Twenty GREATteen: Best Films That I Saw, Regardless of Year

We have a couple weeks left to go in 2018 but I'm not sure any film I see will crack this Top Ten, so here we go.

Each year in addition to our traditional end of year lists that every website ever makes, we take some time for personal evaluation of any and all movies seen for the first time in the Calendar Year 2018. We've been at this for a while now, and it's more a cool motivation to think critically about all movies you watch, catch up on some old ones that you've never seen, and for you, the viewer to gain some insight into my madness.

First, let's recap the last few years:

2017: Blade Runner 2049 (2017): I was really into BR2049. I still am. It was my #1 anticipated movie, the best of the year, and the best of anything I saw that year.
2016: Seven Samurai (1954): A great example of catching up with a classic that I had never seen and it totally blowing me away. I encourage you to check it out!
2015: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014): This was me getting into a film from the previous year that I had simply missed before 2014 was over. It was still great.

And, because I'm insane I also did this at the mid-year break. To be fair, without looking at that I made the following list, and amazingly, I kept five of my top six, in roughly the same order.

So, regardless of year, let's dip into the Top Ten of 20GREATTeen. I just copied this from the mega-list, we'll keep the method of viewing because that's always interesting. Also, sign up for Netflix DVD service.

#10: Boyz N the Hood (1991) - Netflix DVD

Why It's Here: When you watch upwards of 240 movies a year what matters most by December is what stands out. This was the first of a wave of early 90s Ghetto films that have never really stopped, but it's still the best. The cast is a who's who of 90s Black Actors, most of whom have become great 2010s Black Actors like Cuba, Angela Bassett, Ice Cube, Morpheus, Morris Chestnut, and Nia Long. It tightens its grip on your and never lets go, while never necessarily fetishizing, glamourizing, or exploiting hood gang violence like it easily could have.

Why Did I Watch This? This had been in my DVD queue for a while because it's just a notable movie, but certainly riding that post-Straight Outta Compton (2015) wave of gangsta films my interest was peaked in seeing something a little more authentic and focused. It also clued me into a lot of 90s references, from Eek the Cat! to Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996).

#9: mother! (2017) - Netflix DVD

Why It's Here: Okay, this is a divisive movie that most people hated, but I think it's bloody brilliant. As soon as I realized the whole thing was a parable I was super on board, sussing out the layers of metaphor. The final fifteen minutes is one of the most amazing tour de forces of cinema I've ever seen. There are few who agree with me.

Why Did I Watch This? All the controversy, insanity, and hype, both negative and positive, coming off the recent release the previous Autumn.

#8: Good Time (2017) - Netflix DVD

Why It's Here: There are a lot of "night gone bad" movies out there, but few with such immediate and visceral action and reaction as Good Time. Robert Pattinson has done incredible post-Twilight work just about everywhere and he endures nonsense here from beginning to end as his character can't quite shake the criminal he is at heart despite being pulled in tragic other paths of family, poverty, and neglected redemption. It's really engaging stuff.

Why Did I Watch This? It showed up on a lot of Best of 2017 lists, but what pushed me over the edge was Pete Davidson just LOVING this movie. He knows his stuff.

#7: Thelma & Louise (1991) - Hulu

Why It's Here: The great irony of this movie is that it's totally a fitting movie for 2018 yet you get the sense that it would never be released in 2018. I weirdly watched a solid number of Geena Davis movies in 2018 (I think three of them, two are on this list). This movie just kept unfurling and I was awestruck how spot on every single line of dialogue was for a film made nearly thirty years ago. It was really depressing. This movie was crazy popular, too! It was a film that has etched itself in pop culture lore and well worth catching up on.

Why Did I Watch This? At the time it filled a niche both on expiring soon from Hulu and me needing a 1991 movie to fill one film from every year. But that could have been any film - from my more familiar Simpsons knowledge to the definitive relevancy, this was a good pick.

#6: The Death of Stalin (2018) - Theater

Why It's Here: I miss witty, conniving comedies so much, and this was the wittiest, most conniving comedy I've seen in a long long time. Consistently hilarious, dark, brutal, timely, and really well-shot, this just hit all the right buttons for me. Armando Iannucci is a masterful screenwriter, but I also feel like this film isn't getting nearly its just dues come December. I watched it and knew it'd immediately be at or near the top of my 2018 list.

Why Did I Watch This? I had heard about the production years ago and it seemed interesting, then got far more interesting when I learned it was a comedy. The trailer sealed it for me, a local theater was playing it, and there we go.

#5: Sorry to Bother You (2018) - Theater

Why It's Here: I knew I'd fall in love with this. Similar to Death of Stalin this is right up my alley with its dark but clever humour. That's always the key - this film gets outlandish, more outlandish than just about any other movie I've ever seen, but the satire is always purposeful, stuffed with metaphor and relevant. It's uncanny. The cast is full of hot young actors from LaKeith Stanfield, who should be in everything, Steven Yeun, to Tessa Thompson who WAS in everything this year, and Armie Hammer, who I think is the most underrated actor in anything he shows up in. Did I mention how nuts this film gets? It's best not to spoil anything and let the magical realism take you in.

Why Did I Watch This? The trailer really sealed the deal, but knowing LaKeith from Atlanta and Get Out (2017) and Straight Outta Compton (2015) helps. Also Boots Reilly from The Coup as director was really intriguing. Mostly I heard this film was bonkers and it reliably was, which made me happy.

#4: City of God (2002) - Netflix Streaming

Why It's Here: This is a truly epic piece of filmmaking. There is hardly another film made that captures an entire generation of an entire city in two hours, but City of God destroys all competitors. I give the film a tremendous amount of credit for introducing dozens of characters played by unknown or even non-actors but imbuing all of them with a personality, function, actions, and reactions that reverberate throughout the city and the film itself. The protagonist may not even be the main character. It's a fantastic achievement.

Why Did I Watch This? I heard about this film years ago but didn't know much about it, only that it was notable but I think I read it in a big 1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die book, and it also helped me get a 2002 film. Netflix Streaming helps.

#3: Shin Godzilla (2016) - Netflix DVD

Why It's Here: In the wake of a long span of time with no Godzilla, and then a lot of spins on the Kaiju but no real innovation, Toho decided to completely reinvent their own creation. We've had the American version - Godzilla (2014), which was by and large pretty good, the animated Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017) which is nigh unwatchable, and sure, let's through in the Pacific Rim movies to round out our recent Kaiju splurge. But no film was as flat out excellent as Shin Godzilla, which recrafts the Godzilla mythos into a disaster relief film in the wake of Fukujima. Godzilla is weird, deathly, and truly terrifying. His atomic ray is purple and shoots out of his back, tail, and a horrifying separating jaw. The human drama is actually compelling and casts a critical eye on Japan-US relations, self-reliance, relief, and prevention. It's top to bottom amazing and far beyond any mindless Kaiju Beat 'em up. Okay, I'm still looking forward to Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), though.

Why Did I Watch This? I heard it was good a while ago, and wanted to catch it, especially after watching this video essay. It was also October and I sorta justified it as a Halloween Monster film.

#2: They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) - Netflix DVD

Why It's Here: Yeah, this is an obscure one. It was actually nominated for nine Academy Awards but only won one. It is truly a bizarre film, taking place almost solely in a brutal 1000+ hour long dance competition in the Depression Era, when people were just desperate enough to submit their minds and bodies to grueling spectacle for a quick buck. It's a real bleak film full of madness and despair disguised as a fun romp. It's precise, the acting is sublime by Jane Fonda, Gig Young, and many more, and you feel every bit the pain they go through until it becomes a meaningless exercise as futile as their misguided hope was in the first place. It's rad, man.

Why Did I Watch This? I forget how I got into it, but there is this weird sector of old entertainment of like, people putting hands on cars the longest, or dancing the longest and the insanity that ensued. It's a weird forgotten corner of our pop culture history. Also that Always Sunny episode. I think I just saw the title of this on a Wikipedia list or something and thought, "Damn, that's a weird title." It is and damn it's brutal. So metal! But I like exploring these subaltern, forgotten zones. Also, this wasn't even available on Netflix DVD for the longest time, I had to literally wait years.

#1: The Fly (1986) - Hulu

Why It's Here: It starts perfectly in media res, has an incredibly focused and limited cast of characters, believes in science, hubris, love, regret, body horror, it's so good. In 2018 Geena Davis' boss / stalker coming to save her is troubling, but the film works out that he gets some pretty rough comeuppance and she ends up being her own hero. Then again, this is a film without any real heroes - only complicated characters full of dreams, danger, and gross acne. From the slow transformation both physically and mentally to the doomed love story, this is a brilliantly constructed screenplay. Could have used a monkey-cat though.

Why Did I Watch This? I'm a big Goldblum fan and the pop culture relevancy of this is strong. Again, mostly Simpsons tho that's mostly the 1958 version. I watched this pretty recently because it was leaving Hulu, and I knew it'd be good, but damn I was blown away.

What did you watch this year? Am I too big on The Fly? Bet you didn't see that one coming.

Mama Mia La Madre!

So, we've gotten past the big blockbuster summer crap, and for a while now I've thought about bringing this "Road to a Blockbuster" column into the fore as a year-long thing. There aren't any franchise-starters or anything dropping this week, but it'd be fun to analyze this shit anyway, right? I need to come up with less obscure titles, though. But you kind of get that I'm talking about mother! (2017), right? I mean, what else? This week we see the release of both this and American Assassin (2017), which is so obviously dumped into the dead month of September. Let's start with our cultural preview for that one first.

Listen, I don't have words. Those are actually my driving glasses.

I know nothing about this film. So let's go on this journey together. I want to try to piece this piece of shit together. First, let's look at the posters. I have no idea who the main character is, but judging that an action film needs a young up-and-coming brunette male lead, I'm guessing it's Dylan O'Brien who looks so much like Taylor Kitsch that it's stupid. But then Taylor Kitsch IS actually in this as well! This is like when The Roommate (2011) had both Minka Kelly AND Leighton Meester! They should make a remake of that film starring Nina Dobrev and Victoria Justice. That's a great party game.

Getting back on track, Dylan O'Brien is most famous for being an interchangeable white dude protagonist in the Maze Runner film series. The first film that came out in 2014 was apparently okay. I actually infamously saw the second film, The Scorch Trials (2015) which was one of the worst films I had seen in years. I was actually really curious about it because I heard it was a uniquely terrible adaptation that completely ignored the source material. I probably should have read the book to actually compare, but it was pretty awful. It's also fairly unique because it kind of becomes a totally different scenario. Like there's zombies for some reason that only appear in the second one, because the first one is just this maze or whatever. Zombies in the "Scorch." Yeah, you can figure this out.

Oh no! Dylan O'Brien apparently got fucked up so they delayed The Death Cure (2018). Haha, that sucks. How did he get around to filming American Assassin? They probably just used Taylor Kitsch for the whole thing instead. Poor Taylor Kitsch. He's neither the worst part of Battleship (2012) or John Carter (2012), but that's a tough one-two punch. Dude it's just dawning on me now that I saw both of those shitty films in the theater. It wasn't my fault they bombed, Taylor!

Who else is in this shit? Where are those posters. "Takes one to kill one!" Hahaha. Alright, I'm officially having fun with this. There's some variation on that phrase on every single character poster! "Takes one to uncover one!" What does that mean? I don't know who Shiva Negar or Sanaa Lathan is. Ohhh! That's that chick from AVP (2004). That's right. She broke all sorts of little boy's hearts when she didn't make out with the Predator at the end. Seriously, if that was Schwarzenegger left at the end, they definitely would have kissed.

And Michael Keaton. He's having a great post-Birdman (2014) career to make up for his Oscar loss. This totally feels like Kevin Costner in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) or Harrison Ford in Paranoia (2013), right? Damn that's a really specific genre. Old respected actors slumming it in cheap thrillers featuring pretty main stars? Is there a Netflix subgroup for that? Keaton is hot coming off of Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and The Founder (2016), where he did solid work in two solid movies. He's reliably good, but his performance here will likely depend on whether he respectably believed the material was beneath him OR if like Nic Cage, he believes that no material is beneath him.

So, my guess is this film is about like, an assassin of some kind who is sent to kill somebody, then gets double crossed, probably by Michael Keaton with what looks like Taylor Kitsch representing some kind of evil twin thing and probably one of the women, my money is on the Predator-kisser, works to get him out of it like Joan Allen in The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). I still don't really want to watch a trailer. Someone else check back in to see if I'm right.

Although that number will undoubtedly be pretty small, because no one is going to see this fucking movie. We just got The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017) and yeah, that did great and is still third somehow because no one is seeing non-creepy clown films in the theater, but that was also a funny film starring likable actors. This stars Dylan O'Brien, Taylor Kitsch, and the chick from Alien vs. Predator. We will probably never talk about it again, which is kind of sad because I like ragging on it.

But does she bang Mila Kunis

In the other corner we have the latest from brilliant director Darren Aronofsky, mother! Well, he's not totally great, but when he fails he fails SPECTACULARLY. There's always something really sad and sinister about how he gets to the heart of his subjects starting from the ultimate film you only want to see once, Requiem for a Dream (2000). Before this feel-good film of the decade we got his initial film, Pi (1998) which is crude in the way that all great directors' first films are crude but is also a brutal look at mathematical obsession.

Success made Aronofsky really weird, which is awesome. The Fountain (2006) makes no damn sense and was pretty savaged, but has found a little following. I mean, he doesn't crank out Book of Henry (2017) when he misfires, he cranks out the fucking Fountain, an insane 1000-year journey through time which doesn't even really take place on earth as far as I can tell.

Then he gets super-grounded with The Wrestler (2008), which is the second old man Oscar whiff we've covered today, but still hold some incredible performances from Mickey Rourke and Evan Rachel Robo-Wood and a tragic story of a man good for one thing and one thing only to the detriment of everyone around him, including himself. Then Black Swan (2010) of course, which seemed to fuse his trippy reality-bending sensibilities with another grounded look at a physical performer only good at one thing and a complete failure at every other social aspect. Black Swan taken literally makes no sense at all, which is challenging since it works as a constant metaphor where we're never really sure whose head we're in (mostly either Natalie Portman's or our own). It's surely a masterpiece that finally won his muse an Oscar.

Then we got Noah (2014). I'll actually hardcore defend Noah, but it's also sincerely fifty minutes too long (they get on the damn boat with like a third of the movie left to go!) and there's a lot of brutal dumbass decisions, mostly made by Russell Crowe himself that take you out of the moment. You still get one of the better looking blockbusters ever, a weird 900-year old Anthony Hopkins, and this little montage, which rules.

By all accounts mother! is back to that Black Swan territory, which at first feels more grounded (at least more so than The Fountain or Noah), but there's also something real real weird going on here. Jennifer Lawrence is the main girl here obvi, but she's got some fucked up relationship with her old gross by still Spanish husband Javier "Silva" Bardem and who the hell knows what Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris are doing here. Then Kristen Wiig and Domhnall Gleeason pop up for some reason, too? This is the best cast film ever.

Apparently it's already a critical hit. Who knows if it gets too weird for maitstream or at least Awards-stream acceptance, but for some reason that really didn't stop Black Swan. Maybe Aronofsky was like, "Fuck these guys for not being weirded out by Black Swan, let's push this way weirder!" We can all dream. The poster, in contrast to American Assassin, was all sorts of simultaneously tepid, reserved, and subtly wild and full of bizarre possible clues. Also the heart thing.

But let's sink into J-Law. It kind of feels more and more that the lovable pizza-eating bro J-Law it girl that everyone loved was getting a little thin, right? Like, especially with Passengers (2016) last year it was like, this chick is too much. It was probably a good move to stay out of the spotlight for a bit and then make this wild wacky psychological thriller. She's never really sank her teeth into this kind of material, except maybe Winter's Bone (2010). If you really boil her best work down, which is basically just her non-Hunger Games and non-X-men work (damn that actually makes for a crazy short list), you get Silver Linings Playbook (2012), American Hustle (2013), and JOY (2015), which are not coincidentally three out of her four Oscar nominations (the fourth being the aforementioned Winter's Bone). Those are all outstanding dramatic roles, but all pretty loose drama Oscar bait-y works. Also all David O. Russell works. I'm curious what she does in a film that looks like a somehow creepier more intense version of Queen of Earth (2015). There's a lot to look forward to here.

The rest are probably good. Ed Harris has never won an Oscar. That fucking blows. Neither has Michelle who is actually putting together an underrated little comeback between this year and next. I do think she was kind of underrated in Dark Shadows (2012) and The Family (2013). Ugh I watch so many terrible movies.

At any rate, I think mother! can be pretty distinctive, at least enough to leave a solid cultural crater, even if it feels smaller than The Wrestler or Black Swan. That could just be pre-Oscar shit, too. If it takes off and gets second to IT (2017) this weekend it could find a nice audience, although it is coming out damned early to really do some damage. Anyway, I'm pumped.