Your browser may have trouble rendering this page. See supported browsers for more information.

Do not show this message again.

2019/2020 Movie Binge

Published by marco on

As part of my standard year-end movie binge[1], I watched over 60 movies and seasons[2] in the last 5 weeks.

They spanned the years 1927–2019. I didn’t see any correspondence between year and quality—older movies aren’t necessarily better or worse than newer movies.

As expected, I liked movies with a good (or unique) story or characters—or something interesting that pulled me in. Terrible or stilted dialogue threw me off the most.

I watched everything in its original language—English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, Korean—with subtitles where I needed them.[3]

Linked below are the main pages with the reviews/notes for each movie. For convenience, I’ve copied the names of the individual movies and my ratings below each link.

Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2019.12
1. IT (2017) — 7/10
2. Joker (2019) — 10/10
3. Iliza Schlesinger (2019) — 8/10
4. Le Mans 66: Gegen jede Chance (2019) — 9/10
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2019.13
1. Hardware (1990) — 6/10
2. Booksmart (2019) — 9/10
3. Glass (2019) — 9/10
4. Maniac (2018) — 8/10
5. After Life (2019) — 8/10
6. Ronnie Chieng: Asian Comedian Destroys America (2019) — 9/10
7. Michelle Wolf: Joke Show (2019) — 7/10
8. Zardoz (1974) — 7/10
9. The Cell (2000) — 8/10
10. Zathura (2005) — 5/10
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2019.14
1. The Congress (2013) — 8/10
2. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) — 8/10
3. The Hunted (2003) — 4/10
4. Parasite (2019) — 10/10
5. Gone in Sixty Seconds (1974) — 5/10
6. Yojimbo (1961) — 8/10
7. You Were Never Really Here (2017) — 8/10
8. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) — 8/10
9. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) — 8/10
10. A Dangerous Method (2011) — 8/10
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2019.15
1. Weekend (1967) — 5/10
2. The Belko Experiment (2016) — 5/10
3. Matinee (1993) — 5/10
4. Mimic (1997) — 6/10
5. Another Year (2010) — 7/10
6. Five Deadly Venoms (1978) — 6/10
7. The Putin Interviews E04 (2017) — 9/10
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2020.1
1. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) — 8/10
2. Ran (1985) — 9/10
3. One Cut of the Dead (2017) — 8/10
4. Metropolis (1927) — 9/10
5. The King of Comedy (1982) — 8/10
6. Step Brothers (2008) — 6/10
7. Andre the Giant (2008) — 7/10
8. M (1931) — 8/10
9. Russian Ark (2002) — 8/10
10. These Final Hours (2013) — 6/10
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2020.2
1. Army of Shadows (1969) — 9/10
2. Threads (1984) — 9/10
3. Mademoiselle (1966) — 7/10
4. The Third Man (1949) — 8/10
5. Bound (1996) — 8/10
6. A Face in the Crowd (1957) — 9/10
7. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) — 8/10
8. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) — 8/10
9. In Cold Blood (1967) — 8/10
10. Koyaanisqatsi (1982) — 8/10
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2020.3
1. Margaret (2011) — 9/10
2. Fahrenheit 11-9 (2018) — 8/10
3. The Square (2017) — 9/10
4. The Guilty (Den skyldige) (2018) — 8/10
5. On the Beach (1959) — 7/10
6. Mandy (2018) — 8/10
7. The Lighthouse (2019) — 9/10
8. Citizen Kane (1941) — 7/10
9. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) — 8/10
10. Velvet Goldmine (1998) — 9/10
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2020.4
1. American Me (1992) — 8/10
2. Selena (1997) — 6/10
3. The Counselor (2013) — 6/10

[1] My wife visits her family for the holidays every year, leaving me with more free time—and free choice of content—than usual.↩

[2] I only watched two short seasons that were more like long movies: After Life and Maniac.↩

[3]

I don’t mind subtitles and sometimes use them even for languages in which I’m fluent, just to make sure I don’t miss something whispered. Obviously, subtitle quality varies widely—and I’m not even in a position to judge for languages I don’t know at all.

I don’t need subtitles at all for English or German. I understand most Italian, and do pretty well in French, but appreciate the help where possible.

My preference is to have German, Italian and French subtitles in the original language as well—hearing and reading simultaneously often sums up to complete understanding (and I look up idioms to learn new things)—but that’s rarely possible.

↩