97th Academy Awards Recap
Another one down.
This was an interesting year because in the end, there was a consensus, even if it didn’t feel (to me) like there necessarily was one throughout the process. But they got there.
Also another year absent any major surprises. The biggest surprise was, “Oh, so they went all in on Anora.”
Otherwise — not a whole lot of note for me about the awards or the show. Felt like it went crazy long again, even with the earlier time slot. Conan did exactly what Conan does. They went for a more classical ‘movies are magic’ feel. Definitely doesn’t feel as innovative as last year’s ceremony, though they did a few things that felt like they were trying to be innovative (having one presenter talk about all the nominees — though notice they distinctly didn’t do that for the lead acting categories — or having the filmmakers discuss aspects of the film during the video packages).
Mostly this is just a ho hum kind of ceremony to cap a ho hum kind of year. (more…)
The B+ Oscar Ballot: Guide to the 97th Academy Awards
It’s that time again.
This is such an interesting year because it feels like we’ve had such a wild swing throughout the season. We’ve had a general consensus of films throughout the race, but unlike most years, we usually start down the path with the likely winners winning from the jump and then it’s just jockeying for position or shoring up the lead. Here, we had two films win at the top, and then proceeded to see very different films pull through the rest of the way. It makes things feel like we’ve got a fairly wide open Best Picture race on our hands, the likes of which I haven’t seen in a decade.
Most times on these ballots, you’ve got a lot of automatic winners at the top, and that allows you to play around and take chances with the handful in the middle that could go one of a few ways (and then hope for the best on the ones that always can go one of a few ways). Here, all the open categories seem to be the ones at the top. That’s gonna be high risk for the people who only measure their ballots on how many they got right. But, good luck. Let’s see how we can do and let’s see what chaos 2024 hath wrought.
As I always say, if I can get the analysis right and be on track with how things play out, even if I personally guess wrong, I’ll be happy. Plus I do the Scorecard now anyway and that’s my measuring stick. Still, my goal here is to lay the foundation for other people to do well on their ballots. I’m just here to have fun. (more…)
And the Nominees Are… (2024)
We’ve got our nominees.
Last year (and probably the year before), I felt like I had zero time to prepare or get things in order, and I basically went into predictions cold and just sort of guessed, wrote it out once and left it at that. This year, I knew I wasn’t gonna bother putting up all the precursors as they came in and instead just built my predictions as we went along. So at least I was able to put thought into most of it. I will say, though, very little time and effort went into the Shorts categories. And boy, does it show (we’ll get to it).
I watched the nominations as they happened this morning, and very little made me surprised. Which I guess is what I hope for when doing this every year. The most I saw was ‘oh, that got left off there and that got on there’. Nothing like, “Where the fuck did that come from?” But I also saw them, made mental notes, then went on with my day and completely forgot about everything for 12 hours. So I’m only now just sitting down to process everything. So let’s see how this all shook out and what actually things of note are worth mentioning. (more…)
Oscars 2024: The B+ Nominations Ballot
Oh hey, it’s that time again. I’ll disappear for almost a whole year, but you know I’m gonna be here for this. This is my Super Bowl.
I will say, I bet the Academy is real glad to have Wicked up there this year because this is fixing to be the most niche set of nominees in a while. This year is gonna be for psychos like me and definitely not for casual viewers. And not even just financially speaking. I don’t care about that. I mean that four major (likely) Best Picture nominees are The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez, Anora and The Substance. Wild.
Anyway, let’s get guessing. (more…)
Oscars 2024: My Nominations Ballot
Best Picture
Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Nosferatu
Saturday Night
The Substance
Wicked
2024: The Lists
(Some) Hidden/Underseen Films from 2024
- Abigail
- Blink Twice
- Blitz
- Daddio
- Didi
- A Different Man
- Drive-Away Dolls
- Ghostlight
- Good One
- The Greatest Hits
- Hit Man
- I Saw the TV Glow
- In a Violent Nature
- The Instigators
- It’s What’s Inside
- The Last Stop in Yuma County
- Late Night with the Devil
- Love Lies Bleeding
- My Old Ass
- Rebel Ridge
- Sasquatch Sunset
- Snack Shack
- Stopmotion
- Woman of the Hour
- Your Monster
Mike’s Top Ten of 2024
I’m not sure we’ll fully know what 2024 was for a long time. At the very least, it’s a year affected by the labor strikes of 2023. Sure, we got some films that were pushed into this year because they couldn’t promote them in 2023, but more so we got a lot of films that got pushed out of 2024 because they couldn’t finish them in time. A lot of those films were big ‘anchor’ films that help define a year. And a year without those anchors becomes a year without an identity.
2024 feels like a year without an identity. Movies came out, some were good, some were fine. We ebbed back from 2023. Theaters were not as robust as they were, and it looks like we continued sliding down the path of streaming and limited theatrical windows becoming the norm, with an increasing likelihood that, unless people actively pay attention to what comes out and seek specific films to watch, a lot of films are going to get buried and not get the audiences they deserve.
I think that’s my main takeaway from 2024 — because most people couldn’t be bothered to go see good movies (especially with a lot of stuff that’s being pushed for them being super expensive, studio-driven, dog-shit films with ‘very long shelf lives’ and ‘multiple verticals’… you know… ‘content’) and because a lot of people probably don’t know about a lot of the good films that came out, I want to, more than most years, want to showcase the cool stuff so people can find it.
Most of the time this list is just something I do to wrap up a year. Increasingly it’s starting to feel like an important service to show people that there’s more than just ‘content’ that comes out each year. One phrase you’re gonna see me say a lot throughout this list is hidden gem — there are a lot of hidden gems this year and I’m so interested in seeing how time does to them. (more…)
96th Academy Awards Recap
Okay, another year in the books. We are somehow creeping ever closer to the eventual 100th Oscars, and I’m sure they’re gonna go all out for those. But for these — pretty much everyone saw what was gonna happen ahead of time and there weren’t any real surprises. Most years, a ‘surprise’ is something winning out of nowhere. This year, it’s ‘oh, this alternate beat the other nominee we figured was probably going to win’. The biggest surprise was “oh wow, Zone of Interest won Sound.” Or, for me, “They went with Emma Stone over Lily Gladstone” and “Boy and the Heron beat Spider-Verse.” Both things that seemed very likely, but neither of which seemed like something that was guaranteed to happen. Otherwise, pretty straightforward all the way through and nothing really to mention from a winners standpoint.
But I will say — the production this year of the actual telecast was superb. They finished early. 3 1/2 hours is the norm, and they nailed it. They were moving, they found ways to make things interesting. The bits in between categories worked. They did a fantastic job with the actual show portion this year (and bumping it an hour earlier was also a tremendously smart choice. I hope that continues in the future).
So yeah. That’s that. Let’s recap how it all went. (more…)
The B+ Oscar Ballot: Guide to the 96th Academy Awards
Here we are again. Another year, another Oscars.
One thing I really liked about this year is that there’s a consensus about the nominees. Most people seem to generally feel like the Academy got it right. You can quibble about a few specific categories and nominations and omissions, but overall, the films that got the majority of the nominations are largely ones everyone agrees are very good films. And it’s rare to have that kind of unanimity for an Oscar year.
The downside to that unanimity is that it typically leads to a feast or famine type of year, with films being either wholly embraced or wholly rejected. I don’t know if we’re gonna get that smorgasbord of films winning like we have in recent years. But that’s why we do the analysis, to see what’s actually gonna happen.
I will say the thing I say every year — I’m not doing this anymore to see how well I can guess. I, of course, want to get everything right, but the end goal for me is more to see how accurately I can pick apart each category to predict how well things are going to go. To me, having the film I chose as the secondary choice beating the first choice is almost as good as getting it right. I’m okay if the analysis is correct and I just got beat. I’m just here to try to help everyone else do as well on their ballots as they possibly can.
Now let’s see how well we can do this year. (more…)
And the Nominees Are… (2023)
I’m sure I said the same thing last year, but I had no idea what to expect with this one. Last year I was in the middle of life chaos and all of a sudden it was like “time for awards season!” This year, no chaos, but all of a sudden it was December and January and these things were out and I had barely finished watching things from the year and had to scramble to get halfway caught up on the shorts and documentaries and foreign films (and even then, I’m not sure I got to halfway) and then, within the span of like, three weeks, find out where everything was at and find the time to throw together nominations guesses.
I posted my predictions article yesterday without having had the time to look over anything a second time, convinced I was gonna do horribly. I thought, “Okay, if I can go 68-70%, I can escape feeling okay.” Both fortunately and unfortunately for me, it’s been the same 10 films all over the ballot. Which is good, since it cuts down on having to think about random stuff getting on and makes you feel like you’ve got a baseline of doing okay. But it’s also bad bad because you can fall into the trap of accidentally guessing the same five films to get more nominations than is reasonably possible.
I saw the nominations, but I haven’t yet gone through and seen what the totals are for everything and looked at the big picture. And I bet, once I do, we’ll end up with everything largely in the range of getting a number of nominations that ‘make sense’ for them. And that’s mostly what I’m gonna be looking for here, since, by and large, there weren’t a lot of ‘oh WOW’ moments for me. A couple of snubs, a couple of ‘oh, okay, they nominated that’. But, to me, the only nomination or omission that moved the needle for me happened in Sound. So it seems like a pretty straightforward year and I’m sure I didn’t actually do as horrible as it felt like I did. As I say — there’s always a certain percentage of this that’s going to be unknowable chaos. You have to expect that. So anything within the chaos range is understandable.
Anyway, let’s take a look at what was nominated and what it all means going forward (and, most importantly, how I did in guessing everything). (more…)
Oscars 2023: The B+ Nominations Ballot
Oh, hello there.
Guess it’s time to be picking Oscar nominees again. Better put on my cardigan and lace up the old sneakers.
This year feels even stranger than last year. There was a time about five years ago where, if I hadn’t seen every single movie by December 30th (even the insignificant ones), I was freaking out (I once went to a theater on December 28th to see Just Getting Started in 2017. That’s how much I had to make sure I saw everything). Now I’m like, “Ehh, haven’t seen two or three of the top films? Fine. The Top Ten list can go up in February.”
But in terms of this stuff — I’m at the point where I basically just roll out of bed for it. Not totally, because I do love it, so I do try to track it as much as I can and talk about it as often as I can. I just don’t have the time to devote to it like I did previously, so a lot of tit just gets rushed. Which is a shame, but at least I still get to do this. I do really enjoy this.
Fortunately I’ve been doing this for so long (and so much of this is based on empirical data anyway) that quite literally almost anyone can do this well if they care to. It’s 70% precursors, 20% doing it enough to know how things usually go (and learning to remove what you want to see from the equation as much as possible) and 10% unknowable chaos that’s gonna happen no matter how much you try to prevent it. I’m here because I love this and because I hope people, through reading this, can see how not difficult this is to do well even with a minimal amount of prep.
So, as we always do, let’s try to guess all the nominees tomorrow and see how well we do. (more…)
Oscars 2023: My Nominations Ballot
If I were able to select the entire Oscar ballot, this is what I would nominate:
Best Picture
Asteroid City
Barbie
The Boy and the Heron
The Holdovers
The Killer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest (more…)
2023: The Lists
Okay. For lack of keeping this article from coming out any longer, I’m posting it now.
For those who’ve been around for a while, usually I posted this list mid-December, before I’d seen all the performances of the year. It was just a ‘here’s what I’ve liked to this point’ kind of deal, in anticipation for the Top Ten List and the Oscar picks and all of that. Now, the Top Ten List isn’t even out and we’re quickly approaching Oscar nominations. So I’m not waiting.
Couple of changes I made this year — I cut out the ‘overrated, underrated’ lists. I don’t care at this point. I just wanna talk up the stuff I liked. So it’s just the Hidden Gems, Performances, Posters and Scores. And, for the performances, I truly didn’t have a whole lot I loved this year and couldn’t get my usual list of 15-20 each, so I’ve just cut it down to one list of 25 lead performances and 25 supporting performances. So there you have it.
I also still haven’t seen a small number of films, so there’s a chance a couple of performances could end up being ones I really like, but this list is really just a short term fix, so it doesn’t matter. In the end I will make it known which performances I really loved from this year. So, if a performance or two from high profile films doesn’t appear (and that film came out within the past eight weeks), chances are it’s because I haven’t watched it yet. That’s what this next week is for, and if I’m worried about this article I’m not watching stuff.
So here we are. Hopefully some people will either not have seen a bunch of these or know what they are and maybe want to check them out because of this. That’s the only goal here. (more…)
Oscars 2023: The Shortlists (and other Precursors)
Oscar nominations are out in two weeks, so I should probably start actually looking at things. I’m not as on top of stuff as I’ve been in recent years, so I’m trying to squeeze a lot in a limited amount of time. I suspect I will not end up being able to watch all I have in time for nominations, have to guess blindly and then catch up after nominations are announced. But such is the life of someone with no time who still finds it necessary to watch everything shortlisted each year.
I’m not gonna go as in depth on all of this as I usually do (and I’m really only doing this for one thing, as it’s my favorite thing to do, pre-Oscars, every year), but we will get into some stuff and broadly talk about things en route to nominations coming out. (more…)
Mike’s Top Ten of 2023
2023 is a fascinating year. On the one hand, interesting theatrical movies for people who want more than the usual ‘franchise and remake’ fare returned in a big way. The Barbenheimer phenomenon was truly something to behold and actually brought people back to theaters in a legitimate manner for the first time in three years. The part that went understated about those two is how both were (ostensibly) original and unique films. Sure, one is based on a doll, but everything about that movie is more unique than almost anything else that came out the rest of the year. And I love that, especially because the past few years were rough for theatrical films in wide release that appealed to people who wanted something more than just mindless entertainment.
On the other hand, I look at 2023 and think, “What a terrible year for movies.” Part of that is because of the strike that happened. So many films got pushed out of the year, either because they couldn’t get finished or couldn’t be promoted (plus there’s always a handful of films that shoot throughout the year that come out at the end, and those didn’t happen like they usually do). And so what we were left with — at least from my perspective — was a year that was so thin I almost couldn’t fill out a Top Ten list. Every year, I can get to 80 movies easily. This year, I struggled. I barely got to my quota (and that was after watching the stuff that would normally be icing on the cake for me — the shortlisted foreign films and documentaries). Even getting past 10 was tough. Figuring out 11-20 was the hardest I’ve ever had for a current year ever. It was rough.
And I understand it, but it’s weird to have that dichotomy. There doesn’t feel like there’s a middle class this year. I’m so curious how 2023 will age for me. Though I guess I feel the same way about 2020, 2021 and 2022 as well. So I guess we’ll see. (more…)
Mike’s Top Ten of 2022
2022 was a strange year. Not so much for the film landscape (though that is undergoing a sea change in terms of increasingly limited theatrical windows, an altered viewing experience brought about from the still-ongoing pandemic and an evolving definition of box office success, the consequences of which we won’t know for some years), but for me personally. I underwent a few major life changes and had stuff going on consistently all year (at least that’s what it felt like). As such, my film viewing was all out of whack. I watched the same number of movies I typically watch, but they came in bunches, often months after the films got released. Because of that, I never really got a sense of the film year as a whole. But it did mean I got to see all the films on my own terms, removed from knowing (for the most part) how the public at large felt about them. This is something I strive for, and this is about as close as I’ve ever gotten to having a pure opinion about nearly everything that came out in a year.
Then again, it’s really not much different from how the past two years have been. Most of us haven’t really gone back to theaters in any meaningful way and, if we have watched any quantity of films, it was often done via streaming, usually way after the films came out, if at all. And what I’m noticing, with films becoming more like TV or streaming… they just become part of that mound of content and it becomes harder to have them stand out unless they’re one of the ‘major’ ones. For every Avatar and Top Gun, there’s a dozen other films that so many people might not ever know exist because they’re buried under a mound of other options on that same service they’re on. And, unless you’re someone on the lookout for things, you just see a name and a picture in a little box, and you don’t know what that is. It makes me feel doing this list is even more imperative than other years, since at least I have somewhat of an ability to introduce people (at least like, four of you) to cool stuff that’s out there.
One trend I did see this year, though, is that it feels like a year of self-reflection and self-indulgence. A lot of films feel like personal projects from their filmmakers, who either wanted to tell their own stories or tell the stories they’ve always wanted to tell (likely accelerated by all that down time that first year of the pandemic), often in such a way that you almost can’t believe they were even allowed to do it. That, to me, feels like the overarching ‘theme’ of 2022, and even though a lot of these films were divisive among audiences now, I do think they will end up being looked at as the most interesting things to come out this year. (more…)
Mike’s Top Ten of 2021
2021 is like the flood after a storm. With the crazy year 2020 was, so much stuff was pushed in the hopes of finding an audience not fully burdened with the possible fall of democracy and a global pandemic and, as the year went on, they figured out how to keep working safely and things got back to being filmed. So we had not only all the stuff that was shot throughout the pandemic but also the stuff that was supposed to be released last year, which ended up giving us a real smorgasbord of films to pick from. And, for a change, I definitely didn’t feel worried I wasn’t gonna have enough stuff to put in my top ten.
One thing that will be interesting to look back on in regard to this year (much like last year) is what films people end up gravitating toward and/or discovering over time. Because with the shifting release schedule (most films this year either went day-and-date or went to streaming 30 or 45 days from their theatrical release date, as opposed to the 90 it used to be) and the already-present overabundance of content for people to watch, I haven’t gotten the sense that most people are aware of the a lot of these films. In the latter part of this year, I found myself as the only person in a theater to watch some of these choices. Which means that people either don’t know, don’t care or are waiting for the films to go streaming to see them (which is dicey for some of them because unless it’s a major title, it’s so easy to lose something in the shuffle). Which opens up a whole can of worms of questions in and of itself. But for my purposes here, I am curious to see what films end up later becoming hits when people actually get around to seeing them. And hopefully will do my part to get some people to watch a few of these.
One trend, though, that I think will be fairly uniform across the board for 2021: most people seem to be agreeing on the same crop of films as the best ones. Pandemic or no pandemic, the best filmmakers are still making the best films. (more…)
Mike’s Top Ten of 2019
So these recent years are difficult to talk about because — I just talked about them. I only posted the original Top Ten list for this year last year. Only a year has passed and usually that’s not a whole lot of time to see how your opinion changes. Usually it’s only enough to see where you overreacted to certain films or maybe undervalued others. But I’m happy to say — I think I got this one right. At least for now. We’ll see what happens in 3-5 years, but at the moment, aside from some minor number shifting (which is meaningless anyway), I’m very happy with the films I chose to be on this list.
That’s the one thing I’m seeing as we move further from this year — it was an incredible year of film. I knew at the time the top ten list was strong, but I didn’t realize just how strong. I’m only liking these movies more as time goes on. And all up and down the line, there’s some fantastic and memorable stuff. It’s gonna hold up. Which is good, since the year after this is perennially gonna be a giant shit show, so at least we’ve got this one. (more…)
Mike’s Top Ten of 2020
This… was a weird year. We had a global pandemic, brought on by a government that ignored it and abandoned people in need and we all ended up stuck inside for most of the year. I believe it’s been in the papers. All of this, of course, had a trickle-down effect on movies. Theaters were closed for the majority of the year, which forced most studio releases onto streaming platforms if not into 2021 entirely (especially awards-level films, which usually make up a good portion of this list). And so, while I was still left with some quality choices, I did feel like this year was a lot thinner at the top and more populated with stuff I’d consider ‘just okay’ rather than truly noteworthy. So I guess what I’m saying is — a government abandoning people during a crisis, trickle-down effects and a spate of mediocre movies — I’m just gonna go ahead and blame 2020 on Ronald Reagan.
This, above all other years around it, feels like a year that will only truly be understood over time. I don’t think any of us were in the right frame of mind to truly consider what this year had to offer in the moment. So of all my Top Ten lists, I expect this to be the one that undergoes the most scrutinization and change. I also expect this to be a year with an increased ratio of hidden gems for people, since I don’t even think people watched the stuff at the top, let alone looked for things beneath the surface. (more…)
Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (10-1)
This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.
One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.
Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.
So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)
Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (20-11)
This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.
One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.
Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.
So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)
Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (30-21)
This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.
One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.
Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.
So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)
Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (40-31)
This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.
One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.
Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.
So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)
Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (50-41)
This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.
One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.
Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.
So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)
B+ Movie Blog 