Happy New Year’s Eve, Avocado! As we enter 2020, it’s time to look at the last year with 20/20 vision. (See what I did there?) The Pits already covered the best movies that were released in 2019. Avocado willing, we will have a Best of the Decade discussion next month.
If you’re like me, you don’t limit your movie watching to just 2019 releases. After all, we live in the age of streaming media, and all sorts of film are at our fingertips like never before. You’ve never seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but Sean O’Neal’s article piqued your interest? Well, you might just be able to catch it on Netflix. Or perhaps you wanted to catch Dolemite since Eddie Murphy did that Rudy Ray Moore biopic? You can probably catch it on Prime Video!
So many films available at our fingertips, so little time.
It was an especially fertile movie watching experience for me this year, and it was mainly because I took over the Weekly Movie Thread. I was inspired, partially, to come up with ideas for prompts. Knowing that this was the 80th anniversary of Stagecoach, for example, forced me to go watch the movie lest I miss calling it out on a milestone year. When The Irishman came out, I felt the only responsible thing to do was to bulk up on my Scorsese watching. And so on.
2019 was a fantastic year to celebrate milestones, by the way. As it turns out, 1939, 1969, 1979, 1989, 1994, and 1999 were all great movie years. Creating prompts for the Weekly Movie Thread turned out to be a cinch. It’s early yet, but I’m finding 10x milestones for 2020 to be far more challenging.
Though not impossible. Thus far, 1920’s Pollyanna, His Girl Friday, 2010’s True Grit, Clueless, Rebecca, Exit Through The Gift Shop, Pretty Woman, and Patton are getting prompts next year.
To wrap this up, thanks for coming in to the Weekly Movie Thread week after week. I’m no film student. I’m just a guy who watches movies. I learn a lot from the comments you folks post here. It’s all great stuff: recommendations, film theory, technical discussions, etc.
So pop open a bubbly (or a sparkling water if you’re a non-alcoholic drinker) and let’s keep it going in 2020!
The prompt: what films would you recommend that you saw for the first time this year that weren’t released in 2019?
It doesn’t have to be a Top Ten. However, here’s my own list:
Top Ten movies I Saw That Were Not Released This Year:
- Double Indemnity (1944) – One of greatest noir films of all time. Having been familiar with movies of this era it surprised me that they were allowed to let this one get so cynical and amoral.
- Deep Red (1976) – The plot is nonsensical and mad, and that might be the point. It’s a giallo, so the visuals and color palette are what you come in for, but Argento reigns it in to tow the line between reality and fantasy. A death scene made me laugh in its absurdity, and it made me realize that this movie is sort of a low-key dark comedy.
- Stagecoach (1939) – a landmark movie in action. The stagecoach drop stunt is still as thrilling today as it was then.
- American Psycho (2000) – Christian Bale is a great actor, but I have not seen him in a role that was as much of a tour de force as this one. A facile expression communicates so much, from cunning to jealously to misery to actual joy.
- His Girl Friday (1940) – I finally saw this one all the way through, and wow… I am impressed that a movie with such self-centered characters could be so compelling.
- Shirkers (2018) – A beautifully edited documentary that is both a coming-of-age tale and a true crime documentary. The hints of creepiness is unexpected and effective.
- A Star Is Born (1954) – Though made almost 70 years ago, elements of this movie feel modern and timeless. No wonder they’ve remade this story three times already.
- The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) – Jordan Belfort has that life we all want… until Scorsese pulls back the curtains to show how pathetic he really is.
- David and Bathsheba (1951) – A humanist Biblical epic that examines the burdens and responsibilities of leadership. It almost turns into Game of Thrones, with one of David’s wives trying to maneuver her son into leadership while dethroning the king.
- Fitzcarraldo (1982) -while Nelson is right and the movie has flaws, the key scene and the suspense around it is intriguing.
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