Well, after saying last year that we never accomplish this goal, this year we did. It did take a last-minute decision to take New Years’ Eve off, but that was something that might have happened anyway.
(Why movies? I wrote about it last year & the reasons haven’t changed)
We haven’t had our final best movies in the theater discussion yet, but the titles in bold are the ten that would be in the running for me. As always, these are based on a personal and idiosyncratic set of criteria. Your mileage may vary. Plus, I can’t promise that these would be the same ten I would pick tomorrow.
JANUARY
Vice
Reefer Madness
If Beale Street Could Talk
On the Basis of Sex
Stan & Ollie
FEBRUARY
Roma
Cold War
Isn’t it Romantic
Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts*
MARCH
Captain Marvel
Apollo 11*
Ruben Brandt, Collector
APRIL
Woman at War
The Mustang
Avengers: Endgame
MAY
Satan & Adam*
Hail Satan?*
Amazing Grace*
Booksmart
JUNE
Rocketman
All is True
Echo in the Canyon*
The River and the Wall*
JULY
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
The Bikes of Wrath*
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
AUGUST
Wild Rose
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am*
Maiden*
The Farewell
Sword of Trust
Blinded by the Light
Mike Wallace Is Here*
Find Me
SEPTEMBER
David Crosby: Remember My Name*
Ad Astra
Official Secrets
Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice*
OCTOBER
Judy
One Child Nation*
NOVEMBER
Where Is My Roy Cohn?*
Pain and Glory
Ford vs. Ferrari
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Knives Out
The Irishman
DECEMBER
Dark Waters
Honey Boy
The Two Popes
Little Women
Uncut Gems
Fantastic Fungi*
The asterisks denote documentaries. The number of documentaries on this list shows that it was, overall, a weaker year for movies than last year was. At least, it was a a weaker year for movies-that-showed-in-Corvallis-theaters than last year was. Even when things are limited, there is usually a documentary of some interest playing somewhere. And our bar for documentaries is lower, because even when the craft is low, there is still a chance we might learn something.
To be fair, there are some movies that are probably very extremely good that we have not seen, and will not see, because I do not do horror imagery. For some reason, those images have an outsized effect on me and I can’t shake them. I don’t mean garden-variety violence; some of the images I still see when I can’t sleep aren’t that violent. Anyway, The Lighthouse and Parasite did play here, but I kept us from seeing them.
info-fetishist 