So IMDb recently added a feature to their iOS app that provides a “You May Know Them From” section on every person’s page based on your ratings. Basically, if a person you look up was in something you rated, it tells you what that thing was, shortening the amount of time you stare at a person’s face thinking ‘they look so familiar…’ Now, this is a great thing, but I’ve been a bit of a purist in my rating systems so far on IMDb (for a lot of reasons, none of which are really that important), and that means I hadn’t rated any TV shows. But some people I know from TV shows… and I wanted to know WHICH TV shows… and so I recently bulk rated a ton of TV shows on IMDb.

Rating TV shows is very hard for me to do, because one of my purist principles is wanting to only rate things I have finished, and there are SO MANY TV shows that I haven’t finished, because I’m sorry, but I can’t be expected to watch all twenty thousand seasons of shows like ‘Supernatural’ and ‘The Big Bang Theory’ when I have other things to do in life (like watch a ton of movies). Not to mention the fact that with most TV shows, the most rateable part of them is individual seasons (for example, season one of ‘Buffy’ is quite silly and campy, but by season six, which I kind of love, it had gotten way darker and is, in a sense, a very different show), but this is the one TV rating that IMDb does not allow you to make. The horrors.

This is a really long-winded way of saying that right now, my IMDb ratings list is very messed up, and nowhere near an accurate representation of what I have watched recently, so thank god for the Check-Ins function. Also, I may have used my messy ratings list as an excuse to procrastinate writing this wrap-up. Maybe.

Oh goodness, this was a weird month, movie-wise. Where to start? At the beginning of the month, I enjoyed a trifecta of hotel room movies while in London, of which ‘Upgrade’ was hands down the most enjoyable, but ‘Game Night’ was a surprising second. ‘Upgrade’ takes the age-old “tech builds a better version of a broken man” premise and just leans in all the way, and as long as you embrace the insanity of it and the lead actor’s eerie resemblance to Tom Hardy, it’s a hell of a ride. Whereas ‘Game Night’ was surprisingly surprising, with some twists that I didn’t expect, and just really fun comedic acting from Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman.

‘Blockers’ was basically the dumb comedy that I expected on the parents’ side, but I was surprised by how much I genuinely enjoyed the bits of the movie that focused on the teen girls. Except, once again, I cannot relate to the whole “prom night is the biggest most important night of your teenage years.” Seriously, hotel rooms? Spiking of drinks? Out of control house parties with all types of drugs imaginable? I have yet to meet anyone for whom this type of prom night was real life. So please, if you have those real life stories, do share. (Especially if you are from Eugene, because I really want to know what hotel you went to. One of those cheap ones on Franklin? Valley River Inn? Inquiring minds want to know.)

‘McCabe & Mrs. Miller’ is an amazing Western that isn’t really a Western, because it’s a fantastic Altman film that is cinematically gorgeous. Especially the shoot-out at the end of the film, which is so unlike any other shoot-out. Word of warning: the soundtrack is super muddled, which in one sense is kind of what Altman movies are like, but it is also far more muddled than his other films that I’ve seen.

I loved everything about ‘A Simple Favour.’ Everything. And yes, I did immediately download the soundtrack (but I didn’t pour myself a martini). Both Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively were just delicious in this pulpy suburban melodrama. It was great. Also, hat tip to their marketing, because it was pretty damn clever and fun.

Let’s look at the awards films for a moment… ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ is just so good. Melissa McCarthy is seriously fantastic and I for one am excited to see more dramatic roles in her future. (I love her comedy too, don’t get me wrong, but she killed it in this role.) And Richard E. Grant… how can you not love him, especially after this awards season?

‘Green Book’ I feel so conflicted about, because I went into it having read a lot of the criticism… and I get it. The intention of showing friendship and understanding across racial lines (and class, too) is all well and good, and I enjoyed a lot of the film… but at the end of the day, it felt too much like a black man’s story being told by a white man, and it made me uncomfortable watching it in this day and age. And that’s not even touching on the lack of communication with Dr. Shirley’s existing family for the creation of the screenplay and film. That whole part of the situation just seems super disrespectful. Even all that aside, I STILL wouldn’t give it Best Picture, because other films on that list were just honestly better films. So that’s disappointing.

‘If Beale Street Could Talk’, on the other hand, was a beautiful film - once more I was mesmerized by Barry Jenkins’ storytelling abilities. The performances were stellar, as well - he assembles pitch-perfect casts for the story he wants to tell. Regina King’s Oscar was well-deserved.

Speaking of deserved, if I could have Olivia Colman get her Oscar, give her speech, and then have another Oscar still to give to Glenn Close, then I would be happy, because Close’s performance in ‘The Wife’ was beyond amazing. (And was much more of a leading role than Colman’s, but let’s not get started on those technicalities.) That performance SHOULD have won her the Oscar, it was just stunningly good.

This seems like a good place to mention ‘The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part’, (nominated for Best Animated Film), which was entertaining on the level of the first Lego Movie, and surpassed the spin-off films featuring Batman and ninjas. (Full disclosure - I didn’t watch the Ninjago movie, but I stand by my comments based on what I heard.) ‘The Second Part’ was visually fun and exciting, and the humor and cleverness was there, and they throw in a message for good measure. This time it’s a message more aimed at children (the first film’s takedown of capitalism was a bit more adult-focused that ‘sharing is caring’), but at the end of the day we could all use a reminder to be kinder, share, and play nicely with other people, rather than fighting. (Especially if our leaders are going to act like squabbling children rather than grown-ass adults.)

I went through a series of older films this month, because I’m currently reading some film books covering the 30s, 40s and 50s, which always makes me starved for some great classic Hollywood films. (If y’all have a way for me to find this era of film in the UK, help a girl out please! The selection is limited, to say the least.) Though ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ isn’t quite Hollywood, it falls into that era, and is really cinematically stunning - the film moves between Technicolor and black-and-white to reflect the change in story location between Earth and the afterlife, respectively. In addition, it’s a pretty fascinating interpretation of the manifestation of a neurological injury… or of a miracle, however you decide to view it! ‘State of the Union’ is a fantastic Tracy-Hepburn vehicle, with the classic Capraesque quality of idealism in politics that slowly gets beaten down by the institution. Also fun is seeing Angela Lansbury in one of her early roles (though unpacking all the underlying commentary about females is probably enough for its own blog post. Maybe some other day.)

And then there is ‘Penny Serenade’… which after much dithering about, I have to say it hasn’t aged well. I love Cary Grant, and I LOVE Irene Dunne, and they have several other films together that are fantastic fun (‘The Awful Truth’ and ‘My Favorite Wife’ are high on my list of recommendations) but this film is a) not a screwball comedy, which they both do so well, and b) is really about a couple that shouldn’t be together, and yet as long as they have a child, they focus all their attention on it rather than on the dysfunction in their relationship. Which is really not healthy.

Rosamund Pike is fantastic in ‘A Private War’, which I’ve written more about here.

And then to wrap up the month, I watched ‘Venom’ because I was convinced it would be a less good version of ‘Upgrade’, and I was totally right. (However, Tom Hardy was hilarious in it, which helped me survive until the end of the movie.) Ultimately it was just a confusing movie, tonally and plot-wise. On the plus side, I desperately needed a palate cleanser, so I threw on another Dietrich/Sternberg film with ‘Shanghai Express’, and was soothed by the glamour and gumption of Marlene Dietrich once more.

Full List of February 2019 Films: #17 through #32 for the Year

17. ‘Upgrade’ (2018)
18. ‘Blockers’ (2018)
19. ‘Game Night’ (2018)
20. ‘McCabe & Mrs. Miller’ (1971)
21. ‘A Simple Favour’ (2018)
22. ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ (2018)
23. ‘Green Book’ (2018)
24. ‘The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part’ (2019)
25. ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ (1946)
26. ‘The Wife’ (2018)
27. ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ (2018)
28. ‘State of the Union’ (1948)
29. ‘Penny Serenade’ (1941)
30. ‘A Private War’ (2018)
31. ‘Venom’ (2018)
32. ‘Shanghai Express’ (1932)

More Posts from My 2019 Movie Resolution

IMDb List of My 2019 Movies