Film God, where would we be without Letterboxd? That is about where I was in the first fifteen years of the blog, scrabbling around at the end of the year trying to remember which films I watched and what I thought about them. Now a quick click of my Letterboxd profile tells me I watched 278 films this year (so far), which equates to 519 and a half hours of viewing, nearly 22 days, averaging 24 films per month and about five per week (give or take a decimal point).
As to ratings. I gave 70 of those films five stars, of which 32 were released in this decade and twenty-one were released this year. But in my scoring system, the only difference between four and five stars is whether I think I'd want to buy a physical copy or not; in that case, I also rated fifty films from this year as four stars, which means I enjoyed those as much as the five-star films. In other words, there wasn't a flaw which nagged at me the whole way through.
Before I offer my top ten films, here are the films I rated with one star:
None.
But then looking at the two-star entries, I was probably a bit generous:
Happy Gilmore 2
War of the Worlds
Mountainhead
A Minecraft Movie
Star Trek: Section 31
Of those, my worst film of the year was probably Section 31 with its failed-pilot stink - Star Trek does not have to pretend to be Guardians of the Galaxy or Farscape. It has its own unique bouquet (if you will) that make it worth watching.
Now for the top ten.
The truth is I don't really have a top ten, at least one which isn't much different to anyone else's, which is in itself a change thanks to having actually been to the cinema at least weekly for most of the year and having seen some films (see yesterday). My favourite film of the year was probably Thunderbolts* because it was a rare superhero film which made me feel seen. So instead here's a list of five overlooked movies which clearly cost a bit of money and would (probably)(maybe?)(possibly) have been crowd pleasers if they'd had a proper theatrical rollout.
High fantasy across an apocalyptic landscape. PWS Anderson's films aren't for everyone, but having recently rewatched the Resident Evil series, I've realised I'm more than satiated by Milla Jovovich outsmarting lots of enemies in slow-mo for a couple of hours. But this also has a couple of excellent twists and some beautiful aesthetic choices (on Netflix).
Die Hard at the G20 with Viola Davis as the action lead. Just tremendous fun (Amazon Prime).
It's Phone Booth on a date. Two things I loved: The way the threatening text messages are blasted across the screen to demonstrate the protagonist's various levels of anxiety and that it utilises casting as an example of Hitchcock's bomb under the table. Saw this in its one screening on one day at the Odeon, then came home that night and bought the stream on Amazon (on NowTV).
Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom, and Celebrity Traitors loser Nick Mohammed play three out-of-work comedians who are recruited to infiltrate London's gangland. Sounds like a hokey premise, and it is, but it's elevated by some wonderfully self-aware performances, especially from Bloom and Paddy Considine as the "villain", and some superb plotting in which obvious twists are turned on their head (on Amazon Prime).
Demented sci-fi romcom in which Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy fall in love across a physical and metaphoric divide. Deserved a wide release and would have looked incredible on IMAX. Has the kind of WTF plotting and casting which I'm looking for in a film (on AppleTV).
Something I've pursued less this year are films not in the English language which is partly as a result of the Odeon only rarely presenting non-genre subtitled fare. Seeing It Was Only An Accident at the Manchester Great Northern was a rare treat. But I've plenty of Criterion discs to catch up on and I'll hopefully next year I'll be in a better headspace and be able to seek out more challenging fare.
