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Favourites

16/06/2017 · by Joy

Honourable mentions: I saw a thing on The Spiral Site where he listed his favourite films for every year since he was born and I thought, “Hey! I love making lists and I haven’t done a list post in a while…” so here I am, making a list post! There aren’t as many years as his, since I am so young and youthful (lol), but nonetheless, here goes:

1992: Army of Darkness!
Honourable mentions: Sister Act, Reservoir Dogs, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

1993: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
Honourable mentions: Falling Down, Hocus Pocus, The Secret Garden, Benny & Joon

1994: Clerks
Honourable mentions: Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption

1995: Mallrats
Honourable mentions: Se7en, Clueless

1996: The Frighteners
Honourable mentions: Scream, Fly Away Home

1997: The Fifth Element
Honourable mentions: Good Will Hunting, The Game

1998: Mulan
Honourable mentions: The Truman Show, American History X, The Faculty

1999: Fight Club
Honourable mentions: American Beauty, The Green Mile, The Iron Giant, The Blair Witch Project

2000: American Psycho
Honourable mentions: Memento, Requiem for a Dream, Battle Royale

2001: Spirited Away
Honourable mentions: Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring, Donnie Darko, A Beautiful Mind, The Others

2002: One Hour Photo
Honourable mentions: 28 Days Later…, Red Dragon, Sweet Home Alabama

2003: School of Rock
Honourable mentions: Finding Nemo, Oldboy, Bruce Almighty

2004: The Machinist
Honourable mentions: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Shaun of the Dead

2005: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Honourable mentions: Capote, The Corpse Bride, Four Brothers, The Exorcism of Emily Rose

2006: The Illusionist
Honourable mentions: Idiocracy

2007: [REC]
Honourable mentions: Juno, Knocked Up, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, El Orfanato/The Orphanage

2008: Burn After Reading
Honourable mentions: Gran Torino, Cloverfield

2009: Drag Me to Hell
Honourable mentions: (500) Days of Summer, District 9, Zombieland

2010: Blue Valentine
Honourable mentions: Black Swan, How to Train Your Dragon, Winter’s Bone, Easy A

2011: Bridesmaids
Honourable mentions: The Help, Paranormal Activity 3, Contagion, Sucker Punch, We Need to Talk About Kevin

2012: Pitch Perfect
Honourable mentions: Django Unchained, Silver Linings Playbook, Les Miserables

2013: The Conjuring
Honourable mentions: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Captain Phillips, Don Jon

2014: The Babadook
Honourable mentions: Gone Girl, Interstellar, The Imitation Game, As Above So Below

2015: Room
Honourable mentions: The Revenant, The Hateful Eight, Green Room

2016: Deadpool
Honourable mentions: Moonlight, La La Land, The Handmaiden, Don’t Breathe, Hush

Okay, that was WAY harder than I thought it was going to be. To be fair, I also used Google and looked at a quick overview of what notable movies came out that year, so I’m entirely certain that I missed a ton of really great films! I have such a decision-making problem and I just love films so much. There aren’t many that I watch and go “that’s a bad movie.” And since I was born in ’92, I miss out on listing some of the greatest films, some of my FAVOURITE films… I really wanted to list Carrie but it’s from 1976… darn. Anyway, it was a fun little exercise in rattling off movies that I love and it gives you a sense of what films I enjoy, too! (P.S. Good thing there’s no tag limit, apparently!)

2016: A Year in Film

29/12/2016 · by Joy

2016 is almost behind us and I really didn’t watch (or review) as many movies as I wanted to this year. I mean, I can really only look back to about March and you know, my memory only goes back so far. I can’t rely on my brain, that’s just ridiculous!

So in honour of ringing in the new year (which hasn’t happened yet, but whatever, just go with it), I wanted to do a little recap post as my (probably) last post of 2016.

The Best Movie I Saw in the Year 2016 (That Was Also Made in 2016)

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I’m really really torn. It’s a very close call between Arrival and Swiss Army Man. Neither are a flawless film, but both really affected me and I really, truly enjoyed them!

The Worst Movie I Saw in the Year 2016

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Hands down, The Gallows takes the cake. It was so bad, so beyond bad that it was almost mediocre but actually it wasn’t, it was just the worst. The worst. I will not ever watch this movie again. Ever. Not even once.

The One I Couldn’t Believe I’d Never Seen Before 2016

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I am almost ashamed to admit it took me 20 years to see The Frighteners for the first time. I had really dropped the ball for, like, 2 decades by not seeing it sooner. I’d never even HEARD of it. But this will definitely be a Halloween season classic from now on, thanks to Rhiannon and Mel who played it and introduced me to the wonderfulness that is Michael J. Fox’s adventures in the after life(?)

The Best Movie You Probably Haven’t Heard Of or Seen from 2016 That I Saw and Really Liked

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Tallulah was a super pleasant surprise. I love Ellen Page, so I wasn’t expecting a garbage film or anything, it was just a movie I saw and watched on a whim without reading reviews (which doesn’t really happen too often). I can’t say I’ve ever seen a BAD Netflix original, but this was a really underrated (well, not really, it has 84% on RottenTomatoes) and really unmentioned film worth watching!

The Best New TV Series From 2016

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Stranger Things – season 1 was absolutely fantastic. I am waiting what feels like endlessly for season 2. It feels like it’s never going to come! I can’t wait for the young stars of this hit new show to return and show us what they can do… they’ve made a fan out of me!

The Best Older TV Series I Fell in Love With in 2016

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A show I hadn’t seen before this year (even though it premiered in 2013 and I’m obsessed with Norman Bates… I even have a betta fish – bate-a fish if you will – named Norman Bates) was Bates Motel and I’m SO sorry I hadn’t seen it before this year. It was so good! I can’t wait to watch season 4, hopefully in 2017!

The Weirdest Movie I Saw in 2016

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The Housemaid was a super bizarre South Korean film I watched on Netflix this year. I am usually a pretty big fan of every Korean film I watch, especially Oldboy, Memories of Murder, A Tale of Two Sisters, and I Saw the Devil… they really do thrillers well there! They have that genre down… however, I did watch (half of) one just the other night – The Wailing – which I was less a fan of, but alas, another review for another time. The Housemaid was explicit, not what I expected, and had a super weird ending, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Honourable Mentions from 2016

In 2016, I didn’t see or review as many movies as I’d hoped I would… but some of the films I saw that made their way into my heart include The Den, local creation Sleeping Giant, the horribly underrated As Above, So Below, Andy Samberg’s satirical Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, a wonderful horror that surprised me in how good it actually was in Don’t Breathe, and another that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen before, The Loved Ones. All of these (I hope) will be making their way into my Bluray collection. I already own Don’t Breathe as I picked it up at a local pawn shop on Boxing Day for $7! AND HEY, I have a birthday coming up ;)

I can’t wait for the films I will see in 2017! There are tons coming out which I am SO excited for… Split, A Dog’s Purpose, Rings, Beauty and the Beast, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, IT, Pitch Perfect 3… should be a good year in the film universe!

Don’t Breathe (2016)

31/08/2016 · by Joy

I was so happy when I saw the previews for this movie and I noticed that the director was Fede Alvarez who also directed the remake (reimagining?) of Evil Dead in 2013. Aaaaand that completes his filmography.

He may be a “newbie” at directing, but he is talented. Again, I was kind of blind-sided (pun unintended, but it is a pleasant surprise). I thought it was going to be a cut-and-dry thriller about a B&E gone awry, but what I got was so much more messed up than I could have imagined.

The film-making was fantastic and everything was technically (I feel) flawless. I did, however, find myself in a weird position – there’s no protagonist in this film… no one’s a “good guy” and there’s no one really to root for. The characters constantly make stupid decisions that make it harder for them to get to their end-goal, which I get it, it’s more realistic that way because no one is going to make perfect decisions in an adrenaline-fueled situation. BUT! Having said that, every time I had to say, “oh my god, what are you waiting for? RUN!!!” I was infuriated and liked the main characters a smidgen less.

These three teenagers, desperate for cash and I guess with no other way to get it, break into an old, blind war veteran’s house because they find out he has a shit-ton of money hidden somewhere. They make some dumb, naive decisions that make little sense, and they severely underestimate the skill level of a seemingly weak person with visual impairments.

Jane Levy was absolutely fantastic, as she was in Evil Dead, and plays a strong female lead who doesn’t stop fighting until she absolutely must. She makes for an intense thrill ride that I think no one imagines going in. I will definitely be adding this one to my collection!