4v291o
In 1986 Korea, a sophisticated Seoul detective s two buffoonish, corrupt local cops to investigate a series of shocking rape/murders. Rather than solving a mystery, "Memories" focuses on the detectives increasing frustration with their inability to catch the killer--which leads to some disturbing character shifts as they become more and more desperate.
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An in-depth look at the way the US government bungled the early response to the Covid pandemic, from the CDC screwing up the early detection tests to PPE shortages to mixed (sometime contradictory) messaging. Thorough and a bit nerdy; the comparison to South Korea's exemplary early pandemic response was enlightening.
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After their father's death, Andy and his blind stepsister go to live with a foster mom for three months until Andy turns 18, but Laura is a strange woman with an even stranger, mute foster boy living in her remote house. The feel-bad hit of the summer, BRING HER BACK features some extremely squirmy moments and one of the scariest (and most feral) kids ever put onscreen, but never quite hits the emotionally resonant notes it aims at.
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A soon-to-be stepmom is snowed in with her two reluctant soon-to-be-stepkids at a remote cabin and strange things start to happen. A bit of HEREDITARY, a lot of THE SHINING, and a cupful of Jim Jones are the recipe for this dark and chilly cabin fever nightmare.
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An artist s the drug addict thief who stole her paintings (and claims to have forgotten where he hid them in a meth haze), inviting him to sit for multiple portraits and developing a friendship that lasts for years. An intriguing and touching dual character study, but these kinds of documentaries always raise a question for me: how would the subjects act if they didn't know the camera was trained on them?
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If you were alive in the early 90s you probably dimly Biosphere 2, the experiment where eight scientists attempted to live in an enclosed ecosystem for two years as a sort of dry run for an extraterrestrial space colony. This documentary thoroughly tells the strange story of the hippie commune that developed into the Biosphere corporation with funds from a Texas billionaire, and the experiment that was as much performance art as serious science. Stay tuned for a surprise villain at the very end.
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A middle-class family man develops a bro-crush on his new neighbor; after a series of faux pas drive a wedge between them, he undertakes increasingly desperate measures to get his friend back. Tim Robinson extends his peculiar brand of socially awkward comedy to a feature-length, with mixed results; it often feels unfocused and like a series of independent sketches strung together, but based on the in-house laughter, dedicated fans will be plenty pleased.
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After a botched lethal injection, a death-row warden copes with the stresses of her job and an execution. A heavy drama; Alfre Woodard is great, although it is hard to believe that someone with that level of conscience and self-reflection could thrive in that particular career.
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Watched on Thursday May 22, 2025.
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A pop megastar who's spiraling downward after a bad breakup (Abel Tesfaye, AKA The Weeknd) has a one-night stand with an unhinged, obsessed fan (Jenna Ortega). This vanity project is stylishly directed but badly paced, and the self-indulgent "woe is me" messaging will turn off all but the most dedicated fans.
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Watched on Tuesday May 20, 2025.
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An impulsive and irresponsible single mother from Glasgow, Scotland dreams of going to Nashville and becoming a country singer. A bit predictable, but Jessie Buckley is amazing in the role---particular the musical numbers (that gal can really sing!)
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An acerbic poet who's stopped writing due to an existential crisis and her pulp-fiction author husband hire a meek, scarred young woman as their maid when they move to a 1930s American farm. A literary-feeling movie (it's not, but it feels like an adapted novella) that employs intertwining voiceover narrators and a series of creatively guazy dissolves/double images to partially overcome its talkiness and nebulous poetism.
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A detective investigating a spate of senseless mass murders in NYC finds the trail leads back to... God. Always surprising, Larry Cohen's ambitious offering can be enjoyed as a gloriously absurd B-movie, or taken as an existential fable.
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A divorced father (Nicolas Cage) plans to buy the Australian beachside house he grew up in and teach his son to surf the waves like he did as a boy, but local "surf gangsters" torment him, insisting the beach is for locals only, and eventually strip him of everything. The middle-aged/middle class delusionalism is (coincidentally, or not?) reminiscent of the similarly titled THE SWIMMER (1968)---but the ending is more confusing, and will leave you puzzled as to what actually happened.
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wildlife photographer and a cook decide to buy and renovate a decrepit California farm, overcoming plagues of pests and predators like gophers and coyotes, plus Mother Nature's droughts and wildfires. Great cinematography (the best filmed snails I've ever seen) highlight this ment for "traditional" farming.
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An entrepreneur who's obsessed with his dead wife invents a graveyard which allows the bereaved to watch their deceased love ones' bodies decompose in real time; when the graves are vandalized, he's led to investigate a mysterious conspiracy. Now in his 80s, David Cronenberg remains able to invent delicious perversities--sexy amputation nightmares, conspiracy theories as aphrodisiacs--even if he no longer seems very interested in putting together a semi-coherent narrative.
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A pill-smuggler in North Dakota wants to go clean, but decides to take a gamble when her poor stepsister needs to raise money for a series of emergencies. A female spin on a "one last job" type of crime drama you've probably seen before, with excellent performances by Tessa Thompson and Lily James.
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Documents the live Aretha Franklin recording of her hit gospel album "Amazing Grace" recorded in the New Bethel Baptist Church in Watts in 1971 (the original planned doc was abandoned after they forgot to sync the sound beforehand!) No-nonsense concert that wisely lets the performance speak for itself.
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In Movie A, ninjas fight over three pieces of a golden statue that will make them invulnerable; in Movie B, a lone hero takes instructions from characters in Movie A (via teleconference on a Garfield phone) and then fights a triad gang that has captured a female who is made integral to the plot of movie A through the magic of dubbing. This is probably Godfrey Ho's most "beloved" cut-n-paste ninja movie; it's necessarily confusing but actually easier to follow than most of the others, the fight scenes are good, and there's absurdity aplenty. The ninjas wear more eyeliner than JD Vance! Double the star rating if you're a bad movie fan.
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Watched on Tuesday April 29, 2025.
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The Cinderella story (Grimm brothers version), but told from the point of view of the ugly stepsister. This Norwegian film features a surprising--even shocking--amount of black comedy, body horror, graphic sex, and tapeworms. What some women will go through to land a sugar daddy!
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Mike the carjacker survived his fall from the first JACKER and now is an invulnerable supernatural entity occasionally haunted by his dead girlfriend. More ambitious, with some cheap video experimental film effects for dream sequences, and even more nonsensical than the first one---a big step up for the zero-budget filmmakers.
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Shot-on-video zero budget flick about a supposed New Jersey carjacker who's really more of a serial killer, but mostly just kind of a dick. No production value, terrible acting, ugly videography, a senseless script that was written in four days. Yes, they deserve credit for making a movie and I understand the impulse to say you can't rate an amateur production like this on the same scale you use for "real" movies --but come on, you have to be a masochist to watch this.
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An Irish girl who is bullied and shunned finds a friend in the mysterious wandering fiddler (and local boogeyman) Scarf Michael, which leads to her being accused of witchcraft. Although it features an eerie faerie atmosphere and a fine performance by Mary Ryan, it's easy to see why this leisurely drama-horror hybrid from Robert "Blood on Satan's Claw" Wynne-Simmons was nearly forgotten; it takes 45-minutes of scene-setting just to get to the first real plot point, and the Irish accents are at times nearly impenetrable for non-natives.
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Black twin gangster brothers return from Chicago to their small Mississippi town in 1932 to open a juke t with the help of their guitar-prodigy cousin; the complication is, vampires show up on opening night. Moving from period piece to horror, this black spin on FROM DUSK TO DAWN is a bloody good time at the movies, with smoking musical numbers throughout.
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Documentary exploring Russia's (more specifically, Vladimir Putin's) use of propaganda, intelligence, and espionage (collectively called "active measures") to influence world events. There's no new revelations here, everything was in the news, it's just organized into a coherent (if complicated) narrative to show how Putin has spread his nefarious plans across the world---including, you guessed it, into the U.S. of A.
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A middle-class Zambian woman finds her uncle's dead body lying in the road, and then finds herself reluctantly tasked with hosting his funeral arrangements. I like to see more genuine African movies out there, but this one is as entirely arthouse-predictable as it is well-made; the main draw is the anthropological interest in seeing the funereal customs, which mix Christianity and older traditions.
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A criminal brings sexy young mistress Jen on a weekend job/vacation, but when his two henchmen take liberties with her, things go to hell and Jen seeks REVENGE. This absurdly-plotted, stylized, and very gory feminist exploitation movie is pitched about halfway between THE REVENANT (2015) and MANDY (2018) (a bit closer to MANDY).
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It's 1980, and stoic #1 ranked Swede Bjorn Borg is feeling the pressure as he shoots for a record fifth Wimbleton title, with #2 ranked bratty American newcomer John McEnroe intent on blocking his bid for history. Sverrir Gudnason has the right smoldering intensity to play Borg, and the match itself is terrific (a back and forth five set affair with a long tiebreaker, it's considered one of the greatest tennis games ever played); the long run-up made me wonder if a straightforward documentary might have been more rewarding, though.
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A sniper team find themselves pinned down by insurgents in Ramadi, Iraq. Focused on a single firefight that plays out almost in real time, this ultra-realistic and super-intense, with no time for manufactured drama as the bullets fly.
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A famous actress' personal assistant finds herself the chief suspect in a murder. Well-made and well-acted, if slow-moving and lacking any meaningful subtext, but the fatal flaw is: the twist makes absolutely zero logical sense.
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Watched on Wednesday April 9, 2025.
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Thinking she's ing her estranged father, a neurotic young woman befriends a man with the same name on Facebook, leading to an unlikely friendship. As unassuming as modest movies get, great performances from Barbie Ferreira, John Leguizamo and French Stewart save this crowd-pleaser from collapsing under the burden of sentimentality and cliche.
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A retired scientist uses pills that send her back exactly one week in time to try to find a (time travel-based) cure before the black hole growing in her chest kills her. Like Charlie Kaufman lite, it's (mildly) absurdist sci fi that's really a deep dive character study; cleverly constructed but ultimately a bit unsatisfying, it would have benefited from more focused, less genre-hopping approach.
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Porky Pig and Daffy Duck (with the help of Petunia Pig) need to raise money fix their roof to meet code; in the process, they stumble upon a bubble-gum-centered alien plot to blow up the planet. Looney Tunes get a cinematic art upgrade in this standalone adventure, and it's nice to see these characters (quickly approaching the century mark) still getting a laugh from kids (even if they have to resort to more butt jokes to get them).
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Arguably the first feature-length music video, Ken Russell's adaptation of The Who's TOMMY is a fable about a deaf, dumb and blind kid who becomes a messianic pinball prodigy. As you might guess, it's a psychedelic mess, but it's tremendous fun when the numerous guest stars give 1000% to the concept: Elton John performing "Pinball Wizard" on stilts, Tina Turner belting it out as the Acid Queen, Ann-Margaret rolling around in baked beans vomited up by her TV.
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An astronaut finds herself stranded on an outpost on an alien planet with the rest of the crew dead or missing and no memory of what happened. Good acting and occasional great visuals from director Flying Lotus, but the ALIEN-inspired story is nothing special.
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Drama showing the effects of the filming of the shooting of an unarmed man on three protagonists: the bystander who films it, a conflicted cop, and a high school athlete. Sure, it's an important subject, but though well-acted, MONSTERS AND MEN brings little that's new or insightful to the table, and the narrative inconclusiveness is hardly reassuring or cathartic.
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A teenage boy struggles balancing his father's imminent death, hanging out with his crew of macho delinquent buddies on the boardwalk, and the challenges of his first serious girlfriend with his hobby of meeting up with older men he meets on a sleazy gay video chat site. Beautifully acted and ultra-realist, it's one of those movies that probably really resonates if you're a gay male, but can be slow going for anyone else.
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The mayor of Cape Town has developed an aerosolized spray to melt the city's homeless population. This remake of the 1987 underground cult classic is equally gross and absurd but less nihilistic, focused instead on the hobos as a likable community fighting government oppression. It doesn't make a lot of sense and jumps around a good bit, but it's full of action, gore, drug abuse, and weird little asides (one character has an imaginary friend only he can see, a blue puppet with a foul mouth).
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A top British intelligence agent is given the task of ferreting out a traitor from 5 possible suspects--one of whom is his wife. James Bond for adults, with verbal cat and mouse games replacing car chases and a hero who's devoted to marital harmony instead of chasing Bond girls.
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His wife's suicide inspires a mortician to consider four famous Japanese crimes of ion, including Sade Abe, who was Lorena Bobbitt before Bobbitt was "in." These sleazy misogynist melodramas don't deserve the cinematic style Teruo Ishii expends on them.
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The lives of a civil servant, a tour guide, two girls searching for a way to thaw a banknote buried in the ice, and a turkey magnate collide in a Winnipeg where everyone inexplicably speaks Farsi. Matthew Rankin's sophomore feature feels like a breakout for the Winnipeg director set to take the crown of Canadian absurdity away from Guy Maddin with this bizarrely funny jaunt that ends on a surprisingly moving note.
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A neurotic agoraphobic can't leave his house because he sees (his own) giant head half-buried in his front lawn, but he needs to pay the rent so he accepts a roommate with a questionable past. There's much to love in this one---good performances in what's basically a two-hander, crisp b&w cinematography, professional sound design, a script that delivers both comedy and honest-to-God suspense---that I wish it could have stuck the landing, but it's still an excellent calling card for all involved.
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Marmalade-loving bear Paddington travels to Peru to visit his Aunt Lucy, but when he arrives he discovers she has mysteriously disappeared, and he must venture into the Amazon jungle to find her. Antonio Banderas as a haunted riverboat captain and (especially) Olivia Colman as a "suspicious" nun steal the show in this action-comedy with cute slapstick for the kids and sly movie references for the grown-ups.
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Watched on Thursday February 27, 2025.
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Remarkably stupid BBC interviewer Philhomena Cunk (played beautifully as always by the remarkably clever Diane Morgan) returns with a special devoted to the meaning of life, discussing topics like God, existentialism, death, and the big bang with bemused professors. Cunk's irreverent, brain-dead, and frequently obscene lines of questioning deflate life's most important topics; if the meaning of life is to laugh, this is a holy text.
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Surreal horror vignettes loosely premised on the survivors of a LA earthquake. The small amount of intriguing imagery here from musician-turned-filmmaker Flying Lotus is drenched in gallons of off-putting pus and other bodily fluids; there are no real characters or meaningful structures, and despite the constant invention everything quickly becomes bland because it's all performed in the exact same depressing/scatological tonal . I love Lotus' music and I appreciate the weird impulse, but this is a misfire.
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In the near future when robotic "companions" are indistinguishable from natural humans, six friends vacation at the remote cabin of a wealthy Russian gangster. This really kicks into gear in the second act when it leans into a black comedy that redeems the obvious and absurd "twists" that came before; despite treading similar ground as BLADE RUNNER, it's not at all thoughtful or visionary, but its well-turned thriller machinations kept the audience engaged throughout.
]]>A top 20 rather than a top 10 allows me to include more independent, foreign and underground films alongside the usual Hollywood suspects.
- Universal Language
- Black Bag
- Sinners
- Paddington in Peru
- Warfare
- The Ugly Stepsister
- The Surfer
- Companion
- The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie
- The Shrouds
...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>A top 20 rather than a top 10 allows me to include more independent, foreign and underground films alongside the usual Hollywood suspects.
- The Substance
- Dune: Part Two
- Hundreds of Beavers
- I Saw the TV Glow
- Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
- Conclave
- A Different Man
- Anora
- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
- Inside Out 2
...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>A top 20 rather than a top 10 allows me to include more independent, foreign and underground films alongside the usual Hollywood suspects.
- Poor Things
- Asteroid City
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- The Boy and the Heron
- 20 Days in Mariupol
- Oppenheimer
- Infinity Pool
- Barbie
- The Origin of Evil
- Once Within a Time
...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>With the streaming and distribution landscape as egalitarian as it is, I'm abandoning my old distinction between limited release and wide release films this year (limited releases always dominated the rankings anyway). Instead, I'll be honoring 20 films released in 2022, as 10 is just not enough to mention everything notable in a year.
- Everything Everywhere All at Once
- The Banshees of Inisherin
- Navalny
- "Sr."
- The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
- The Menu
- No Bears
- TÁR
- Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
- The Northman
...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>This is the composite ranking of my two top 10 lists, one for wide-release Hollywood films, one for independent/limited release/foreign films: the best of both worlds. Still under construction as of January 4, since I still have a lot of contenders to catch up on. The other lists can be found here
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/g_smalley/list/2021-top-ten-limited-release/
and here
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/g_smalley/list/2021-top-ten-wide-release/
As it turns out, the limited release list is the same as the overall list this year, so next year I'll abandon separate lists altogether and just do a top 20 instead.
Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): About Endlessness, Agnes, The Alpinist, Annette, Belfast, The Beta Test, Cruella, Drive My Car, In the Earth, In the Heights, Keep an Eye Out, Last Night in Soho, Memoria, The Nowhere Inn, Pig, The Power of the Dog, Raya and the Last Dragon, Saint Maud, Spencer, The Suicide Squad, and The Summit of the Gods.
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, I divide my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form. With the ongoing pandemic and many films debuting online, it was occasionally hard to decide what was a "wide" release and what was "limited." I can't swear I've been entirely consistent.
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form.
]]>See 366weirdmovies.com/top-10-weird-movies-of-2021/ for comments and videos.
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form. 2020 has proved challenging, because limited releases vastly outnumber wide releases due to the pandemic.I may have to expand this list to 20...
]]>See 366weirdmovies.com/top-10-weird-movies-of-2020/ for comments and videos.
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form. This year, with so many films debuting online, it was occasionally hard to decide what was a "wide" release and what was "limited." I can't swear I've been entirely consistent.
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form.
]]>See 366weirdmovies.com/top-10-weird-movies-of-2019/ for comments and videos.
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form.
]]>See 366weirdmovies.com/top-10-weird-movies-of-2018/ for comments and videos.
]]>This is the composite ranking of my two top 10 lists, one for wide-release Hollywood films, one for independent/limited release/foreign films: the best of both worlds. The other lists can be found here
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/g_smalley/list/2018-top-ten-limited-release/
and here
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/g_smalley/list/2018-top-ten-wide-release/
Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): BlackKklasman; Black Panther; Border [Gräns]; Double Lover [L’amant double]; Eighth Grade; Game Night; Madeline's Madeline; Mission Impossible: Fallout; Night is Short, Walk on Girl; November; Paddington 2; A Quiet Place; Science Fair; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; Suspiria; Thoroughbreds; Widows; Won't You Be My Neighbor?; You Were Never Really Here
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form.
After a lot of confusion regarding what is and isn't a wide release, I decided to use www.firstshowing.net as the definitive word on classification.
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form.
]]>See 366weirdmovies.com/top-10-weird-movies-of-2017/ for comments and videos.
]]>This is the composite ranking of my two top 10 lists, one for wide-release Hollywood films, one for independent/limited release/foreign films: the best of both worlds. The other lists can be found here
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/g_smalley/list/2017-top-ten-wide-release
and here
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/g_smalley/list/2017-limited-release/
Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): Baahubali 2; Baby Driver; The Big Sick; Brawl in Cell Block 99; City of Ghosts; Columbus; A Cure for Wellness; Darkest Hour; Dunkirk; The Florida Project; A Ghost Story; Graduation; Jane; The Killing of a Sacred Deer; Lady Bird; The Lego Batman Movie; Logan; The Lost City of Z; mother!; My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea; A Quiet ion; Star Wars: The Last Jedi; Stronger; Thelma;Thor: Ragnarok; The Women’s Balcony; Wonder Woman; Your Name
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form.
After a lot of confusion regarding what is and isn't a wide release, I decided to use www.firstshowing.net as the definitive word on classification.
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form.
After a lot of confusion regarding what is and isn't a wide release, I decided to use www.firstshowing.net as the definitive word on classification.
]]>See 366weirdmovies.com/10-weirdest-movies-of-2016/ for more comments.
]]>This is the composite ranking of my two top 10 lists, one for wide-release Hollywood films, one for independent/limited release/foreign films: the best of both worlds. The other lists can be found here
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/g_smalley/list/2016-top-ten-wide-release
and here
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/g_smalley/list/2016-limited-release/
Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD, ARRIVAL, HARMONY, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form.
After a lot of confusion regarding what is and isn't a wide release, I decided to use www.firstshowing.net as the definitive word on classification.
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form.
]]>This year I experimented with making three top 10 lists, one for wide-release Hollywood films, one for independent/limited release/foreign films, and this composite list of the best of both worlds. The other lists can be found here
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/g_smalley/list/2015-top-ten-wide-release
and here
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/g_smalley/list/2015-top-10-limited-release/
Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): BRIDGE OF SPIES, CARTEL LAND, CINDERELLA, DOPE, THE END OF THE TOUR, ENTERTAINMENT, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, THE MARTIAN, PADDINGTON, PREDESTINATION, STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, STEVE JOBS, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
Contenders I have yet to see: HATEFUL EIGHT
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies often have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form.
After a lot of confusion regarding what is and isn't a wide release, I decided to use www.firstshowing.net as the definitive word on classification. This resulted in a lot of movies that I initially listed as wide release being reclassified as limited.
]]>I like all sorts of movies. I'm neither a snob who only goes to art house movies and sticks up his nose at the idea of movies as entertainment, nor am I a yahoo who refuses to see anything in black and white or with subtitles. These two types of movies have different aims and purposes, and it's unfair to both to compare them on equal footing. Therefore, this year I'm going to experiment with dividing my top 10 list into two categories---a wide release list for (mostly) Hollywood movies, and a limited release list for foreign and independent movies. I'll still make a composite list at the end of the year, but this way I can honor twice as many films and not have to cut so many movies that deserve recognition in some form.
]]>Commentary, clips and trailers available at 366 Weird Movies 10 Weirdest Movies of 2015
Another cinema year has come and gone, and as always, if you dig deeper than the blockbuster reboots of "Mad Max" and "Star Wars" or the conservative Oscar-bait dramas trotted out at the end of the year for Academy geriatrics to vote on, you will find some very strange creatures squirming around in the movie industry’s basement. Any year in which early cinema’s postmodern champion Guy Maddin releases a movie is bound to be a rich one; add Roy Andersson’s long-awaited third chapter in his “being human” trilogy, a trippy big-budget Thomas Pynchon adaptation, and some unclassifiable debuts by weirdo film upstarts, and you have a truly strange year in cinema. Transvestite samurai, Swedish kings, and instructions on how to take a bath await you in this tensome of the year’s most unusual films.
As for the choice of movies, I pick them using a secret proprietary formula that s for cinematic craftsmanship, the level of surrealism/weirdness, and the perceived prestige in the weird movie community based on buzz and reader , then I rank them in whatever arbitrary order I momentarily feel like without regard to any of that.
]]>A running tally of the 10 best films of 2014, so far. Composing the list, I was surprised to find how good a year it's been for science fiction (and for Brits).
]]>Our official 10 Weirdest Movies of 2014 list. Visit 366 Weird Movies for the full rundown with clips and comments.
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