The movies of 2020.

A good deal of these I saw on the very computer I'm typing this post on. For trying to kill the movie theater experience alone, every single member of Congress that sought to profit from the virus and turned a blind eye to you-know-who's malicious incompetence ought to be strung up by their thumbs and their feet slicked in Crisco. Anyway...

10. Weathering with You - From the director of Your Name. comes another star-crossed love story and, despite a uncertain grasp on tone, it manages to hit some of the same heights.

9. Run. - Another story of a fractured teenage girl-unraveling single parent relationship from the makers of Searching, with terrific performances from Sarah Paulson and newcomer Kiera Allen papering over some of the schlockier aspects.

8. Wonder Woman 1984 - Effectively colorful sequel cleverly interweaves social commentary into its story, with exciting sequences that often feel like a comic book come to life.

7. Promising Young Woman - Nicely acidic (and sadly relevant) black comedy/revenge thriller with Carey Mulligan delivering a sensational performance.

6. The Croods: A New Age - Hilarious, beautifully designed and just plain unpretentious follow-up to the Dreamworks animated feature.

5. Wolfwalkers - A spellbinding mixture of colorful characters and vivid storytelling and, perhaps, the best animated movie of the year.

4. Palm Springs - Just when you think that every angle on a Groundhog Day time loop scenario could be exhausted, along comes this snappy (and equally profound) comedy.

3. The Invisible Man - Updating of the classic Universal thriller is carefully composed - with a splendid Elisabeth Moss performance - balanced by some truly startling moments.

2. Birds of Prey - Okay, cards on the table, it's essentially Deadpool...and I see no problem with that, as the script is just as entertaining and the cast is great fun.

1. Mank - Okay, so there's something seductive about narratives exploring Old Tinseltown and even with more of a narrative than Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the acting and ambiance are just as sumptuous.

Runners-up:

Bad Boys for Life

Bill and Ted Face the Music

Bloodshot

Body Cam

The Call of the Wild

The Gentlemen

The Lovebirds

The Old Guard

Onward

Project Power

Underrated: Magic Camp, Underwater and Valley Girl

Overrated: Da 5 Bloods, Soul and Tenet

Guilty pleasures: Honest Thief and The Hunt

Didn't think this was so bad: Artemis Fowl

My favorite things in movies - 2020:

Cassie visits victim number III in Promising Young Woman

The Dustin Hoffman duel in The Trip to Greece

The group pitch session in Mank

Janusz Kaminski's cinematography in The Call of the Wild; for real, why couldn't Kingdom of the Crystal Skull look this beautiful?

Kiera Allen gets some fresh air in Run

The kitchen fight in The Hunt

Mebh grabs a bite to eat in Wolfwalkers

The meetings with the future selves in Bill and Ted Face the Music

The police station fight in Birds of Prey

Pretty much anytime the action simultaneously went forwards and backwards in Tenet, especially the car chase. Now, if only there was a filmmaker who utilized these techniques and knew how to write three-dimensional characters...

The singing in the park scene in Godmothered

Steve takes Diana on his first flight in decades in Wonder Woman 1984

Vince Vaughn in Freaky

"Why are we watching fight porn?" - The Gentlemen

What a tragic waste...

Neal McDonough in Sonic the Hedgehog

Robert Patrick in Honest Thief

...too many people in The Hunt (granted, this was by design, but still...)

Courtney B. Vance in Project Power

Random thoughts:

- One of my most anticipated movies of the year was Wonder Woman 1984 and maybe, it was wanting so much to see it that caused me to rate it higher than it deserved...then I remember what people said about it: 'The worst movie of the year'. 'The worst superhero movie I've ever seen'. You know what? Fuck that noise. I loved Wonder Woman 1984. I think a lot of the hate comes down to people too proud to admit that they've never read a comic book in their lives. (One complaint I read about the film - hand to God - was that 'the invisible jet was stupid'...in a Wonder Woman movie. You wanna tell me this theory doesn't hold water?) Other people were put off by the 1980s setting. 'Why was it even set in the 1980s?' 'Why even set it in the 1980s if you're not gonna use obvious 1980s signifiers?' In order, a) this was the time of the Cold War. America and the Soviet Union in a rancorous clutch, ready to fire nuclear missiles if the other side so much as farts in a manner that could be interpreted as threatening. 'Why was it even set in the 1980s?' Fuckin' Millennials. b) Has "The Goldbergs" so debased our culture that the only way a project set in the 1980s can have any worth is if it cock-slaps the audience with 80s stuff every 30 seconds? And I like "The Goldbergs". This guy I follow at Letterboxd can be a real crank, but he had a sound theory that people were still pissy at Gal Gadot for her mass "Imagine" sing-along earlier in the year and decided to take it out on the movie. Another theory you can't help but mull over. Interestingly enough, no one has offered any suggestions about what they would've done differently if they had $200 million and the keys to the kingdom. Well, this one person on Twitter responded to my post offering this suggestion with 'You don't need to be a filmmaker to offer a valid criticism', which is as close to 'I sure wouldn't have done what this piece of crap movie did' without having the balls to say the words. To end this on a positive note, the mall fight, the climatic Cheetah fight and especially the image of Diana swinging her lasso from one lightning bolt to another just feel like they could've come from a comic book. Have the last few years of the guy Pedro Pascal's Maxwell Lord is clearly not at all based on (wink) so ground our sense of imagination and...well, wonder into the dirt? Besides, compare Wonder Woman 1984 to The New Mutants which - with every fucking fiber of its being - was ashamed to have to be based on a comic book. It's not even a contest which movie we should really be slamming.

- Given the awards buzz greeting it, I felt honor-bound to watch Da 5 Bloods. The acting was terrific (Delroy Lindo is guaranteed a Best Actor nod), the camaraderie between the characters was strong and the production values (the scenery, the music) were quite good. But there's no way around it: this film was a fucking mess. (For real, it puts the WW84 whining in perspective.) The story plays like the makers wanted to make two different movies, but never quite figured out how to make the two halves fit together. The constant name-dropping was a distraction, as was the scene that Spike Lee more or less found-replaced from a similar scene in his Miracle at St. Anna and don't even get me started on the math of the characters' ages that didn't add up (yeah, the Vietnam war was 50 years ago, right?).

- Maybe, I've said this a bit too often around here, but I go to movies to get away from reality, not to be reminded of it (and failing that, movies reflective of reality - more and more of which seem to be commonplace today - better be damned entertaining). So, you can imagine my ire being raised at projects that utilize a carnival barker sensibility in marrying the current health crisis to down and dirty genre films. That these movies were produced by Charles Band and Michael Bay is somehow the most and absolute least surprising aspect.

- Christopher Landon seems to be carving out a niche melding high-concept comedies with slashers. Freaky (the title thankfully shortened from Freaky Friday the 13th and I don't care how clearer that would've been to audiences; it's clunky as shit) had its moments and, like I said, Vince Vaughn, but ultimately, it missed the mark for me. For one thing, too many over-the-top supporting characters: the gay best friend, the alkie mom who sets things in motion (I've witnessed Marge Thompson, I've respected Marge Thompson and you are no Marge Thompson.), the alpha bitch and the shop teacher who thinks nothing of knocking around one of his students. And you gotta love the latter two getting Harry Farbered (i.e. an unlikable side character getting killed by the bad guy and afterwards, no one ever mentions them like they never goddamn existed in the first place...extra sloppy given that their deaths are even more over the top than the GBF and that takes some doing). And I didn't even mention the insta-freezer. Maybe, I've been out of school too long, but when the damn hell ass did something like this become standard?!

- Another of my most anticipated movies of the year was Promising Young Woman and, for the most part, it delivered. For one thing, the cutesy rom-com elements distracted from the main avenging angel storyline as opposed to contrasted it. Also, it is really one of those movies you need to go in knowing as little as possible about it and silly old me went ahead and read the script not long after it hit the Black List. One of the curses of the modern era: it's hard to be surprised by anything. (I truly lament that theaters were closed in my state, because I still maintain that a double feature of this and Wonder Woman 1984 would've ruled all the ass.)

- Antebellum. The trailer intrigued me. Then the film came out. One of my favorite Letterboxd reviews described it thusly: 'Get Out of The Village'. And the funny thing is that this film could've been saved easy. Hear me out: the plantation owners abduct the slaves via time travel. How do they have this power? It's off the top of my head, but it's far more chilling. (And I generally assumed that's how it worked until the plot details were made clearer.)

- The last three years have seen what I would crudely deem 'the Mother's Day MGM remake slot'. The second weekend of May has delivered a remake of an MGM title (preferably from the 80s) that people have seen fit to dump on, maybe because they have genuine fondness for the original or maybe (more likely) they just want to paint everything with a big ol' 'all remakes suck!' brush. Even so, I've found the remakes of Overboard, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (itself a remake...yeah, you don't know how to think now, do you?) and Valley Girl solidly entertaining. Who knows what's next for this release date, but I'll be waiting and open-minded.

- I suppose when you've revealed yourself to be a bigoted piece of crap, but your name (supposedly) still carries a bit of weight in the film world, you take the projects where you can find them. Force of Nature, another of those 'set during a hurricane that doesn't even waste the bad guys in ways pertaining to the hurricane, so what was even the fucking point of the hurricane?' thrillers the kids are so crazy about, was made bearable by Mel Gibson's ornery performance that I don't quite believe was acting. But let me bend your ear a little about Fatman where he plays an ornery (there's that word again) Santa Claus who is marked for death by a snot-nosed crime kingpin ripped straight from RoboCop 2. The trailer and premise point to this being little more than a ten-to-one "Saturday Night Live" sketch and I'm still not convinced that it wasn't.

- I really enjoyed The Croods: A New Age and the ads really helped in that regard, a marked contrast to how I had to talk myself into seeing the original as the gags in those trailers were (to my at-that-point-in-time mind) weak. Pretty much the only trailer gag that fell flat here was the missing digit bit (as with Monsters vs. Aliens a decade earlier, it was more gross and off-putting than funny) and even here, it paid off rather well.

- The year in PG-13 'f' bombs: Run, Bloodshot, Tenet, Honest Thief, Underwater and my favorite: "Fantasy fucking Island."

- Cuties may well be the most controversial movie of the year. People actually cancelled their Netflix subscriptions because of it, instead of - you know - completely avoiding the movie's existence while scrolling, though I am in agreement that the ad campaign that Netflix concocted to draw attention to the film was the definition of ill-advised. For those who don't know, the film told the story of a group of elementary school girls in France who practice for a dance competition and Amy the Senegalese girl who hopes to join them. For the first third, the film does a fine job of showing the difficulties of trying to fit in and the dangers of young girls growing up too fast. Then you have the inclusion of such questionable moments as the girls trying to sneak into the school boys room to get a peek at one of their classmates and Amy...bleeding (use your imagination), which should've been a red flag. But the moment when Amy takes a picture of herself (again, I'll spare you the specifics) on a borrowed phone that she stole from a friend of the family - a young man who has no idea what she's using it for and, without context, could certainly end up in an endless shitstorm if someone were to find it on there - is when she ceased to be a likable protagonist. Seriously, I've seen villains in movies this past year that were far less vile. (And it's a sign of how sloppy the narrative is that the only fallout from the phone jack is the girls being labeled sluts.) And it doesn't stop there: attacking a classmate that called her a slut with a knife and pushing one of the other girls into the water (and given her flailing, she wasn't much of a swimmer) so she can take her place in the big dance competition (though the girls were booed for their salacious routine which kind of redeemed things for me). It's like some fucked up mix of Reefer Madness, Showgirls and "Dance Moms". However, the ending may be the worst of all. Despite all the horrible things she's done, you don't get any sense that Amy has learned something or become a better person, yet the film's final moments stick their fingers in their ears, going 'la la la la I can't hear you' like the freakin' Vancome Lady, as if to say she has. All of which is to say that this film is fully deserving of scorn, but not quite for the reasons one would assume at first glance. Weirdly enough, the film did get some good reviews, including a notice at The AV Club's 'What films should've made our best of 2020 list?' article. I expressed my opinions on the matter there and what did I get in return? 'Really insightful 'I'm not Karen' commentary there, Karen'. 'Your criticism of the movie is 'the [impressionable, underage] protagonist does things I don't agree with morally'? Are you fucking serious?'. Yes, because a cursory viewing of the trailer and a 50-minute reaction video on YouTube suddenly makes you a goddamn expert on this movie.

- So...what happened with Soul? No, seriously, what happened? For its first 35 or so minutes, I was grooving on it. Good voice work and impressive art direction of New York City and The Great Before. Then, Joe gets back to Earth...sort of. Maybe, I've seen too many movies, but this is where me and the 'Dis is the best movee evars! It cured my coronavirus! It was so good, you can write it off on your taxes!' discourse part ways. Another Pixar movie that throws you a curveball and puts a main character into a body that they didn't have at the start of the movie, but why is Brave a misfire, but Soul is a masterpiece? Goddamn if I know. People are still too high on the movie to tell me. (At least Freaky let you know before hand that it was a body-swap movie.) It didn't help that 22 was so annoying. Maybe not 'Mub from Epic, want to reach into the screen and salt the bastard' annoying, but certainly on the level of Vanellope from Wreck-It Ralph. Hell, they even have the same dentist! However, the mass insults scene didn't land anywhere near as emotionally as the destroying the cart, 'You really are a bad guy' scene. I mean, there was once a time when Pixar was invincible and people often say that Hollywood should remake bad/poorly executed movies instead of good ones, but isn't another take on Monkeybone a bridge too far? There were some good moments following the switch, but man, was it hard to ignore what got us to this point.

- The last few weeks have seen an unfortunate dearth of 'worst movies of the year' lists. A respected stand-up comedian/actor/cinema boffin has spoken out against them, stating that 'nothing beats the mere reality of this year for worst of and anyone doing something creative, whether it succeeds or fails, automatically ranks in the best of humanity column'. Now, I love the guy and I always will, but he's as wrong as a three-dollar bill on this. Worst lists don't just foment negativity (which I suppose we could do with less of), but they open up discussion on the movies in question; get the people reading them to consider said films from the viewpoint of the author, whether or not the reader agrees with it. This is what has been so frustrating about the last ten months (among other, more pertinent things): Film Score Monthly writer Scott Bettencourt used to routinely post his worst movies of the year columns and they'd be the highlights of January. About a decade ago, he stopped, which may have had something to do with his day job, but every one of his columns save Film Score Friday has dried up. You'd think that this time would compel him to post some of the many lists he's made over the years (he's mentioned once or twice that he still has them). I mean, give it a shot, dude. It's not like you're going anywhere. (For real, he's based in California. All he has is time.)

- Now, people making stupid comments on the internet - especially when it comes to film - is as inevitable as death and taxes. After all, it seems like it was only yesterday when someone at Ain't It Cool News posted that Elliot Goldenthal was a terrible composer solely because he was hired for Joel Schumacher's Batman movies. However, that shit really came to a head this past year. Subtract the divisive discourse on Wonder Woman 1984 and Cuties and you still have stuff like this one joker whose response to Collider's story that there wasn't a sequel to Elf because Will Ferrell and Jon Favreau didn't get along was 'well, it's too bad that the doctor who figured that Buddy had a childlike personality was soooo important to the story', not even bothering to look up or remember that Favreau was the fucking director of Elf. All I'm saying is that if scientists were able to concoct a vaccine within nine months, then surely someone can create a Death Note for people who make idiotic statements on the net.