Best Movies Seen for the First Time in 2020!

Our final ultimate end of year Movie List is coming soon, but we have another fun tradition around here - our picks for the Top Ten films seen in the Calendar Year 2020, regardless of original release year! The merit of this exercise is certainly contentious - it's certainly a personal list based on happenstance, but it's also a way to acknowledge ancient films I have either finally caught up and saw this year or a significant amount of 2019 clean-up. Hopefully you can take this as a way to check out some hidden gems or just what I liked from this past year. These were all new to me! Here we go.

#10: Paths of Glory (1957)

I'd like to consider myself a Kubrick fan, but I have missed out on many of his earliest work from the 1950s, which was actually his most prolific period, at least in quantity. A lot of it has been undervalued as most think he started with Dr. Strangelove (1964). I wanted to watch Paths of Glory just to be a completionist for a director I'd like to claim to be a fan of, but it really blew me away. It's half a war movie, half courtroom drama, and surprisingly applicable to the injustices, corruption, and mistrust of authority that we're seeing today. Kubrick finds the humanity in the hellscape of war and Kirk Douglas anchors this super underrated film.

#9: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

I watched this and want to watch it again but also definitely don't want to. It's far too long and dense, but it's also one of the most thematically rich films of the year. I would like to sum up the courage to check it out once more with a better understanding of the film's endgame. It stuck with me quite a bit afterwards and it's certainly on my list of best 2020 films, where we'll dive in a little deeper, but needless to say, it was good enough to rub elbows against the best films of any year.

#8: Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

This film had good buzz coming off the end of last year but it never made it on my list. It's a little hard to access, you have to be into period lesbian artist dramas, but it is truly a masterpiece that had me thinking and digesting for a long time after. It is subtle, but also twisting and turning, with wide debate as to what the actual woman on fire is, literal or metaphorical. I immensely enjoyed this, it's beautiful shot and crafted both on and behind the screen.

#7: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)

Okay, so I dipped into some old creepy cult classics this year and I watched the Elvira movie on a whim and just loved it. It's fast, crisp, witty, and well-paced, with a significant subtext about being your own individual woman and taking pride in confident sexiness. It's a great relevant film for 2020. It's the kind of flick I knew I'd be coming back to at the end of the year no matter what. It just came out of no where for me. I've never been an Elvira stan or anything, but I appreciate her niche, even if it's more an evolution of Vampirella. That's a whole other story. Elvira is so much more ironic and meta, but also very genuine to who she is and what she represents. It's all fantastic.

#6: The Frighteners (1996)

This had been on my list for a while since I'd like to also be a Peter Jackson completionist, but I really didn't know too much about it. It's clearly the best non-Back to the Future movie Michael J. Fox has ever done and he plays against type really well. It's continually surprising with effects that hold up decently well (or at least decent by mid-90s standards), and even some that made me scratch my head today. It's a really tight story with well-balanced elements of humor and macabre, mostly thanks to Fox's impeccable charisma. It's amazing that we never had more vehicles for him.

#5: Color Out of Space (2020)

There have been a lot of Lovecraftian adaptations over the past century, and many more if you count the significant influence he has had on pop culture. He was also a white supremacist, which complicates every part of his legacy. Well, it's not often that a film can capture the unknowable horror of Lovecraft, simply because our imagination triggered by the written word is a much more simultaneously vague and leading bear to poke. Somehow Color Out of Space does the improbable and leads us down a mystifying wormhole of psychological terror and body horror. It's a lot of fun. There's no movie that I screamed "WHAT?!" at my screen more this year and I really enjoyed it.

#4: The Dead Don't Die (2019)

Jim Jarmusch made his vampire film with Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), which was okay, but his attempt at a zombie film was endlessly captivating. It's deeply meta in satisfying ways, goofy on its face, but lamenting a serious emotional subtext underneath. It's the best cast film maybe ever, but most importantly, it verily and truly doesn't take itself seriously. At all. And this never cheapens the proceedings, but enhances them.

#3: Buffaloed (2020)

This flew super under the radar this year, but I really enjoyed it as the funniest film of the year, and maybe the best. It's a movie all about the scams of the shady world of debt collection set in Buffalo, NY. Maybe it's the fact that I am originally from Western New York, or that the subject matter fits the rust belt area, and quite frankly, the slowly depleting middle class nationwide, but the whole thing was a lot of fun, led by what should be a career-catapulting performance by Zoey Deutch. Unfortunately I don't think anyone saw it. Go see it!

#2: 1917 (2019)

More catch up on last year's films, the final two slots go to movies I got in after the buzzer sounded for last year. I really think 1917 lived up the hype from last year - it should have been a contender for Best Picture, which at the time felt undeserving, but I've completely reversed my stance. I suppose that makes me angrier at its loss now. It joins a hundred years of movies trying to capture the feeling of war, but it still feels like a fresh take - using its medium to create the impact of desperation, friendship, loss, and constant life on edge. It was also a massive technical achievement, which has gone undersung.

#1: The Lighthouse (2019)

In any year where you see The Lighthouse for the first time, The Lighthouse is going to be the best movie of that year. Beyond the perfect performances from Dafoe and Patterson, one of the greatest character actors of all time as well as from who could become one of our greatest actors, the black and white cinematography, commitment to period speech and stylings, and genuinely trippy descent into madness, this is just a fun time for everyone. Bring the kids! But don't touch the gulls!

Well folks, that is our list for this year. Looking back at our midway analysis, unsurprisingly, my Top 4 at the midpoint all stayed the same, but I found The Frighterners retaining itself in my brain and moving up the list. Stay tuned as we will continue to unleash our Best of 2020 lists over the next few days. I will admit that this is always a weird one, but stay tuned!

Adventures at the 42nd Cleveland International Film Festival

This is weird, but even as an avid nine-year casual Internet movie blogger I've never had the opportunity to check out a film festival. When I heard that my new city of Cleveland, OH hosted a massive Film Festival at the Tower City Cinema, I was really excited. I ended up seeing three movies in three days (two last night), although the festival actually went on for like two weeks. I found out about it way too late.

I also rarely do this, but I thought I'd wrap up the three movies I saw in three micro-impressions here, since they're not well-seen (yet, hopefully), and for once I'll actually avoid spoilers in my discussion here.

Really not enough bits about alcoholism here

Scotch - A Golden Dream
Dir: Andrew Peat, Taiwan

Peat was there at the screening answering questions, but seemed aloof as to why he was currently living in China making movies about Scotch. He did say he was originally from Cleveland, which really just further confounded things.

Anyway, A Golden Dream was a solid documentary on the scotch industry, particularly focusing on Islay, Scotland. There is some great insight into the both the history and culture of the industry along with background on some specific distilleries. It ends up narrowing in on Jim McEwan, a distiller at Bowmore for years before revitalizing Bruichladdich and leading them into prominence. Well, quasi-prominence. That brand is critically lauded but I'd never heard of them - and I... drink a lot of scotch. I think it's just out of my price range.

While the film has all these really interesting moments it struggled in focus at times. It seemed like it didn't know what it actually wanted to say. McEwan is a good focus, but then it will leave and spend a lot of time with underappreciated roles of women in the industry or glass-making or the proper way to sniff a glass. And again, this is all interesting factoid stuff, and in the case of female scotch makers, fairly important in breaking stereotypes. But instead of using all the female interviews to fuel material for women in industry, why not just hear what they have to say about the creation of scotch? That's still left up to the men, and ultimately all the women are allowed to discuss is their own role both currently and historically.

I was really torn with this. Scotch comes off sometimes as a feature-length advertisement for Islay scotch, Bruichladdich in particular, virtually ignoring Lowland, Speyside, and Highland producers. It still has a lot of insight into the creation process, the level of skill master distillers display on a given day, and how much it means to the Scottish people. On some level it feels like the level of insight you'd get on any distillery tour, but considering I don't plan on flying to Scotland anytime soon, it's nice to have here.

Lord Bullington was also the Red Cloak in Eyes Wide Shut

Filmworker
Dir: Tony Zierra

This documentary was about Leon Vitali, who if you don't know, was an English actor who appeared in just about every movie and television show possible before starring as Lord Bullington in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975). I can tell you're still not with me. After his experience on that film, Vitali became enamored in Kubrick's personality, directorial style, and perfectionist regimen. He ended up foregoing a budding acting career and became sort of Kubrick's personal and professional assistant, dedicating his entire life to behind-the-scenes work and since his death, continuous restoration and media format transition work.

It's a fascinating piece of work, especially as a big Kubrick fan who didn't know anything about this guy. He did everything from casting to coaching actors to editing, color correction, and archiving. What's most striking its Vitali's worth ethic and loyalty to Kubrick, who we all know is kind of nuts, but this film makes clear is totally bonkers. You know, in a good way.

What's most evident, though, is that Vitali was instrumental to much of Kubrick's success and has gone totally unnoticed for the better part of the past forty years. He's still alive and kicking it and has some great stories that fill this film. It'd be a hard documentary to get through if you're not real familiar with Kubrick, or at least his last three films that Vitali helped out with behind the scenes - The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

To some extent I was left wondering why the hell Vitali was required to work so hard, sometimes day and night (he says his longest streak was two 36-hours sessions), when there was only three fucking movies to make in twenty years. Of course, he ended up handling just about all of the VHS and later, DVD releases of Kubrick's earlier work as well, and the insight of working with a maniacal, demanding, eccentric boss is relatable to anyone. I think it's worth some discussion whether or not his effort was ultimately worth it - solely handling almost all production and marketing duties that normally entire studio departments would take on, because he was supposedly the only one who truly understood Kubrick's vision. I don't doubt that that's all true, but c'mon Stan, we'd still buy A Clockwork Orange (1971) on VHS no matter what was on the cover.

Film-wise it's a solid effort, and despite there being some questions left on the table (it's Kubrick, of course there will be), and it not really reaching an intellectual high point like a Kubrick film, this was fun. I wonder if Leon Vitali handles Netflix previews of Kubrick films.

Blood Fest

And the fat kid from Spider-Man!

Dir: Owen Edgerton

Blood Fest is a horror comedy about a young horror fan who attends this horror convention in the woods called Blood Fest, that, to his horror, becomes all too real when the events vendors make the horror come alive. The group of plucky fans must escape through re-created tropes of Romero, Raimi, a Jason-inspired slasher, torture-porn, and uhh...clowns.

There is some good commentary here on tropes and how to navigate a horror film, and it strikes a good balance of comedy and horror, but as I was sitting there all I could think about is films that played with tropes better like The Cabin in the Woods (2012) or horror comedies that were both scarier and funnier like Zombieland (2009). Even something like Scream (1996) nailed the meta-tone while creating its own iconography in way that this film seems to want to do. You get a pathetic feeling as this flick continually name-drops major horror icons like Freddy and Jason while having to settle for knock-offs to actually fight like the fictional Arborist. I can't really sum it up better than this headline.

Alright, having said all that, this is definitely a film that's trying to have fun with itself, and that's something. The most compelling character may be the completely insane and ammoral guy in charge of Blood Fest, who ironically, is played by director, Owen Edgerton. He brings a totally unhinged joy to his performance. Seychelle Gabriel does some good, underrated work as someone who in most other films would be an uninteresting love interest. A love un-interest, if you will, ho ho. She's great here. There's a certain glee to all the mayhem and the crowd definitely loved it. In the moment I was loving it too, but I wanted to see it build to something more significant.

In fact, as I was watching this, I began questioning if horror movies could even be successful as straight horror anymore. Sure, we just had A Quiet Place (2018), and Get Out (2017) make big bucks, but I'd be hesitant to call either of those straight horror with high body counts. Instead I think of The Babysitter (2017), Happy Death Day (2017), The Final Girls (2015), or Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) as movies that I've all loved, but were only really elevated by pointing out tropes. Even WolfCop (2014). Man I've seen a lot of bad horror movies lately. Anyway, maybe we're beyond that point where we can have a straight slasher or monster movie that's actually scary. Or to be honest, at all.

There is more to talk about here. Purge. The Conjuring Cinematic Universe somehow. Anthology films like XX (2017), Holidays (2016), Tales of Halloween (2015), The ABCs of Death (2012), V/H/S (2012). A little movie called IT (2017). The Ritual (2017). There are a lot of good horror flicks out there. Blood Fest tries to be one of them, but ultimately can't find the balance.

I had fun at this festival. Sure all three of these films had problems, but it's really cool to see these before they ever get distribution, if they even do. And although there were issues here, each film was definitely interesting and memorable, which is important. I'd be into supporting any of these on their path to mainstream distribution.

For the record, other films I was interested in seeing but unable to:

The Carter Effect, Sean Menard
Five Fingers for Marseilles, Michael Matthews
Humor Me, Sam Hoffman
Mary Goes Round, Molly McGlynn
RBG, Betsy West, Julie Cohen
Revenge, Coralie Fargeat
Won't You Be My Neighbor, Morgan Neville

So, go watch these. And any other films you see at festivals nearby. It's fun stuff!

31 Days of Halloween Lists: The Only List for Halloween Priorities

It's the time of the year for creeps and tricks and general horrific nonsense all around, which means it's a great opportunity for a bit of listology, too. Now, there are lots of ways to go about this. I could have cited 31 movies, one each day, or 31 creepy movie scenes, or the best Halloween Episodes, but I think we can be a bit mor grandiose than that.

And 31 is obviously the magic number here - virtually all of October qualifies as Pure Fall - the slow death of the seasons that looks gorgeous while a chill runs through the air sapping all hope and joy from the excess of summer. So I'm going with an October checklist, if you will. Here is a list of priorities to go through each October Season to get you in just saucey enough of a mood for the revelry of Samhain that comes at months' end. This is my personal list, and it gets pretty personal - but in just five easy installments for the rest of the month, we're going to cover it all. So, neglecting any sort of day-by-day posting, let's get through our first SIX THINGS TO LIST FOR HALLOWEEN.

1. JAWS (1975) - Movie.

JAWS gets its place here from being an immortal horror movie, but it's also totally more a summer film than a Halloween film. There hasn't been a better monster movie since, and I still jump when Brody chums some of that shit into the water and Bruce rears his head. There's a reason why this kicks us off, though - nothing about it feels October-relevant, but as a bridge from Summer to Fall, this is a nice combo of daylight beach-time horror. That will be about the last we see of that, though.

2. The Shining (1980) - Movie

Here we get a bit closer, but The Shining is really to winter horror what JAWS was to summer. I'll freely call this the scariest movie ever made, from the steady dreadful strings that make up its score to shocking suddenness of all its big scares. There's something in this whole film that makes it unsettling, whether it be the abstract, impossible geography, constant haunted feel, or eeriness. It's still not quite Halloween, but a great subtle fear-monster.

3. Ghostbusters (1984) - Movie

Trending in the opposite direction, Ghosbusters nailed the horror-comedy in ways that no one has been able to achieve since (including the 2016 version). There are still parts of this that feels more like a summer movie, though, probably just due to its blockbuster-ness. Its theme song has luckily made its way on to every Halloween Party playlist ever, though, so it gains a lot of points for Ray Parker alone.

4. Fallgaritas - Drink

Stay with me here, but back in 2010 I started sucking down these bad boys as soon as the wind turned cold. I distinctly remember pouring my first during a rousing viewing of Harry Brown (2009), and each and every October since then I get sauced off these treats. Jim Beam and Cider with a rim of caramel and a Kit Kat or Reece's garnish is a delectable treat to make bad Halloween decisions to.

5. Lowcountry - Short Story

Stay with me here, because I said this was personal. We do have a little-known sister site for prose, unwrites.blogspot.com. There, also back in 2010 I committed to the screen Lowcountry, an epic tale of forbidden love between Mummy and Frankenstein. It's certainly stupid; some would say extremely stupid, but I try to give it a re-read every time things get creepy. If you're looking to waste a good hour, I highly recommend as well!

6. Sleepy Hollow - Story / Horrible Movie / Worse TV Show

There are a lot of classic Halloween tales out there, but to me, it's all about Sleepy Hollow. It's the Halloween version of A Christmas Carol, passed down and re-told for each generation. It's really all about the pumpkin-toting Headless Horseman, who is underrated as far as classic ghouls go. That could be because he lacks a definitive classic portrayal. Sure, Chris Walken went nuts as the mad Hessian in Sleepy Hollow (1999), and the Nichole Beharie / Tom Mison show which used the Horseman...of the APOCALYPSE (wha-hey!!) as a jumping off point for a completely bonkers supernatural historical procedural. It's still nearing that golden Halloween-ness we're looking for, and so it's fitting to leave on for now.

What does he do when it rains? Does it just go down the neckhole?

I hope that saits your Halloween List appetite for now. We've got quite a bit more to cover - twenty-five more...THINGS for Halloween, so stay tuned, folks. It's gonna get weird and terrible and I love it.

Best Films Seen For the First Time in 2015

Amidst the flurry of Top Ten lists that always clog up the interwebs every December, there is another concept that's far more personal that always feels much more interesting to me. For the first time ever, I want to discuss not only the Top Ten Films of 2015, but the Top Ten Best Films I Saw for the First Time in 2015. That is, regardless of release date, here are truly the best flicks I sunk my eyes into over the past year.

For a comprehensive list of every single film and television show I watched in 2015, you can of course check out this little ditty right here. This is of course a personal and random list that includes movies from all over, certainly skewed towards 2014 releases that I've caught up on, along with a handful of great 2015 films. I disincluded great films that I had already seen before. For instance, I watched JAWS (1975) and Goodfellas (1990) this year, and they would probably make the list otherwise. So, let's get down:

#10: The Raid: Redemption (2011)

The Finest in Indonesian Cinema

I had heard non-stop great things about The Raid: Redemption, and I managed to catch it as well as its sequel this year. Even though The Raid 2: Berandal (2014) is a spectacular film, the first one is a bit stronger with its more focused narrative and relentless action set-pieces. There is hardly a more pure action movie out there and the inventiveness of its brutality, formulation of stakes, and clarity of cinematic composure is magnificent.

#9: Dope (2015)

I was on board with Dope since the first trailer dropped, which promised a unique coming of age tale that also dared to defy dangerous racial stereotypes. It's all that, even when it descends into a slightly preachy final monologue, but the path up to that point is near Michael Corleone-esque as it showcases a straight-A Harvard-hopeful Inglewood youth faced with a series of escalatingly bad decisions that threaten to shove him on the path of a drug dealer instead. It's all this and also really fucking funny, with confident direction and acting by a mostly freshman cast, with one of the best soundtracks of the year.

#8: John Wick (2014)

I brushed off John Wick (2014) as a typical revenge thriller, but it's also the best American action film of 2014. I finally caught up with it this year and was extremely impressed. The plot is nothing incredibly inventive, save for the relentless focus of Keanu Reeves which creates this balance of fear and respect between him and the enemies who killed his dog. So, it's a bit more clever than typical action films. It carries its weight on crisp, steady action beats along with a stellar performance by Keanu. See, he's super-wooden, but the movie uses his super-woodenness to its advantage. It's compelling.

#7: Zodiac (2007)

I don't know why it took me so long to catch up to Zodiac, which is totally Dave Fincher's most underrated film, although maybe that's just it. It hasn't had the lasting appeal of Se7en (1995) or The Social Network (2010), maybe because the story is basically like All the President's Men (1976) with serial killers. Actually, speaking of Fincher, isn't it totally random that he took on The Social Network? Almost all his other movies are about serial killers. Anyway, Zodiac is a near-perfect telling of obsession, fear, paranoia, and slugfest journalism detective work that all adds up to the only thing we know now - that who the hell knows who the Zodiac Killer really was. The cast is spectacular, notably Robert Downey, Jr. minutes before he exploded with Iron Man (2008).

#6: Barry Lyndon (1975)

There was a lot of Internet out there that claimed Barry Lyndon to be Kubrick's greatest work, and I was skeptical, considering how much of his other films have shaped pop culture, even if every single one of them was reviled upon release. It's not easy company to say that this random 18th-century fop epic stood on equal or higher ground to more accessible (could that even be a thing?) films like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), or The Shining (1980), but Barry Lyndon totally does it with a three-hour slow burn featuring simultaneously the most interesting, tragic, and asshole-y figure in Kubrick's oeuvre. Every scene builds on what came before and pushes Barry Lyndon further down this path of becoming a complete dick as he works his way (fakes his way) up to the top of high society. All this in addition to the purity of natural lighting (even in indoor night scenes) makes the film dreamlike to behold while boasting breathtaking cinematography.

#5: Inherent Vice (2014)

As it turns out, Joaquin Phoenix is only mildly insane

Inherent Vice didn't seem to catch on the way I thought it would but as 2015 winds to a close, this film which I saw almost a year ago has stood with me. It's partly a typical Paul Anderson Altman-style ensemble film, but the performances are so ripe and the time period so well defined without becoming gimmicky that it's impossible to look away. It's as if Paul Anderson directed The Big Lebowski (1998) with a little less goofiness and a more concerted effort to divulge into the culture clash, cult wars, and efficacy of doing nothing that the hippie movement was all about. It could even pass as a sillier Season 2 of True Detective. I remain a big fan of its aesthetic and themes in addition to everything else at work here.

#4: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

The way things are shaking down it improbably appears as if Fury Road is getting a lot of end-of-year love, which seems insane until you face the challenge of actually naming a better film. This year is sort of all over the place, unlike the remarkably strong 2014, and even though there's typical Oscar bait films that ought to dominate the Awards come February 28, we're suddenly left with this huge split. Can Fury Road be the film that finally brings crazy action movies into mainstream contention for best film of the year? Probably not, so I can no doubt visualize some kind of formal or informal split. The best part about Fury Road is that it's actual this small little simple indie story locked inside one of the most expansive and thrillingly weird movies of the year. It's the kind of film where everything works, and by far the best action film, if not the best film of 2015. Have you recognized a pattern, yet? I like clear action films.

#3: What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

This was technically a 2015 release in the States, but I always feel weird about judging it that way, so for now I'll probably leave it off my 2015, as much as it deserves to be there. There's certainly not a funnier New Zealand vampire mockumentary that was made this year. The core gag of juxtaposing cultural stereotypes of vampires with insights to their every day life activities could have been an ignominious re-tread yet the steady subtle gag-fueled hand of director Taika Waititi steers it into something unique and delightful.

#2: Ex Machina (2015)

Ex Machinia is such a closed-in story, a bottle featuring an alcoholic genius tech billionaire, his Frankenstein-esque robot discovering herself, and the plucky contest winner that gets to give her a Turing test. I know what you're thinking - that's a sexy premise! But the film actually is legitimately sexy and stars three of the hottest stars out there today - 2/3 of which are in fucking Star Wars coming out this week. I'm tempted to name the delicate balance of horror and silliness in this scene as the best of the year, and even though it's a film filled with techno-babble, it also made me think more about what it means to be human than any other film this year. Well, except for one.

#1: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)

Bleh! BLEH!

I had kind of heard of this movie as being good, but the title didn't make it seem nearly as interesting as it is. I read the tagline description, "the first Iranian vampire western" which seemed incongruous with my earlier disinterest. After finally catching the damn thing there's no film I've thought about more this year and no film I consider superior. It builds its story on pure visual brick and mortar, not unlike fellow 2014 entry Under the Skin, although also not quite so opaque. There's an intricate dance of who the protagonist actually is, who is under who's spell, and a constant threat of danger and mystery. Plus it combines the vampires of What We Do in the Shadows with more great dance scenes.

Honourable Mentions:

Since I like keeping this to a crisp and clear Top Ten, here's a handful of other great films I saw for the first time in the Calendar Year 2015: Bronson (2008), Dear White People (2014), Mad Max (1979), and Why Don't You Play in Hell? (2014). I also finally saw Nashville (1975), and while I really loved Altman's direction and how that film was constructed, I hated the subject matter. Maybe if I liked country music at all, that would have been alright.

Well, as it turns out, 7/10 of these films were actually 2014 or 2015 releases, mostly foreign or obscure releases that took me a while to get around to see. That's not really surprising. Stay tuned for more high caliber 2015 coverage!