I had such fun doing the 100 horror movies this year that I definitely want to do it again in 2024. But instead of jamming all 100 into merely three months, I’m going to do it throughout the year so that it won’t be too overwhelming. So one of the main challenges of 2024 is going to be 100 horror films in 2024!
If you have an account on Letterboxd and been tracking your own movies for a while now, you will be able to open your All Time stats and see how far are you on certain movie lists. On my All Time stats, I’m participating in 16 lists. Three of them I want to advance next year:
Letterboxd Top 250 – I’m currently on 28%, I want to bring it to 50% which would be 55 movies.
Of course, there are going to be some overlap in these lists so it won’t be as hard. And of course, as usual, I will try watch most nominated films during the Award season. It will be a great movie year! Merry Blogmas!
I did the #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days that lasted from August till Halloween and so I have an exceptionally long list of horror to recommend. 😀 So let’s make it a quick fire round, introducing everyone with one sentence. Excluding the first three on the list that got 4.5/5 stars, the rest got 4/5 stars. Go let’s go!
The Cremator – The best horror I’ve seen this year, a Czech masterpiece that was like no other in its hypnotic style and smooth af transitions.
Seconds – What if you are given a second chance in life, your dream life, and you are still not content?
The Ninth Configuration – One of the most interesting films about PTSD and the consequences of war.
Bones and All – Cannibals but make it romantic but yet horrifying.
Event Horizon – The cult scifi horror, basically Hellraiser in space.
Helter Skelter – Japanese take on the price of chasing fame, daring and shocking and mesmerizing all at once.
Oculus – An under-rated early Mike Flanagan film that brings a whole new twist to the ghost in the mirror horror trope.
Cure – Japanese masterpiece of the power of suggestion and the small-gestured horrific deeds.
Saint Maud – Will faith carry you through tough times and ferry you to the paradise at the end? Or maybe not. That ending was fuuuuucked up, I love it! 😀
In the Mouth of Madness – The best Stephen King adaptation that wasn’t actually a Stephen King adaptation but definitely should be.
The Midnight Meat Train – It’s Hellraiser in the train. XD More brilliant than I expected and a surprising performance by Bradley Cooper.
Talk to Me – A brilliant made horror with the seance trope but make it actually scary and up-to-day.
Jacob’s Ladder – The madness of war and the aftermath, absolutely brilliant twist in the end.
Kwaidan – Legendary and beautifully shot ghost stories from Japan, that musical performance was phenomenal.
Cold Fish – One of the finest films by Sion Sono, it’s one of a kind brutal storytelling that I adore.
Onibaba – Legendary Japanese horror from the 60’s that needs no introduction, definitely worth the hype.
No One Will Save You – A highly stylistic alien horror flick that paid off for me at least.
Gozu – A Japanese fever dream that you have to see to believe.
When Evil Lurks – Brutal and violent virus spread fast, this Argentinian horror is unforgiving and relentless.
The Exorcist III – Forgotten and way under-rated, directed by the original author of The Exorcist, it is a masterpiece that was forced by the studio to be attached to the wrong franchise. It should have stood on its own two very capable feet.
Here they are! On tomorrow, the movie challenges I’m going to do next year! Merry Blogmas!
I’ve chosen ten movies that premiered this year that I really liked.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 While the MCU is not doing that good recently and I even skipped The Marvels, I thoroughly enjoyed the conclusion to ‘Guardians’ trilogy. It’s crazy and chaotic and more than a little silly but still managed to make me cry. That basically sums up the Guardians. They had always been the oddball of the MCU and I would love them forever. Also makes me kinda hopeful that maybe James Gunn will succeed in revitalizing the DCEU.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse First Spider-Verse animated movie changed the animation scene forever by bringing a new style of doing movies instead of the increasingly souless 3D animation. The first one was one of my favorite Spidy movies. While the sequel wasn’t as great as the first one, I still had a lot of fun watching it, and it sure was ambitious and exciting to see all those different Spidys. I might change my mind later if the third movie wraps it all up in a spectacular fashion, then the middle child of the trilogy would feel better in hindsight.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret Did I expect myself to like this film so much? Definitely not. I don’t think I’m the target audience at all, not being a teen or religious. 😀 But this movie is so freaking adorable. Abby Ryder Fortson who played Margaret was extremely likable as a character and I loved how they perfectly captured the small everyday problems of teenage years that seemed like the end of the world at the time but now in the ripe old age of almost 40, this all just feels nostalgic and comforting.
Blackberry A crazy story about the forgotten giant phone company that dominated the market (at least in the US) for a hot minute but because of various reasons, failed to move forward while the rest of the world did. It’s the story as old as time. 😀 You slowed down or stopped, you shall be left behind. I was very entertained by this, and the eccentric characters were super interesting too.
Barbie I was right there when the Barbenheimer frenzy was at its highest and I went to watch Barbie not being sure what to expect. I should’ve known that Greta Gerwig wouldn’t disappoint me, she has become a film-maker whom I trust to make something poignant yet entertaining and unique with all of her projects. I didn’t expect to love Ken’s character so much, Ryan Gosling was peak Goslingin the whole film. 😀 I had a lot of fun.
Oppenheimer And on the other spectrum of the hype, I quite enjoyed Oppenheimer. I still believe that this would have been a masterpiece in someone else’s hands than Nolans, I still don’t like his style. Cillian Murphy was simply phenomenal here, and I rated the movie as high as I did because of him. And the fact that Oppenheimer’s story was very interesting for a history geek like me.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem I’ve always loved the TMNT. I’m not sure about the recent attempts to adapt them in the super serious and somber tone and kinda forgetting that the first T of TMNT was ‘teenage’. So I was hesitant about this and didn’t go to the cinema to watch it and now I definitely regret it. Mutant Mayhem was pure joy to watch! Its style was dazzling, thanks to the trend that was started by Spider-verse films. I didn’t want it to end and now I need then more of these, please.
The Boy and the Heron Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki hardly ever miss. The Boy and the Heron was no exception. I would definitely be interested in watching it again with the star-studded English dub, but I always watch the original Japanese first. It was, as expected, whimsical and dark at the same time, beautiful and terrifying. Dealing with subjects like grief and the devastation of war, it was an experience to see it on the big screen.
Godzilla Minus One It feels like a privilege to see a Japanese Godzilla movie in the theater. And I’m glad that I did, cos this was how I like the monster that’s supposed to symbolize war be represented – something mindless, terrifying, destructive and soul-crushing. While this Godzilla is much smaller than some I’ve seen in recent movies, this is somehow way more scary. And for the first time in a Godzilla movie, I cared about the humans who are trying to survive way more than I did the monster. That’s a sign of a good Godzilla movie.
Wonka I’ve heard people say ‘Another origin story that no one asked for’. But I really didn’t mind. It was a magical, chocolaty sweet musical with Timothee Chalamet. What else can one ask for? XD The villains were funny, the chocolate-loving munks and if you tell me you don’t want a cocktail-shaking oompa loompa that looks like Hugh Grant for yourself, I would know that you are a liar. 😀
Here they are, favorite films that premiered in 2023. Stay tuned for horror favorites tomorrow! Merry Blogmas!
Like I mentioned on yesterday’s blogpost, this year had been a very good movie year filled with excellent films. A whopping 60 films out of 236 got 4/5 stars. Today I would introduces a few dozens of them came out either last year or earlier. I shall write about the highly rated films that premiered this year tomorrow and also great horror movies from my horror movie challenge the day after tomorrow.
In the beginning of the year, it was filled with award seasons films. Cate Blanchett shone like a diamond in TÁR. All Quiet On The Western Front highlighted the horrific reality of war with a gritty and jarring soundtrack. The Fabelmans showcased that Spielberg actually can make an excellent movie with smaller gestures. A dazzling Damien Chazelle’s film Babylon that got snubbed. RRR was the Bollywood film that I enjoyed the shit out of. The Banshees of Inisherin was charming in a way that as someone grown up in Finland, I could relate. Women Talking was a simple yet effective. Aftersun made me fall for Paul Mescal. All the films mentioned above got four stars out of five. Two award season films got 4.5 out of 5 stars from me though, so nearly perfect: The Whale – a triumphant return of Brendan Fraser; and Living – the best performance of Bill Nighy that I’ve ever seen.
I also started to watch some classics and old movies. Believe or not, until this year, I’ve never seen Schindler’s List. Or Fargo. Makes sense why both of them were classics. To the same group I would also count 12 Angry Men and The Maltese Falcon.
This year, I also managed to watch more non-English movies and indie films. The Artifice Girl was a microbudget film with a hard-hitting subject with AI rising up, it definitely makes a super interesting watch. I had a Mads Mikkelsen week at one point and watched two excellent movies of his: The Hunt and Another Round. And to continue in the Nordic countries came a chilling horror thriller The Innocents that feel like a more terrifying spiritual twin of the film Chronicle. And then there’s the Norwegian ‘Sick of Myself‘, a film that stuck with me for a long time. After a long time spent in the north, let’s go east and watch a brilliant and horrifying anime in Perfect Blue that depicts spiraling into madness in an extremely disturbing way. Let’s continue back to the north, to Canada this time and to Pontypool, the way under-rated truly unique horror flick with a twist for your average zombie films. And let’s round it up with Sanctuary, which I enjoyed immensely in the most twisted way possible. 😀
Well this was fun. 😀 Stay tuned for tomorrow’s list of my favorite premieres of the year. Merry Blogmas!
And we are here, at the movie block of Blogmas. These next five days it’s all about the movies, starting with some statistics about the movies I watched in 2023. The year hasn’t ended yet and I might hit 250 films watched by the end but I don’t think it would change the statistic charts in one way or another. And by the way, the stats are from Letterboxd and my profile name there is EmmiTheMinion. So here we go. 😀
Not surprisingly, September and October were the craziest movie months as I’m trying to do my best to watch 100 horror films before Halloween. My usual yearly movie count is 150 movies. So apparently, the fact that I did manage to watch 100 horror movies, I would also watch my usual amount of movies on top of it. 😀
As expected, 115 out of almost 250 movies, were horror. And just like books, I don’t watch romantic movies if I could help it. Hollywood still reigns supreme and so do English-speaking films. I would like to broaden my cinematic horizons though. Watching horror definitely helped cos I tend to watch them from all around the world.
About 33% of watched movies are 2023 releases. Most of them are first-time watches, only 2,5% re-watches. I consider my movie year to be pretty good rating-wise. 32% of the films got 3½ stars out of 5. Four stars were awarded to 25%, three stars to 27%. Only nine movies got 4½ stars and unfortunately, no movies got the full five stars out of five. But luckily, only 9% are 2½ stars, four movies given 2 stars. Two movies got below 1½. 😀
I still got quite a bit of places to travel cinematically, I would definitely make sure to travel more next year. 😀 That’s it for today. Merry Blogmas!
Slap Ass For Motivation 