2019 Retrospective

A little bit closer to form, I pressed the pedal towards the end of the year to get north of 40 posts. More specifically to beat 2017’s 41 posts. Ya gotta have goals. I still have three movies to be posted but I broke a personal rule and posted out of order. I did this to get the Christmas movie in by year’s end. Also because I found the next film in line hard to write about. You’ll see that soon. It’s a good one. The movie, not the post.

I hit quite a few greats this past year. Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Rio Bravo, Chinatown, and The Exorcist being the tops, with The Killers, Dial M for Murder, Being There, and The Omen as honorable mentions. I also picked off a few experimental, avant garde films like Eraserhead, House, and Suspiria. Weird ass films, all. The film that stuck with me the most is Chinatown. I didn't forget about it, Jake. I’ve been doing this blog for over ten years yet I seem to be tip-toeing around great films. Now I find myself worrying that I am running out of Greats to watch. More on that thought later.

I did watch two Christmas films but should have skipped them both. One boring and forgettable, the other a pale copy of the original made only nine years earlier. For next year maybe I’ll target Meet Me in St. Louis, 3 Godfathers, or I’ll be Seeing You. Here is a case where the Greats are in short supply. I saw two more Sherlock Holmes films. Without my mom, my heart’s not in them. I think I have three left. I’ll try to finish them off this year.

Of the thirteen horror or horror-like films, The Exorcist was the best. I had long looked forward to seeing The Love Wanga, the second zombie film ever made. I owned it for more than a year before watching it. I expected little and received it in spades. Rosemary’s Baby is probably the best horror film I have yet to watch. At least in my arbitrary pre-1980 ‘old’ category.

I watched quite a few disappointing movies, especially towards the end of the year, but I must give the title of worst film of the year to The Terror. Such a wasted opportunity. More confounding than terrible, it’s a film that should not exist.

I’ve seen almost all of the better movies by the Hollywood legends. Almost all of the greatest films. Just about all of the better Christmas movies. But I will not let that worry me. I will continue to pick off the top films. When I started this, I figured there were only a couple hundred films worth reviewing, and after almost eleven years and over five hundred films later, there is still so much more to watch. Not to mention newer movies I don’t blog about. So, onward and upward. Let’s see if I can hit fifty posts again. And I should watch more silent films. Oh, and I will not fear long movies. I will not fear long movies ...