunch of movies, then most of them come out over the course of the year, and then we recap it all in December. This year will be no different, though admittedly it’s a much thinner year to review than I’m used to. But, we can only review what comes out.
It started as a game for me to see how well I could guess stuff, but really, like most things on this site, it becomes a vehicle to try to get people to watch stuff. The tallying part is just for me to make it interesting. Mostly I’m just trying to tell you about all the cool stuff I saw this year.
We’ll begin with January and all the films I saw that haven’t officially been released yet. (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (Part III)
Well… we made it. What a weird year this was. Just when I got myself around to starting 2020… theaters closed and the world stopped. The film calendar was decimated, a lot of stuff was released online and streaming, but a lot of the major studio stuff was pushed entirely to next year. So we had this weirdly thin year for movies, which is really gonna make it hard in two weeks to pick out a top ten. But fortunately that’s two-weeks-from-now-me’s problem. For now, all we’re doing is going over all the movies I saw between August and now.
As always, some stuff isn’t out yet, so I can’t have reviewed it. I’ll specify it all at the end. Then tomorrow we’ll get into the wrap-up articles. For now, here’s the last batch of reviews (I know you’re all on pins and needles, waiting to hear what I thought about Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square): (more…)
2020: The Year in Reviews (Part II)
Every year at this time, everyone’s coming off summer and has all these $200 million movies they say are the ‘greatest thing ever’, and I’m always like, “But there hasn’t really been anything that good out,” waiting for the last three months of the year when all the really great stuff comes out. So I was prepared for this. How are the rest of you feeling?
One thing I’m finding with this year is that now that there isn’t a premium on seeing movies and things are either going PVOD, regular VOD or being pushed altogether, I haven’t been in a rush to see things like I normally am (is anyone else even watching stuff? Because it doesn’t feel that way). This year just feels so… inconsequential. There’s been so little I’ve gotten excited about. And also, just so little. I watched less than 100 movies during these past four months and still managed to see 98% of everything that came out. Which is insane. This whole year is insane.
Anywho, here are reviews for everything that’s come out this third of the year (plus a few leftover from the first third): (more…)
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…)
