Overall 2018

This yearly summary is a special for me in several ways so I’m really excited about it. The first reason which I’m pretty proud of is that I managed to post regularly for the entire year. There were times when it was challenging to come up with something to say but I’m overall very happy with what I managed to do and I hope you guys reading it have enjoyed the posts I’ve put out this year.

The next thing I’m mostly proud of is that I managed to knock out 26 TSPDT posts. It’s not quite up to what I was hoping to achieve but I feel like I hit some stumbling blocks with some of the terrible movies I had to watch and the long mini-series that popped up. I definitely would like to pick up the pace this year because at 26 movies a year, it’s going to take me a long time to get through it all.

The final thing I’m proud of is my spreadsheet where I tracked every movie and most TV show episodes that I watched for the entire year. I have a rigorous record of my comments and ratings which has allowed me to do this:

# Watched: 337/365
Average Rating: 7.08/10
Enjoyment Factor: 0.55/1

So what do all those numbers actually mean for me? Well I didn’t meet my goal of 1 movie a day for the whole year, but since I’ve never even come close before I’m not too upset that I couldn’t make it. Even getting 337 was a challenge for me because during the week I don’t watch many movies so I have to make up for it on the weekends. It’s also hard to find over 300 movies that I’m even interested in watching. In 2019, I’m hoping to get over 300 movies and 52 TSPDT movies. Those other numbers basically amount to the fact that on average all those movies averaged an average rating almost exactly. But look enough about my stats, if you’ve come this far you want to know what my best and worsts of the year are. So here’s what you came here for:

Biggest of the Biggest of Disappointments

The first award goes to the winner of April, Mubi Streaming Service. After reading through all my summaries this had to be the winner because it’s the one disappointment that still hurts today. A new random movie every day is such an amazing concept and the fact that they’re specially curated by people that care about movies should’ve been a slam dunk. For getting my hopes up so high then crushing them with the endless assault of uninteresting movies left me with no choice even those this isn’t technically a movie.

Biggest of the Biggest of Surprises

This was a tough one because I like a lot of the surprises, but the award goes to a movie I forgot about until I read my August post. I couldn’t give this award to any other movie but Fried Green Tomatoes. As you might remember, this movie was part of the reason why I wanted to get deeply into movie watching. When you give a movie that much power, it’s highly likely that it won’t live up to your expectations and the fact that this movie met and exceeded my expectations makes it the clear best surprise of the year. I hope so much that this movie doesn’t make it on my disappointment list the next time I watch it, like so many of my first watch favorites. If that does happen, at least it earned itself some more of the spotlight. This is a must watch if you still haven’t seen it.

Worst of the Worst of the Worst

Here comes the big awards, starting with the movie that left the worst taste in my mouth this year. It was hard to pick because I’ve sat through some seriously bad movies. As bad as some of them are, and as low a rating as I gave them, this award must go to a movie that took several sessions to finish. It came down to February’s In Praise of Love which I even guessed could be the worst of the year, and my most recent December pick From the Clouds to the Resistance. I thought about it a lot and I have to give it to the latter. While In Praise of Love was awful, it was still a movie and I managed to sit through it to the end. From the Clouds to the Resistance was so bad I couldn’t even get through it all. To me it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Sorry if that’s a little harsh, but there’s a reason it beat out everything else this year.

Best of the Best of the Best

Now, with all that negativity out of the way, let’s end on a positive award. This is the most important award of the entire year and must be given to a movie that truly deserves it. The last award this year goes to April’s winner, a TSPDT entry, Johnny Got His Gun. Looking through all the winners this movie stood out clear above the rest. This is an incredibly moving movie with a lot to say about war, humanity, and forever changed the way I listen to Metallica’s One. If you’ve never heard of or seen this movie before, please watch it as soon as you can. For all the ups and downs the TSPDT list has given me this year, I’m grateful for it for having introduced me to this movie because I don’t think it’s something that should be forgotten.

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Well, that officially ends the year 2018 on The Waffleton Post. It’s been a great year and I’ve had a lot of fun creating posts and watching movies. I’m really hoping to top myself next year. Like I said, here’s hoping I can hit 52 TSPDT movie posts and at least as many movies as I watched in 2018, if not more. Thanks so much for reading, and look forward to my next post.

December 2018

Hope you guys all had a nice holiday break. I unexpectedly ended up taking some time off for posts since I was so busy. Another unexpected thing happened, which is that I watched the heck out of some movies this month during my days off and nearly beat my October record. I watched a total of 44 movies with an average rating of 7.25 and an enjoyment factor of 0.75. That puts it as one of my best months of the year so that isn’t a bad way to end off 2018 at all. It proved to be more difficult than I thought to populate my list this month because there were just so many to choose from. As usual though, I’ve done my best so here we go.

Best of the Best

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American Ultra – 8

I saw this on Netflix and was ready for a dumb movie I could just watch and relax to. I didn’t expect to actually like a self-described stoner movie, but it was much better than I thought. The story was over the top, but entertaining and it even got a few laughs out of me. I thought Kristen Stewart and Jessie Eisenberg made a great duo and were characters that I was rooting for up to the end. As my final movie of 2018, it wasn’t a bad way to end the year.

Downsizing – 8

Once again, I saw this on Netflix and decided to give it a shot, not expecting too much. I was pleasantly surprised because it turned out to be original and funny. The whole movie is based on the idea that to save the planet and conserve resources, people can be made small and will live in little cities that consume only a fraction of the resources of a regular size home. My only complaint is that the movie felt at times like it was going in a few different directions. It was book-ended with talk about climate change, but in the middle it delved into classism within the small community, then even what it means to be human with resentment growing between the regular people against the small. I would’ve liked to see it pick a topic to focus on and stick with it to the end, but I can’t say that I still wasn’t entertained by the movie I got.

Bad Times at the El Royale – 8.3

I had a really hard time picking out my best because I watched quite a few movies that were 8+, but I’m going with Bad Times at the El Royale because not only did the movie impress me, but it excited me for the future. If I didn’t know any better, I would say I was watching an old Quentin Tarantino movie. It felt so reminiscent of his past movies with the split timelines, multiple characters, and strong female roles. This wasn’t directed by him though, it was directed by Drew Goddard whose only other directing credit is The Cabin in the Woods, but this is a guy responsible for writing movies like The Martian, Cloverfield, and a few episodes from my favorite show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is a guy who has worked on a lot of projects that I’ve enjoyed and I never even knew his name. After watching this movie though I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye out for him because he made an entertaining, well made movie, with a lot of great characters.

Worst of the Worst

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A Simple Favor – 6.3

Here comes the first of the movies that made me mad during what is supposed to be a happy festive month. There is a lot to dislike about this movie, from the overacting of most of the cast, to the overly eccentric characters themselves, to the convulted plot, not one piece of this movie seemed to fall into place. Spoilers ahead so turn away now. The big “twist” in the movie is that Blake Lively has an evil twin (triplets, but that doesn’t really matter) and she used that evil twin to fake her death to claim her own life insurance money. This “twist” really came out of nowhere and felt like I was being tricked into being surprised. I didn’t really feel led into this revelation and that’s one thing in a movie that will instantly turn me off. It was close to being a not terrible movie, but I’m not sure it knew what it was trying to be. It was supposed to be a comedy drama but the comedy kept coming and going in waves and the drama parts took themselves so seriously that you forget it was supposed to be funny until the next weirdly timed joke. It feels like it was one of those transition movies for younger actors to get into deeper roles so they can be taken more seriously as an adult actor. Not even Anna Kendrick could save this one.

Peppermint – 5.4

This is a movie with the cliche plot where all but 1 member of a family is gunned down and that family member decides to go out for revenge. This one comes with a twist though, because the family member is the wife! Usually wives just get to die, but this time she’s the one who’ll be doing the killing. I thought this would be right up my alley but clearly if it’s on this list it wasn’t. I never really felt on her side for some reason. I know the cops weren’t arresting the guys that killed her family, but I never got behind her cause. So I’m following a character I don’t really care about while she does some unbelievable things and I’m just not buying it. The news and social media are following her like she’s a superhero and the police can’t seem to catch her. Eventually she does get caught, but it turns out the cops are on her side! Yeah for some reason after she’s killed a whole ton of people, the cops want to help her escape so she doesn’t have to go to jail for “cleaning up the streets”. Except, she didn’t just kill drug dealers and bad guys, she explodes a judge and the DA who worked on her case. Did those guys really deserve to be killed too? Are we just forming a society where if you don’t do your job to someone’s liking you can be murdered and the cops will give them a thumbs up? This is just a dumb action movie with a tired old plot.

From the Clouds to the Resistance – 2

This was the last post I made from TSPDT and if you read that then you know just much I hate this thing. I’m not going to waste any more words on it since this was hands down the worst movie I watched last month.

Biggest Surprise

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The Interview – 7.5

Not only was this movie a nice surprise, but the fact that it stuck out from 43 other movies this month makes it my choice for the final surprise of the year. This is an Australian movie with a pre-Matrix Hugo Weaving as the lead who’s brought in for questioning in relation to a missing man and a stolen car. This movie is heavy on the talking and takes place mostly inside of the police station. Hugo Weaving plays a guy that wets his pants when the police break down his door, and takes the character on a wild ride of emotions. By the end I wasn’t even sure what to believe because the acting and writing was so well done. There were some minor characters that didn’t play out as well, but overall it’s definitely a movie worth seeing and you can find it on Netflix so really give it a chance.

Biggest Disappointment

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Annihilation – 8

I seriously hate that I’m doing this right now, but Annihilation, which was a best movie the first time I watched it, is now one of my disappointments. I thought this would have some great rewatch value, but I didn’t come out of it as impressed as I was when I first left the theaters. Now, it still isn’t a bad movie by any means and it earned itself an 8, but it just didn’t do it for me like I thought it would. I was kind of looking at my watch waiting for it to end when she got to the Lighthouse. It didn’t pull me in or engage my brain as much as it used to. I think at one point in a few years I’ll give it a 3rd watch and see how I feel, but for now… my sadness can’t even be measured.

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There we have it, my last monthly summary post of 2018. I’m going to save my big end of year speech for my next post where I’m going to have my list for all of 2018 and reflect on my year as a whole. Talk to you then!

November 2018

November is finally over and with it comes some surprising stats. This month tied for my lowest movies per month at a measly 18. However, this was my highest rated and most enjoyable month of the year! The average rating was 7.5 and my enjoyment factor was a whopping 0.88. I would’ve liked to hit my goals this month, but I’m still happy with what I was able to accomplish and I busted out a higher than usual number of TSPDT posts so it’s not all bad.

Best of the Best

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Searching – 8.4

A movie told through computers, phones and cameras sounds like a gimmicky premise, but after the novelty wears off you’re still left with a great mystery thriller. There are some shocking twists and turns and the movie never ends up where you think it will end up. I definitely recommend this for something new. At the very least, it might leave you with some Windows Vista nostalgia.

Lone Star – 8.5

I ranted and raved enough about this in my last post and I’m sure you don’t want to hear it again. If you do, feel free to read it again! Otherwise, yeah of course this was one of my favorite movies of the month.

A Star Is Born – 8.5

God damn this was a good movie. I saw this in the theaters and it really made it something special. This is a movie you should definitely see on the big screen to get the full effect. It lifts the music up to another level and it was already at a pretty high level. Some of the scenes they filmed at a real concert, and it’s really them singing and playing the instruments so that just goes to show you the dedication of the cast and crew. Lady Gaga was good for the most part in her role, there were a few times I could tell she wasn’t a career actress but it didn’t take away from the movie one bit. As much as I tried to hold it in, the ending made me cry like a little girl and I’ve never cried in the theaters! Great characters, great story, great music, great movie.

Worst of the Worst

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For a nice change this month I actually don’t have any worsts. My lowest rated movie was a 6.4 which was Fear but I don’t think it was a worst movie. I will definitely accept a good movie month so you’ll have to come back after December to hear about some stinkers. Or… well I don’t want to spoil anything, but in the next few weeks I will more than make up for having no worsts because I am going to bring a movie to its knees. You don’t want to miss it.

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Biggest Surprise

Cam – 7.8

This was a tough call to make, but I’m going with Cam for my biggest surprise of November. This is a Netflix movie that they shoved in my face. I watched the trailer and proceeded to decide it wasn’t worth my time. Then I started reading articles recommending me to watch it and gave it a shot. It was a very entertaining Friday night movie. I don’t know much about cam girl streams, but it reminds me so much of Twitch. “Thanks for the sub, randomUsernameGuy”, “We did it guys! We did it!” Granted, watching people play games or music on stream is less creepy than watching a girl eat a steak with her hands or take a bubble bath in a blow up pool in her living room. Overall it’s an entertaining movie, and despite the less than stellar ending it was well worth my time. Netflix is slowly on the path to redemption.

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Biggest Disappointment

Nothing disappointed me either this month. Everything was juuuuust fine… good job November!

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Look at this trend of positivity… Outskirts, Lone Star, November, when will it end? Will it end with my next TSPDT movie Kill Bill Vol. I, or maybe From the Clouds to the Resistance? Whatever it is, it’s for sure going to ruin my stats for December and you won’t want to miss it.

October 2018

October was an insane month and I absolutely binged hardcore on movies. My goal was to tie last year’s amount at 41. Well… I definitely beat it. I watched a total of 46 movies with an average rating of 6.78 and an enjoyment rating of 0.5 which is about a mid enjoyment rating for the year. I also met my arbitrary goal of at least 50% new movies, by reaching nearly 75% new. Finally, I managed to knock out 5 TSPDT movies which I’m pleased with considering I watched none in September. I don’t feel like doing a normal monthly summary since October is special, so just like last year I’m going to rank all the movies.

This is a weird month, it took me a long time to come up with the rankings because when I ranked them by my rating it didn’t feel right. I’ve ended up with a list that I basically ordered by my gut feeling. I wasn’t in love with any movies as much as I was last year. My favorites were actually mostly re-watches which I can always count on for some entertainment.  Overall though, I’m really happy about the month. I saw some great movies, some of which made my jaw drop and some which I actually had to stop half way through because I couldn’t mentally prepare myself for what was coming. As usual, I also watched some absolute stinkers. These movies got some of my lowest ratings of the entire year! An interesting trend seems to be me reviewing the worst movies I watched and not even discussing my top ones. It’s a bit of a shame, I wish I could’ve talked about all of them but I’m already back logged as it is. But without any further ado, here are my final results:

1. Backcountry (2014) – 8.4/10
2. The Tall Man (2012) – 8.2/10
3. We Are What We Are (2018) – 8/10
4. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014) – 8/10
5. Videodrome (1983) – 8/10
6. The Loved Ones (2009) – 7.85/10
7. Hereditary (2018) – 8/10
8. Charismata (2017) – 7.8/10
9. Psycho (1960) – 8.5/10
10. Child’s Play (1988) – 8.3/10
11. Child’s Play 2 (1990) – 8.2/10
12. Martyrs (2008) – 8/10
13. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) – 7.7/10
14. Peeping Tom (1960) – 7.5/10
15. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) – 7.3/10
16. I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) – 7.5/10
17. Starry Eyes (2014) – 7.3/10
18. A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) – 7.1/10
19. Here Alone (2016) – 7.2/10
20. Lake Placid (1999) – 7/10
21. Beyond the Gates (2016) – 7/10
22. Halloween (2018) – 7/10
23. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) – 7/10
24. Ringu (1998) – 7/10
25. The Phantom of the Opera (1925) – 7/10
26. XX (2017) – 7/10
27. The Wolf Man (1941) – 7/10
28. The Innocents (1961) – 7.2/10
29. Halloween’: A Cut Above the Rest (2003) – 7/10
30. Cat People (1941) – 6.9/10
31. The Lazarus Effect (2015) – 6.76/10
32. The Similars (2015) – 6.5/10
33. Look Away (2018) – 6.5/10
34. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) – 6.4/10
35. Malevolent (2018) – 6/10
36. The Meg (2018) – 6/10
37. Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004) – 6/10
38. Annabelle: Creation (2017) – 5.99/10
39. Wolf Creek (2005) – 5.8/10
40. High Tension (2003) – 5.5/10
41. Anaconda (1997) – 5.4/10
42. Slender Man (2018) – 5/10
43. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) – 4.5/10
44. Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986) – 4.5/10
45. Leatherface (2017) – 3.5/10
46. Lake Placid 2 (2007) – 2/10

Thanks for tuning in all month, I hope you enjoyed your Halloween as much as I did mine. I can’t wait for next year and I’m going to have to plan even more to top 46, but I’m prepared for the gruesome challenge.

September 2018

It feels like I say this all the time, but I swear this will be a short post because I have bigger fish to fry this month. September tied May 2018 for the worst month of the year in terms of quantity with only 18 movies watched. The average rating for the month was exactly the same as lasts at 7.05/10 with an enjoyment rating of 0.66. Nothing too spectacular… I was mostly preparing myself to binge on movies this month so I didn’t have a lot of time to do much else.

Best of the Best

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The Surrounding Game / AlphaGo – 7.5/8

I decided I’d finally learn about the game Go, courtesy of Netflix. First up was The Surrounding Game which highlights the tournament to crown the first US Go Professional players. We follow a few players as they talk about why they play the game and learn about the game itself. It was a great intro into a game I knew little of. It was so interesting in fact, that I decided to keep “Go”ing and watch the next logical step after watching human beat human, which was watching computer beat human. AlphaGo chronicles the building of the AlphaGo AI designed to learn and master the game of Go, a thing no one thought possible. For a long time, people thought Go required too much creativity and human intuition for a machine to ever be able to master it. Well… they were wrong. This movie is heartbreaking and scary at the same time. I love computers and spend my days ordering them to do my bidding at work and at home, so I don’t like when they threaten to overturn us humans. Watching this machine emotionally and effortlessly destroy this man will hurt your soul. What shocks me even more is that this happened recently and I didn’t even hear about it, despite the millions and millions of people who tuned in to watch the 5 matches. This was a great experience, which almost intrigued me enough that I wanted to try and play the game… but I learned it’s too late for me now so I’ll just stick to my movie watchin’.

Upgrade – 8.1

I didn’t think this was going to be that great and the starting turned me off, but it really picks up. I think the lead is amazing and funny, and just does an overall great job in his role. He has to act as though he’s talking to a voice in his head and it’s super believable. Be warned, just straight up spoilers for the entire movie ahead. The best part is when he kills the first guy and he’s breaking plates and glasses over his head and cringing as Stem moves his arms for him. It was a hilariously well done scene. The ending was fantastic too with a pretty good twist of Stem being an evil mastermind computer. This movie doesn’t pull any punches. The lead loses his mind and just retreats into a fantasy where none of this ever happened and he can live forever with his wife. Meanwhile, Stem now has control over his body and look out world… This is a really fun movie and I definitely think I’ll watch this one again.

Worst of the Worst

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Songbird… or Alright Now? – 4.8

I do not give up sub-5 ratings often. Out of 230+ movies I’ve watched this year, less than 10 of those were sub-5. This is now one of them. The main character, Joanna, was the most annoying character of the entire year. Everything she did was so unfunny it made me mad. She would say stupid things, or do random karate moves for no reason. That’s annoying enough, but the movie had almost no story either. Her band breaks up and she decides to go back to school which we never see any of. She moves into a dorm, but doesn’t attend any classes. It’s like one of those animal house college movies, except it’s not funny, bad and pointless. For your sanity, please skip this movie.

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Biggest Disappointment

Actually nothing disappointed me enough to warrant an entire overly long paragraph. The only movie I had some expectations for was Battle for the Planet of the Apes which was kind of boring for a big finale, but I wouldn’t say it was a disappointment. Everything else was what it was… for better or worse.

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Biggest Surprise

Avengers: Infinity War – 8

I’m so surprised that I liked this movie because I tend to dislike most Marvel movies. I was lost and bored in the beginning, but I did like the ending a lot. Thanos was a really good villain. He knew what he was risking and it hurt him, but he thought it was the right choice. It added some depth to a series of movies where I feel like nothing ever really matters. I think it was the emotion that pulled me into the movie. Most of the Marvel movies amount to nothing more than 2 hours and 30 minutes of fighting and explosions in the end. My brain isn’t capable of following and investing in these scenes, so I end up losing interest in the movie entirely. It was a pleasant change to feel something when watching one of these movies and I hope they carry it through to more of them. It also really helps having female super heroes that are capable of doing important things. Sorry, but I’m sick and tired of watching some guy fighting evil. It’s fine every once in a while, but I need something I can relate to as well.

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Never would I have thought I wouldn’t be disappointed for an entire month, and that a Marvel movie would be my biggest surprise watch. I guess anything can happen after all. I’ll end this post here because I have to move on to my next review of a TSPDT horror movie. There’s a lot to write about when you’ve watched 11 movies in 1 week.

August 2018

Like I said in my last summary post, I was extremely busy these last 3 weeks with nearly all of my spare time tied up in the new Battle for Azeroth expansion. I haven’t had much time to write any reviews, but with some luck and a little bit of planning I did manage to hit my monthly goal of 31 movies. Overall, August had an average rating of 7/10 and on the enjoyment scale it was a 0.58 which is less than last month but still good overall. Everything was so average in fact, that there were few movies that stood out at all, and I have a feeling this will be a shorter than usual post.

Best of the Best

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Isle of Dogs – 7.9

I didn’t like this at first but it got better once I got used to the puppet style and the weird humor. There are just so many weird things happening constantly that you can’t even process it sometimes and you’re wondering what the heck you’re even watching. This was made worse by the fact that sometimes they started speaking in Japanese and I didn’t have any subtitles. Not sure if this was just the copy that I had with this problem or if the movie was designed that way, but I had to rely on my limited knowledge of Japanese obtained from years of watching anime. Language barrier aside this was the most unique movie I’ve seen in a while and it’s definitely worth watching once you get past the weirdness.

Worst of the Worst

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Truth or Dare – 5.5

Another modern horror movie on my worst list? It’s almost like I should just stop watching them… This was painfully predictable. Me and my boyfriend were calling literally everything that happened before it happened. Then there was that weird Snapchat filter thing that happened to their faces when they got possessed. It was the most ridiculously hilarious effect they could’ve picked. I also really want to complain about the ending because it didn’t make any sense story wise, but seeing as how this is sort of recent I won’t spoil it if this review has somehow made you want to see this. I don’t recommend you do that though. Even as a Friday night movie with your significant other it isn’t worth it. The story could be interesting, but it just wasn’t executed to the right level.

Experimenter – 5.4

Here comes Netflix to bring me more material to write about. This was worse than Truth or Dare because not only was it not very good, it was astoundingly boring. It took me 4 tries just to get through it. It’s mostly based on the Milgram Experiment where one person had to shock someone in another room whenever they got a question wrong, increasing the voltage each time. They were told to keep going even when the guy begged them to stop… and most kept shocking. The story itself is great, but the movie around it not so much. They do these weird fourth wall breaking monologues out of nowhere and at one point the sets turn into images of backgrounds instead of filming in a real location. The way it was done makes it seem like they just ran out of budget. If the experiment sounds interesting to you then I’d suggest just reading about it over watching this movie.

The Shallows – 5.5

Another Netflix pick except this one’s on me since I decided to watch this for the second time. It was a lot worse than I remember and I will spoil whatever I want since it’s old enough. What it boils down to is the special effects were cringe worthy and the premise is ridiculous. This woman goes swimming on a secluded beach where she gets attacked by a shark. She manages to make it onto the safety of a rock but this shark is camping her waiting for the moment she makes a mistake. I feel like he could’ve just eaten the gigantic dead whale that just so happened to be there if he was so hungry and he wouldn’t have to wait for her to get back in the water. But ok, maybe he likes the taste of human flesh… well he ate another guy then still waited for her. I’m pretty sure he’d be full after that meal and just swim off. He’s acting like she murdered his whole family. I’d rather watch open water for a shark movie than this thing again. No more re-watches in the future for The Shallows. I honestly don’t even know why I wanted to watch it again, I don’t think my first watch went much better.

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Biggest Disappointment

A Few Good Men – 7.4

This one came a little out of left field for me as the biggest disappointment. I was watching some random YouTube video where a real lawyer watches courtroom scenes and talks about their accuracy. He just so happened to talk about A Few Good Men and I just so happened to decide to watch it for the first time. It was entertaining and kept my attention, but it wasn’t very suspenseful. Courtroom dramas are definitely in my top 5 favorite movie genres, it’s just the screenplay for this movie wasn’t that good. Putting aside the fact that I sort of know the plot, the movie makes it pretty clear that Jack Nicholson’s character did something shady in the beginning. I wasn’t in suspense over the outcome of the trial or wondering what really happened and to me that’s what these kinds of movies thrive on. The biggest disappointment of the whole movie though has to be the constant casual sexual harassment. I feel awful for Demi Moore having to put up with that. For such a well know and quoted movie, it really wasn’t that great. See it for the pop culture significance and that’s pretty much all.

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Biggest Surprise

Fried Green Tomatoes – 9

Finally I can talk about my biggest surprise of August. I was nervous to watch Fried Green Tomatoes because it’s held a special place in my heart for years. I distinctly remember playing the game Scene It years ago and watching the kitchen scene from this movie. It might be stupid, but that game made me want to explore movies and really got me started on the path I’m on now. I’ve always wanted to see it, but I didn’t want to ruin the image I had of it in my mind. I’m happy to say that I absolutely loved this movie. Idgie was one of my favorite characters of the entire year. I love seeing tomboy characters in movies because I was just like her as a kid. I was so upset having to wear a dress or skirt to a fancy family function and it’s great to see that representation. Not only was the character good but it was acted perfectly. At the *big spoiler* end when Ruth died I couldn’t even take it. It was the saddest scene by far with Idgie telling that dumb story as Ruth dies and then just sobbing uncontrollably… I’m gonna cry just thinking about it. It reminds me so much of Carol because there are scenes where the characters don’t say anything but you can read their thoughts in their eyes. When Ruth was on the stand in court, you could see that she wanted to say, “I love you,” to Idgie. The movie doesn’t explicitly say or show them as lovers but you just know it to be true and in my post viewing research confirmed that thought. This movie is based on a novel where they absolutely are lovers, but in the early 90s I’m not surprised they toned that aspect down. Thankfully, it’s an amazing movie regardless. I wholly recommend it and also that you bring some kleenex.

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Well that’s it for the month of August. It was a very busy month for me and September is looking to be more of the same. So far I’m extremely behind my movie quota and don’t think I’ll be able to catch up. My goal is to pump out the reviews for the last TSPDT movies I watched, but I don’t think I’ll be watching any more off the list this month or next for that matter. Next month is October and that means it’s horror movie binge time!  Last year I believe I watched 40 and I want to match or exceed that number this year. I’m planning a ton of re-watches of my favorites, and I’m going to try and do a bunch of mini-posts on any new movies I watch so definitely stay tuned for that. Getting to 40 won’t be easy so if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment and let me know because I’ve only planned out around 10 so far. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for my next TSPDT post this week.

July 2018

I can’t believe another month’s gone by. Maybe it’s because I keep releasing these posts late, but it feels like it always sneaks up on me. Anyway, I have an exciting announcement about July. This month has the highest number of movies watched of all 2018 at a perfect 31. Not only was it the most watched, it had the highest enjoyment rating and came in second for average rating at 7.35/10. Get ready for a good number of bests and a few well deserved worsts.

Best of the Best

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The Rider – 8

This movie was not appealing to me in the slightest, and to this day I don’t remember why I decided to give it a shot. It’s about this cowboy who gets hurt at a rodeo and has to deal with the fact that he will probably never be able to ride again. It’s a good premise elevated by the fact that they used real cowboys in the movie. This guy knows how to ride and train horses. There is an extended scene where he breaks this horse who initially wants nothing to do with him. By the end, the horse lets the guy ride him and it’s interesting to watch. They also use the main character’s real family as his family in the movie. They aren’t the best actors in the world, but they do enough with a good script and direction to pull off a uniquely enjoyable movie. The real cowboy lifestyle isn’t something you see very often so it’s quite refreshing.

Tully – 8

I’ve been a big fan of Mackenzie Davis ever since her role in Halt and Catch Fire and that awesome San Junipero Black Mirror episode so I had to see this. Let me just say, the beginning of this movie makes me never want to have kids. Before Tully came in I thought I was going to be sick. Having kids looks like the most depressing thing to ever happen in your life. It thankfully picked up though and put me back on the kid fence. Marlo and Tully formed a nice friendship and gave me a warm feeling inside that things are going to be alright. Then that twist ending that I didn’t see coming for some reason. It took this movie to a slightly higher level and gives me a reason to want to watch it again. A well done movie that shines a light on something people don’t want to admit to, postpartum depression.

Creep – 8

Creep definitely took me by surprise. I watched this on Netflix, but I’d heard about it in passing from a few different sources. It’s about this man who hires a filmmaker to film him for a day. Unfortunately for this nice young filmmaker, this man is also the titular creep. This movie is weird, suspenseful, and just to drive the point home, creepy. Sometimes you might end up yelling at the screen when the characters do things that go against their instinct for self preservation, but it’s very entertaining and has really good pacing to keep you interested. I wish I found it during my Halloween binge, but I’m going to put this in my rewatch queue for sure.

Polytechnique – 8.4

This movie is not for the faint of heart. It’s about a shooting at a college in Montreal in the 80s where a man murdered women because they were women. This hit me on so many levels because I’m Canadian, a woman and I went to school with a bunch of men in a male dominated field. These women died just trying to do something they loved while also paving the way for women in the future to enter that field of study. It’s an incredibly sad event and the movie did a great job with the material. It never glorified the violence and was low key but delivered enough to make it feel real. I cried like a baby at the end when one of the women started talking about what it was like that day. It was absolutely heartbreaking. I complain about non-chronological movies sometimes but this time it worked well. Every time jump gave you a different view and a little more information without ever beating you over the head with it. This is a movie everyone should see and a story everyone should hear. It’s also directed by the extremely talented Denis Villeneuve who directed Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival.

I Am Not An Easy Man – 8.4

My sister recommended this one to me so it doesn’t count as a Netflix recommendation which is a shame because I actually liked it a lot. It was so interesting but aggravating at the same time. It’s about this chauvinist man who hits his head and wakes up in a backwards world where women have more power over men. The roles are reversed in every way you can imagine. I could list off all the ways, but I found it fun having it all revealed throughout the movie. While it was funny, I did get into an argument with my boyfriend over it so I’d beware. If you have even one feminist cell in your body, this will probably make your blood boil at some point. Definitely worth a watch though.

Zoe – 8.7

How is it possible that this got a 39 metascore by critics? I read through some of their reviews and honestly I don’t get it. This is such a great sci-fi movie. I wouldn’t watch the trailer before seeing it and I won’t spoil anything for you, going in cold is definitely the best approach. I was completely taken by surprise at two points in the movie and that always leaves me with a good feeling. The emotions portrayed by the characters were so subtle that you just had to read it in their faces. It was a great study into whether man-made objects can be considered human or if they really can be loved. This is what Bicentennial Man should have been. It really made me think and posed some interesting questions. Also, I have no shame in saying I love Léa Seydoux who was fantastic in this so that’s just another reason to see it.

Worst of the Worst

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Knight of Cups – 4.9

I had a couple movies I was going to talk about here but as I started writing I realized I had nothing so say other than they were extremely boring. So since this post is turning out to be pretty long I’m just going to destroy Knight of Cups. I had this movie in my queue for close to a year, but I knew it was directed by Terrence Malick who’s sort of known for making long, slow movies and it just wasn’t appealing to me. Little did I know, I was right to not watch this for so long because this was painful to get through. This movie made me so angry that I gave it my lowest enjoyment rating (a rating system I made up that starts at -2 and goes up to +1). To put this in perspective, the only other movie I’ve watched all year to get a -2 was Mothlight and I don’t even consider that a movie. There isn’t a lot of plot or dialogue to move the story forward, it’s all about the visuals. This type of story telling is so hard for me to find interesting. It mostly leaves me begging for it to be over. I can’t say that the acting was bad, or the film making in general was bad. All I can say is that it’s very boring and difficult to get through which is why I didn’t enjoy it in any way, but don’t think it was bad enough to get a lower score.

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Biggest Surprise

Creep 2 – 8

Now on to some more good watches. I watched Creep 2 immediately after finishing Creep and was expecting a typical sequel. I expected to leave asking myself why they even bothered to make it. Instead, what I was treated to was the perfect sequel. This movie absolutely should have been made and felt like the logical continuous of the first movie. It felt like they were meant to be shown together one after another like I watched it. The first movie was fairly one sided, but in this movie you get to hear about things from the other side which was some interesting information to fill in the blanks. There were also times where I was watching the movie and I couldn’t tell if the creepy guy was being honest or just luring a new victim into his trap. It immediately pulled me into the movie because I wanted to know how it ended and what was actually going on. Like the first, characters in this movie make some odd decisions, but the reason why this new person is hanging around with the creep are compelling enough that I believe she’d stay in his company. I also liked the ending which flipped the script and did something different. Do yourself a favor and watch both movies back to back, it’s well worth it.

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Biggest Disappointment

The Abyss – 5

Ok here we go, it’s time for the biggest disappointment of July. This is the second time I’ve seen The Abyss and the first time I watched it I don’t remember liking it too much. Why would I watch it again, you ask? Well it found its way into my random queue and I decided to give it another shot. 100% not worthy of a second chance. About half way into the movie, there is a scene that completely ruins the movie. It’s the infamous slap in the face resuscitation scene. See, in this movie a freshly separated couple end up going into the abyss together because obviously. Well the woman ends up having to drown herself and its left up to the man to bring her back. Him and other people on the team valiantly perform CPR to no avail. When the team gives up, the man keeps going. He starts to yell at her and slap her in the face telling her to come back. I’m pretty sure that’s not the medically approved way of bringing someone back. At that point I couldn’t take the movie seriously anymore. Literally everything that happened after he slaps her in the face lost all importance. It became this dumb “romance” where the man gets the woman in the end cause man must get woman. And oh yeah, there are like some deep diving things going on and maybe they find aliens or something. But man gets woman! It’s so disappointing because there were some cool ideas and scenes early on in the movie. The most interesting being the breathable water which they actually tested for real in the movie with a live mouse. That really happened and it’s amazing. It’s also amazing how a lot of this was really filmed under water. It was a nightmare for the cast and crew, but I appreciate effort like that. These reasons are why that one scene upsets me so much.

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That’s about all I have to say on the movies I watched in July this year. I caught up on my yearly goal a little and found some new re-watchable movies. August has been going well so far, but starting next week I’m not going to have as much time to watch or write about movies because the new expansion to World of Warcraft launches and I plan to play until I drop. I’ll do my best to get some posts prepared before then so there won’t be many gaps in between, but if there are then that’s the reason why. Have a good August and happy movie watching!

June 2018

Ah June, a hot summer month that’s perfect for movie watchin’. I cranked out 26 movies which is back to normal. With all these movies though, this turned out to be the worst rated month of all of 2018. The average rating was a weak 6.4/10 and as you’ll find out in a minute, there were no shortage of worsts. But before that, let’s talk about the few bests.

Best of the Best

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To Each, Her Own – 7.8

To Each, Her Own could almost be the biggest surprise winner for the fact that this was a Netflix recommendation. If you’ve read my past monthly summaries you’ll know just how terrible of a track record Netflix has with me. This movie is about a woman in a same sex relationship who starts to have feelings for a man. It’s an interesting flip on the usual story where it’s a straight woman falling for another woman. Not only was it a neat twist, but there were some genuinely funny moments. I liked the characters and was interested to see where the story would go. I can honestly say I didn’t see the ending coming. It’s a little weird, but the journey to get there wasn’t bad.

A Quiet Place – 8

If you’ve been a part of the world this past year you’ve probably heard about A Quiet Place. A movie set in a world where if you make a single noise you’ll be murdered by monster aliens. There was so much talk about this movie and for good reason. It’s a well made, original movie that you don’t see too often these days. I liked the creativity required to pull off a movie with very little dialogue and the relationships between the characters which felt genuine and real. This one is definitely worth a watch.

Zodiac – 8

And my favorite movie of June is Zodiac which is a 3rd watch for me. Long time readers might have read my last post discussing this movie. I’ll summarize it and say that this movie has held a strong 8 rating across all viewings. The quality of the story, acting and effects are never brought into question. This is an incredibly well done movie. The only thing that loses its magic on multiple viewings is the ending. The first time you watch it, the ending is so suspenseful, but once you know the outcome you can relax a little and it doesn’t pack the same punch. Obviously, I can’t fault a movie just because I know how it ends. Ending aside, the thing that this movie does for me the most is renew my interest in the Zodiac killer. Every time I watch it I have to go look into any new revelations on the case and research a little more into the facts. This is a movie that always sticks with me when its finished and why it was my best of June.

Worst of the Worst

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Annabelle – 5

I thought I heard that this was actually one of those good horror movies that exist out there and I wanted to give it a watch one Friday night. Little did I know, this was just your run of the mill jump scare ridden horror movie. Let me just say that loud noises are not scary. They may be surprising, but that is not horror. This movie had so many jump scares in it that by the end I just started laughing. I could tell whenever it was going to happen and it ruined the entire movie. I was more scared near the beginning when the doll did nothing because I was in suspense waiting to see if it would move. If you’ve never seen a scary doll horror movie maybe this would be new and exciting, but if you have then this is not worth your time.

Bicentennial Man – 5

I watched this movie directly after reading the short story and like usual that was a huge mistake. This movie in no way lives up to the short story. The story was more inside Andrew’s head and it explores what it means to be human. The movie, on the other hand, took most of that out in favor of having a romance plot. I don’t see why that was necessary and I actually found it creepy how a robot falls in love with a human. Not just a single human, but generations of humans from the same family. It’s like, “Hi, I’m Andrew. I was in love with your mother, now I’m going to be in love with you.” The story just didn’t do it for me, and I hate to say it but I’m not the biggest fan of Robin Williams because I can never get lost in the characters he plays. Another thing that bothered me was how they tried to tie in the original material by having a scene explaining the 3 laws of robotics, but it literally never comes in to play for the rest of the movie. I felt like they wasted the opportunity to tie that in more especially since it was so integral to the short story. Now, I can’t say for sure whether any of these things were in the novel because I haven’t read it, but overall I preferred how the idea of a robot trying to become human was handled in the short story more. I will say one good thing about this movie before I move on though. The old age makeups were absolutely stunning. I couldn’t find a single flaw with any of them. They are literally the best I’ve ever seen and I’m just blown away by it. If only they could’ve put that much effort into the rest of the movie.

Ghostland – 4.8

If Annabelle drove me crazy for its overuse of jump scares, Ghostland drove me crazy for its incessant screaming. Everyone in this movie would not stop screaming. It’s not scary or helpful in any way to the plot, it’s just loud and annoying. This almost maybe could’ve been an interesting movie because there was this sort of plot twist in the middle that I didn’t think of. It took the movie in a slightly different direction and gave it a bit of depth. But then the women kept screaming and screaming and screaming. Screaming is the only thing I took away from this movie. If you love mediocre makeup effects and have partial hearing loss then this could be right up your alley.

The Collector – 4.7

Down down we go. Another awful horror movie to add to my worst of the worst. I got this one as a recommendation saying that it was actually good and that it turned the torture porn genre on its head. I love me a good genre bending movie, but this wasn’t it. It was a tiny bit interesting having a main character who isn’t totally inept, but everyone else in the house was so it really cancelled it out. There was one moment where the main guy saves a woman and then she acts like an idiot, starts screaming and gets herself killed moments later. This is your below average torture porn gore fest movie where people do stupid things and are killed by a supernatural psychopath.

Mothlight – 1

I’m not going to beat a dead moth, you can read just what I thought of this “movie” in my previous TSPDT post. Giving this a 1 might be the reason why this was the lowest rated month of the year, but honestly it deserves it.

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Biggest Surprise

Contagion – 8

Thankfully things are back to normal this month and I have a biggest surprise to give out. This is the same one I almost gave out last month by accident. Contagion is about a spreading disease, how it affects people and how the CDC works to stop it. This is the biggest surprise for me because I’ve seen it once before and remember not liking it. I watched it because it found its way into my random queue. This is exactly my kind of movie. I found it so interesting how a disease spreads and how they come up with vaccines. They also weren’t afraid to pull any punches. People contracted the disease who, in a regular summer blockbuster, would survive because they’re a main character, but in this movie they don’t. A lot of different plot threads were weaved together so well that it never felt like too much was going on. I particularly loved the ending which I won’t spoil. I highly recommend this movie and it might have just made its way into my rewatch rotation.

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Biggest Disappointment

Tomb Raider – 6.64

And finally the movie I was waiting to talk about for the entire month. This was the movie so disappointing that I almost put it on last month’s summary. I’m a female and I absolutely stand behind movies with strong female leads so right off the bat I was interested in this. To top it off, I heard that it was actually a good video game adaptation and I thought I was in for a good movie. Clearly that isn’t what I got. While it had its moments, overall I found myself wishing it was over. It was boring and the story was super crazy predictable. Stop pulling the “my parent disappeared x years ago on an island and I just want to find out what happened to them” while pretending like the parent is actually dead. I don’t even feel bad about ruining anything because it was so damn obvious. I would’ve been more surprised if he was actually dead. I didn’t even like this as a mindless popcorn movie. There was nothing new or exciting about it at all. The only thing that gave this movie any legs was that they called the character Lara Croft. If you replaced her with generic action movie man, this wouldn’t have gotten much buzz. I appreciate trying to introduce stronger female leads, but please put them in better movies. Let’s take Wonder Woman and build on that, not go 1 step forward and take 2 steps back.

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This month had a lot of worsts in it and very few bests so the quality wasn’t there, but the quantity sure was. I think I’m back in my movie watching groove which feels good so I don’t even mind how much garbage I had to sit through. I knocked out quite a few TSPDT movies which I have queued up to review and will be posting in a few days so stayed tuned. I want to finish with a shout out to my favorite non-movie thing I watched in June which is The Staircase on Netflix. I watched the first 8 episodes in 2 days with no regrets. I absolutely love crime docuseries and this one was even better because it had a lot of courtroom footage. If you liked Making a Murderer or Paradise Lost, absolutely check this out. Stay tuned for my next post, hopefully in a few days.

May 2018

May was the month I managed to get back into my movie groove a little. I was only able to get through 18 movies which is my lowest number per month this year, but I feel somewhat re-invigorated to continue my movie watching journey. I got through that TSPDT hurdle and re-watched some of my favorites (because they are my favorites I’m incredibly biased and the ratings are going to be quite high… something has to get a 10 around here!). How do they all stack up? Well here we go.

Best of the Best

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Please Stand By – 7.75

This one is about a young woman with Autism who writes a Star Trek script for a contest and tries to get it to L.A. in time. A somewhat re-used road trip plot with the usual familiar scenes. What took me by surprise the most was Dakota Fanning. She continues to amaze me to this day. From I Am Sam to War of the Worlds to this, she never fails to give a great performance. I can’t attest to how true to life her portrayal is of someone with Autism, but I had a good time watching her and was rooting for her the whole way. Also that dog was too cute so clearly this belongs on my best list.

Revenge – 7.8

This is an interesting pick because it’s sort of like an exploitation type tale of revenge. But this ain’t your grandma’s revenge tale, this one turns the genre on its head and puts the female in the role of power. I don’t want to ruin much, but there’s a scene where a man is running around naked being chased by a woman… very much going against the norm. It was refreshing to watch and mighty entertaining. This is one of those movies you’ll have to suspend some disbelief for, but if you can it’s worth the watch. Small warning that this is not for the weak of stomach. There’s a lot of blood and gore… you have been warned.

Every Day – 7.8

I already went over this one in more detail in an earlier post so I won’t rehash it here. This was one of the more emotional movies I watched in May and for that reason it made it on to this list.

Carol – 10

Ok here comes the really unfair movies that are going to just get a straight up perfect score because they’re in my top 20 movies. This is my 5th time seeing Carol and it never gets old. The way they can say so much with their eyes draws me in every time. I like the character development of Therese who goes from a soft spoken woman unsure of what she wants, to someone who is self assured and is willing able and to fulfill her desires. In particular, I love the scene where she finally learns to say no. It was a problem she had throughout the movie and she was finally able to overcome it, but then she realizes it wasn’t the ability to say no that she was after, it was the ability to know what she wants and to try for it. It’s just an amazing, incredibly acted movie that I’m sure I’ll re-watch until I die.

Jurassic Park – 10

I wasn’t sure if I should put this in my Best of the Best or Biggest Disappointment category this time around. Thankfully, another movie drew my wrath for the disappointment award and saved Jurassic Park from that awful fate. This has long since been my favorite movie of all time. I have the book, t-shirts, posters and I even made a blanket of the iconic poster. I watched it so many times as a kid that I wore out the VHS and had to buy a new one. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen it, but I’ll call this my 25th re-watch. This one was slightly disappointing to me, however, because I finally lost my special effects blinders and was able to see the imperfections in the computer generated scenes. I used to always say how this movie held up so well over the years and that it looked better than the current stuff. I now sit on the side that the computer graphics have improved over the years. While that is a sad thing for me to admit, the animatronics, puppetry and people wearing dinosaur suits are still mind-blowingly good. The locations are beautiful and a welcome change from fake green screen backgrounds on sound stages. There is character development, foreshadowing, and good plot pacing. For now, this will still earn a perfect score from me and can stay as my #1 movie, even though it won’t win this month.

La La Land – 10

That’s right, La La Land won the entire month. This is the 4th time I’ve seen this movie and was quite possibly the best time. I had heard some theories on the ending and the story in general that really made sense for me and elevated the movie to a new level. I got to watch it through a fresher pair of eyes. Spoilers ahead for the ending so yeah, can skip ahead if you want. The first time I saw the movie I was disappointed with the ending because I wanted them to end up together. Then after some reading and thinking, I learned that they were never meant to end up together. The songs in the beginning spell it out completely for you. “Someone in the crowd will take you where you wanna go.” They are each other’s “someone” and the purpose of their meeting was to take each other to the next phase of their life. Think how Mia nudged Sebastian into getting any kind of job which gave him the means to start his club, and how Sebastian nudged Mia into starting her own show which led to her breakthrough role as an actress. Not only that, but A Lovely Night literally talks about how they won’t end up together. It’s done really tongue in cheek so you can argue it’s just a joke of a song, but I do believe it has more of a meaning to it than that. Let’s not forget that the music is wonderful and catchy, the costumes are breathtaking, and the characters are captivating. That is why this movie wins all of May.

Worst of the Worst

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Shortwave – 6

This is a movie you’ve probably never heard of, and for good reason. It’s a small sci-fi movie that I randomly found. The plot didn’t make much sense. It was trying to be smart, but just ended up feeling hollow. The big surprise movie scheme was nonsense and had too many things that could go wrong for anyone to think it was a good idea. The effects were actually pretty good though so I’ll give it some points for that. Overall, this was just a throw away movie that I wouldn’t recommend watching unless you want some background noise.

1922 – 6

As usual on the worst of the worst list, this was a Netflix recommendation for me. 1922 is a Stephen King adaptation about a farmer who kills his wife and then things happen… scary things… or not really. I found this extremely boring and wanted it to end. I will say that it did feel like a Stephen King adaptation though. I keep watching them even though there are very few that I actually like. I suppose if you’ve liked his other adaptations this one will probably please you and is worth your time. If you’re like me and his movies don’t really gel with you then skip this one, you won’t be missing much.

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Biggest Surprise

I screwed up a little here and the movie that I thought was my biggest surprise of the month I ended up watching in June so it doesn’t count. I’m going to cause some controversy with this decision, but for May I have no biggest surprise award to give out. Everything I watched was exactly what I expected. A little anti-climatic, sorry. At least you’ll get to read about my biggest disappointment that beat out Jurassic Park below… right?

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Biggest Disappointment

Well no. See, I also watched that one in June so it too does not count. In lieu of this information, I could give this award to Jurassic Park, but after 25 years of faithful entertainment I will let this viewing slide. Since no other movies disappointed me in May, this award will go un-awarded as well.

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This might go down as my least complained about month thus far in this blog. A lot of it boils down to the fact that to re-invigorate my movie watching I re-watched some of my favorites which I just know I’ll like. Sorry you had to read such positive, praiseful words, but let me guarantee that next month you’ll get to read me rip apart some movies. I know this for a fact since this post is so late that I already have a few movies in mind. There will absolutely be biggest surprise and biggest disappointment awards to give out! Be sure to stay tuned for my next TSPDT post soon where I discuss The Indian Tomb… yeah it’s going to be fun.

April 2018

Man oh man, April was a tough month for me. I hit a huge movie slump at the beginning of the month, but was able to come back from it when I started a free trial with Mubi, a movie streaming service that plays one new movie every day, but I’ll talk about that somewhere below. I’ve also been unable to get through a single new TSPDT movie this month because I’ve been stuck on the next one which is proving difficult to get through. Overall I managed to watch 25 movies, coming up short of my goal of 30 and most of them I didn’t like.

Best of the Best

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Scott Pilgrim vs. The World – 7.5

This one was a second watch, but I didn’t remember a thing because I watched it 8 years ago. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie. It was fast paced, clever, had a good story and was really unique. You don’t see a lot of movies shot this in this comic book style and I thought it did it well.

The Greatest Showman – 7.8

Okay so maybe I’m a sucker for musicals sometimes. And maybe this one had fantastic music in it. I don’t know what it was, but every song was better than the last. Not only was the music great, but the choreography was incredible. The scene that stood out to me the most was the acrobatic dance routine which was so entertaining to watch. While all this was good, the story was just awful. It was really the most generic, boring plot you could come up with and if you took out all the songs you’d be left with 20 minutes of cliches.

Night Moves (2013) – 7.83

This movie wasn’t too bad, but I’ll say that I probably over-rated it on account of my fascination with “creative” ways of solving “problems”. There was a dam these people weren’t too pleased with and I was interested in knowing what they were going to do about it. I thought that after they completed their objective, the paranoia around whether they’d be caught or not was very well done. Every time someone would talk to them, or they’d hear a car driving down the road, even as a viewer you weren’t sure what was going to happen. It fell down pretty hard at the end though and I didn’t like the direction it took, but overall I was very entertained and it’s a decent movie.

Molly’s Game – 8

Initially I didn’t feel like watching this movie, then I read that it was written by Aaron Sorkin and I knew I had to. From his movies to his television shows, this guy has a really great track record with me and I wasn’t disappointed in any way with this movie. It was well written, well acted and had an interesting story. Jessica Chastain was amazing in this movie, I’m looking forward to seeing her in more. I definitely recommend this one.

The Nice Guys – 8.3

It’s interesting that this was my highest rated movie of the month since this is the second time I’ve watched it and the first watch resulted in a 7/10 rating. This showed up in my own random playlist so I gave it another shot and was pleasantly surprised. This is actually pretty funny and has an interesting story. Ryan Gosling and Russel Crow had great chemistry together, and it was refreshing to see a good father daughter relationship on screen again. This is a seriously good, entertaining movie and I secretly hope they make a sequel.

Worst of the Worst

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Shanty Tramp – 6

Here is one of the movies from Mubi and it’s about this psychotic woman who goes to bars to dance and then sleeps with men to the horror and disapproval of her father. It’s a cheesy, B-movie sort of exploitation flick with violence, nudity and racism. That pretty much says it all. It’s not that great and I wish I didn’t waste my time watching it.

Hairspray – 6

Like I said earlier, I’m a sucker for musicals and I saw this one on Netflix knowing I hadn’t yet been able to see it. After watching The Greatest Showman, I just had to give this one a shot too. I immediately couldn’t get into the movie and wasn’t particularly moved by the music. The first song didn’t do anything for me, and as time went on I got the feeling I wasn’t going to like any of them. Sadly, I ended up being right. The music was from the 60s which isn’t a decade in music that has ever appealed to me. I won’t say not to see the movie because I know I’m biased based on my music preferences and you very well might enjoy it. If you can stand 60s music, then give it a shot and watch Travolta dressed as a woman.

The Commuter – 5.8

I wanted some dumb action movie to turn on and boy did I get it with this. The plot was absolutely ridiculous and unrealistic. “Find the guy I’m looking for before your train reaches the stop or things will happen”. I commute to work every day on the train and let me tell you, almost no one ever talks to each other and good luck commuting in rush hour and being able to walk around freely. It’s absolutely packed with people! Aside from my gripes about commuting, the plot itself is just stupid. There’s a scene where, as a warning, the bad guys time this event to happen as the train drives by and tells the good guy to look out the window to see it. Like please… with that kind of co-ordination, why don’t you just find the guy yourself? In another scene the good guy is under the train, then outside it, then gets back inside all while it’s moving. Just crazy. My ability to suspend disbelief was not strong enough.

Il est des nôtres – 5.7

My worst movie of the month is courtesy of Mubi and it’s about this guy that decides he doesn’t want to go outside anymore so he lives in a trailer inside of this big garage and invites his friends over all the time. I have absolutely no idea what this movie was supposed to be.  There’s a scene where they all strip one by one, including a woman in her 60s or 70s. Then they try to pull their underwear bands over their shoulders, crushing and exposing everything down there. Then his friends eat him I think. But maybe that was a dream? I have no idea! I just… I don’t even… why did I watch this… help me…

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Biggest Surprise

Curse of Chucky – 6.9

This is probably an unexpected winner, but the moment I watched this movie I knew it would win for the month. This is the second time I watched it and I feel pretty bad that I didn’t give it a chance the first time. I originally rated it 4/10 and never gave it a second thought. This time around, I love that it was Chucky’s real daughter as Nica. What must it be like to have Chucky for a dad? Does he ever do the Chucky laugh just to scare the shit out of her?! Some lines were good and some of the puppet work was mega creepy. It was pretty funny that the mom was sleeping with the nanny instead of the dad… didn’t see that coming. The last thing I loved was that they had a character in a wheelchair. That’s not something you see often, especially in horror movies. In fact, the only other one I can think of is one of the Friday the 13th movies and well… he doesn’t survive too long… This is a nostalgic, campy, horror movie and I think if you’re fans of Bride of Chucky you’d like this.

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Biggest Disappointment

Mubi Streaming Service

You might’ve had a sinking feeling as you read my worst of the worst that this was going to show up down here and you were right. This was truly the most disappointing thing of all of April. I originally heard about this from a channel I follow on YouTube. It really intrigued me to be able to see a new random movie every day because it takes out some of the work of hunting down the next movie to watch. I gave it a real good try, having watched 13 movies before giving up. I only liked 4 out of 13, my average rating was 6.6 and my highest rating was only a 7.5. All this added up to it not seeming to be worth it. I stopped looking forward to the new one every day and was more stressed that I had to keep up and watch ones that I didn’t even find interesting just to make it worth my money. It’s a really great idea and with different movies I’d be open to trying it out again, unfortunately it just wasn’t worth it to me in the end.

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April turned out to be a pretty awful movie month and has taken a toll on my ability to blog. I have 2 TSPDT movies that I watched in March that I need to write up, I have Heimat still in the works, and I’m in the middle of a 3 hour Japanese movie. After binging on movies I didn’t enjoy, I need to take a step back and just try and enjoy watching movies again. I have a few new ones that aren’t on any lists queued up which hopefully turn out to be good.  So for May, expect the last 2 reviews I’ve been working on and one on the Japanese movie (if I can finish it). Watching movies is like a roller coaster ride… hopefully I’m on the way back up.