My Top Ten Movies Of The Decade (2010-2019)

Welcome to the last day of my 2019 top ten lists that I’ve been posting all week. The other lists are at the end of this post.

So many people did “End Of Decade” lists that I figured I better do one too. I’ve had this blog since 2012 so I already had yearly lists I could easily look at anyway since I’m a list maniac. I’ve been rating and ranking absolutely every movie I’ve watched since 2012. God I’m a nerd.

It was a good decade for movies. I had trouble narrowing it down to only 30 so I’ve added some “Honorable Mentions” at the end as I didn’t want to ignore some movies but also couldn’t quite add them to the 30. I know I like some odd movies sometimes, so felt that lesser-known films such as Space Station 76 (definitely not for everyone!), Turbo Kid & Circle deserved a mention.

So here are My Top Thirty Movies Of The Decade (2010-2019), counting down to my favorite:

Top Thirty:

30. I, Tonya
29. The Artist
28. The Frame
27. Your Name
26. The Way Way Back
25. Brave
24. Moana
23. Hugo
22. Wreck-It Ralph
21. Despicable Me

Top Twenty:

20. In Your Eyes
19. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
18. Frozen
17. Toy Story 3
16. Edge Of Tomorrow
15. Sing Street
14. It
13. Guardians Of The Galaxy
12. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
11. Mad Max: Fury Road

Top Ten:

10. Mandy

9. Predestination

8. Blade Runner 2049

7. TIE: The Babadook & It Follows

6. Train To Busan

5. Ex Machina

4. Room

3. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

2. Inside Out

1. Arrival

Honorable Mentions (some more good and/or interesting films that I didn’t want to ignore):
Exit Through The Gift Shop
Circle
Space Station 76
Turbo Kid
Hobo With A Shotgun
The Adjustment Bureau
Colossal
Brigsby Bear
Drive
Tucker And Dale Vs Evil
Yesterday
Robot & Frank
Dredd
The Lego Movie
A Simple Favor
Gravity
The Handmaiden
Melancholia
Under The Skin

And a special mention of some great anime:
Wolf Children
Summer Wars
Mary And The Witch’s Flower
The Wind Rises
Arrietty
From Up On Poppy Hill

**And as much as I adore Studio Ghibli, I have unfortunately not seen these two from this decade:

The Tale Of Princess Kaguya
When Marnie Was There

These are the Top Ten lists I’ve posted this week:

My Top Ten Books Read In 2019
My Top Anime Movies Watched In 2019
My IMDb Top 250 Movies Watched In 2019
My 2019 Blind Spot Movies: Ranked
My Top Ten Movies Watched At Home In 2019
My Top Ten 2019 Movie Releases
My Top Ten Movies Of The Decade (2010-2019)

Happy 5th Blogiversary To Me

Yikes. Five years?! I honestly didn’t think I’d be doing this movie blogging thing for five years.

I want to say a huge thank you to the fellow bloggers who’ve dropped by in these last five years & had little chats with me on my silly movie & book reviews. I’m sorry I’ve been around a lot less this year and hate that it’s becoming almost impossible to spend any time on my blog or on the blogs that I follow. The whole reason for starting this blog was so that I could discuss movies with fellow film lovers since, in the real world, it’s hard to find obsessive movie nerds. You think I talk about movies all day long with people at work? Hell no! (That would be fun, though – where can I get a job like that?). So, thank you again to the special few who were here from the start and are still around and to all the lovely newer bloggers who’ve come along since. I feel like an “old blogger” now!

I always say I need to cut back on the time I spend here and I’ve done that this year but I’ll be doing it even more in 2018. I’d always kind of planned on quitting on my 5th anniversary but I’d miss the occasional movie chats as well as the one other reason I keep this thing going: to use it as a “movie diary” and keep a log of all I’ve seen & read. Because, as well as being a movie nerd, I’m also massive LIST NERD! I now have a record of every movie I’ve watched since 2012. Which is totally not important when the world is f*^%ing falling apart, right?! To psychoanalyze myself, I think it helps keeps me calm in the face of all the bullshit in the world. Or something. Nicely ordered lists! Nicely ordered lists could create world peace!!

So, I do have a plan to keep this blog going with a bare minimum of posts in 2018. I’ll focus only on reviewing 12 more Blind Spot movies (as I’ve thoroughly enjoyed that project) and the 2018 UK cinema releases I manage to see. The main other thing I’ll do is bring back an end-of-month post so I can at least very briefly discuss all I’ve watched in that month. At the moment, the movies I watch at home are getting no attention as I don’t have time for full-length reviews. I’ve watched a lot of really good movies this year and am annoyed to have not even mentioned some of them (For example, I really liked an obscure movie called The Frame. Here’s the IMDb link. I believe it’s still showing on Amazon Video.)

With these blogiversary posts, I tend to do a “Year In Review” post since it’s close to the end of the year anyway. This time, I’m going to do a “Five-Year Review“(!!). One thing I can really thank this blog for is that I’ve seen some TRULY brilliant movies since starting it because of things like my IMDB Top 250 Challenge and the Blind Spot project. Knowing you’ll be writing for a blog kind of helps “force” you to finally watch the more highly acclaimed classics you’d been avoiding for no good reason. Plus there’ve been some damn good new movies released since 2012. SO GET READY FOR SOME LISTS!!!! Let’s see if these can create universal harmony.

Here are some ranked lists of my favorite movies I’ve seen & the best books I’ve read for the very first time since starting this blog in November 2012….

My Top 20 Books Read Since 2012 (No one gives a shit about books so let’s get this list out of the way first.): 😉

Top Twenty:

20. End Of Watch by Stephen King
19. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
18. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
17. All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
16. The End Of The World Running Club by Adrian J. Walker
15. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
14. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
13. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
12. Horns by Joe Hill
11. The Fireman by Joe Hill

Top Ten:

10. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
9. Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
8. The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams by Stephen King
7. Joyland by Stephen King
6. The Martian by Andy Weir
5. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
4. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
3. The Colour Of Magic by Terry Pratchett
2. Tuf Voyaging by George R.R. Martin
1. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

My Top 30 Older Movies Seen For The First Time Since Starting This Blog (Movies Released Before November 2012):

Top Thirty:

30. Daft Punk’s Electroma
29. The Return Of The Living Dead
28. Million Dollar Baby
27. The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari
26. Escape From Alcatraz
25. Howl’s Moving Castle
24. The Last Unicorn
23. Ghost In The Shell (1995)
22. Ikiru
21. Natural Born Killers

Top Twenty:

20. The Untouchables
19. The Secret In Their Eyes
18. The Kid
17. Watership Down
16. Grave Of The Fireflies
15. Escape From New York
14. Battle Royale
13. Kiki’s Delivery Service
12. The Great Escape
11. Laputa: Castle In The Sky

Top Ten:

10. Road House (Seriously. How had I never seen this huge slice of AWESOMEBAD?!)
9. Rocky
8. Modern Times
7. Princess Mononoke
6. Akira
5. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
4. The Bridge On The River Kwai
3. City Lights
2. The Warriors
1. Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind 

(If you only knew how many times I flipped numbers 1 & 2 around…)

My Top 30 New Releases Seen For The First Time Since Starting This Blog (Movies Released After November 2012):

Top Thirty:

30. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
29. Your Name
28. Rush
27. Circle
26. Gravity
25. Robot & Frank
24. The Way Way Back
23. Baby Driver
22. Wreck-It Ralph
21. Edge Of Tomorrow

Top Twenty:

20. Train To Busan
19. The Wolf Of Wall Street
18. The Lego Movie
17. Ex Machina
16. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
15. It Follows
14. The Babadook
13. Predestination
12. Space Station 76
11. Sing Street

Top Ten:

10. In Your Eyes
9. Frozen
8. Blade Runner 2049
7. Mad Max: Fury Road
6. It
5. Inside Out
4. Guardians Of The Galaxy
3. Arrival
2. Room
1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Yep – I can’t NOT have a Star Wars film as my number one movie released since 2012. I can’t wait for The Last Jedi in a couple of weeks!

As you can see from these lists, I really do have this blog to thank for my newfound love of Studio Ghibli & Charlie Chaplin. I’d seen & loved My Neighbor Totoro & Spirited Away before blogging but decided to watch all the rest of the Miyazaki films for a month of Ghibli reviews. I’d seen no Chaplin at all before 2012. I highly recommend his stuff to all true film lovers, especially City Lights & Modern Times.

Oh yeah! I also discovered a love of Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns, it seems. I loved The Dollars Trilogy (especially the music in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly) and Once Upon A Time In The West. Brilliant! Thank you, blog! 

The other two directors I’ve been trying to further explore are John Carpenter (I’d already seen the majority of his best films, though) and Akira Kurosawa. That’s why they have the only two films in the lists above which I haven’t yet reviewed as I want to devote an entire week (or month) to their work someday in the future.

Okay – it’s time for me to shut up. You all probably stopped reading halfway through my lists anyway. Ha! I don’t know how many movies I’ve seen in these last five years (I’m too lazy to count, although I do have them all listed year by year on my blog pages). But I’d say I average about 100 per year. So… Narrowing it down to 60 favorites out of 500 isn’t too bad! Thank you again, everyone! Especially those who made it to the very end of this post… 😉

Now, as I feel really bad about putting The Warriors in second place after originally having it at number one, I’ll end this post with the ending of the movie. Seems appropriate. All our lives deserve appropriate songs that play over our end credits. Hmm. That sounded a little morbid. Sing it, Joe!

Actually, I want Morricone to score my real life end credits…

My Oscar Picks For The 89th Annual Academy Awards

I say this pretty much every year lately but I really don’t care about the Oscar nominees & winners anymore. The Academy is so out of touch with the general public’s opinion. Okay – I admit to being a film snob so, when I say “general public”, I mean us crazy fans of cinema. I mean people like you guys, my fellow movie bloggers. We should be the Oscar voters! 😉 If we left it up to only the general public & box office take, Oscars would go to shit like Fifty Shades. But that would still almost be better than going to undeserving movies that usually win because of behind the scenes Hollywood politics.

I’ll still watch the show, though, like I have for many many years now. I even continued watching it after moving to the UK, even though it means I have to stay up all night since it’s on in the middle of the night here. Why do I do it?! I dunno. Tradition, I guess.

I also do this post every year although, once again, I’ve seen hardly any of the nominees. Only two of the Best Picture nominees! Out of eight?? That’s pathetic, I know. To be fair, we were once again a bit screwed over in the UK. Hidden Figures & Moonlight have only been out for a week here and I’ve not had a chance to go to them. I badly wanted to see Manchester By The Sea & wanted to see Portman in Jackie but they had limited showings at a time I was too busy. As always, these Oscar-worthy films get pretty quickly replaced by more mainstream films so, if you don’t get to them right away, you’re out of luck. I like the sound of Lion so will watch it eventually and I’m kind of kicking myself for not watching Hell Or High Water after the hubby went to it & said it was really good. I may have the evening to myself so am tempted to rent it tonight…

I’ll give a quick list of links to my reviews of all the nominated movies that I’ve actually seen. Haha! Looking at it now, it’s a funny list. How obvious is it that, if you have kids, they rule your life?? And I wouldn’t change that for the world! 🙂 It just means that I’ve seen pretty much every kids’ film nomininated for anything. Including that stupid Trolls movie. Yeah. Trolls is up for an Oscar but Amy Adams isn’t. Screw you, Academy!

After that, I’ll list all the nominees for each category and what I WANT to win each Oscar and what I think WILL win each Oscar. And I’m certainly making no bets this year – I’m completely clueless and uninformed. Again, though, I just do this out of tradition I guess. And, as always, I pick my favorite sounding title from things like the documentaries & shorts because I know NOTHING about any of them. 😉 Especially this year. Yep – I fully admit it. If the Oscar clips make them look good, though, I’ll then look into them.

Here we go! And I’m happy to hear opinions from those of you who watched more than just kids’ films last year. 😉 And if Arrival wins EVERYTHING like it should, I may take back all my bitchy comments about The Academy. (It won’t)

All The Nominees I’ve Seen:

Arrival
La La Land
Nocturnal Animals
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Zootopia
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
Trolls
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
The Jungle Book
Piper

NOMINEES:

Best Picture:
Arrival (WANT!!!!!)
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land (WILL)
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Best Director:
Damien Chazelle, La La Land (WILL)
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival (WANT!!!)
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge

Best Actor:
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea (WANT & WILL)
Denzel Washington, Fences
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic

Best Actress:
Emma Stone, La La Land
Natalie Portman, Jackie (WANT & hopefully WILL)
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving

Best Supporting Actor:
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Dev Patel, Lion (WILL)
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals (WANT)

Best Supporting Actress:
Viola Davis, Fences (WILL)
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea (WANT)
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Moonlight
Arrival (WANT & hopefully WILL)
Fences
Lion
Hidden Figures

Best Original Screenplay:
Manchester by the Sea (WILL)
La La Land
Hell or High Water (WANT)
The Lobster
20th Century Women

Best Foreign Language Film:
Toni Erdmann (WANT & WILL)
The Salesman
Land of Mine
Tanna
A Man Called Ove

Best Documentary Feature:
O.J.: Made in America
13th
Fire at Sea
I Am Not Your Negro
Life Animated (WANT & WILL. Why? I like the name the most. I don’t know what any of these are about. Although I assume the first one is about O.J. Simpson??)

Best Animated Feature:
Zootopia (If this wins, I’m gonna throw something at the TV)
Kubo and the Two Strings (WANT)
The Red Turtle
My Life As a Zucchini
Moana (WILL)

Best Film Editing:
La La Land (WILL)
Moonlight
Arrival (WANT)
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water

Best Original Song:
“City of Stars,” La La Land (WILL)
“Audition (The Fools Who Dream),” La La Land
“How Far I’ll Go,” Moana
“Can’t Stop the Feeling,” Trolls (WANT, although the movie sucks ass)
“The Empty Chair,” Jim: The James Foley Story

Best Original Score:
La La Land (WILL)
Lion
Jackie
Moonlight
Passengers (WANT. Not seen it but Thomas Newman deserves an Oscar.)

Best Cinematography:
La La Land
Moonlight
Arrival (WANT & hopefully WILL)
Silence
Lion

Best Costume Design:
Florence Foster Jenkins
La La Land
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Allied
Jackie (WANT & WILL)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling:
Star Trek Beyond
A Man Called Ove
Suicide Squad (WANT & WILL)

Best Production Design:
La La Land (WILL)
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hail, Caesar!
Arrival (WANT)
Passengers

Best Sound Editing:
Hacksaw Ridge
Arrival (WANT & WILL)
Deepwater Horizon
La La Land
Sully

Best Sound Mixing:
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Arrival (WANT & WILL)
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Best Visual Effects:
The Jungle Book (WILL)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (WANT)
Kubo and the Two Strings (Also Want)
Doctor Strange
Deepwater Horizon

Best Short Film, Live Action:
Timecode (WANT & WILL. Yeah, I’ve just chosen the most interesting sounding title again.)
Silent Nights
La Femme et le TGV
Ennemis Interieurs
Sing

Best Short Film, Animated:
Piper (WANT & WILL) (Very unlikely it will but it’s the only one I’ve seen & it’s adorable.)
Pearl
Borrowed Time
Blind Vaysha
Pear Cider and Cigarettes

Best Documentary, Short Subject:
Joe’s Violin
The White Helmets
Extremis (WANT & WILL. And, again, I’ve just chosen a title I like…)
Watani: My Homeland
4.1 Miles

My Top Ten Movies Of 2016

Here’s my last post of this unbelievably insane & cruel year. Goodbye & good riddance, 2016! You’ve robbed us of far too many kind & talented people and left us under the care of far too many people full of pure evil & hate. I’d like to think that mankind deserves better than this. But do we?

Well, let’s lighten the mood slightly as I started this movie blog for one reason only: to discuss movies. Because I love them. In this fucked up world, we can turn to them and find a beauty that so often seems to be lacking in the “real world” (especially in 2016). I find it interesting that, as the world is getting worse & worse these past several years, we’ve also had some truly beautiful films that have displayed human kindness in a way that is so hard to capture onscreen without becoming overly sappy & sentimental. So, there must be some good people left? To be able to create art as powerful as in things such as the top two films on my list, there must be some good left in the world. Right?? All I know right now is that I wish Arrival was a true story. We need some aliens to visit us & give humanity a much needed kick up the ass!

A quick note that, as always, I go by the UK release dates for these end-of-year lists. Too damn confusing otherwise! I’m aware that my number 1 is a 2015 film in the U.S. (Which will still be pointed out by those who don’t read these intros). 😉

Here we go! My Top Ten Movies Released In The UK In 2016 (that I’ve managed to see – you can see my entire, ranked list of all 38 HERE). Counting down to my favorite & with links to my full reviews, these are ranked on my own personal taste as opposed to “worthiness”. But in my opinion, the top two are damn near masterpieces in a league of their own.

Honorable Mentions:

15. Kubo And The Two Strings
14. Everybody Wants Some!!
13. Captain America: Civil War
12. Deadpool
11. Midnight Special

Top Ten:

10. Moana

9. The Edge Of Seventeen

8. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

7. Nocturnal Animals

6. The Purge: Election Year

5. The Girl With All The Gifts

4. Your Name

3. Sing Street

2. Arrival

1. Room

My Other End-Of-Year Lists:

– My Top Ten Books Read In 2016
– My 2016 Blind Spot Movies: Ranked
– My Top Ten Movies Watched At Home In 2016 (not released in 2016)

I’m now taking a much needed break from posting anything for a while & instead catching up on reading other blogs and all of your end-of-year lists. So, for now, I wish you all a Happy New Year! See you sometime in 2017. 🙂

Happy 4th Blogiversary To Me

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving (or just a nice weekend if you’re not American). 🙂 As my blogiversary is so close to the end of the year, I always do a little recap of my year so far. This is post number 1,251 for me. Over all four years, I mean – that would be an insane amount for just one year. Still, I can’t believe I’ve put that many posts together! I should put as much effort into cleaning the house or something instead. (Ha! Won’t happen).

Okay – here’s my blog recap of 2016 (so far)…..

2016 POSTS

My Most Popular Post: It’s actually a page: My list of every movie I’ve watched in 2016 (ranked & rated, because I’m a loser). My top post is my double review of Turbo Kid & Space Station 76. That makes me happy! I loved the originality of both & SS76 is an underrated film that’s become a firm favorite of everything I’ve watched this year. The IPC’s Eric & I also had a chat on Twitter with a guy involved in the making of the film. I love when that happens! (This year, I also got comments on my blog from an actor in the great indie film Circle & an actress in David Cronenberg’s Shivers. Gotta love the Internet! What a crazy world.)

My Favorite Post: I really enjoy writing about films that make me think. I love when I’m still thinking about a movie days after seeing it & there were quite a few like that for me this year. So I loved reviewing Predestination, Circle, Nocturnal Animals & Arrival. I also loved reviewing Adrienne Shelly’s fantastic film Waitress, which deserves more recognition. She was a great talent & I wish we could’ve seen much more of her work.

2016 MOVIES WATCHED

Number watched: 109. Wow! How did that happen??

Watched In Cinema (My Top Five Favorites):
1. Room – 9/10
2. Arrival – 9/10
3. Sing Street – 8/10
4. The Girl With All The Gifts – 8/10
5. The Purge: Election Year – 7.5/10

Watched At Home (My Top Five Favorites):
1. In Your Eyes – 8/10
2. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – 8/10
3. Natural Born Killers – 8/10
4. Space Station 76 – 7.5/10
5. Predestination – 7.5/10

TOP TEN LISTS

My Most Popular Top Ten List: Looks like it’s a tie between My Top Ten Diane Lane Movies & My Top Ten Keanu Reeves Movies. (FYI – I’ve now finally watched John Wick. Not sure if it would quite make the list…)

My Favorite Top Ten List: My favorite this year was probably when I grossed everyone out with My Top Ten Period Dramas. I also enjoyed making a list of My Top Ten Wooden Actors.

SEARCH TERMS

My Top Search Term: Odd Thomas. I’m actually bored with this being my top search term, all because that cute girl up there wears a pair of panties that leave very little to the imagination. Of course, I posted an image of the panties scene so I guess I only have myself to blame…. 😉

My Favorite Search Term: Not sure – maybe the searches for Forever Ambergris, my post about a Tales From The Crypt episode starring Steve Buscemi & Roger Daltrey. It’s one of my favorite posts I’ve ever done. Possibly because it’s one of a very small handful that I actually put some effort into. Ha!

Here are my top search terms for the year so far:

2016 BOOKS READ

Number read: 12

My Top Five Favorites

1. The Colour Of Magic by Terry Pratchett
2. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
3. The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams by Stephen King
4. Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
5. TIE: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel & The End Of The World Running Club by Adrian J. Walker

Book I’m Currently Reading: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

Tiny November Recap

Movies Watched:

1. Arrival – 9/10
2. Your Name – 8/10
3. Nocturnal Animals – 8/10
4. Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them – 6/10
5. Monster Hunter – 6/10
6. Sisters – 5/10

BLOG PLANS FOR DECEMBER

Upcoming December Movies:

First let’s have a look at some of the movies coming out in December that I’m hoping to see…

Hell Yes, I’m going to these:
Rogue One (tickets already booked) 🙂
Passengers
Moana
May go to if I have time:
The Edge Of Seventeen
Sully
Snowden
Will wait for Netflix:
I Am Not A Serial Killer
Monster Trucks
Collateral Beauty
Bleed For This
Ballerina

As for blog plans, December is obviously a very busy month for a lot of people and I can’t see having much time for blogging. I have two movies left to watch for my 2016 Blind Spot Series & I’ll kick myself if I don’t manage to do those after doing 10 of the 12 so far. So, I think watching those two is my main priority. I’ll review Rogue One, Passengers & Moana. And I’ll of course also do the usual end-of-the-year-lists in the final week of December since list-making is near the top of my list of favorite things to do! If there’s time, I hope to do a few more reviews of my favorite books this year since I’m behind on those.

Thanks To All Of You

I do apologize for the blogging thing having to take a backseat to the busy real-life stuff I have going on at the moment (Which I know is the way it should be anyway & I hope it’s the same for the rest of you). But I do miss you guys & reading your blogs! Even though I’m not around here as much, I still think about you and hope you’re all happy & watching fantastic movies. Thank you to those who still pop by sometimes & comment on my hastily-written meandering reviews despite my absence & my taking so long to reply to comments lately. But you know I always reply to every comment, even if I’m a little slow about it lately. I love chatting about movies with fellow film nerds. You guys are the best!

By the way – I highly recommend Arrival, Nocturnal Animals & Your Name, all of which I saw in the past couple of weeks. What a month for movies! I sometimes watch movies I don’t really care about just because I think they’ll be “bloggable” (especially horrors for October). I need to stop that. Powerful movies such as the above three help remind me why I started this blog in the first place. Quality over quantity from now on! I’m going to scale things way back in 2017 but I plan to still be here next year for a 5th blogiversary. Where else can I go to rave & bitch about films with like-minded people? 🙂

Oh yeah… Guess I better end with a music clip like I usually do on these recaps. Here’s a clip of one of the songs from this year’s Sing Street. I absolutely adored this film! Highly recommend it to all lovers of music from the Eighties. We need more feel-good movies like this to be made.

Arrival (2016) Review

Arrival (2016)

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Based on Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang

Starring: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
A linguist is recruited by the military to assist in translating alien communications.

My Opinion:

YES!!!! This is good sci-fi. This is what I wanted when I watched Interstellar & was left extremely disappointed. This is intelligent sci-fi that doesn’t feel the need to dumb things down for its audience but also isn’t up its own self-important arse (like, you know, Interstellar). I didn’t look at my watch once while watching this & wonder if the movie was in fact five hours long (like I did with, you know, Interstellar). Okay – I’ll shut up about the massively overrated Interstellar now (I promise!). I’m just happy that Arrival is a great high-concept sci-fi film that can easily stand alongside some of the best classics of its genre (unlike a 2014 Christopher Nolan-directed, Matthew McConaughey-starring sci-fi film that shall remain nameless).

Arrival is a movie of two parts (like all the very best science fiction films): The cool alien shit and how humanity deals with their arrival as well as the more personal “human story” (involving the character of Amy Adams) at its heart. I’m not one for overly-sentimental stories in films as they so often feel contrived but Arrival handles the story involving Adams and her personal life beautifully & I found it very moving and not at all cloying (like I may have found with another film I won’t mention but that starts with the letter I).

I’m not great at handling these emotional films! Between Arrival, Room & Nocturnal Animals (although that Amy Adams film, which I reviewed HERE yesterday, was emotional in the completely opposite way), 2016 has been quite a year for movies that had me reeling with their sheer intensity. By the way – Room was 2016 in the UK so don’t correct me. 😉

Anyway, my “reeling” comment sounded corny. Sorry! But I’m not sure how else to describe that feeling you get from those films that are so well-made, through I suppose a combination of great directing, acting, cinematography, story, atmosphere, music, etc etc, that you end up fully immersed in the world of the film. It’s weird – movies seem to be getting worse & worse in recent years but the GOOD ones are actually getting better & better. There’s a huge divide now between the (many) bad films and the (sadly far fewer) films that are so amazingly good that they almost transcend reality. Okay – that really did sound corny.

My point is this: Arrival is possibly one of the transcendent ones. I knew I’d struggle writing about it but I’ve thought about it a lot since seeing it a week & a half ago. With movies like these, I don’t like to write about them until I’ve had enough time to sort out my thoughts. I currently have this ranked just below Room on my 2016 list as it still didn’t manage to move me quite as much as Jacob Tremblay’s scarily good performance in that. However, Arrival is the better film overall. The look, the story, the relationships (particularly the main one involving Amy Adams), the message, the aliens(!)… There’s nothing I love more than a good alien film! I loved Arrival & movies like these are what keep me watching & loving them despite having to sift through so many bad ones.

I’m not great with words (making this blogging thing a massive struggle) so I’ll just leave it at this: Arrival is a damn good film. I’d love to hear from anyone who feels the same. Or even anyone who feels differently and prefers science fiction movies starring Anne Hathaway & directed by Jonathan Nolan’s brother. And, please oh please, will you discuss Nocturnal Animals with me in the comments of that review if you’ve seen it??? That movie absolutely floored me. You’ve had one hell of a month, Amy Adams!

My Rating: 9/10

My Blog’s October 2016 Horror Month Recap

Hi all! Happy November! October’s month of horror-related posts is always fun but I’m also happy to move on once the month finishes. So let’s just have a quick recap of the 31 horror movie reviews & four horror top tens that I posted in October. 🙂

POSTS

My Most Popular Post: My Top Ten Crazy Ladies In Movies. This was by far my most-viewed post. It was a hard list to do as there have been so many fantastic actresses playing the “crazy” thing brilliantly. Plus I did all genres, so this one wasn’t horror-only. Us crazy ladies cross all genres. 😉

I was also very surprised that my list of My Top Ten Devil & Hell Songs, which I posted last year, was my second most popular post. Strange… Not sure where those views were coming from. The bowels of Hell, maybe?? Awesome.

My Favorite Post: Phenomena (1985) Blind Spot Review. I don’t have a lot of experience with Dario Argento’s films but I had fun reviewing this as one of my Blind Spot choices. It was seriously nuts & didn’t make much sense. I can relate to that…

MOVIES REVIEWED

My Most Popular Movie Review: Don’t Breathe. Ugh. How disappointing that this was my most-viewed review! I didn’t like this film very much & honestly don’t understand the decent reviews it’s had. But, as always, current releases get the most views which is why I try to at least review everything I manage to go to in the cinema. But I have a lot more fun reviewing unpopular old shit… 😉

All Movies Reviewed (ranked favorite to least favorite):

Magic (Blind Spot Review)
Phenomena (Blind Spot Review)
Trick ‘r Treat
Eyes Without A Face (Blind Spot Review)
Honeymoon
Absentia
Hush
The Invitation
Goosebumps
The Visit
Audrey Rose
A Good Marriage
John Carpenter’s Vampires
Fright Night (2011)
Deathgasm
Annabelle
Don’t Breathe
Housebound
Finders Keepers

Reblogs (Okay, I cheated a little by reblogging old horror reviews of mine at the weekends to make it up to 31 reviews. Again ranked favorite to least favorite):

The Descent
Dead Of Night
A Tale Of Two Sisters
The Boy
The Host
What We Do In The Shadows
Krampus
Dolls
The Innkeepers
Lights Out
Dog Soldiers
Oculus

Cutest. Puppy. EVER.

MOVIES WATCHED

Yep, I only actually watched two horror movies in October. All my reviews were for movies I’ve watched over the past year & saved up to review in October. Time management!

In Cinema:
Kubo And The Two Strings
Trolls

At Home (ranked favorite to least favorite):
Trick ‘r Treat
Desperately Seeking Susan (re-watch)
Blended (You know what? I liked this Adam Sandler film. Deal with it!) 😉
John Wick
Manhattan
Brooklyn
John Carpenter’s Vampires

TOP TEN LISTS

– Top Ten Crazy Ladies In Movies
– Top Ten Horror Movie Scores & Soundtracks
– Top Ten Creepy Dolls In Movies & Television
– Top Ten Horror Movies Of The 21st Century

SEARCH TERMS

My Top Search Term: “Michael Jackson Songs“. I posted the Thriller video for my Music Video Friday series to kick off my month of horror. Funny that this was the top search term (by far). Good to know his music lives on! This album is an all-time classic.

My Favorite Search Term: “Jennifer O Connelly horse ride gif“. Mainly because I like the added O. It’s just Jennifer Connelly, not Jennifer O’Connelly! I like that, though… How very Irish. By the way, here’s the link to that horse ride gif that pervs keep searching my blog for: Career Opportunities (1991) Review.

I also like “French blue movies” (that would be Blue Is The Warmest Color & Three Colors: Blue, I guess?) and “swimming pool scenes in movies” (because I liked doing that top ten list HERE).

Here are my top search terms for the month:

BOOKS

Book Reviewed: None – I focused on horror movie reviews instead.

Books I’ve Just Finished: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel & Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

Book I’m Currently Reading: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH

Very little. I’m in serious need of a blog break & focusing on real-life stuff. But I’ll never give this hobby up completely. I love watching movies & chatting with you guys about them far too much to fully give this up! So I have no specific plans other than to post reviews of current films when I happen to go to them & do the occasional top ten or older movie review when I have the time & feel like it.

On November 12th & 13th, I’ve signed up to do one review for the At The Circus Blogathon hosted by Serendipitous Anachronisms & Crìtica Retrô. I love that theme & had to grab the opportunity to finally review the fantastic 1932 film Freaks. Am looking forward to re-watching and reviewing that and to reading all the other bloggers’ entries.

Upcoming Movies:

There are two November cinema releases I’m desperate to see: Arrival & Your Name. Due to lack of time, my excessive movie-watching days are now behind me but I will NOT miss these two. Both are total “me” films. Sci-fi and critically acclaimed Japanese anime?! Yes, please! 🙂 Arrival is mainstream enough to not be a problem but I’m unlikely to find anywhere near me showing Your Name. I really need to live next door to an indie cinema…

Okay, I’m going to rank these like a loser! In order starting with what I want to see the most (aside from the first couple, I’ll probably wait for Netflix):

Cinema:
TIE: The Arrival & Your Name
Potential Netflix-watching:
The Wailing
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them
Bad Santa 2
Gimme Danger
Maybe watch if I ever have time:
Nocturnal Animals
The Edge Of Seventeen
The Accountant
Paterson
The Light Between Oceans

I always end recaps with a movie-related song so I have to go with Iron Maiden’s Flash Of The Blade as heard in Phenomena. MAIDEN!!! \m/