Only eight films to go, and I will have done this for a third year in a row. What have I learned in that time? I guess I'll have to think with all the free time I'll have next year when I'm not spending every other moment watching movies.
350. Under the Silver Lake (2018) - December 18th
I can't recall the last time I watched a movie so skillfully made and yet barely worth experiencing. The visual style is incredibly well-realised and heavily reminiscent of noir films, with occasional blatant references to films like Rear Window. Meanwhile, the story is a self-serious mess of half-baked conspiracy theories and masochistic self-righteousness wrapped in convoluted plot twist after convoluted plot twist barely held together by a committed performance from Andrew Garfield. It's almost interesting that the story starts because of a lack of agency in the main character's life, that he throws himself in to every step of this insane conspiracy because he finds himself with nothing better to do, but the film buying in to everything the character discovers for the sake of a few senseless twists about rich people transcending life with a fantasy harem as an attempt at societal critique is as ambitious as it is mind-numbing. I'm impressed with the film's visual strengths, and that the filmmakers would even attempt to tell this story, but not with the story itself, or any other attempt by the film to be engaging. - 5.5/10
351. Johnny English Strikes Again (2018) - December 18th
This a sadly flaccid attempt to continue the continue to somewhat shaky Johnny English saga, containing none of the minor moments of wit that made the first two palatable despite their fairly obvious lampoonery. Rowan Atkinson plays the role as impressively as ever, the lifeblood of what makes the first two consistently watchable, but the overt attempts at satire of the proliferation of technology and the modern incompatibility of classic spy stories are somehow even more bland than they were in the previous film. It's a shame, too, because the introduction of English in this movie, as a school teacher secretly giving his students lessons in spy work was so joyful I wouldn't have minded if it was the whole point of the movie, but everything else is so bland and inoffensive that it can't make an impression even when it's competent. - 4/10
352. The Bourne Legacy (2012) - December 19th
The legacy isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's still quite good, following the same sort of action fare but with a style lacking the shaky camera work that defined the trilogy, and Renner is a serviceable if not particularly memorable lead, which can also be said for much of the movie's plot. The story fares a little better, almost adding enough to Renner's performance for me to care about him once the action is over, but it's buried underneath the convoluted swath of espionage and intrigue the plot throws on top. - 6/10
353. Roma (2018) - December 19th
Watching so many films often leads to a stream of them passing right through me, barely a thought put to them afterwards as they become just another number I add to my list. However, some films are indelible. Usually there are aspects of films that I've become accustomed to that tell me by film's end I'll never forget them, and as I find more films that evoke the same ideas These films become unforgettable by proxy. A couple of years ago I slowly went through Roger Ebert's final "Sight and Sound" list, describing what he thought to be the ten greatest films of all time, one of which was Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story, a film that applied distinct techniques to tell a very personal story with a climax so quiet and unassuming I'd scarcely notice it if it weren't for the fact that I had unwittingly become enthralled by the film. Tokyo Story is deservedly considered the best film of all time by many, and two years on from my single experience with the film and I still can't stop thinking about it. So while it's been but a few days and therefore normally far too early for me to tell if a movie's impact upon me will be something that I'll think about in the future, much of Roma feels reminiscent of Tokyo Story to me, for reasons I haven't wholly been able to grasp yet (aside from the familial focus of both films), but still distinctly its own thing that allows Alfonso Cuaron's particular style and technique tell a story in a way only he could. I don't know if it's more effective now to say that Roma is a masterpiece in every regard, or to say that it reminded me of Tokyo Story in a way no other film has. My full review can be found here. - 10/10
354. Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988) - December 21st
Or: Mad Max as a harem anime. Where most post-apocalyptic movies deal with scarcity of necessities like water, or toy with things people treat as necessities like fuel, this film deals with another scarcity altogether: sperm. The movie is literally about the fact that radiation has rendered most of the world infertile, and a drifter apparently so unaffected by it and so prodigious that he's tracked by a trail of pregnancies he leaves in his wake. It's like the plot to a porno, but without any actual sex and a surprisingly decent effects budget. Still, the film knows exactly how silly it is, making enough fun of its premise that it feels like some of what Kung Fury was trying to emulate. When Sam Hell, played with just the right attitude by Roddy Piper, responds to a proposition from an enamored frog woman by holding up a burlap sack for her to wear, when a frog majordomo wears a white suit and a red fez, when the lead woman characters have names like "Spangle", and "Centinella", it's hard not to enjoy a film that so vehemently refuses to take itself seriously. - 6/10
355. Widows (2018) - December 21st
A beautiful, sprawling and messy film, carried by a myriad of strong performances and an ever-twisting plot. My full review can be found here. - 7.5/10
356. Showgirls (1995) - December 22nd
As bad as this is, it's so cynical, so obviously trying to be satire, and so often made me laugh with its merciless jabs at the "star is born" formula, that I just can't hate it. At the best of times I actually really enjoy it, such as when the film turns a formulaic scene where the "star" is approached by people who knew who her when she wasn't, but the dialogue is all twisted and disgusting; the beats of the scene are all the same, even down to the dramatic pauses for emotional effect, but instead of having something sweet to say, the best (by which I mean, most revolting) a character can offer is "Must be weird not having anybody cum on you." The film seeks to offend and bring to light the nauseating realisations of the cutthroat world of show-business that only seeks to sexualise and expend, as a counter to all the work that glamourises it, and when it manages to get a point across it's actually fairly effective criticism, not even flinching when it turns from sexual to brutal and tries to hammer home that every single person in the world is garbage, but so much of the film seems to lack a real focus, like the filmmakers were mad at the celebration of an industry that chews people up and spits them out as the height of humanity, but didn't know exactly how to turn that anger in to coherency, instead lashing out at everyone and everything and being distasteful as possible the whole time to get attention. - 5/10
It's weird looking at this movie in 2018 and hearing about all of the critical re-evaluations this film has had in the 23 years since its release while comparing it to the panning the film received at that time. Much of what the film actually says was summarily ignored in favour of lambasting the film (not undeservedly so) for how it says it, but since 1995 much of that conversation has petered out, and what's left has turned to the themes and satire abundant in the film, attempting to get beyond the unpleasantness that is the experience of the film itself so that people can examine what the film means to be about. I kind of commend anyone who can disregard or even incorporate hilariously awkward conversations about "nice tits," or sex scenes where a character spins about like a propeller, in order to discuss the actual criticisms at the heart of the film, and I understand the need to do so: this a Paul Verhoeven film, after all, who has never played it straight and always attempted to criticise with his work. That said, I don't entirely buy this myself, like I said this isn't co-ordinated enough to be as effective a satire as it means to be. Still, there is enough to the film that the conversation about the text beneath the texture is worth having, if you can stomach watching it.
357. Mr. Church (2016) - December 23rd
Eddie Murphy deserves a better movie. His performance is really solid, understated and natural compared to the rest of what the film offers, like snippets of reality in a film that's otherwise confused about how to achieve it. The rest of the film is bland melodrama; if it weren't so shallow, I might have felt something, but between choosing to take the perspective of someone other than the man the film is titled after and every other scene feeling like an after school special, I couldn't invest myself in a lot of what was going on in the film. The story is sad, but tries to force emotion through the sentiment and the tragedy of the situation, as opposed to showing real depth and development to make the characters feel like the real people they're based upon. Even the eponymous Church, as well performed as he is, has any depth of character hidden from the audience as a function of the story, so for much of the movie it's simply Murphy's considerable dramatic strengths that kept me going through this movie. - 4.5/10
Re-watches
69. Spy (2015) - December 17th
This was the movie that made me believe in both Melissa McCarthy and Jason Statham. Aside from Allison Janney, who is always the best thing about whatever she's in, McCarthy and Statham are the funniest aspects of the film, both separately and together. McCarthy shows considerable range for a comedic role, able to evoke awkward, self-deprecating humour off as easily as the angry, abusive stuff that made her the show-stealer of Bridesmaids, while still being the film's emotional core; she doesn't land every line or action perfectly, but she's relatively consistent in how well she plays off of everyone around her. Meanwhile, Statham goes in the complete opposite direction, taking the role of self-parody to delirious new heights; just about every line he utters is as ridiculous as it is hilarious, his self-awareness and willingness to laugh at himself on full display, each moment funnier than the last. These two are enough to make Spy one of the funnier films of the last few years; while the rest of the film is merely serviceable, the fact that the comedy lands so consistently is enough for this to be worth the time. - 7/10
Published December 24th, 2018
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