2019 Over

The year of quite good. Saw a lot of quite good movies this year, not great but y'know, quite good. Even a lot of the bad movies were, y'know, alright I guess. Clearly a lot of effort is being put in to raise the game of cinema, although in all of this people seem to have forgotten to sprinkle a few more future classics about. There's still some greats and this years ten stands next to any other in the decade, but they were fewer and far between and even sometimes struggled to get onto cinema screens which strikes me as erroneous. Maybe the dual shadow cast by Star Wars and Marvel this year eclipsed creatvity in some way but I think that's probably a pub conversation that no pub has the opening hours to cater for and ultimately, with one exception, this year's output from these two behemoths was no more than... quite good. Here's ten that weren't.


10 Favourite New Films That I Saw On A Cinema Screen

10: Fast & Furious: Hobbs And Shaw

Absolutely not a Fast & Furious movie. Definitely is an intelligence shredding amalgam of all the most glorious stupidity from Rock movies and all the finest moronicism from Statham movies. The only Fast was the speed with which I gleefully accepted every moment of plot lunacy and the only Furious was Vin Diesel at his utter redundancy as the franchise barrels onward without him.

9: Us

Second film in and Jordan Peele continues to use layered allegory and clever narrative devices to confuse and unsettle hooting audiences as he fools them into thinking they're just watching basic mainstream horror movies.

8: Avengers: Endgame

A crowning achievement that provides a finale to a remarkable 22 film arc reinforcing a bunch of 'quite good' filler movies in the process and yet also very much its own array of grand spectacle that will make you involuntarily belch forth a 'fuck yeah!' at least twice. Probably more.

7: Jojo Rabbit

I always have admiration for films that can make you laugh at stuff that shouldn't be laughed at, this one does that and manages to smack you hard in the feels at the same time, quite remarkable.

6: The House That Jack Built

Like any Von Trier this trades on extreme shock and provocation featuring some of his spiciest moments which brought on facial winces that can last for weeks. Like any Von Trier this also features a deep exploration of cinema, artistic creation and existential malady. So business as usual for Von Trier, and what a business it is.

5: The Dead Don't Die

To have films question and comment on themselves as they occur is nothing new, though to see it done with such a deadpan could-not-give-a-single-shit shrug is. Adam Driver and Bill Murray discussing who has read the script is a highlight of the year all in itself.

4: Why Don't You Just Die

The best of this years Frightfest stood far apart from the rest (a lot of which was *ahem* quite good) and featured an entire Spaghetti Western taking place in a tiny Russian apartment. The kind of thing Tarantino promised with Reservoir Dogs and then never got round to because he was too busy up his own ass.

3: The Irishman

A true master is always looking for new ways to tell familiar stories because they recognise that all our stories are familiar to some degree and it's only by finding ways to explore them deeper that they can be made to stand out. This stands out.

2: The Lighthouse

Pages of archaic dialogue delivered with full salt, constantly bleak and unsettling imagery and a bewildering descent into oppression, madness, wanking and tentacles. Difficult to fault.

1: Midsommar

The most savage break-up movie you will ever watch that prickles with unnatural terror and fills you with the dread of night despite not having a single suggestion of the supernatural and being set mostly during daylight. Also features a better bear gag than any I've seen which in turn leads to one of the most 'what the fuck did I just watch?' endings that I've ever watched. A phenomenal movie.


5 Favourite Films That I Saw On A Little Screen

This year I didn't watch a lot of new movies outside of the cinema, and of the older films I watched it wasn't the good ones that stood out. Which makes for a strange list this year as these films would all struggle to be described as good but yet they're definitely the ones that stood out as they brought on a confusion of astonishment, incredulity and hoots of laughter as I watched. Often simultaneously.

5: Cat In The Brain

Cynical in its recycling of other films but because it's only recycling all the gooey violence of other films it makes for an intense viewing that insists all sanity be left at the door when you enter.

4: Hellboy

Neil Marshall knew he would never be allowed to do this again, so instead of concentrating on making a good film he instead concentrated on just how much jaw dropping insanity he could squash into it all. What a move.

3: Iguana With A Tongue Of Fire

A good example of Italian film making whereby a number of unusual cost cutting decisions collide rendering the result as nothing but pure lunacy albeit with enough of the story in sight to see what everybody was trying to do, ushering in even higher heights of hilarity.

2: Contamination

What Iguana above does for the Giallo, this does for Sci-Fi providing what may well be the best bad movie I've ever seen.

1: Thriller: A Cruel Picture

At the top because really can anything beat a good finger up the bum?


10 Shittest films I sat through

With all the middling, average stuff out there this year, there is a part of me that feels this is worse than a year with a multitude of diamonds at one end of the spectrum with the other being battles between abhorrencies trying to get on this list. Still as beige as things were this year it still wasn't that much of a struggle to find ten proper crap films to swear about, avoid these.

10: Terminator: Dark Fate
An incessant mangling of something that should probably now just be left to fend for itself.

9: Alita: Battle Angel
Three half baked movies crammed into one shit one.

8: It: Chapter Two
Three hours of the worst of modern cinema when ninety minutes would have been more than enough to be just as bollocks.

7: Sister Of Ursula
In Giallo world it's a very fine line drawn between a good movie and a bad one, so sometimes it's worth watching the crap to make the better ones shine. And they're all better than this one.

6: Wounds
Hopelessly miscast and stultifyingly shit.

5: Godzilla: King Of Monsters
Ignores fighting Gods in favour of over dramatising moments like trying to get a door open that's stuck. Fucking awful.

4: X-Men: Dark Phoenix
An atrocity on all levels demonstrating only that Kinsberg might be able to write an X-Men movie but when he directs one the end result is comparable to a bucket of piss.

3: Burial Ground
Another Italian turd. Why single out this one? Well, mainly because it's remarkably bad but also because I wanted to be able to declare Crawl as worse than watching a man with dwarfism playing a child tryng to shag its mother.

2: Crawl
Utter shit that despite having plenty of budget thrown at it is still some how worse than watching a man with dwarfism playing a child trying to shag its mother.

1: Men In Black: International
So bad it actually caused physical pain. Also unfortunately gives free reign to murderers because surely if anybody were to be killed whilst watching this then it would be passed off as a mercy killing.

More? Ok, more.

The Room

Expected atrocity is an atrocity.

My Dear Killer [Mio caro assassino]

Swings gracefully from being a brutally violent episode of Midsomer Murders to being a wonderfully trashy episode of Midsomer Murders.

The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre [Carnívoros]

An attempt to plumb the depths of bad taste on what is clearly a very tight budget, so tight they could only afford 50 minutes of movie thus offering up the only redeeming feature of this mess.

The Holiday

This is what you get when you let a seventeen year old girl pick the Christmas movie. There was only one fucking christmas tree in the entire thing and then it appeared very briefly in the background of two joyless hours of people vacantly gazing at each other like life support patients who have just been unplugged.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas [2D]

I’m quite fond of this stoner buddy duo, only in this one they’re not friends and one of them doesn’t smoke weed any more which is absolutely not what I signed up for and no amount of shit cgi objects floating in the centre of frame is going to change that.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker [IMAX 3D]

Often overcrowded, often rushed, often uses simplistic plot choices, often apologises for a film it need not apologise for, often stubbornly pulls threads from Force Awakens that need not be pulled, often a cliche, often pandering, often pulls shit out of nowhere just for the hell of it, often half baked, often weak. And yet I still found it to be a very likeable effort, how very Star Wars.

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle

I took a break from rewatching The Saga In The Order Lucas Intended to catch this in case an opportunity to watch the sequel presented itself. It was far more enjoyable than it really has any right to be, however an opportunity to watch the sequel never presented itself because I was too busy rewatching The Saga. In The Order Lucas Intended.

The Killer Reserved Nine Seats [L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone]

A haunted theatre gathers a group of friends together, who dither between being barely tolerant of each other and furiously shagging each other, and then makes them act out a giallo plot to satisfy a 100 year old curse.

Knives Out

A superbly written whodunnit with all manner of excellent performances, though the real star is the editing that shuffles everything along at a lively pace whilst slowly unveiling delicious plot details.

The Irishman

People talking about this are talking about the wrong things and gently ignoring the fact that this is one of the best films from one of our greatest living directors. A masterpiece.

Doctor Sleep

By no means a perfect movie but the fact it stands as a working sequel to Kubrick’s movie, an improvement on King’s ropey novel and an adaptation of the bits Kubrick left out of King’s original novel, all without being a huge fucking mess, is kind of impressive. Even more impressive, given the pair of strong creative visions he’s representing on the screen, is that the vision that stands out most is Flanagan’s own.

Nightmare Beach [Welcome To Spring Break]

An anonymous maniac on a custom built motorbike that electrocutes anybody who makes contact with it, suggesting he might be the recently executed leader of a local biker gang, gets in the way of a traditional American spring break represented here by a continuous stream of people whooping and tits.

Terminator: Dark Fate

Starts with intense pursuit that thrillingly echoes the original, then Linda Hamilton appears and the film stumbles over its story for a bit, then Arnie appears and the whole thing shits the bed.

Booksmart

That comedy film you’ve seen plenty of times already about two friends who go on an episodic adventure that will culminate in them falling out and then learning something new. This is one of the better versions of that film.

Hellboy [2019]

Yeah, it’s all over the shop and some of the special effects make your brain wince but all of that would appear to be a means to an end. That end being to cram as much fucking awesome as possible into a meagre two hours, and there’s a lot of it in here.

Delirium [Le foto di Gioia]

Only when watching a Giallo would you get a plot about a lady concerned that her past as a hooker will damage her hard won reputation as a publisher of pornography. And only when watching a Giallo would you get something as ridiculous as a killer’s POV represented by a constantly strobing red light and people in random rubber masks. And only when watching a Giallo would you watch something this shit and still find yourself having a great time.

Gemini Man

The cinematic equivalent of a disinterested shrug. Could have been saved simply by having the two Will Smith’s simultaneously shout ‘oh hell no’ and then quizzically stare at each other, but no. Never mind.

Wounds

Confused bollocks that manages to forget what story it’s telling roughly every 15 minutes and starts a new one instead.

The Day Shall Come

Not Morris’ finest hour, mainly because the lunacy of reality now eclipses the craziest shit that he’s able to dream up.

Burial Ground [Le notti del terrore/ Nights Of Terror]

Fucking awful Italian zombie shit, the scariest bit being when a 13 year old boy, played by a man with dwarfism who’s clearly in his mid twenties, tries to shag his mum.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

An unnecessary but thoroughly enjoyable coda.

The Lighthouse

If Bergman had made Lovecraft stories. Fucking awesome.

Jojo Rabbit

The last place you’d expect to find heartwarming hilarity is in a tale of the Hitler youth movement at the end of World War 2, and yet here we are.

Joker

The story of how a mentally ill clown who laughs at inappropriate things becomes a mentally ill clown who laughs at inappropriate things whilst arguing with a man dressed as a bat.

The Coming Of Sin [La visita del vicio/ Vice Makes A Visit/ The Violation Of The Bitch/ Sodomia]

Intensely dull bit of smut with an ending that puts you in mind of a wounded animal being put out of its misery.

Eraserhead

David Lynch’s Tim Burton movie.

Ad Astra

I can’t quite decide whether to make a joke about how the over reliance on dad issues means Dad Astra would be a more applicable name, or a joke about how this is basically Apocalypse Now 2: IN SPACE, or a joke about the scene with the space baboons, or a joke about how such a ponderous attempt at a serious film made me think of so many jokes. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

EDIT: Two weeks late I now realise i should have simply just written ‘Mad Bad Sad Dad Astra’. A missed opportunity.

In The Aftermath

An anime titled Angel's Egg that, due to worries that it would be incomprehensible to Western audiences, has been heavily re-edited, badly re-dubbed and clumsily stuffed into some very cheap live action footage filmed in an abandoned power station, the result being it is now incomprehensible to all audiences.

It Chapter Two

A series of jump scares tell the now grown up kids of the first movie that they must meet up once more to have a jump scare. Then they all split up so they can each remember a jump scare from the past whilst also experiencing a jump scare in the present day at the same time. Then they meet up again for another jump scare before heading underground and once more splitting up for a variety of jump scares. Commendable as a ghost train, piss poor as a movie.

Vampyres [Blood Hunger/ Daughters Of Dracula/ Satan's Daughter]

A tale of lesbian vampires that is clearly lacking any budget for transformation sequences, torn flesh effects or even some fake fangs and so simply ramps up the amount of graphic sex and fake blood instead. King.

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

A nostalgia trip through the video shelves of my childhood made difficult to watch by a documentary approach that’s similar to a child with ADHD on a sugar rush trying to tell you about a day out at a theme park.

Hatchet For The Honeymoon [Il rosso segno della follia]

Some of Bava’s finest camera trickery is put to work in this tale of a psychopath murdering a series of beautiful young brides. The fact that it’s narrated by the murderer and his identity is never hidden means that not only was Bava already subverting the Giallo before it had all really kicked off but he also managed to prefigure American Psycho. More evidence of the man’s undersung genius.

A Good Woman Is Hard To Find

(Frightfest Day 5)
Starts as social drama then spins off into eye watering dismemberment and brutality. Like a Shane Meadows movie with teeth. Ace.

Rabid [2019 Remake]

(Frightfest Day 5)
A passionate love letter to David Cronenberg, a reverent adaptation of his second movie and an original movie that could only come from the Soskas all happening at the same time, which can sometimes be a bit much but top marks for ambition.

Tales From The Lodge

(Frightfest Day 5)
An extremely British story about telling stories. Not British in the shitty way where everything looks cheap and everybody just shrugs and gets on with it but the good way where all the humour is bone dry and snarky and everything is full of invention.

Satanic Panic

(Frightfest Day 5)
Not the greatest movie ever or anything but soccer moms as stroppy satanists does have an undeniable charm.

The Black String

(Frightfest Day 5)
Bollocks.

Nekrotronic

(Frightfest Day 4)
Never really had any idea what was going on but there was a demonic version of Pokemon Go, so swings and roundabouts.

Ready Or Not

(Frightfest Day 4)
An excellent caper that slowly boils over into glorious madness.

Daniel Isn't Real

(Frightfest Day 4)
When we read of historical reports of possession and demonic activity we now know this to be an intensely ignorant view of mental illness and advances in education, science and medicine mean we can approach the subject sensitively and with a greater understanding because we’re no longer stuck in the dark ages. Unless you’re the wankers behind this that is.

Eat, Brains, Love

(Frightfest Day 4)
So droll and laid back I almost forgot it was a film, and by the end I think the film itself forgot this too. Which was fine, i just liked hanging out with it for a bit.

Spiral

(Frightfest Day 4)
Films like this make me angry because it had something really important to say and then fucks it over and over again into an incoherent mess.

Why Don't You Just Die! [Papa, sdokhni]

(Frightfest Day 3)
An amazing grand guignol chamber piece that jolts the senses in every way. A remarkable movie.

Madness In The Method

(Frightfest Day 3)
Jason Mewes from Jay and Silent Bob making a film about Jason Mewes not wanting to be associated with Jay and Silent Bob and which then references Jay and Silent Bob throughout its entire running time.

Critters Attack!

(Frightfest Day 3)
Is able to maintain a level of trashy enjoyment set in place by the original series all those decades ago. Also maintains the level of cheap ass shoddiness.

Feedback

(Frightfest Day 3)
Threatened to be an intelligent, well thought out thriller but every time it was in danger of being just that everybody would pick up weapons and yell over the top of each other until you were convinced it was nothing of the sort.

Ghost Killers Vs Bloody Mary [Exterminadores do Além Contra a Loira do Banheiro]

(Frightfest Day 3)
Amongst the many standout moments on offer here are a possessed turd and a feotus pissing in somebody’s face. Crass, over the top and relentlessly bad taste. Loved it, obviously.

Death Of A Vlogger

(Frightfest Day 3)
Despite clearly being produced on a teeny tiny budget this plays to its limitations so well that it ends up being better than most movies that would spend this on their opening credits alone.

Porno

(Frightfest Day 2)
I'm at the point that I would consider myself fairly hardened to the nastiest that horror can offer up, but there was a bit in this that had me both laughing hysterically and curling up in a fetal knot of revulsion at the same time. Superb.

Bliss

(Frightfest Day 2)
Excels at being both intensely visceral and utterly charmless.

Kindred Spirits

(Frightfest Day 2)
A brilliant central performance helps counter the fact that you’re watching a fairly basic Single White Female clone that paints itself into a corner then panics.