I’m winding down 2020 with the rest of my movie goals from the year, followed by my least favorite films. See part 1 for my favorite movies of the year and the first half of my goals.
Goal 6. Find ways to (temporarily and partially) replace theater experience.
You can’t replace it fully, to be clear. Denis Villeneuve talked this past week about losing the collective experience of seeing a movie in a packed theater. While his editorial felt myopic at times (ignoring live sports, music, conventions, live theater, and countless other communal experiences that exist outside of the $200 million tentpole blockbuster system), he was right that a giant screen and shared emotions are better than a crummy TV with motion smoothing and bad lighting. Going to the movies is one of the first things that I want to do after the pandemic.
But until then, I did what I could. In the last days before the first lockdown here in Pennsylvania, I splurged on a 70″ TV, 4k player, and sound bar, and have been buying a few movies per month. It doesn’t hold a candle to a movie theater, but it is the best I can do for now.
There are perks to buying movies on disc, too. Buying digital films on sites like Amazon doesn’t guarantee you actually own that media, and being beholden to internet speed and compression algorithms (such as at Netflix) makes the streaming experience inconsistent.
Blu rays are surprisingly cheap, often about the same or only a few dollars more than a digital rental. There are out-of-print exceptions, like my eBay treasure hunts for Jade, Near Dark, and Lone Star.
The communal part is harder to replicate. Our Alleged Buff series on the site is one way to do that, and Zoom-aided watch parties are another.
Goal 7. See some classic non-English films.
Specifically, Yasujiro Ozu and Wong Kar Wai.
I wanted to expand my horizons, especially outside of the action realm. Snowpiercer and The Good, The Bad, The Weird are great, but what about iconic releases that require more effort (that is, that make me engage with topics that aren’t necessarily escapist). I did watch Chernobyl, which was incredible. And seeing the Three Colors Trilogy counts for a lot, but I will seek more world cinema in 2021. The release of the upcoming Wong Kar Wai box set from Criterion is well-timed.
Goal 8. More NBA writing.
The season halt, followed by the restart five months later, was disruptive, putting it mildly. The bubble games and playoffs this year were phenomenal, though, and it was damned impressive seeing how the NBA efficiently handled things that MLB and NFL have bungled, again and again.
Unfortunately, that was last season. The new NBA season starts in five days, and… it’s not in a bubble this time. Maybe the COVID vaccines will be produced and distributed fast enough that it won’t matter, but I’m going into this new season with a jumble of feelings (the offseason was too short, the precautions for 2021 are slipshod, I haven’t even dug into the free agent/draft/trade bonanza).
Still, I hope to write more about the NBA in the coming weeks, focusing mostly on teams or players of interest to me. To that end, you’ll probably see a disproportionate amount of Blazers, Spurs, Wizards, Raptors, and Heat chatter.
Goal 9. Accept that Stop Making Sense is in my Top 10 all-time.
It is a testament to the film that this is even a discussion. Stop Making Sense was on the periphery of my awareness for my whole life, but I never connected with it. And I was disinterested in Talking Heads other than a couple of tracks (“And She Was,” “Life During Wartime”).
Then I actually watched the movie in 2019 and not a day has gone by since then without a Talking Heads song in my (talking) head. Despite first seeing it last year, I think that I’ve watched it more than any other movie in this century. At present, Die Hard sits above it, with Stop Making Sense at #11. Maybe I’ll have some clarity with another rewatch.
“Hi. I got a tape I want to play you.”
Goal 10. Minimize snobbery.
This is an ongoing challenge. Human nature makes us protective of whatever niche we carve for ourselves. But gatekeeping is toxic and boring. If other people join your hobby, that means more chances to connect with other humans. And experiencing new things is the reason we slog through TPS Reports and virtual training sessions and Estimated Quarterly Forecasts. I’ve tried to keep my site accessible: while some movies or movie people are name-dropped out of context, I usually include year of release or other contextual information.
The Worst of 2020
New to 2020
As I’d mentioned in Part 1, I didn’t see as many new releases as I had planned. Part of that was in making a conscious effort not to watch things just to fill time. But the larger part is that there are many streaming services, each with their own fiefdoms. It isn’t feasible to keep up with everything.
- The Devil All the Time: I didn’t like this movie. It felt too much like a Terence Malick homage, but with the casual ultraviolence that has become commonplace in revisionist historical dramas of the past two decades (e.g., Lawless, Bone Tomahawk). The movie aims for this hyperreal tone, but few characters behave like actual human beings (the dog corpse on the cross as a means to do what, exactly?).
New to Me
- Barry Lyndon: I have read multiple articles from authors claiming this is their favorite Kubrick. Now, those claims don’t preclude the possibility that Barry Lyndon is the only Kubrick they’ve seen. And there is no accounting for taste. For my part, I found the movie a character study where the lead actor gives a crummy performance and his character lies and shouts his way from one societal life raft to the next. No amount of sumptuous natural lighting or impeccable costumes is enough to make the journey worthwhile for me.
- Phantom Thread (and PTA in general): This movie seems beloved. There is no accounting for taste. For my part, I found the movie a character study where the lead actor gives a crummy performance and his character pouts and shouts his way from one societal life raft to the next. No amount of sumptuous natural lighting or impeccable costumes is enough to make the journey worthwhile for me.
- Alien: Covenant: in which I retroactively questioned my love for Alien, Aliens, and Alien3 (it’s ok, they came out fine). The appeal of these earlier films is in the characters behaving like humans, not like victims in a slasher movie. Prometheus, Resurrection, and Covenant remove that pillar of the franchise. I like the <spoiler> David switcherooni <spoiler>, but the rest of the movie feels like it was made in the era of neverending use of established intellectual properties. I don’t need to know how the origin of xenomorphs: they are terrifying because they are alien to our experience.
That’s it for 2020, other than an NBA preview next week, my Wonder Woman 1984 review, and a Winter Horror feature on New Year’s Eve.
Thanks for being here with me through this crazy year.