Archive
2019 IN REVIEW – My Favorites
Alright, so, as always with these things, I’m not claiming that these are necessarily the objectively best of the year, but rather my favorites, hence the title. Also, since I watch movies largely based on what I’m in the mood for, I don’t necessarily rank based on what I think are the overall best of my favorites, but rather I break the list down into genres, fitting each film into the one that I think best exemplifies their essence and what I would be looking for from them based on that genre. As a result, some of these could easily crossover into other genres, and I have notably placed musicals in places that you might not expect since I do not necessarily consider the presence of songs performed by characters to be a wholly unique genre — there can be musical horror films, after all, but the key distinguishing feature there is the horror element, since a fan of only musicals like Singin’ in the Rain aren’t likely to want to watch a gory movie in which characters tap dance on the heads of zombies. Make sense? Cool. So, without further ado… go screw yourselves, Oscars. I’m right, and I also beat you yet again.
Read more…2019 IN REVIEW – The Worst of the Year (…and also the ones in between)
Alright, so 2019 wasn’t the year I wound up kicking back into high gear with my writing, but I’m determined to get my list of best and worst movies reviewed before this early Oscars ceremony, and, dammit, if I have to cut out talking about the ones in the middle this time, I will!
First, though, I want to give a preview of the films you won’t be seeing on either list. These are films I saw and either liked or disliked, but didn’t particularly find to be extraordinary. If they are on the following section, they are anywhere from just mundanely bad to good, not great — at least in my opinion, of course…
| TITLE | RELEASE DATE | RATING (x/5) |
|---|---|---|
| Escape Room | 1/04/19 | 2 |
| The Upside | 1/11/19 | 2 |
| The Kid Who Would Be King | 1/25/19 | 3.5 |
| Cold Pursuit | 2/08/19 | 2 |
| What Men Want | 2/08/19 | 2 |
| Isn’t It Romantic | 2/13/19 | 3 |
| Alita: Battle Angel | 2/14/19 | 3 |
| How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World | 2/22/19 | 3 |
| Greta | 3/01/19 | 2.5 |
| Little | 4/12/19 | 1.5 |
| Missing Link | 4/12/19 | 3 |
| The Hustle | 5/10/19 | 1.5 |
| Pokémon Detective Pikachu | 5/10/19 | 3 |
| Brightburn | 5/24/19 | 2.5 |
| Ma | 5/31/19 | 3.5 |
| X-Men: Dark Phoenix | 6/07/19 | 2.5 |
| Late Night | 6/07/19 | 3 |
| Men in Black International | 6/14/19 | 2.5 |
| Child’s Play | 6/21/19 | 3.5 |
| Annabelle Comes Home | 6/26/19 | 3.5 |
| Stuber | 7/12/19 | 1.5 |
| The Lion King | 7/19/19 | 2.5 |
| Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw | 8/02/19 | 2.5 |
| Dora and the Lost City of Gold | 8/09/19 | 3.5 |
| Good Boys | 8/26/19 | 3 |
| Hustlers | 9/13/19 | 3.5 |
| Abominable | 9/27/19 | 2.5 |
| Pain and Glory | 10/04/19 | 3 |
| Let It Snow | 11/08/19 | 2 |
| Last Christmas | 11/08/19 | 2.5 |
| Noelle | 11/12/19 | 1.5 |
| Lady and the Tramp | 11/12/19 | 2.5 |
| Charlie’s Angels | 11/15/19 | 2.5 |
| Queen & Slim | 11/27/19 | 3.5 |
Right, so with all that out of the way, let’s get on to the real meat of this and present… my top 22 picks for the worst movies I saw from 2019…
Read more…
2018 IN REVIEW – My Favorites of the Year
I honestly didn’t know I ended up liking so many damn movies from 2018. Who knew? There’s a lot of reading here, so I’ll just cut to the chase… here are the 60(!) films I loved most from what turned out to be a pretty fantastic year of film, divided into categories, since I usually can’t seem to pit certain genres of movies against others. Consider this a roughly ordered list of the best films for any of your present moods! Read more…
2018 IN REVIEW – The Worst Movies of the Year
Alright, so I’m going to beat the Oscars, I just know it! … Personal goals aside, I did figure out that there were plenty of movies I liked or at least was indifferent to from 2018, much more than I hated. That being said, any year will have its stinkers, and here are 24 of them in rough order. I mean, it could change with time, but I feel good about this, currently, and definitely feel good about my top pick, so take this as kind of a list of terrible or even just really bland, boring movies from the year that leads up to the one to rule them all.
Read more…2018 IN REVIEW – The Movies In Between That I Have Seen…
Yes, I am, indeed, very late to starting this, but despite the agony of malaise, lack of motivation, and all sorts of other emotional afflictions I’ve been facing, I am determined to get my 2018 in Review series completed by the time the Oscars are awarded, starting with the films that I considered neither enjoyable nor awful enough to put on my favorites nor my worst of the year lists! As per usual, if you don’t see the movie here, there’s a good chance that I either didn’t see it in time, hated it, or maybe even loved it! Films that are on this list are not necessarily bad, mind you, but neither are they the greatest movies of the year.
Some of them were considered among the worst of the year, but I found something to enjoy in them, nonetheless, as is the case with the first movie on the list (which isn’t organized according to quality but rather release date within the US). Some of them either received widespread accolades or were loved by many, but I found them lacking in some way to not put it on my favorites list. Perhaps I found them boring or severely overrated? Three of the films on this list were nominated for Best Picture for multiple ceremonies, after all. Regardless, I hope you enjoy reading this list, even if I found none of them superlatively great nor bad. Please excuse the roughness due to aforementioned afflictions…
2016 IN REVIEW – My Favorite Films of the Year
Alright, finally! The end of the series. I’m sorry, guys, but I saw so many films this year, I’m actually thinking of returning to a limited Top 10 format or something. Regardless, as I said before, when I first started, 2016 has actually been pretty good for movies, even if you’re not really into indies and such.
As have done in the past, I’m choosing to instead order everything here by genre (roughly) and according to my favoritism, not necessarily how objectively great it is. Why? I feel it is unfair to compare certain genres against each other, firstly, and as for the second point, I find it’s weird to pretend like my opinion is fact, and so I’m instead going to be straightforward and say, “I enjoyed this one better.” Sometimes it’s just a gut feeling, you know? Still, all of these movies are great, and you can pretty much take their being here as a full endorsement should you ever see it available for streaming or rental and are curious. I, of course, also provided the Rotten Tomatoes score, in case you still don’t trust me, though.
Seriously, though, I can’t wait to get back to normal reviews. After a brief burnout recovery, of course…. Read more…
2016 IN REVIEW – The Worst Movies of the Year
Alright, so… I went a bit off the deep end this year, I think. I think I’ll exercise a bit more restraint for 2017. No point in stopping this year, though, when I’ve already started!
2016 was a crappy year, so here’s a list of all the crappy films I saw from it – all 43 of them, complete with answers for why I hated them, in approximately the order in which they sucked, in order of increasing suckage – though, really, what’s the difference between placement in 35 and 36? So, some of these are practically draws. Also, as always for these lists, I have included the Rotten Tomatoes score as of this writing, ’cause it’s always fun to see just how hated (or, in some movies’ cases, how confusingly liked) a movie is compared to my own ranking, right?
Anyway, forgive me if I’m a bit jaded and out of it this past year. I think I might write my list of favorite films while having a few beers…
2016 IN REVIEW – Between Greatness and Incompetence
Well, now we’re finally at the films that I actually did see from 2016. Below, in release order, are the films I watched from this past year that were neither great nor horrible. They made me neither super angry nor super thrilled. Again, they are ordered in terms of release date, and so the list does not represent a ranking. Should you watch these?
Should you avoid them? It’s really up to you. As the title suggests, I watched them and came away, generally, as feeling all of these were, generally, somewhere between greatness and incompetence. Read more…
2016 IN REVIEW – The Films I Didn’t See (November – December)
Alright, the last of the films I didn’t see this year! From here on out, it’s nothing but films I’ve seen. These are the last two months, when studios try to cram in every Oscar contender and pretender, even up until the final days of the year. There aren’t many of these that I actually feel compelled to see, now that I think about it. Perhaps 2016 seemed like such a crappy year because it was a lot more spread out? Or perhaps it was just the fact that it ended with Collateral Beauty? Regardless, there are some films here that look alright, but I think I saw at least most of the good ones, with some room for obvious outliers. Read more…
2016 IN REVIEW – The Films I Didn’t See (August – October)
Alright, so now we’re at the tail end of the summer and beginning of the Oscar season. Lots of documentaries made it onto this list. Also, a lot of Jamie Dornan, too, for some reason. Despite being a shorter time span than the last entry, this list contains a lot of films, mostly because it’s just closer to the present, and I didn’t have enough time to watch them all, rent them, or they’re not even out yet to rent in the first place. As always, however, I do reserve the right to watch any of these and include them on my final lists.
The Viewer's Commentary 