Welcome to Day 5 of my 2019 top ten lists that I’ll be posting all week.
I found 2019 cinema releases to be disappointing overall. I went to a hell of a lot (thanks, Unlimited card!) and, though I very much enjoyed all 30 I’ve listed below, there were just far too many “average” movies released in 2019. Last year gave me nothing that will become an all-time favorite, which is unfortunate as a lot of recent years have given me at least 1 movie that I really loved. Speaking of which, I’ll be posting my top ten movies of the decade tomorrow. Again, I’ll cheat and make it a top 30 (like yesterday’s Top Ten Movies Watched At Home In 2019, which does contain some new favorites). I haven’t fully decided on the decade list – my top four below have potential to squeeze into the 30.
I’m not saying those below are at all bad, though. In fact, it’s a very strong 30. I’d especially recommend any in the top 20 & loved that things like Fighting With My Family & Hustlers were very pleasant surprises as I didn’t expect to enjoy them nearly as much as I did. Hell, even Child’s Play was far better than I was expecting! So 2019 was a year of some very good films, TONS of “average” films, but not too many dreadful films (or perhaps I managed to avoid those. I’ve not seen Cats!).
Here are My Top Thirty 2019 Movie Releases (by UK release date):
I’m not posting as regularly these days & plan to cut down even more in the New Year. I’m not sure if I’ll continue to post anything other than maybe my Monthly Roundups with mini-reviews of what I’ve watched each month. Because the one thing I’ll never stop doing is keeping lists of what I’ve watched. I’m a List NERD.
So, as the year is almost over, here are my current Top Ten Movie Lists For 2019 So Far. Will be interesting to see if they change much over the next month. Please please please let Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker be good enough to make the list…
These lists are from numbers 1 to 10 (just to be awkward as I usually count down to number one).
1. A Matter Of Life And Death – 8/10
2. Yojimbo – 8/10
3. Deep Red (Profondo Rosso) – 8/10
4. Ip Man – 8/10
5. Infernal Affairs (Mou gaan dou) – 7.5/10
6. In The Heat Of The Night – 7.5/10
7. Wind River – 7.5/10
8. The Hunt (Jagten) – 7.5/10
9. Miss Hokusai – 7.5/10
10. The Great Adventure Of Horus, Prince Of The Sun (aka The Little Norse Prince) – 7.5/10
Oops. I’m two months behind. Well, here’s what I watched in September. I’ve managed to review the 2019 releases, linked below. I’ve done mini-reviews of the older films.
– Midnight Express – I watched this movie as part of my Blind Spot Project so I’ll try to give it a full review by the end of the year. I’ll be honest – I only added it to my list for a) The Giorgio Moroder score and b) John Hurt. Those two things were great, as I’d expected. But the movie overall was just okay and I know it strayed too far from the true story. – 7/10
– Wild – Finally got around to watching this one for Reese Witherspoon’s Oscar-nominated performance. Interesting – I hadn’t realized that Nick Hornby wrote the screenplay (with the real-life woman, Cheryl Strayed). I love Reese and she was good but, obviously, watching someone walk around in the woods for a couple of hours isn’t the most exciting thing in the world. Also… Laura Dern played her MOTHER?? WTF? So I looked up their ages. Nine years apart! I guess maybe the woman’s mom had her as a teen but, come on Hollywood! Dern was good too. The movie is good. It’s wild (ha! Wild!) that this woman walked 1,100 miles to “find herself”. Gotta give her credit! It sounds like it worked. I’d like to find myself too. Preferably from my couch. – 7/10
– Home Again – Another Reese Witherspoon movie! Wild is obviously the better film but, if I was honest, I’d admit to enjoying this one more. It’s a lightweight rom-com, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with those when you’re in the right mood. And I needed lightweight after watching Midnight Express! Yikes. Anyway – what I really enjoyed about Home Again was that Witherspoon’s character was the daughter of a famous film director. As a movie lover, I always enjoy films that are about the film industry in some small way (which is why Cinema Paradiso is a favorite film of mine). She’s newly separated from her husband and ends up letting three cute young filmmaker dudes stay in her empty guesthouse. The movie doesn’t exactly break new ground in this genre but the characters were likeable enough and the heartfelt soppy stuff didn’t go overboard or get annoying. The IMDb rating is too low – the movie is perfectly fine. I’m not sure what people were expecting. Maybe more romance? But Reese turns 40 in the movie and has two young daughters so I liked that there was a realistic focus on more than just “romance” in her life. There’s more to life!! – 6.5/10
– Juliet, Naked – I read this Nick Hornby book last year (review HERE). It was okay but definitely not a favorite book of his for me. I had to see the movie adaptation, though, especially as it starred Ethan Hawke as the recluse rock star (good casting – it worked well).– 6.5/10
– Paddington – People won’t shut the hell up about how good Paddington 2 is so I finally talked my daughter into watching the first one to get started (she really didn’t want to). This movie was fine. Paddington is very cute and loveable. I’m guessing the second movie is WAY better, though?? This is certainly nothing all that special. Just a typical, sweet family movie. – 6/10
Rewatched:
– Forrest Gump – It had been a long time since I’d seen this one. To be honest, I’ve been a little pissed off at this movie for years knowing it beat the superior The Shawshank Redemption as the Best Picture Oscar winner. It’s a really good film and definitely the kind of thing The Academy goes for, but I’ve never seen it as some epic classic. I mean, it’s not up there with the likes of Gone With The Wind or something. Tom Hanks is great, though. He created a truly iconic character and was deserving of his Oscar. Gary Sinise was also good but the rest of the characters have always fallen a little flat for me (including Sally Field and even Robin Wright’s Jenny). Sorry, Jenny! I totally just said Jenny in my head the way Forrest says it… I actually find most of the characters unlikeable besides Forrest & Bubba (but I suppose that’s kind of the point? Stupid is as stupid does and all that?). The soundtrack is GREAT, though, especially the Vietnam era stuff. God that was a great time for music. Inserting Forrest into bits of history didn’t work as well for me this time, though. The film is also too American (I’m allowed to say that as an American!). Overall, I felt the film hasn’t aged as well as I’d been expecting. But they sure as shit better not do a sequel. I saw the proposed sequel idea and it sounded dreadful. Just leave some movies alone! Forrest Gump is fine how it is. – 7.5/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH
I didn’t spend much time reading in September and the only TV show I watched was a few episodes of Inside No. 9. I’d been wanting to check it out since it sounded weird and a bit “Twilight Zone“, which is my all-time favorite show. So far, it’s like if the brilliant The Twilight Zone hadn’t been a masterpiece of storytelling and was instead really shit. Maybe I’ll give another episode or two a chance. Maybe it gets better? It has sort of a dark humor, which doesn’t really work.
BLOG PLANS FOR OCTOBER
Well, I did October Horror Month again and posted a horror movie review every day of the month. Fun but tiring – I think this was the last year I’ll do that. And I always miss being able to review non-horror during October.
October Releases I Wanted To See:
– Joker – Saw it. My review will be posted tomorrow. Good film. The controversy was ridiculous.
– Judy – Also saw this. My review will be posted on Monday. Thought this was really good.
– Gemini Man – Didn’t bother with this after it got bad reviews. That’s a shame. Will Smith doesn’t seem to know how to pick ’em anymore.
– Abominable – Think this is still knocking around at some cinemas. Might still take my daughter to it.
– The Day Shall Come – Also didn’t bother with this due to fairly bad reviews.
– The Peanut Butter Falcon – Man, I HATE the stars of this one but it’s had some very good reviews. I’ll check it out on Netflix.
– Terminator: Dark Fate – Had some fun moments but, overall, this film REALLY pissed me off.
– The Addams Family – Meh. Okay but too “cute”. Was aimed at too young of an audience.
– Monos – As if this showed anywhere near me… I get so annoyed at only being able to see mainstream movies locally.
– Doctor Sleep – SAW IT! Of course. Being a massive Stephen King fan, I saw this opening day. It’s very good but it’s no The Shining.
I try to end with music from one of the movies I watched each month. As the Giorgio Moroder score was a big part of the reason why I chose to watch Midnight Express, here’s The Chase:
Based on “The Hustlers at Scores” by Jessica Pressler
Starring: Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Stiles, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart, Lizzo, Cardi B
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) The plot follows a crew of strippers in New York City who begin to steal money by drugging stock traders and CEOs who visit their club, then running up their credit cards.
My Opinion:
Wow. I was NOT expecting to like this one as much as I did. In fact, I had no intention of even going to it until it started getting great reviews. For one thing, Cardi B annoys the shit out of me. But she only has a really small role and, to be honest, she was perfect for it.Also, I’m just really not a chick flick girly girl. However, I do like Jennifer Lopezso figured I’d give this one a chance after all. Good god J-Lo is sexy!!! She’s 50! That BODY! How does she keep that body like that? How can I have a body like that?? I want it. Do I have to stop eating Doritos?!
This turned out to not be a silly “chick flick”, although I suppose it is aimed more at women than men. What I liked is that these characters felt very real. I mean, it IS based on a true story but the character development was very good for Constance Wu’s & Jennifer Lopez’s characters. We didn’t learn anything about the other girls but that didn’t matter as they weren’t the focus of the story. Their friendship felt genuine and Lopez was absolutely brilliant in this role. I’d actually love to see her get a nomination for this role but The Academy is very unlikely to give out awards to a “stripper movie”. Then again, it would be good for their image since everyone thinks the Oscars are all about old white men these days… Nominate J-Lo! She should get an Oscar for her performance and an Oscar for that body.
This movie got the right balance in not demonizing thesecharacters but also not making them into some sort of heroes. You’ll like the main two characters while at the same time thinking “Okay – you need to stop doing this”. What they did was wrong and they knew it was wrong but they were desperate, especially in Wu’s case. It became addicting and they took it too far. I think there was some slight backlash at first as people thought this movie was celebrating stealing from these men but this is not some “Men are evil! Fuck them! Girl power! Woohoo!” movie. Okay, yes – it’s hard to have sympathy for very rich men who visit strippers so it’s hard to see them as true victims here. It still doesn’t make what these girls did okay but the movie doesn’t force an opinion on you – It just presents the story and focuses on the two main characters and their motivations. It’s up to you to decide what you think of them. I just really enjoyed seeing a movie with such strong characters, great pacing & storytelling, and an awesome performance from Jennifer Lopez.
Cinema Parrot Disco 