Gorgon Reviews

Another week, and surprisingly, another new movie review.

Selah and the Spades I don’t believe was negatively impacted by the theaters going down. I didn’t hear about it until that started, but when I first heard the news, it was only to hear that it was being released on Amazon Prime instead of theaters, on April 17th.

This is not a film that you have heard of before likely, with a mostly unknown cast. It does have Jharrel Jerome as a supporting role, and he made waves last year starring as Korey Wise in When They See Us last year. You know, the kid who got screwed over the most.

And all of that has nothing to do with this movie!

There is a lot of fierce power in that chair.Selah (Lovie Simone) is a strong woman, a senior in high school. She goes to an elite boarding school in Pennsylvania, where most of the citizens are from wealthy families looking for a leg up into college. Other bright minds get in through scholarships and grants. Selah comes from an overachieving household, her mom wants her to go to her former school, and to load up on the best classes, the best grades, no matter what.

The school also has their own hidden clubs. They handle some of them ore illicit activities, like distracting the admin, holding parties, etc. Selah? She is the lead of The Spades group, who handle the illegal drugs and alcohol on campus. They do all of the deals, get the product, make the money. They split responsibilities and have council meetings to work together so that no more “wars” take place on campus, which usually lead to many expulsions, or worse.

When Paloma (Celeste O’Connor) comes to campus mid year, she is seen as a promising student who can join in their creepy club games, but Selah definitely takes a liking to her. Selah is strong, but hates having those under her excel. It is hard for her to trust, and she doesn’t have a backup to take over when she leaves. It is time for the grooming, and for her to sink or swim.

Also starring Jharrel Jerome, Ana Mulvoy Ten, Jesse Williams, Nekhebet Kum Juch, Francesca Noel, and Henry Hunter Hall.

This rock rocks. 

Selah and the Spades, on one hand, is another clique teenage film. I mean, these cliques don’t circulate the entirety of the campus (although, cliques are usually small anyways). It is a boarding school, so it can pretend to be like a college film with more underage problems. The cliques have cute names!

But here are some difference.

There is one very strong scene early on where the Selah and the other cheerleaders are talking to the camera, breaking the wall, about being strong women and it was really really good. It seemingly came out of nowhere, but it had important messages that needed to be discussed.

We do also have a predominately more person of color than most school clique films. Yes, they are all for most of history super white. It is great to see representation, even if this representation for the most part still talks about people with privileged.

I really enjoyed Simone in the lead role hear. Selah is not a one dimensional character at all. She is more than a strong woman. She has fears, she has definite trust issues, and definite weakness. I definitely sort of hated her at points, and it is great to realize she is in no way the hero of the story. O’Connor comes in and gives a very great performance opposite of Simone’s, that newcomer feel while also knowing full and well who she is at the same time.

Overall, Salah and the Spades gives us a unique perspective on a tired clique, and falls firmly in a drama category to tell a serious story. It reminds me in a bit of Dear White People, due to topics only, because in terms of genre and goals, they are very wide apart.

3 out of 4.

And now we can talk about the biggest release since the theaters went under! Not the first new release of a movie that was supposed to go to the theaters, but the biggest at least.

Trolls: World Tour was moved around a few times on the calendar, and it turns out that they probably should have kept that date in February for making that money.

At first saying they would go straight to digital instead was almost an inspiration. But then as more and more movies got pushed back, including to future years even, and all left but Trolls. That is a bit weird right? Some other theater films changed to VOD and a lot of them were movies that were expected to bomb.

Did they not actually think Trolls: World Tour would do well, or are they sacrificing profits to bring some happiness to those stuck inside? Hard to say. The first Trolls was okay, and in general, this plot of the sequel made me super weary, but that doesn’t mean I wanted it to fail either.

Ooooh, they better not say Onward, that’d help the competition.Ah, life is wonderful again. Until it isn’t.

Queen Poppy (Anna Kendrick) is in charge of her people, every day has singing, dancing, and hugs because the Bergens are cool now and doing their own thing.  Branch (Justin Timberlake) probably wants to make Troll babies with her.

But Poppy gets an invite from a Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom) to come to her World Tour. This is where we get to have the secret backstory of Trolls that never came up in the first film. You know. There are different troll kingdoms out there each with a magical string each that gives them the music to get by in life. One of Pop (our trolls). Of Funk, Classical, Country Techno, and of course, Hard Rock, where Queen Barb comes from.

So Poppy thinks that Queen Barb wants to unite all of the strings together to unite all the music genres and unite the trolls. But really, Queen Barb just wants to take all the strings to make them rock and make rock music the only music for everyone.

Oh no!

Also starring a whole lot of other voices, some new, some old: James Corden, Ron Funches, Kelly Clarkson, Anderson .Paak, Sam Rockwell, George Clinton, Mary J. Blige, Kenan Thompson, Kunal Nayyar, Flula Borg, Ester Dean, Jamie Dornan, Zooey Deschanel, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Ozzy Osbourne.

Rock is evil. Satan is rock.Lame new Trolls backstory aside, it turns out there is a little bit of good backstory in there as well, but it is a mid movie reveal. It turns out that the former bad guys aren’t necessarily who we thought, and I thought that would be a big turning point for the film.

I can’t wait to see where it goes from there, and from my point of view, basically nowhere. Poppy wanted to unite the Trolls together to let them experience all music. Barb wanted to unit the Trolls together to make them all listen to rock music. And despite revelations made, the ending is exactly as one would expect going into the film. Exactly.

And thus I am left disappointed.

The music is okay for the most part, we do get more genres, but I didn’t feel like were stiffed in the first one due to how diverse pop itself actually is. There is no original song like Get Back Up Again, and that is the real shame. I believe the only original song is at the end, and that is supposed to be our new Can’t Stop The Feeling. Which sure, is an original song, but no where close as exciting as Get Back Up Again. I am not counting songs where it is meant to a famous one with some changed lyrics as original, like Trolls Just Wanna Have Fun.

Overall, it is likely this movie would have done just fine in the theaters. It is better than the animated show, but relatively clunky and beyond simplistic with the plot, despite rays of deeper hope in the middle. I will call the original better despite the same grade, because this one did not make me cry.

2 out of 4.

 

Oh what is this? A new theatrical release but on VOD? This is the first? 

Sure, Trolls World Tour (which comes out on April 10) is a much bigger movie that was meant to come out in theaters and is instead going straight to video for families. And there have been a lot of recent movies that were in theaters for a short time having VOD releases way early to make up for the money lost.

But Never Rarely Sometimes Always hadn’t made it to theaters yet and it was supposed to, and is now getting released digitally instead. So it is the first to really do this. 

And that is brave of them, even if they are a much smaller project. Especially a project with a theme like this one that would have maybe sparked protests anyways, and we don’t want protesters to protest, because then they’d be in groups. Even if they have dumb opinions. 

Me judging people with dumb opinions. 

Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) is just a girl, living in a world, that isn’t the nicest to teenage girls. She has a job as a grocery clerk, where she and her cousin, Skylar (Talia Ryder) are definitely getting harassed by a boss.

Autumn is mad a lot of the times. Her parents (Ryan Eggold, Sharon Van Etten) don’t seem to give her a lot of attention due to their plentiful amount of kids, and her dad is a full on ass towards her. She has emotions, is getting bullied, and doesn’t know why she is so angry.

And then she finds out she is pregnant. About ten weeks. But she lives in Pennsylvania, in a small community, and the only place that was free for her to use was an organization that would never let abortions happen, complete with all the lie filled propaganda. And a parent would have to be involved.

So Autumn does what any girl would do. Sets an appointment in New York City, steals money from her dipshit bosses, and along with her cousin, go to get the deed done quickly and quietly, with hopefully no problems along the way. (There will be problems along the way).

Also starring Théodore Pellerin.

Just two teenage girls on a fun filled middle of week NYC trip to get an abortion. I’m surprised this jolly movie wasn’t made decades ago. 

 

I had this thought when I first saw the movie, I swear. It isn’t hyperbolic because of the closing of theaters. But this is my favorite movie of the year. So far.

And yes, the last few weeks have had movies pushed out, some of which already pushed to next year. There is going to be a big lull in films for the rest of the year, so I have no clue what this sort of landscape will bring for cinema. This might remain my favorite movie of the year, the only one that I have given this rating to so far.

Now, this movie is not funny. It is a realistic take on the subject, it is serious, and some not great things happen. The scene where the title comes from definitely wrecked me emotionally. And that is why my intro wasn’t spent making fun of it like I originally planned.

I love that this film comes out the year after the terrible, propaganda induced Unplanned movie (sponsored by Ted Cruz). That one made my worst of the year list (spoilers). It took everything from the anti-abortion list playbook and tried to make it seem like a true story in incredibly deceptive ways. 

This film is quiet. It is just a story. And yes, an abortion happens. Does that make it pro abortion? Maybe. What it really does is highlight how shitty these various state by state laws are that make it incredibly hard for people to get out of a tough situation. And that isn’t cool.

4 out of 4.

 

Hey, hey, heyheyhey. Vin Diesel. You’re looking kind of rough there. Are you stressed out? Are you getting enough sleep? Because you are looking a little…Bloodshot there.

Hyuck hyuck hyuck.

Of course Bloodshot is based on a comic, and no one really is aware of that. If it ain’t Marvel, DC, or even Dark Horse, ain’t no one give a damn. And sure, through some of the images, it looks like Diesel looks like the comic, so they are going for the same thing here.

See, if you didn’t read my words, you would have just assumed this is Diesel living out another of his Sci-Fi/Fantasy fantasies. Giving him cool powers and letting him run around like he bribed the DM of his campaign. Alas, this isn’t OG made up stuff, but a sourced material made up stuff.

Every punch is sourced.Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel) is one of those elite soldiers of America, who is good at killing and not being killed. He just returned from vague mission, where he did good things for America, and now he can go on vacation with his wife (Talulah Riley). But uh oh. Ray doing good, means bad guys are mad at him.

This one bad guy, Martin Axe (Toby Kebbell), dances his way in to their life and kills the wife, and kills Ray for not giving them good information. And end of movie!

Oh wait, no. Some company, RTS, brings Ray back to life, full of nanobots. Now he is a super soldier. Dr. Emil Harting (Guy Pearce) has brought him back to life, knowing only he died in war and didn’t have anyone claim his body. Ray’s memories are gone and he has a new purpose.

But, if he tries hard, maybe memories will return to him and he can get revenge on that dancing madman. That’d be swell, now that he is a superhero.

Also starring Alex Hernandez, Sam Heughan, Eiza González, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, and Lamorne Morris.

All the bots, all the time, always ready to party. Do you like emotional robots? Because then I have a film to not recommend. Because apparently being made of nanobots for your blood means you will stop feeling anything and somehow turn wooden, not metal.

Diesel smiles a couple times in this movie, generally when he is with his wife, and that is it. Everything else is super serious and stern. This movie takes itself far more seriously than the events on the screen should allow. I need some passion or winks or something to keep me more interested in the very weak plot.

The film I am giving an average rating for only due to originality. The plot could have gone a lot of ways, realistically, and it didn’t go the dumbest way. Audiences, whether they want to or not, have to pay a little bit attention and can’t just be impressed by some punches.

I will also highlight two scenes in particular. The flour fight scene was probably the coolest scene. The lighting gave it some fun visuals that really amplified the moment. And two, the elevator Spider-man deleted scene. Where Doc Ock is involved as well. This sounds ridiculous, and it is ridiculous, but I appreciate them doing this long fight scene in the bright light and not hide it all in the darkness.

But this film has weak acting all around. Average effects. A poor plot. And some okay twists. Somehow exactly what I expected without watching the trailer or knowing anything about the movie going in, weird huh?

2 out of 4.

Before all of the hubbub, I just naturally assumed that The Hunt was a remake of the Danish movie, also called The Hunt. Because it was famous, got nominated for awards, and so of course it will be remade by America at some point.

And that film was about maybe a pedophile, but maybe not, teaching at a school. Apparently this movie is about hunting people as a game, a very unoriginal story!

And apparently, due to its violence, it was taken off the schedule until further notice. And further notice means March 13th, because we haven’t had a big gun disaster in awhile, so it is okay to have a movie with violence.

I mean, minus the fact that people died, it has a pretty good PR campaign to get people talking about the movie. I will assume that was not their goal this whole time.

Ah fuck yeah, two guns!Everyone knows about Manorgate. You know, the conspiracy? The one that says the rich liberal elite once a year steal “deplorables” from the society, to round up and kill them like they are animals. Deplorables can just be anyone they don’t agree with.

You know. Card carrying republicans, gun nuts, conspiracy podcasters, anti-immigration, anti-gay, anti-abortion people. Any of those types. They just want to round them up in a small group and easily pick them off with traps and weapons, and slowly, this will be the rich’s way of getting rid of the poor and shifting our country blue.

Everyone. Knows. About. This. It has to be true!

That’s why when our cast of characters wake up, gagged, and find guns, they immediately know what is up when they start getting picked off. Can they survive? Can they put an end to this program once and for all?

A big cast of characters, on both sides of this hunt, including in no particular order: Ike Barinholtz, Wayne Duvall, Ethan Suplee, Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank, Emma Roberts, Christopher Berry, Sturgill Simpson, Kate Nowlin, Amy Madigan, Reed Birney, Glenn Howerton, Steve Coulter, Dean J. West, Vince Pisani, Teri Wyble, and Steve Mokate.

Shit, the military is involved as well? Better just add them to the Republicans side! For a film about rounding up people and killing them (allegedly), they really knew how to drag things out and make it really boring. This is the sort of film that promises a lot of deaths, on both sides, and this is wasted on fast group kills that don’t leave a lot left for the viewer.

This works in favor of the film early on, when people are dying when you might not expect it. Big names, with barely any lines, it is hard to know just who the main character is going to be. A lot of traps and explosions and more.

And then when we have only a handful left, it stalls really hard. Later on, a large percentage of the “bad guys” go out right around the same time, once again, why so fast? They needed to much better pace out the killing and keep it diverse.

In the second half of the film, I was left with a lot of slower conversations, like they really needed to pad the running time of this movie to make it last 90 minutes. I shouldn’t be falling asleep as they get to the point.

And yet here I am. The Hunt is all hype and not enough substance. It doesn’t go far enough on the killing, nor really anywhere with its message. This is a film that would only work as a short. Could have told the same sort of story in about 20 minutes and saved all of us time with a much better experience overall.

1 out of 4.

Greed is probably my 2nd favorite game show of all time. I think it had a good balance of trivia, team work, back stabbery, and good money prizes. I am annoyed it didn’t take off more. My favorite would be Survivor, if that counts as a game show.

However, this doesn’t have anything to do with the game show, outside of the concept of needing…uhh, money. And Greed.

I couldn’t tell what I was really getting into when I accepted the invite. It had an orange dude on the cover, so I didn’t know if it was going for Trump parody, a different person, a mockumentary or what. I did know it was going to be British, which means strange humor.

This doesn’t look like British humor! These are clearly Brazilian outfits!

Sir Richard McCreadie (Steve Coogan), or Greedy McCreadie from his non-fans, is a dick. An older, relatively wealthy, dick. He grabbed himself by his bootstraps, had already a large sum of money, and turned himself into a fashion icon.

Sure, most of his companies failed. Most of them went bankrupt and somehow the assets went to his family. His wife (Isla Fisher) was able to profit off of them the most, and a lot of it went into Tax Free havens. He borrowed money from the banks to pay for companies, that then went into the companies debt, not his own. He knew the system and knew how to make it work for him and his own, no one else.

>Well McCreadie is about to turn 60. He is annoyed about the bad press, the investigations, and the negativity. He is going to throw a giant bash for himself, regardless of what conditions his workers face. He is going to have the best party, in Greece, with all the stops pulled out. He also has a writer (David Mitchell) doing his life story. He has a lot of random workers like Amanda (Dinita Gohil) whose mom works in his factory, and a son (Asa Butterfield) who can’t stand him.

Yep, this party is going to be the best or the worst.

Also starring Sarah

Solemani, Tim Key, Asim Chaudhry, Ollie Locke, Kareem Alkabbani, Pearl Mackie, Jamie Blackley, Shanina Shaik, Jonny Sweet, Sophie Cookson, and Shirley Henderson.

He’s not Trump. He is more competent.

Greed was weird. It had good moments, and lame moments. I want to be positive and focus mostly on the good.

I enjoyed the strangeness of Mitchell’s character, the writer, who was above it all and awkwardly placed at the same time. Name dropping literary references, not being sure how to handle the lavish dicks all around. He is our character going through the same emotions the audience go through, except he has a bit more say in what happens by the end.

Other actors of note include Gohil, Key, and Chaudhry, who all give us realistic feeling characters. And sure. Coogan as our asshole rich man, with his slick and creative slurs. The rest of the cast isn’t given a lot to work with, outside of being unbearable rich people for the most part, doing dick things and living fake lives. It is more of a script issue than anything, but none of them stand out in a positive way to elevate the film.

The film gets really weird with the end. Often, real stories give us text updates at the end to let us know about the real characters after the events of the film. This one did that as well, except it is about fake people. Instead it talked about real issues, with a lot more weight and passion that didn’t seem to match the scrutiny during the actual film.

Sure, it had rich people doing bad things, and they noted it as bad. It still didn’t seem like such a big deal in the context of ridiculous characters. So it felt like a harder attack at the end. They should have done a better job at being more explicit with the message they were really going for overall.

On its own, its is an okay movie, with some interesting elements. In retrospect, especially how it was filmed, it might have been even better as an actual mockumentary, as it already had a lot of good elements there.

2 out of 4.

Okay, so. Listen up. Emma is a book made by Jane Austen. It is likely not one of her most famous books, because it doesn’t feature alliteration in the title and is only one word.

Emma. with a period is a movie version of that book, of which we have already had movie versions, just not in a while.

One of the last times this was done as a movie was, of course, the movie Clueless! Oh you didn’t know it was based on Emma? Most people didn’t. I technically did not. I knew it was based on something but I kept forgetting what book that was. I read that fact several times, and you know what? In one ear and out the other.

But hey, now I saw a movie called Emma. so I can finally remember the Clueless fact.

Bold move to get an Ed Sheeran looking guy for the lead.Emma (Anna Taylor-Joy) is a woman with a lot of time on her hands. Tons. She has no schooling to keep her busy, she has not siblings in her home. She lives in it alone with her older father (Bill Nighy) who doesn’t really want her to leave. He views the marriage of his eldest daughter as a mistake, and their house is empty without her now, so he is fine with Emma just staying around, not looking for a husband.

Emma doesn’t have time for a man right now. She is rich, so she has very few people who could really help her station in life, so she makes her own fun. For example, she really likes to play match maker with people in the village. She really feels like she knows these villagers, poor and rich, and can find those star crossed lovers who would never have met without her help.

Her current plan? To match her friend, Harriet (Mia Goth) with the big eared but sort of cute priest (Josh O’Connor) in town. Her neighbor, a George Knightley (Johnny Flynn) thinks that Harriet should marry a local and honest farmer instead, so they both attempt to lure her in various directions, regardless of her own thoughts on the matter.

As for Emma? She might find love some day. Maybe Frank Churchill (Callum Turner) someone who is actually more wealthy and mysterious, who continuously does not visit their town because he is often “busy.” Yes, she should focus on him and no one else. That is the best bet.

Also starring Myra McFadyen, Rupert Graves, Gemma Whelan, Amber Anderson, Miranda Hart, Tanya Reynolds, Isis Hainsworth, Vanessa M. Owen, and Suzy Bloom.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Drama food. If you don’t think you would like this movie, just go ahead and ask yourself if you like’d Clueless. If you did, you might enjoy watching this movie just to compare it to Clueless to see how Clueless handled this old book. That is fun by itself.

Another pro for this movie is the colors and costumes. It is draped in decadence for the time period. The costumes pop, the outfits are awesome, and it makes me want to go to a Victorian era ball again in my life.

Music was also a strange highlight that I didn’t expect. They use very time appropriate music as the backdrop, much like a modern film might. As a scene transition. And yet it feels so strange, just having it going on in the back like it is a pop song that helps with a scene transition. It fascinated me, and I thought for sure, eventually, they’d show that church choir or whatever belting out these tunes, and they never appeared. It was a weird feeling, but a weird feeling I enjoyed.

The story itself doesn’t feel like it has the biggest amount of structure beneath it. It is obviously not a new story, given its old source, so that is one big reason why it will feel outdated. However, even taking that into context, the love story isn’t the strongest love story and a story that is a bit of a downer. I didn’t believe their love enough. Needed more time to grow it.

Hope they don’t get divorced a year after marriage. Anyways, now I am going to rewatch Clueless.

3 out of 4.

Look at this photograph…movie! Hopefully doesn’t make me laugh. It’s supposed to be serious, how did we come to this?

Okay, for The Photograph I don’t know anything about it technically. I don’t know the main woman lead. I only know the director, Stella Meghie, did Everything, Everything and I didn’t like the ending.

But, I do know who LaKeith Stanfield, who has been really solid these last few years, which is reason enough for me to be excited. If its a good romance, I will hopefully cry as well.

Oh this one has a red room as well?Our movie tells two stories, in the 80’s and in the modern day.

Our past story involves Christina (Chante Adams). She grew up relatively poor, enjoying picture taking. Her mom was mad at her youth and freedom, and seemed to disown her just for wanting to live her life. She loved Issac (Y’Lan Noel), and they were gonna grow old together, but he never wanted to leave Louisiana like Christina did, and that made them incompatible. She moved to New York, started a family, and became a great photographer.

In our modern time, we have Michael (Lakeith Stanfield), a reporter for something, who gets to take a long time on his articles. Nice. Not given the shit work. As part of a feature, he meets Issac (Rob Morgan), old now, and learns about Christina who has since died, and meets Christina’s daughter, Mae (Issa Rae) while looking for her art. And sure enough, they find that connection.

The story is about love, its future and past, and how the simplest things can change your life.

Also starring Chelsea Peretti, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Lil Rey Howery, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and Courtney B. Vance.

Staring at necks when people don’t see me is also my fetish. The Photograph is two tales of romance, and it seems they need two tales because neither can stand well on its own feet. Two stories that are related by a single lady. Our past story is relatively basic, as they only flashback just a few times. It is needed for the main story, sure, but it isn’t the type of romance that one will walk out of and talk about how wonderful or tragic it feels. It just feels…basic.

Our modern romance story is a bit more interesting. Adding in new jobs versus new romances, getting over exes, and finding someone that is compatible vs maybe just lustful.

I like the acting from Stanfield and Rae a lot. I particularly enjoy that their stories made them seem like just regular people. It didn’t get bogged down in anything except for their relationships with each other (and for Mae, the relationship with her parents).

But it is a story with very little happening, very little of a conclusion. Decent acting saves a story that just won’t be memorable in a few months.

2 out of 4.

A lot of people love Force Majeure. Haven’t heard about it? Well, in the magical year of 2014, before all of this mess we are in, it was released in France. It won some awards, received a lot of praise, but did it win an Oscar for Best Foreign Film? Nope. Hell it wasn’t even nominated. And unless a foreign film can win both the Oscar for Foreign Film and Best Picture, should we really care about it?

Now most films aren’t Parasite, which means most films are going to get remade at some point.

Downhill is a remake of Force Majeure, with out the subtitles and who knows what else is different. Will it be more of a slapstick? Will there be a ridiculous scream with the avalanche? Will we get to see man butt?

Force Majeure was a really good movie, and I am hoping before seeing it that Downhill is as well.

If anything we can get some sweet mountain shots out of it.

Pete (Will Ferrell) and Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) are a married couple with a couple of kids (Julian Grey, Ammon Jacob Ford) and the romance is on the lower end. Hopefully this very expensive and nice trip to Europe to go skiiing for a week will kick things off with each other. Bring their sexy back. Also, Pete is grieving about his dad dying earlier in the year, so there is that too.

Things start off fine. Their boys complain and argue, but whatever. They got a lot of fun stuff planned. However, when sitting outside to eat lunch at a restaurant, a controlled explosion happens bringing down some snow. An avalanche! And it is a bit scary to watch it coming towards them. Is it dangerous? Or will it be fine?

Well, when others begin freaking out they make their choices. Pete grabs his phone and runs away. Billie is left at the table with her kids and brings them down thinking her husband left them there to die.

And this sort of event unless dealt with right away will probably just build up over time. Like snow on a mountain. And eventually these feelings will avalanche down.

Also starring Kristofer Hivju, Miranda Otto, Zoe Chao, and Zach Woods.

“The cowardice is palatable.” – Billie, probably. Having to compare a movie to what it is based on can be hard. But int his case it is pretty easy.

Force Majeure is a good movie, Downhill is a bad movie, and it is sad to admit that.

In terms of what worked really, really well, we had Louis-Dreyfuss giving a great performance here. Her facial expressions, her outbursts, her confusion about her shitty husband. Her freak out before the helicopter was a good one and warranted.

In this film, they made Pete/Ferrell way more unbearable and the bad guy. I felt like we had some gray area in the first one. He was still clearly wrong, but they balanced it out eventually, sort of, and he wasn’t a complete dick. Pete was someone I wish would have ran from the avalanche and literally just never came back. That would have made this a good remake, deal with that awkwardness.

This remake is shorter, rushes through some of the emotional turmoil, but still includes a bit of the awkward for some discomfort in your seats.

1 out of 4.

10) The Grand Budapest Hotel 2014

Why? Wes Anderson is a director that took me a long time to appreciate. I didn’t really know much about him and his earlier work, but wasn’t a fan when I was younger. After Fantastic Mr. Fox, I was a fan, and it took a couple more to bring me to this one which made me fall in love with its insides.

After seeing it for the first time I have seen other films he did, still not all of them, and this is just the most spectacular to me. A larger cast, full of oddballs, love, and life lessons. And hell, the main character is not a great man, but Ralph Fiennes goes completely into this hotel madman and leaves nothing behind.

It is a film that is visually stunning and funny enough that it is easy to revisit over and over again with similar tummy bellows.

Favorite moment? The punch outs.

9) La La Land 2016

Why? Musicals are hard to make and hard to make well. Slap some songs in a movie and we don’t always fall in love. Have choreography? Who cares, so do music videos. I need a good story, I need acting, and I need songs to move the story forward and not feel awkward.

La La Land feels like an attempt to make a more low key realistic musical, while still having the same show stopping type numbers. The first couple of songs in it are full on flash and color, but after that, we get our slower song for both leads to dance, and then it slows the hell down. It lets them breath, we get our main theme with reprises and add-ons, and it lets the story work.

I feel like I get the best of the both worlds, along with an ending I can hate while still respecting at the same time. Gosling and Stone, you are beautiful people who keep coupling in our movies. Thank you for that. This is my favorite musical of the decade. 

Favorite moment? Another Day of Sun.

8) The Social Network 2010

Why? Here is a film a lot of people have called the best of the decade, and it is a wonder that it came out at the start of the decade. It is a film many say should have won Best Picture and are still annoyed by that fact today. And I get it, I love it too.

We combine David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin, so of course we get some amazing creation they can call their own. Add in a great score, actors who were sort of just coming into the game, and some boy band experience, and it is a hard film to top.

It still feels timely, and likely will be for quite a long while given how little our online interactions have actually changed. It is the type of film that I feel I will always be down to watch, and was peak Eisenberg (but thankfully not peak Garfield or Hammer).

Favorite moment? The ousting of Eduardo.

7) Scott Pilgrim vs. The World 2010

Why? A lot of this list could be seen as “What films does this guy think are better than The Social Network from the 2010s?” And I will do you one better. What film from 2010 itself do I think is better? Scott Pilgrim, that’s what!

I will say this is a film where I had read all of the source material before the film, and it completely delivered six books in one film. You know, the type of thing books try to avoid since then. They wanna stretch it out. Edgar Wright instead filled it with action, game references, and totally captured the nature of the graphic novel. Sure, a lot is missing, and that is okay.

This is a stone soup of younger actors and actresses to piece together this strange story that is really just a complicated metaphor that tells us that people have baggage. Relationships are hard. And it can be difficult to let things go that have helped define us up to that point. And its funny. This is my favorite comedy AND comic book movie of the decade. 

Favorite moment? CASUAL SEX! Okay, that’s the book. The Chris Evans and Vegan fights.

6) Warrior 2011

Why? And now onto more serious things. I didn’t hear about Warrior until it was coming out on DVD as a recommendation from my brother. I wasn’t expecting anything, just another “boxing movie” but instead I got an extremely heartfelt story about two brothers, no longer in each other’s lives, both overcoming their own hardships and difficulties in life to do what they do best. Fight.

I will admit I don’t really like Nick Nolte in most films the last 20 years, but him being a hard to decipher mess of a human actually works for this movie. One of my favorite aspects of this film is that this basically introduced me to Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy in movies, and they have continued to show why they are both highly sought after actors.

UFC is new to the sports world still, and it found a way to take what would normally be just a boxing story and change things up, with different styles mirroring their lives and attitudes. And of course, when I see the ending, I cry every time. This is my favorite sports movie of the decade. 

Favorite moment? The four second fight, the final fight, the Marines song.

5) Nightcrawler 2014

Why? Another film I never got to see in theaters, and I blame poor advertising on that. I blame the advertising on its lack of awards as well, because Jake Gyllenhaal should have been nominated and won those acting awards for his scary portrayal.

This film takes morals and completely throws them out of the window. Gyllenhaal rarely blinks and talks in a charismatic rapey way like he was born to be that person. But hell, Gyllenhaal has been one of the most consistent actors this decade, so it makes sense.

Nightcrawler is unsettling and questions our fascination with the news and what people want to see and hear. If anything, it predicted what people have started to do with features like YouTube/Facebook Live when it comes to unthinkable crimes, and hopefully if enough people see it and take its messages to heart, we can put to end to this nonsense. So, probably never. This is my favorite Thriller of the decade. 

Favorite moment? The home invasion and fallout.

4) The Perks of Being A Wallflower 2012

Why? When I saw this film in theaters, I remember just sitting there in the theater, watching regular credits with music blasting, and finding myself unable to get up and leave. I had to deal with the emotions and thoughts running through my head. I had to wipe away tears and make sure I wasn’t a wreck of a man walking into the lobby. I noticed the few people in the theater were also not getting up right away. It seemed like a universal feeling.

What starts out as a story about a loner who wants to be accepted but is too introverted and shy to get out there turns into something bigger. Coming out of your shell is risky, and so is accepting others into your life. But even if we bring others in, there is still a lot hiding under the surface that they can never know about, to know what you are going through and subconsciously dealing with at all times..

The reveal about our protagonist and his past comes along shockingly, but when rewatching the film the hints are right there. Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller are great leads, and Emma Watson in this film helps break out of her Harry Potter sphere. It is so well acted with a kicking soundtrack, it should be a staple of its genre for hopefully decades to come dealing with timeless problems. This is my favorite coming of age story of the decade. 

Favorite moment? Truth or dare.

3) Colossal 2017

Why? Colossal is a hard film to fit into any genre. It is a film that has plot holes and doesn’t try to explain all of its quirks. And that can rub people the wrong way.

But when taken as a larger metaphor for emotional abuse and substance abuse, and trying to overcome these issues with your body and past, it is a shining example of how someone can feel. Full of depression and anger in their own lives, it sometimes feels like there is a monster inside of them that is destroying others. And that can be literal if the monster completely consumes the individual.

Thankfully, this movie also offers hope. And I love that the answer isn’t just another man or a relationship. It is about fixing yourself and not relying on others to handle your problems for you.

Anne Hathaway I enjoy in most films, and she feels very vulnerable in this film Jason Sudeikis I also love, but plays the bad guy in a creepily realistic way. The twists and turns are wonderful. This is my favorite…uhh…fantasy film (?) of the year. Maybe romance? I don’t know. 

Favorite moment? The introduction of the Robot.

2) Arrival 2016

Why? In 2016, this movie was the third on my list, right a different Amy Adams movie and a musical, and in those years since I have realized that Arrival is the better film. At this point I was more familiar with Denis Villeneuve and still blown away with the story put together in this film. Sure, it is based on a story, but the visual work and cinematography, and the alien design and the ORDER this story gives is mind blowing. It is a mind blowing film.

Amy Adams is probably the best actress of the decade. Just look at the number of nominations, the quality of films she has been in year after year, even the more silly and family friendly roles are above the curve. And I don’t think she has ever been better.

This film is a major gut punch when the whole story gets revealed and told and deals with a complicated timeline, but not shying away from complicated stories is a good thing. When we get original stories that don’t feed you through a straw the plot, we need to reward them and celebrate them. This is my favorite science fiction film of the decade. 

Favorite moment? The death of the alien.

1) Steve Jobs 2015

Why? And finally, the shocking moment, the one that will make people say huh. But probably not people who know me. When I made my top of 2015 list it made 4th, with the two above it not making my top of the decade, and the other one being The Big Short, further down this list. So HOW could a film like this move all the way up to my number one spot?

First of all, repeatability. Since I bought the film I have seen it probably twice a year always on a whim. I get a feeling, I want to see Steve Jobs again, so I do it. It being a film in three acts that mirror each other and grow is a rewarding watch, to see the connections, to connect it to history, to see how people grow.

Secondly, I can still tear up usually near the end each and every time. Having it be about a very mean and modern myth filled man, but actually a story about learning to accept your responsibilities as a father? That is a twist, and movies that deal with father/daughter relationships always get me now.

Thirdly, Aaron Goddamn Sorkin. I love the hell out of his dialogue, and the words come out at a pace with such passion that it is like an action movie…with words.

Strangely enough, I am in no way an Apple fan boy. I have had an iPhone for one year before they got rid of the Aux, so I went back to Android. I had an iPod way after they were cool and that is about it. I just can acknowledge that Steve Jobs was an interesting individual and did a lot of good with a lot of bad.

Fassbender should have won best actor over DiCaprio that year. Rogen was great. Winslet completely became a different person. Daniels molded his suave from the Newsroom into something similar, but different. And the other people involved are equally fascinating.

If it wasn’t for the several F-bombs, it is a film I would show my gifted students every year, so they could understand that being smart doesn’t mean one has to be a dick. A play that never was a play, Steve Jobs is my favorite drama, favorite “biopic”, and favorite movie of the decade. 

Favorite moment? It’s not binary.

Thanks for reading! Hopefully you check out the other parts and can tell me in the top 50 why I am stupid and missed your favorite film, or why you think Steve Jobs isn’t a great film. I might not listen, but I will still “listen.”

Click here for Part 1 (50-41)!
Click here for Part 2 (40-31)!
Click here for Part 3 (30-21)!
Click here for Part 4 (20-11)!