End of Year Ten

Year 10. Hard to believe that I’ve hit double digits.

I have to admit that the last 18 months or so have been difficult on this blog. I haven’t posted nearly as much as normal, and I haven’t watched nearly as many different movies as normal, either. This year, as of this writing, I have seen 209 different movies this year. That sounds like a lot, but it’s a touch over half of my normal.

There are multiple reasons for this. I’ve become tangentially involved in local politics in the last year, and that takes up some of my time. I’m working with another person to deal with the food desert in my town, and that takes time as well. And, I admit, it’s been difficult to focus on what feels like something frivolous when instead I can watch the destruction of American democracy and the world we live in in real time on Twitter.

But I do want to finish. I want to complete the Oscar films as much as I can and the Oscar races. And once that’s done, perhaps I’ll shift the focus once again.

Anyway, welcome to 2020!

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 2017

The Contenders:

The Big Sick
Get Out (winner)
Lady Bird
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Music Hath Charms

Films: Cold War (Zimna Wojna)
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on basement television.

I went into Cold War (also called Zimna Wojna) completely cold. In fact, I had no plans to watch this today until I discovered it at my local library just waiting to be checked out. It’s great when the library grabs a film like this one, since it’s one that isn’t necessarily going to get a lot of play in a small town like mine, at least not before the students come back for the spring term at the local university. Anyway, knowing that I don’t have a great many more films to watch to complete the Oscars as much as I can (and that will change in a month), it seemed like a good idea to knock this one out, sneaking it in before the end of the year.

I don’t know what I expected with Cold War, but I definitely didn’t expect a movie about musicians in Poland under the Soviet regime. That, however, is what I got. More specifically, this is the story of a very tempestuous relationship between a composer and arranger named Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and a singer named Zula (Joanna Kulig). This love affair will take them out of the Eastern Bloc, through multiple relationships, and back again under the shadow of communism.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1979

The Contenders:

Apocalypse Now
La Cage aux Folles
Kramer vs. Kramer (winner)
A Little Romance
Norma Rae

I Saw Ten Ships Come Sailing In

While this blot has shifted in general away from the 1001 Movies list, that list is still at the heart of what I’ve done here. It’s still something I try to complete every year and still something that I think is important to this blog. For that reason, I think it’s worth considering another 10 movies that belong on the list and have never been there. Presented in no order are 10 movies I think belong here.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1949

The Contenders:

Loretta Young: Come to the Stable
Deborah Kerr: Edward, My Son
Olivia de Havilland: The Heiress (winner)
Susan Hayward: My Foolish Heart
Jeanne Crain: Pinky

Off Script: Dance of the Dead

Films: Dance of the Dead
Format: DVD from Manhattan-Elwood Public Library through interlibrary loan on The New Portable.

As the zombie genre expands into different styles and different subgenres, it was inevitable that it would be crossed with teen movies multiple times. And, of course, it has. There are teen romance zombie movies, comedies, and splatter movies. It was only a matter of time before we got something like Dance of the Dead, a film that has a zombie apocalypse occurring at a high school prom. Kind of.

An issue that is going to be prevalent in many a movie in a thoroughly-explored genre is the ability to point at its influences. Dance of the Dead is going to take its cues from pretty much every zombie movie released before 2008. There are elements of films like Cemetery Man and Return of the Living Dead here, for instance. This is very much a movie that wants to be seen in the same way. It’s clearly a horror movie and clearly a comedy and wants to be both.