The 1978 Project: Part VIII

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After a few months of neglecting the 1978 Project in order to catch up with and recap 2020 films, we return to glory! Again. Yeah, so it’s been about a year and a half since this project began, but we are finally reaching the homestretch. If I do something like this again, I should try and make it time-bound (like I did for 50 Under 50).

For the uninitiated, I’m doing a deep dive into the cinema of the year of my birth (guess which year!) As of this writing, I’ve seen 83 films that were released in 1978. Not comprehensive, to be sure, but we’re getting respectable and we’ve only got maybe 5-10 more films I want to catch up with. The thing is, I keep finding new stuff I want to watch. This post covers a couple of doozies that I’d probably never have watched if it weren’t for this project, but which are impressive for movies encountered this late in the process.

I’ll say we’ll get to the traditional Movie Awards and Top 10 roundup sometime this spring, but who knows? I may end up watching 200 films from that year. In any case, it’s time to take a look at some of the1978 flicks I caught up with recently, so let’s hop to it…

Blue Collar – A group of assembly line workers at an auto plant, plagued by growing bills, a disinterested management, a corrupt union, and the ever-persistent IRS, conceive of a plan to rob their union. Naturally, things don’t go as planned. After making a name for himself by writing classic scripts like Taxi Driver and Rolling Thunder, Paul Schrader had built up enough credibility to direct his own scrip this time around. In case you can’t tell by the plot description or the other films he’s worked on, Schrader is a cynical guy, and this film is a stark condemnation of, well, everything.

It’s so grim that I wonder if Schrader’s non-directorial stuff tends to be more successful because some of his edge gets rounded out by collaboration. Of course, “success” isn’t necessarily the best arbiter of a film’s worth, and I will say that this movie, while bleak and uncompromising, is a story-first affair. Schrader himself has commented on how this film had to “operate in the area of entertainment”, even if he was saturating the film with political realities. The result isn’t exactly a fun watch, but it’s engrossing and insightful.

Blue Collar

It helps that Schrader cast a trio of ringers as the leads. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto are all phenomenal as the down-on-their-luck workers seeking a big score, only to find themselves ensconced in a convoluted machine that they can’t escape. And that’s before the back-stabbing, corruption, and murder. Visually, Schrader presents the story with blunt realism, though he makes room for bitter irony, like the shot of a billboard ticker that tallies Chrysler’s production numbers. Petty union squabbles pitting “…the lifers against the new boys and the young against the old. The black against the white.” None of that matters to the numbers. Know your place in the scheme. Schrader’s incessant cynicism is often hit or miss with me, but for whatever reason, this one hits hard. It’s a difficult movie to recommend, but it’s quite good if you’ve got the stones for it. ***

Big Wednesday – You wouldn’t expect this meandering movie about the trials and tribulations of three surfers living through the 60s and 70s to come from a guy like John Milius (more famous for bombastic fare like Conan the Barbarian and Red Dawn, not to mention some of the most iconic, badass lines in cinema history), but here we are. In some ways, it resembles films like American Graffiti (made by Milius’ pal George Lucas); a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Big Wednesday has a more focused core of characters though, and it covers a much larger swath of time. As a result, it does provide a little more insight and character depth. Again, this is helped by solid casting of the three surfing friends: Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt, and Gary Busey. All three are doing surprisingly good work here, as they’re not exactly known for subtlety in their careers. Jan-Michael Vincent gives the best performance (in the movie and perhaps of his career) and displays the most range. It’s amusing to consider Busey in this movie and contrast with his later role in Point Break. Even bit players like Sam Melville as the surf board guru, Bear, puts in a career-best performance.

Big Wednesday

It’s maybe a tad long, and I can see why it wasn’t successful at the time, but it appears to have garnered a following amongst film nerds. Take, for example, Quentin Tarantino:

“I don’t like surfers. I grew up in a surfing community and I thought surfers were jerks. I love Big Wednesday so much. Surfers don’t deserve this movie.”

This sort of movie (light on plot, high on character), isn’t usually my thing, but like Tarantino overcoming his distaste for surfers to like this movie, I found myself enjoying it quite a bit. ***

Heroes of the East – A Chinese man is thrust into an arranged marriage with a Japanese woman. Cultures clash, and the man inadvertently challenges her entire family’s martial prowess. Thus he must prove that Chinese Kung Fu really is superior to Japanese martial arts through a series of duels. Yes, another in the seemingly endless reserve of Hong Kong martial arts flicks made in 1978 (and we’re not done yet!)

To be frank, I’m not really qualified to comment on the whole culture clash element of the story. I’m aware of enough Chinese/Japanese history to see why this rivalry could emerge, but again, not really qualified to engage in specifics. As an American who is constantly running up against other cultures (speaking generally here, not in terms of specific culture war topics that are so hot these days), the rather extreme response by both parties seems a bit overheated, but then, you know, you wouldn’t have a movie if everyone would act reasonably. Also, there’s that Chinese/Japanese history to contend with.

The main attraction of these films are the action set pieces anyway, and this one has them in spades. It’s not the best of 1978 nor is it one of the first I’d recommend, but it’s a perfectly cromulent entry in the genre and worth checking out for fans of this sort of thing. **1/2

The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting – Two narrators discuss the possible connections and controversies surrounding a series of paintings. This French arthouse film is literally about actual art, so it is incredibly pretentious. Luckily, there are some fascinating ideas at its core and it is blessedly short, which keeps things moving along well enough. The visual convention of one narrator walking through three-dimensional reproductions of each painting is a fantastic touch, and really helps illustrate the story behind the paintings (and the connections between paintings). The notion that you could obsessively study each painting and find enough connections between them to infer that there is a missing painting in the progression is quite engrossing… but it ultimately has nowhere to go.

Watching this, I was consistently reminded of Rembrandt’s J’accuse, a documentary about visual literacy and obsessively breaking down the story behind a famous painting. Both films are pompous and stilted, but they cover interesting topics and they do so in visually inventive ways. I’m really glad I caught up with this film though, and I would really love to watch it again if it ever gets a good release (there are DVDs, but to my knowledge, there has not been a Blu or 4k release). **1/2

Shaolin Mantis – Look, there’s a whole thing about the Qing dynasty sending a spy to infiltrate rebels and he falls in love with the rebel leader’s granddaughter and so on… But really this is a movie about how a defeated martial artist invents a new style by observing and imitating a praying mantis. Then he uses that to seek revenge. Yet another Hong Kong martial arts movie released in 1978.

At this point, I could probably do a top 10 Hong Kong martial arts movies of 1978 list (and still leave off, like, 20 movies). Would this list make that top 10? It’s possible, but it’d be towards the lower end of the list. This is more because there’s just so many really great entries in the genre though. Shaolin Mantis is entertaining and the action is great. As a story, it doesn’t quite hold together, but it’s functional enough and as already established, the story is really just an excuse to get to the action. Which, again, is copious and well done. I liked this a bit better than the aforementioned Heroes of the East, but I’d put it in the same territory of movies that aren’t essential, but which could be interesting for students of the genre. **1/2

Rich Little’s Christmas Carol – It’s Dickens’ classic story, with Rich Little playing basically every part himself. He plays each part as himself doing an impression of someone else playing the part. Does that make sense? So Rich Little is playing Marley by doing an impression of Nixon playing Marley. It’s an insane conceit and it makes the process of watching the movie more of a meta-exercise than an entertainment in itself. I mean, we all know A Christmas Carol and this isn’t a particularly good retelling of it, but I couldn’t help being transfixed by the sheer audacity of the thing.

It’s also a bit of a time capsule in that most of the impressions aren’t exactly timeless. W.C. Fields as Scrooge! Truman Capote as Tiny Tim! Many of these weren’t recognizable to me, and it’s also not like Little’s impressions are that good. Though I did kinda appreciate that the three ghosts of Christmas were all famous screen detectives. It adds an extra meta level to the proceedings. Rich Little impersonating Peter Falk playing Columbo as the Ghost of Christmas Past! Why famous screen detectives? Damned if I know, but I can’t help but watch . Not really recommended, except for people interested in this deeply weird gimmick. I think this sorta defies rating?

There are definitely a few more films I want to track down before I start in on the Movie Awards and Top 10 list, but I’m guessing we’re in the homestretch now, so it shouldn’t be too long. Because I know you’re all on the edge of your seat. Just keep calm, it’s coming.

SF Book Review – Part 36: The Puppet Masters and Moar

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Now that we’ve gotten the Movie Awards and various year-end recaps out of the way, it’s time to catch up on some science fiction reading. I did cover a few things already during Vintage SF Month, but I’ve been sorta slacking on the SF front of late. Still, I’ve read some things lately that are interesting enough.

The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein – I read this towards the end of Vintage SF Month but never got around to doing a full writeup. Slug-like alien parasites have arrived on earth, attached themselves to people’s backs, taken control of their nervous systems in order to ride them like a puppet master. Two secret agents from a clandestine US intelligence agency have been sent to a small town to investigate a flying saucer sighting (and the disappearance of other government agents) and discover the plot.

The Puppet Masters book cover

If this sounds a little familiar, that’s because it’s similar in content and theme to Jack Finney’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It was published a few years after Heinlein’s novel, yet it became far more famous thanks to a classic film adaptation (or two). Heinlein’s novel did finally get a schlocky film adaptation in the 90s, but I don’t remember thinking it was anything special (I do want to revisit it though) and really, it doesn’t get at some of the more out-there ideas in Heinlein’s novel.

Written in 1951, Heinlein was probing and echoing the paranoia and fear that drove the Red Scare, explicitly drawing comparisons between the mind-controlling parasites and Soviet communists. Still, much of this is really just an excuse for solidly paced storytelling and explorations of wacky ideas. Some of this has to do with the puppet masters themselves, but much of it is indirectly explored as part of the setting. You get the usual ray guns and flying car tropes, Heinlein reprises his infamous “the door dilated” line, and so on. There’s so more out-there notions too, like the notion of marriage being nothing more than a contract (and one that is frequently limited to short terms).

The fight against the puppet masters involves lots of common sense maneuvering between both sides, though even that gets a bit wacky because Heinlein posits that the best way to fight the parasites is to normalize nudity (if you’re nude, you can’t hide the parasite, you see – totally not a perverted idea at all). Still, the pacing is good and each step makes sense, even if a couple stray a bit far afield.

One conversation towards the end felt particularly fitting: someone speculates that all of the measures they’re taking to fight the Puppet Masters won’t go away overnight, or probably ever. Because we won’t be able to guarantee that every parasite has been eradicated, all of those protections will have to remain in place in one way or another. Fortunately, our battle with Covid 19 doesn’t involve some of these extreme measures, but it does appear to be here to stay.

All in all, it’s a solid little book, perhaps middle tier Heinlein. I can see why it wasn’t immediately jumped on for a film adaptation, but it’s a fun read for sure.

Masquerade in Lodi by Lois McMaster Bujold – The 9th novella in Bujold’s Penric & Desdemona series, though in terms of the internal chronology of the series, it falls somewhere in the middle. This one finds Pen & Des trying to hunt down an ascendant demon and a shipwrecked madman with the help of various locals from the canal town of Lodi (think Venice). It’s got the usual twists and turns one can expect from this series, and I always enjoy spending time with Pen & Des (and the ever expanding cast of characters in their orbit). The series as a whole is consistently great and highly recommended.

Into the Black by Evan Currie – The story of the human spacecraft Odyssey and her crew as they embark on their maiden voyage… and almost immediately get caught up in an interstellar war. It’s a nice little military SF tale with some space opera elements, I found myself thinking it resembled Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet Series. This is only the first novel in Currie’s series, so it hasn’t quite built up the same level of enjoyment just yet, but I could see it getting there. It’s not doing anything new, to be sure, but it’s enjoyable and interesting in its own way. I will probably revisit the series at some point.

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner – The King’s chief scholar, called The Magus, has found the site of an ancient treasure. Said treasure is guarded by a series of locks and countermeasures that require the skills of a good thief. It just so happens that Gen has recently been imprisoned because of his excellent thieving skills. The Magus recruits Gen and they set off on a quest to find the secure the treasure for the king.

Short and sweet, this might bog down a tad in the middle, and while I wasn’t entirely sure I loved the characters at first, they grew on me. There’s a good setup and premise for sure, but some of the journey is a bit perfunctory. I wasn’t especially engaged by long segments explaining the mythology of this world, and much of it seemed extraneous. However, by the time it ended, I was fully onboard, and actually kinda excited for the next book in the series. I found this because Lois McMaster Bujold posted something about it on Goodreads, and she seemed to indicate that the series gets better as it goes.

Link Dump

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The usual link dump of interesting oddities from the depths of ye olde internets:

What are one-way and two-way door decisions? One-way door decisions are decisions that you can’t easily reverse. These decisions need to be done carefully. Two-way door decisions can be reversed. You can walk through the door, see if you like it, and if not go back. These decisions can be made fast or even automated.

So there you have it, another link dump on the books. Stay tuned for the triumphant return of the 1978 Project, amongst other things.

Favorite Films of 2020

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We conclude this recap of last year’s movies with a traditional top 10 list of my favorite films of 2020, only a month and a half (or so) late! This marks the fifteenth year in a row that I’ve posted a top 10, a full decade and a half. For reference, previous top 10s are here: [2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006]

At this point, I usually try to suss out some themes for the year. This is a fool’s errand even in the best of times, but probably even moreso in 2020. A year marked by pandemic, lockdowns, social unrest, protests, riots, a particularly contentious election, and just all-around anxiety, 2020 might also be the death knell for movie theaters. Many of the movies this year complemented these events eerily well (considering that they were made before the events in question happened), but thankfully there were at least some that contrasted the year’s nasty tone. Last year’s “Eat the rich!” theme seems almost equally prevalent this year, with numerous films tackling capitalism and income inequality (amongst other inequality). The continued growth of streaming services accelerated markedly this year, for what I assume are obvious reasons. I feel like there were a bunch of movies this year that were inspired by The Most Dangerous Game, and good ones too (you’ll see a couple below).

On a more personal level, my general tendencies to indulge in genre exercises continues, with the bulk of my top 10 being comprised of such efforts. The word “elevated” has been overused and thus overanalyzed, but then, I wouldn’t be recognizing these films if they weren’t elevated by something. I recently read William Goldman’s collection of essays The Big Picture, and he had this tidbit about top 10 lists:

… When movie critics give their ten-best lists, they may cite historical precedent, they may pretend erudition – all b.s. They just liked one movie better than another.

I wish more critics would take this sort of attitude to heart (either that, or critics are a far too homogenous population). As I’ve said before, the world would be a boring place indeed if we all liked precisely the same things.

So many movies were delayed or quietly relegated to streaming that I wasn’t sure the annual awards and top 10 could happen at all. But after a couple months of playing catch-up I did manage to cobble something together. As of this writing, I’ve seen 91 movies that could be considered a 2020 release. This is slightly down from last year, probably more than your average movie-watcher, but less than your average critic. On the other hand, in 2020, who the hell knows? Standard disclaimers apply, and it’s especially worth noting that due to regional release strategies, some of these would be considered a 2019 movie, but not available until 2020. Alrighty then, I think that’s enough caveats, let’s get to it:

Top Ten Movies of 2020

* In roughly reverse order

The Hunt – This riff on The Most Dangerous Game was pilloried by extremists of all colors, perhaps because it’s a bitter condemnation of such politicization. Moderate, politically tribeless people beset on all sides by partisan maniacs bent on isolation and destruction will enjoy this story of bizarre political vendettas quite a bit.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Kaedrin Movie Award Winner]

Tenet – Christopher Nolan’s latest fits squarely within his traditional oeuvre of cinematic puzzles, combining byzantine plotting with stunning action setpieces. It’s perhaps not for everyone and there are some rough edges, but it’s bold, adventurous, and so large in scale that any weaknesses were overcome by its fulfilled ambitions. In a year where most blockbusters were delayed, it stands out even further.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Kaedrin Movie Award Winner]

Soul – Pixar may have peaked a while ago, but if they are still capable of putting out bangers like this, they’re doing something right. I’m always fascinated by the way in which Pixar can approach deep existential themes like this in a funny and endearing way that is almost universally applicable. It’s perhaps reminiscent of previous Pixar gems like Ratatouille and Inside Out, but those are two of their best, so this hybrid is most welcome.

More Info: [IMDB] [Disney+] [Kaedrin Arbitrary Award Winner]

Palm Springs – A modern day spin on Groundhog Day that might lose points on originality, but there are enough new elements that it still feels fresh and exciting. Plus, it’s very funny and endearing, and it came right smack in the middle of the bleakest parts of 2020, so it was a truly welcome salve. Also, comedies don’t get enough love in this sort of year-end activity, especially romcoms.

More Info: [IMDB] [Hulu] [Kaedrin Movie Award Winner]

Extra Ordinary – Speaking of comedies, this Belgian/Irish gem went mostly unnoticed, but it’s such a good-natured, fun little film. In a year where optimism and hope were in short supply, sweet, delightful movies like this feel almost radical. You’d be much better served seeking this out than watching whatever reboot of Ghostbusters is on its way.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Capsule Review]

The Vast of Night – This alien abduction throwback features lots of other familiar tropes and nostalgia, but the rat-a-tat cadence and filmmaking wizardry keep things feeling fresh and exciting. The film has lots of stylistic energy and is visually impressive, but it also knows when to slow down and leverage a more minimalist approach too.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Capsule Review] [Kaedrin Movie Award Winner]

Sound of Metal

Sound of Metal – The story of a musician who is losing his hearing, this is a moving depiction of the human tendency to resist change, especially change that has been thrust upon us by external forces. The desire to return to normality at any cost is surely a natural one, but this film does an excellent job portraying the path towards acceptance. This perhaps takes on added resonance in 2020’s pandemic-infused change… without feeling like a lecture.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]

Arkansas – Fascinating country noir about a pair of low-level drug dealers trying to navigate a deal gone horribly wrong. Perhaps another throwback to 90s crime flicks, but the non-linear structure is well played and adventurous, even by those standards. Some found this a bit slow, but I thought it was riveting.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Capsule Review]

Tread – Documentary about a man with deeply dysfunctional relationship with his town. Driven by paranoia and rage at perceived wrongs perpetrated by certain families and political structures, he buys a bulldozer, fortifies it, and goes on a rampage in the town. I should repeat that this is a documentary, and it presents us with a microcosm of 2020’s tendency towards fractious relationships and political strife, albeit a rather extreme example. A fascinating story, well documented.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Capsule Review]

The Wolf of Snow Hollow – Too dark to be a comedy, but too funny to be scary, and too wacky to be dramatic. And yet! It’s all of those things and more. Not everyone will be able to get on writer/director Jim Cummings’ wavelength, but if you can get there, this is a real treasure.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Kaedrin Movie Award Winner] [Capsule Review]

Honorable Mention

* In an order I dare you to discern

Another Round – A few teachers test the hypothesis that keeping a low-level of intoxication all the time will improve performance. Fascinating study of humankind’s relationship with alcohol, it manages to walk a fine line between the benefits and deficiencies of booze. As someone who partakes, I found it particularly relevant (even if I think the “experiment” proposed by the film is ludicrous and just asking for trouble). A definite candidate for the top 10 that, on a different day, may have displaced something from the above list.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Kaedrin Arbitrary Award Winner]

Fatman – Mel Gibson plays a grizzled, down-on-his luck Santa Claus who works for the government and is targeted by an assassin hired by a spoiled brat on the naughty list who got coal for Christmas. It’s not quite the batshit romp that the premise promises, but it has a perfectly calibrated melancholic tone that works well. Very nearly made the top 10.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]

The Invisible Man – Leigh Whannell continues to churn out well crafted horror flicks, this time reprising a hallowed Universal monster in fine fashion. This movie makes exceptional use of negative space and other visual strategies while also telling a story with exciting twists and turns and even some satisfying ambiguity in the end.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]

Freaky – Christopher Landon has emerged as a reliably fun genre director, delivering fresh takes on derivative tropes. In this case, he takes body-swap comedies and injects a serial killer into the mix, with amusing results. This isn’t the sort of movie that will blow your mind or change your life, but it’s heartily entertaining and a lot of fun. It’s the sort of thing that perhaps plays better in a year like 2020, but it could be appreciated in any year.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]

My Octopus Teacher – This tale of a burnt-out editor who moves to an oceanside retreat and, while snorkeling every day, befriends and becomes fascinated by an octopus living in the area. It’s perhaps a bit melodramatic and relies too much on anthropomorphism, but it’s still effective and fascinating.

More Info: [IMDB] [Netflix] [Kaedrin Arbitrary Award Winner]

Possessor – With this story of an assassin who uses brain implants to take control of other people’s bodies, Brandon Cronenberg has inherited his father’s ability to unsettle viewers with graphic tales of newly invented avenues of strange science and body horror. Lots of genuinely disturbing subject matter here, both in a literal and visceral way (as in scenes of violence and gore) and in more abstract, thematic ways.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Kaedrin Arbitrary Award Winner]

Bill & Ted Face the Music – Long gap sequels like this are difficult to pull off and I don’t know that anyone was really clamoring for another Bill & Ted movie, but I have to admit that they managed to pull it off. Another antidote to the year’s downer tendencies, I had a lot of fun with this.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]

The Painter and the Thief – Surprising documentary about an artist who befriends a thief who had stolen her paintings. He was high at the time and doesn’t remember what became of the paintings, but he agrees to sit as a subject for her. Along the way we gain a lot of perspective on both thief and artist, and the story takes some unexpected twists and turns. Well worth seeking out.

More Info: [IMDB] [Hulu] [Kaedrin Arbitrary Award Winner]

Bacurau – What starts as a sorta day-in-the-life profile of a small, out-of-the-way town in Brazil slowly morphs into something far more strange. I won’t spoil it, but it becomes almost cartoonishly violent and features an interesting third act twist that was certainly eye opening. As social commentary, it’s perhaps overly blunt, but I also have to admire the brazenness of the approach.

More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Kaedrin Arbitrary Award Winner]

The Quantum Jury Prize

Awarded to films that exist only in a quantum superposition of two or more states. If you’re not sure what that means, that’s kinda the point. To confuse matters even further, the “two or more states” tends to also change from year to year. Last year, this was awarded to four movies that could have been #10 on the top 10. Previous years have been about movies that I go back and forth on and can decide whether I like them or not, even if I recognized the skill and craft on display.

This year, I’m awarding this prize to two efforts that straddle the line between television and movie. As we grow into the streaming revolution and the strict definition of “movie” gets broken down little by little, more examples of works that are hard to categorize are appearing. Like Shcrodinger’s Cat, the answer exists in a superposition that will only experience a waveform collapse once we observe it. But every time I observe it, I get a different answer. Hence the need for the Quantum Jury Prize. This year’s winners are strangely related, almost reflections of one another, adding another interesting wrinkle.

The Last Dance – This ten part documentary covering the life and career of Michael Jordan was surprisingly riveting, especially given my general distaste for the the sport of basketball. The episodes move effortlessly between Jordan and his teammates, and they intercut it all with a non-linear exploration of his career that works well. This was another one of those key pieces of early quarantine viewing that was very welcome at the time. Hard to categorize this 10 hour series as a film, but worthy of recognition anyway.

More Info: [IMDB] [Netflix]

The History of the Seattle Mariners – This six-part documentary on MLB’s most embattled franchise is pretty well done for a film centered on a big graph of wins/losses, and the perfect double feature with The Last Dance. Also it’s almost the complete opposite experience: low budget, no access, and covering a terrible team. But they’re a lovable team! As the narrator intones, “The Seattle Mariners are not competitors. They’re protagonists.”

More Info: [IMDB] [YouTube] [Capsule Review]

The Speed Cubers – Radically nice documentary about a pair of speed cubers (i.e. people who can solve Rubik’s cubes really quickly). Surprisingly touching stuff and a great antidote to the relentless pessimism of 2020. Clocking in at 39 minutes, it has the opposite problem of the previous two flicks, but again, worthy of recognition.

More Info: [IMDB] [Netflix]

I suppose I could also include Small Axe, Steve McQueen’s self-described “anthology series” of five stories about the people in London’s West Indian community, but I did not watch all of them and to be honest, the individual entries in this series feel overrepresented in the general critical community, so I’ll just leave this mention here and move on…

Just Missed the Cut

But still worthwhile, in their own way. Presented without comment and in no particular order:

Should Have Seen

Despite having seen around 90 of this year’s releases (and listing out 30+ of my favorites in this post), there are a few that got away. Or never made themselves available here. Or that I probably need to watch, but don’t wanna because reasons. Regardless, there are several movies here that I probably should have caught up with:

Normally, at this point of the year, I’d be talking about the Oscars, but they’ve been delayed. I’m genuinely curious to see how they go this year though, because it’s such a strange set of circumstances we find ourselves in…

2020 in Movies

3 Comments / Movies / /

The end of the year is traditionally a time to reflect on what’s come before and what will come next. We duly trot out metaphors like Janus, the two-faced Roman god who looked to the past with one face, and the future with another (and for whom the month of January is named). Or if you’re a particular type of nerd, you make a joke about orbital mechanics. It’s all arbitrary, of course, but I’ve always found it to be a fun exercise, even if I’ve been particularly lax about the timing for the past few years.

2020 has been an unusual year in most respects, so being a little late with something like this recap of overall 2020 movie watching (n.b. not just 2020 releases, but all movies watched in the year) is perhaps not that remarkable, but it’s actually pretty well in line with my normal schedule (actual film publications typically do their recaps starting in November/December, though this year was a little more freeform for, again, obvious reasons).

Here at Kaedrin, we’ve already done the Movie Awards and Arbitrary Awards, so all that remains is the annual top 10. I am, however, still catching up with a few things, so that will probably have to wait until next week (or maybe even the week after!) In the meantime, let’s take a spin through my 2020 in movies, which has been the most productive movie-watching year in recorded history. It turns out that when the world is fighting a pandemic with lockdowns and social distancing, I watch a lot of movies (and read a lot of books and drink a lot of beer), go figure! I keep track of all my movie watching on Letterboxd, so if you’re reading this and are a member, we should be friends there. They also provide some stats, which I’m going to dive into below…

Overall Stats

This is what I watched in 2020:

  • 445 films watched
  • 788.9 hours watched
  • 37.1 movies a month on average
  • 8.6 movies a week on average
  • 31 movies made in 1978

That’s a lot of movies! Last year I “only” watched 392 films, so this is a significant increase, driven almost entirely by lockdown. I’ve already started to trail off from that pace though, and I’m hoping that as we return to some sense of normalcy in 2021, next years numbers won’t be nearly as high. I tend to do pretty well with structure when it comes to this sort of thing, but 2020 has been perhaps too structured. I should find a way to break out of some of those ruts.

I made good progress on the 1978 Project, but largely fell off that bandwagon when it came time to catch up with 2020 releases. Things will resume in the next few weeks, and I intend to do a full yearly recap at the end (with the same Movie Awards and Top 10 format as I have done for the past 15 years or so).

2020 Films by Week

Some variability by week, but actually much more evenly distributed than recent years. Again, this is almost all driven by pandemic-related sheltering in place. There are still various spikes, such as the Six Weeks of Halloween or the last weeks of the year (in which I took some vacation time, but the whole area was in an extra-festive Holiday lockdown, so I basically stayed home, drank beer, and watched a bunch of movies). In terms of day of the week, Tuesday and Wednesday are still my least productive (at least partially owing to a group of friends and I maintaining a remote RPG game night over discord), and Friday/Saturday being when I watch the most stuff. Still, this was a pretty consistent 2020 in movies.

Genres, Countries, and Languages

Stats on Genres, Countries, and Languages

When it comes to genres, countries, and languages, it’s not that big of a surprise to see US and English leading the pack. Given the extremes there, it’s hard to see that the other countries did see modest increases across the board. France and Hong Kong bumped up in the rankings this year, though Germany and Italy still fare well. Japan makes it to the list this year (while Spain drops off). This balance could improve for sure, and so far in 2021, I’ve been pretty good, but that’s driven by catching up with 2020 releases from other countries.

Comedy makes a jump to the top of the genres, perhaps not surprising given the harrowing year we had. Action, Thriller, Horror and the catch-all Drama remain healthy contenders. Interestingly, Documentary fell off the list, which is something I should probably correct in 2021.

World Map of movies watched

I didn’t count the number of different countries, but this seems about on par, though perhaps more diverse than previous years. For whatever reason, I hadn’t watched anything from the entire continent of Africa in the past couple of years, but that changed this year, including a film from Wakaliwood, which I’m most definitely going to need to explore more fully. If I can find their releases!

Ratings and Other Patterns

Movie Ratings Breakdown and other patterns

Only 16% of my watches were a 2020 release, though this is at least partially driven by studios pushing back releases to 2021. 25.2% of watches were actually rewatches, a slight increase from last year, but in the general range for me. My ratings spread continues to movie slightly lower, really centering around 3 stars, but generally resembling a bell curve, which is decent enough I think. I suppose there’s a slight bias towards the higher end of the scale (probably driven by rewatches, which tend to be movies I love).

Stars and Directors

most watched stars of the year

I certainly didn’t set out to watch a bunch of Joe Chrest movies in 2020, but as a testament to “that guy” character actors, it’s nice to see that they can outgun prolific superstars like Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Denzel Washington. The list is still largely white and largely male, but who knows how Letterboxd orders the stars. They do show you the next 10 most watched actors, and they all had 5 films too… Interestingly, this list is usually dominated by franchise rewatches, but I didn’t do a whole lot of that this year (though I guess Mad Max and Ocean’s rewatches drove a couple people into the list). Special shoutout to Van Veronica Ngo, winner of the Breakthrough Performance Award in the Kaedrin Movie Awards. She had small roles in a couple of 2020 movies, but her performances made me want to go back and watch some of her Vietnamese movies, hence her relatively high ranking.

Most watched directors of the year

Sadly, this is only the first time that a woman has made my list of most watched directors in a year, but I followed along with the Blank Check podcast this year, which drove both Nora Ephron and Robert Zemeckis on this list (they also did Demme on their podcast, though my watches were mostly decoupled from that). So not exclusively white and male, but I could probably still do better on that front.

Highs and Lows

Highest and Lowest Rated, Most Popular, and Most Obscure movies of the year

I have to admit that I don’t really get why Stop Making Sense is so highly rated. It’s a documentary that captures a great concert experience for sure, but that average rating is absurdly high. I certainly do get why The Star Wars Holiday Special is so lowly rated though; it’s mindblowingly bad. Knives Out was also my most watched movie of the year. For some reason, I never get sick of that movie, and I watched it five times in 2020 (though two were with various commentary tracks). I suspect the overall popularity on Letterboxd also has to do with it being available on Amazon Prime.

Finally, the most obscure movie I watched was No Chance, a bizarre, parodic quasi-sequel to Commando (a classic 80s action flick). I find it hard to recommend the movie, but it certainly has some charms. Shoutout to Revanchist, an obscure Hong Kong action flick with an absolutely bonkers ending action sequence. It held the Most Obscure spot for quite a while. it’s a shame so many of those great Hong Kong action movies are so hard to find these days…

So that was 2020 in movies. Another banner year of movie watching here at Kaedrin HQ. I suspect things will settle down a bit in 2021, but I’ll probably still watch a crapton of movies.

2020 Kaedrin Movie Awards: The Arbitrary Awards

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The 2020 Kaedrin Movie Award Winners were announced last week. The idea is to recognize aspects of films that aren’t reflected in more traditional awards or other praise like a Top 10 list. However, any awards system will fail to capture all the nuances and complexity available; hence the Arbitrary Awards, an opportunity to commend movies that are weird or flawed in ways that don’t conform to normal standards. A few of these “awards” have become an annual tradition, but most are just, well, arbitrary. These are always fun, but in a year as weird as 2020, they are also necessary. Previous Arbitrary Awards: [2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006]

The “You know what happens when a toad gets struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else” Award for Worst Dialogue: Tenet. Look, I really love this movie and it will most likely find a spot on my top 10… but it has the absolute worst howler of the year. Upon discovering that her husband’s plan will kill everyone on the planet, the character of Kat feels compelled to inform us that this is “Including my son!!” Elizabeth Debicki is a good actress, but no one could deliver that line in a way that would not result in at least a snort from the audience. The rest of the dialogue in the film isn’t particularly noteworthy either way, though it does seem like Nolan is trolling people a bit for complaining about all the exposition in Inception (and thus we get the “just feel it” line here). And yet, the “Including my son!!” line is just so bad that it wins this award all by itself. (There are probably movies that overall have worse dialogue, but it’s the extreme contrast here that just sinks it – how can a movie this carefully constructed and well thought out include such a terrible line?)

The Proximity to Jason Vorhees Award for Heroic Stupidity: Save Yourselves! Of course, that’s kinda the point of the movie. However, just because a movie is self aware and pits two know-nothing hipsters against a Critters-like alien invasion doesn’t mean it’s enjoyable. It feels more sad than funny. Again, that’s kinda the point of the movie, but still, I couldn’t get past how stupid these two were.

The Garth Marenghi “I know writers who use subtext, and they’re all cowards” Award for Achievement in Didacticism: Bacurau. I go back and forth on this movie in general, but it is unquestionably a blunt commentary. Again, not sure how to take that. On the one hand, I don’t usually like that approach… on the other, you have to admire the brazenness. I have a feeling this is going to become a recurring Arbitrary Awards category (like the previous two).

The “Weiner” Award for Unparalleled Access to Documentary Subjects: The Painter and the Thief. It’s a rather amazing story, and the documentary covers a very long period of time. That the thief agreed to be a subject for the painter in the first place is pretty amazing. The documentary footage is just icing on the cake at that point. Certainly not as amazing as this award’s namesake, but still pretty good… Honorable mention to Tread, which certainly had a wealth of audio to pull from, but mostly because the subject thoughtfully left it for people to discover.

The Beer Baron “To alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems” Award For Contemplating Man’s Relationship With Alcohol: Another Round. There are times when I think this movie nearly endorsed alcoholism, but it clearly backs away from that by depicting some rather severe consequences while still retaining the idea that alcohol itself can be a fine thing in moderation.

Another Round

Best Action-Packed Long Take of the Year: Extraction. The movie clearly hews to the Netflix mold of generally bland storytelling, but there is one action sequence that is portrayed as a single long take that is very well executed.

Achievement in the Field of Gratuitous Violence: Possessor. Perhaps an unconventional pick, as it’s not like this is wall to wall violence, but when it goes there, it goes hard. The violence is absolutely gruesome here, and hard to watch. A more conventional pick would be VFW, which isn’t exactly cartoonish violence, but not as affecting as Possessor.

Best Motion Picture Score: Soul by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross with Original Jazz Compositions by John Batiste. Around 30 years ago, Trent Reznor was writing songs about fist fucking and commissioning music videos that bordered on snuff films. Now, he’s composing movie soundtracks for G-rated Disney/Pixar fare… and it’s amazing. Reznor and Ross effortlessly transition between Batiste’s jazzy compositions and the more whimsical numbers reserved for the afterlife. It also demonstrates the protagonist Joe’s love of music and the inspiration it can provide. Honorably mention to Carpenter Brut’s synthy score on Blood Machines, a movie that is otherwise mostly awful. Do yourself a favor and skip the movie, but look up the score. It’s great.

Award for Pandemic Creativity: Host. Most of the stuff produced whilst in lockdown during the pandemic has been painfully bad, but this short found footage horror jam was very well executed. A bit derivative, for sure, but entertaining and spooky.

Best Faked Death Sequence: The Air Conditioner in Dick Johnson Is Dead. This is a very strange film, a little messy at times, but the concept at its core is an eye-opening one. A documentary filmmaker works with her aging father to stage a bunch of fake death scenes, perhaps as a way to cope with the coming grief of his inevitable passing. It’s an interesting, if a bit indulgent, conceit. It gets a bit messy when other things develop, but it’s all worth checking out if you’re in an existential mood.

The Irishman De-Aging Was Terrible Award for Best Flashback Alternative: Da 5 Bloods. I wonder if Spike Lee tried to convince Netflix that de-aging his cast for the Vietnam sequences was worthwhile… In any case, I’m glad he didn’t get that de-aging money, because the alternative he devised – just using the actors, unchanged – is far more effective.

Best Badass/Villain That Didn’t Get Nominated Because I Hadn’t Seen the Film Yet: Han, played by Hae-soo Park in Time to Hunt. I caught up with this post-apocalyptic heist flick a few days ago, and it’s a neat little flick, if a bit derivative. Han is the character that is hunting down our protagonists after the heist, and he’s pretty darned badass. He wouldn’t have won the category, but if I’d seen the movie before the nominations came out, he would have garnered a nom.

Best Badass/Hero (non-Human Edition): My Octopus Teacher. What a neat little film. It’s a little stilted, but the octopus at its heart makes for a great subject for a documentary.

So there you have it, another bout of Arbitrary Awards. Stay tuned for the traditional Top 10 list (with honorable mentions and the coveted Quantum Jury Prize), which will probably be up in two weeks (though maybe I’ll have a productive week and get it down by next Sunday, who knows?)

Vintage Science Fiction Month: The Lincoln Hunters

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Vintage Science Fiction Month is the brainchild of the Little Red Reviewer. The objective: Read and discuss “older than I am” Science Fiction in the month of January.

In The Lincoln Hunters, time travel exists for people 700 years in the future, but it is primarily used for historical information gathering purposes and museum-like desires to preserve same. Ben Steward is a Character; basically a time-traveling agent who acts as if he’s a member of the time-period he’s visiting so as to facilitate whatever history-recording task he may have. His latest mission: attend and record Abraham Lincoln’s famous Lost Speech, delivered at the Anti-Nebraska State Convention in Bloomington, Illinois on May 29, 1856.

The Lincoln Hunters book cover

On his first scouting mission, the time travel engineers overshoot their target and send him to the day after the event he’s trying to capture (rather than the day before). As such, he’s actually scouting in the aftermath of his mission. This has all sorts of implications, but from a storytelling perspective, it sets the stakes rather effectively. Steward is recognized by certain personages, he finds evidence of a snafu with the mission, and thanks to the (admittedly vague) rules of time travel, his next trip to the past (with a team of other Characters set to record Lincoln’s speech) is now time-bound because the same person cannot inhabit the same time at the, uh, same time.

It’s an effective setup, and author Wilson Tucker mostly plays it as a straight adventure story with some SF complications. Alas, this does represent a bit of a lost opportunity, as there’s a lot of thematic potential here that goes unexplored. For that matter, even the time travel mechanics are a little on the vague side. There is, of course, plenty of info-dumping up front, such as this bit explaining why Characters are taught the history leading up to their arrival, but not anything after:

“…the abstract ceased abruptly as near as possible to the target date itself. That was standard operating procedure designed to protect the Character and the assignment. It would not do for a man in the field to know the events of coming weeks or even years – his tongue might slip. To retain his value as a Character, he must be as wise, and as ignorant as the local people around him.”

The Lincoln Hunters (page 30)

However, as the story progresses, the exploration of time-travel mechanics gets left behind, instead relying on more vague assertions that something bad will happen if they don’t make it back home in time, follow certain other strict rules, etc… All well and good for the story and pacing, but it might leave something to be desired from a rigor standpoint.

There are plenty of fun little historical asides to be had, of course, such as this one:

“… He left a short time ago, to record a New Year’s Eve celebration in the year 2000, O.N. A place called Times Square. The client wishes to determine whether the century began with 2000, or 2001.”

The Lincoln Hunters (page 23)

Remember the pedants insisting that the century didn’t really start until 2001? It’s funny that Tucker anticipated that debate 40+ years earlier. Another fun bit of trivia is that one of the characters, Bobby Bloch, is actually named after Robert Bloch, a friend of Tucker’s and a fellow author who was about to become famous for writing a little novel called Psycho. This practice of including a friend’s name in your text as an in-joke is actually called Tuckerization, named after Tucker himself. But I digress…

It’s also worth noting that Lincoln’s Lost Speech is a real and seemingly pivotal event. We really don’t know the exact contents of the speech, so it would be an enticing destination for future historians. What we do know is that it sits at the fulcrum of several key historical events: the dissolution of the Whig party, the formation of the Republican party, Lincoln’s ascendency to the presidency, and eventually the Civil War itself. Tucker embeds lots of other real historical figures into the story as well, even including more obscure people like Owen Lovejoy (who Steward seems to have run afoul of in his, uh, future trip to the past).

Lincoln’s lost speech and the themes it presumably emphasized stand in stark contrast to the future that Tucker presents, but the comparison is mostly left as an exercise for the reader. The future appears to be very regimented and even includes references to things like “labor camps”, which seems like a ripe target for a more extended exploration of the analogy between Lincoln’s time and the future. Alas, like time-travel itself, this mostly takes a back seat to what essentially amounts to an adventure story. It’s there and I certainly managed to connect the dots, but Tucker could have probably squeezed more juice out of this premise without sacrificing much in the way of pacing or excitement.

For its part, the adventure plot is reasonably well done. Tucker sets up a few things during the scouting mission that come to fruition in the mission proper, and there’s always something satisfying about puzzle pieces coming together in that way. That said, it’s not a particularly complicated puzzle, and the ultimate ending leaves something to be desired. You might get some small hits of that vaunted “sense of wonder” that makes SF so fun, but it’s not going to blow you away either.

The Lincoln Hunters is a fun little time travel story. Short and sweet, it doesn’t have much explicit depth, but it kept me reasonably entertained for its short (less than 200 page) length. I can’t say as though it ranks among my favorite time-travel stories, but it has its moments, and folks familiar with the time-period might get an extra kick out of it. As such, it is an interesting exhibit in the “Science Fiction geeks often turn into history buffs” wing of the genre.

2020 Kaedrin Movie Award Winners

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The nominations for the 2020 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. The Vegas odds-makers, starved for movie-related action due to the delay of the Academy Awards, have been chomping at the bit ever since. Next week, I’ll announce the winners of some more goofy, freeform categories that we call the Arbitrary Awards, and not long after that, I’ll post my top 10 of 2020. Alrighty then, that’s enough preamble, let’s get to the Kaedrin Movie Award winners. And the KMA goes to:

Best Villain/Badass: Nix, played by Samara Weaving in Guns Akimbo. A sorta cheat, to be sure, because while undoubtedly a badass and a joy to watch onscreen, her villainy is a bit suspect (trying to avoid spoilers here). Still, I suppose the badassery was enough to overcome the villainy and Samara Weaving is a Kaedrin fave, so here we are (plus: putting her in the hero/badass category is fraught with similar issues).

Samara Weaving in Guns Akimbo

Funnily enough, another nominee (Saju, played by Randeep Hooda in Extraction) has the same sorta relatable villainy problem (again, trying to avoid spoilers). Anyway, while I like a good deal of the other nominees, none could really overcome Weaving’s performance. Runner up would probably be Skinny Man, played by Walton Goggins in Fatman. Goggins isn’t exactly treading new ground, but he’s good at this sort of thing and I enjoyed his performance quite a bit. I’ll also give a shoutout to Anne Hathaway in The Witches, who is having a lot of fun in a middling movie.

Best Hero/Badass: Crystal, played by Betty Gilpin in The Hunt. This movie became a political football, which is weird to me because it’s much more about moderate, politically tribeless people beset on all sides by partisan maniacs bent on isolation and destruction. Betty Gilpin’s Crystal is caught up in a bizarre political vendetta wherein rich liberals hunt conservatives for sport, but it’s not really about left and right, but rather the ever widening partisan gap and extremism. It’s another in a long line of spins on Richard Connell’s infamous story, “The Most Dangerous Game”, where the hunted turns the table on the hunter, and Gilpin does a great job in the role.

Betty Gilpin in The Hunt

Runners up include Charlize Theron in The Old Guard, who is always great (and a former Kaedrin Movie Ward winner of hero/badass) and Colin Farrell in The Gentlemen (which I seemed to like a lot more than other folk, and while I zeroed in on Farrell, there’s plenty of badassery to go around in that movie…

Best Comedic Performance: Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti in Palm Springs (tie). The biggest problem with this award is that so many comedies rely on an ensemble, so while there are certainly singular performances that win this award (which justifies the existence of the award in the first place), it’s often one person representing the movie as a whole. In this case, I opted to just choose the two leads, and chalk it up to this being a weird year. This movie came out in middle of lockdown and provided some much needed laughs, and a big part of that is the performances (and chemistry between) Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti. Second place in the voting was Maria Bakalova in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, a movie I didn’t much care for, but her performance is certainly worth singling out. I also quite enjoyed Vince Vaughn in Freaky and Seth Rogen in An American Pickle, both doing good work. Also just a quick shoutout to Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Birds of Prey, who was very funny (and probably could have qualified for best badass too), though that’s a small part of the movie…

Breakthrough Performance: Van Veronica Ngo in Da 5 Bloods and The Old Guard. I guess it’s just a weird year all around. It’s really hard to call these breakthrough performances because they’re so small, but a key criteria here is that I see someone in a movie and immediately check IMDB to see what else she’s been in. I really do suspect that she will breakout in the next few years, and she could be a top tier action star if given the opportunity (see also: Furie). Some other good performances listed amongst the nominees, but few true standouts, hence the weirdness of the winner.

Most Visually Stunning: The Vast of Night. Another tricky award without an obvious winner, I gave it to this one for its visual inventiveness and propulsion. This wasn’t a huge budget extravaganza, but it still managed some breathtaking camera movements and long takes, and it also knows when to dial it back to just a black screen and audio. The obvious alternate choice was Tenet, but as we’re about to see, it’ll be recognized in other ways. Blood Machines is certainly a visual feast for the eyes, but wow does the story just sink that flick (the special effects crew and Carpenter Brut deserve better). Bacurau features some gorgeous photography and landscapes, and David Fincher apes the old-school Hollywood look well in Mank. Still, I’m glad I could get The Vast of Night some love, and it certainly deserves it.

Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film: The Wolf of Snow Hollow. A divisive choice for sure. On paper, this is one of those movies that’s too funny to be scary, but too creepy to be funny, and too silly to be a serious drama. And yet it manages to be all of those things in a more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts kinda way. I loved it, but can’t fault anyone for not getting on its wavelength.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow

The aforementioned The Vast of Night is certainly a contender here too, and not to give anything away, but both will be showing up on my top 10, so there’s that. The Invisible Man is another success from Leigh Whannell and worthy of attention for sure. Freaky and Satanic Panic were both really fun horror comedies that deserve more love too. Tenet certainly has the chops for this award too. In the end, I’m giving it to Snow Hollow because of its strange dedication to cross-genre flare.

Best Sequel/Reboot/Remake: The Invisible Man. Leigh Whannell strikes again, this time taking on a classic Universal monster movie and updating it from both a technology and thematic perspective. Great performances and amazing use of negative space taking full advantage of the invisibility concept. It’s unusual that a remake/reboot like this connects with me, as I usually come away just loving the original that much more. Here it’s a situation where both movies are great, just for different reasons. Bill & Ted Face the Music was also a big surprise and a whole bucket of fun just when we needed it. Many sequels/reboots/remakes were obviously delayed last year, so the pickings were slim, but these two films are certainly worthy, even in a normal year.

Biggest Disappointment: Wonder Woman 1984. There’s actually a lot to like about WW84 and I actually quite enjoyed the first hour or so of the movie, but even that felt a bit messy and then it went off the rails and never really recovered. There were certainly worse movies last year, but the first Wonder Woman was so good and showed so much promise that I really had high hopes for WW84. The second film in a superhero franchise is often better than the first… alas, WW84 joins Iron Man 2 in the disappointing sequel department. One can still hold out hope for WW3 though. The general lack of blockbuster releases and sequels last year also puts a damper on this category, though there were still a few big disappointments. That said, it’s not like I was expecting much out of Scoob!, so the it doesn’t register as much on the Plus/Minus Scale.

Best Action Sequences: Tenet. I keep feeling like there should be a better, less-obvious candidate for this award and it’s true that I haven’t gotten to much in the way of martial arts movies this year, but Tenet certainly has tons of cool, large-scale action going on. There’s some Bond-like setpieces and the whole temporal pincer movement and it’s all very impressive. Perhaps this category is also impacted by a lack of blockbuster releases in 2020. The other nominees certainly have decent action, but Netflix fare like Extraction and The Old Guard, while entertaining and diverting enough, can’t really compete with Christopher Nolan’s more ambitious staging.

Best Plot Twist/Surprise: Tenet. Look, don’t ask me to explain it in great detail, but once the movie starts to take shape and you realize what’s happening… it just gave me that sense of wonder jolt that I love so much. Sure, some of the intricate plotting and details might require some additional noodling, but it’s easy enough to discern that shape of what’s happening, and the cascade of revelations in the film’s second half is worth digging into. The other nominees include some twisty crime thrillers and some genre exercises, but nothing quite surprised me like Tenet.

Best High Concept Film: Freaky. I feel like this is one of those films that would have been a sneaky box office success. Instead, it sorta faded into VOD for a week and didn’t get much play. And sure, it’s not exactly breakthrough stuff, but as body-swap horror-comedies go, it’s pretty great and a ton of fun. The idea of a “high concept” film is pretty nebulous to start with, but this year didn’t exactly rock the boat in this respect either. Most of the other nominees are worth checking out though, and are either doing something new and weird, or they’re putting a new spin on an old trope.

2020’s 2019 Movie of the Year: Doctor Sleep. Mike Flanagan’s woozy sequel to The Shining manages to find a line between servicing the book and the very different Kubrick adaptation. Some might see that as trying to have your cake and eat it to, but it worked well enough for me. Sure, I don’t think it would displace any of my top 10 picks from last year (none of the nominees would), but I’m really glad I caught up with it. Portrait of a Lady on Fire was the critical darling of the year and having seen it, I can see why it garnered praise and I like some bits a lot, but if you had asked me to create a parody of a French art house film, it would have looked something like that movie. That’s probably more of a me problem than anything else, but still. The other nominees are mostly solid genre exercises that are worth catching up with if you’re a fan of those genres. But I do want to single out I See You, which seems like a criminally underseen movie. What starts as a sorta rote, dour serial killer thriller takes a fascinating turn about halfway through that makes the whole exercise worthwhile. It’s worth catching up with!

Congrats to all the Kaedrin Movie Award winners in this strange year. Stay tuned for the Arbitrary Awards, coming next week!

2020 Kaedrin Movie Awards

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Welcome to the fifteenth annual Kaedrin Movie Awards! The idea is to recognize films for various achievements that don’t always reflect well on top 10 lists or traditional awards. There are lots of formal award categories and nominees listed below, but once those are announced, we’ll also leave some room for Arbitrary Awards that are more goofy and freeform. Finally, we’ll post a traditional top 10 list (usually sometime in early/mid-February). But first up is the awards! [Previous Installments here: 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019]

Standard disclaimers apply: It must be a 2020 movie (with the one caveat that some 2019 films were not accessible until 2020 and are thus eligible under fiat) and I obviously have to have seen the movie. As of this writing, I have seen 80 films that could be considered a 2020 release. This is significantly less than previous years and probably most critics, but probably more than your average moviegoer and enough to populate these awards.

It’s tempting to blame this entirely on the pandemic, but the truth is that there’s been a lot of small films available, I just didn’t do as well seeking them out until it was pretty late in the year. I’m still working through some things for sure, but delaying any more than normal seems ill-advised (I’m already posting this a couple weeks after most folks do their year end jamboree). The show must go on, and so here goes:

Best Villain/Badass
An interesting year for villainy with a few pretty solid choices, but to my mind, not a real standout. Complicating matters are two villains who turn out to be kinda/sorta not villains. Or at least more sympathetic than you’d usually expect out of a villain. In accordance with tradition, my picks in this category are limited to individuals, not groups (i.e. no vampires or zombies as a general menace, etc…) or ideas.

Best Hero/Badass
A solid year for heroism, and despite the number of lopsided movies (i.e. where you don’t have both hero and villain roles well filled), there’s actually something like parity between the Hero/Villain lists. Again limited to individuals and not groups.

  • Coach, played by Colin Farrell in The Gentlemen
  • Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robbie in Birds of Prey
  • Fred, played by Stephen Lang in VFW
  • Crystal, played by Betty Gilpin in The Hunt
  • Tyler Rake, played by Chris Hemsworth in Extraction
  • Andy, played by Charlize Theron in The Old Guard
  • Kyle, played by Liam Hemsworth in Arkansas
  • Chris, played by Mel Gibson in Fatman
  • Diana Prince / Wonder Woman, played by Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman 1984
  • The Protagonist, played by John David Washington in Tenet

Best Comedic Performance
This is sometimes a difficult category to populate due to the prevalence of ensembles in comedy movies (this year being no exception). I also noticed a distinct bias towards smaller side roles or cameos this year, which is neat, but makes it hard to pick those roles as a winner.

Breakthrough Performance
This used to be a category more centered around my personal evaluation of a given actor (rather than a more general industry breakthrough), but it’s trended more towards the youngsters breaking through as time has gone on (this year, we get a minor resurgence in relatively well established actors turning my head for the first time).

Most Visually Stunning
Sometimes even bad movies can look really great… A middling year for this sort of thing, perhaps leaning towards more sober, well-photographed beauty than flashy spectacle, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Blood Machines, a nominee for Most Visually Stunning category

Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film
It’s always nice to throw some love to genres that don’t normally get a lot of recognition in end-of-the-year lists. As an avid SF fan, it’s sad that the genre usually has to be combined with Horror in order to come up with a well rounded set of nominees. This year, though, I probably could have created two modestly populated categories if I wanted, as there were lots of good options in both genres.

Best Sequel/Reboot/Remake
Always an awkward category to populate, especially given my normal feeling on this sort of thing. This year complicates matters a bit because many sequels/reboots/remakes were delayed due to a goddamn plague, but there were still a few decent options.

Bill & Ted Face the Music nominated for best sequel

Biggest Disappointment
A category often dominated by sequels and reboots, but the relative lack of big-ticket franchise entries this year sees a downtick in this category… Some original films are picking up the slack. I should note at this point that sometimes I actually enjoy these movies… but my expectations were just too high when I saw them. Related reading: Joe Posnanski’s Plus-Minus Scale (these movies scored especially poor on that scale).

Best Action Sequence
This award isn’t for individual action sequences, but rather an overall estimation of each film, and there’s a decent enough range here, but I suspect the pandemic put the brakes on some of these too.

Best Plot Twist/Surprise
I suppose even listing that there is a twist is a bit of a spoiler, so I guess we’ll just have to risk it.

Best High Concept Film
A bit of a nebulous concept for this one, but I think the category fills out nicely, with a couple of standouts.

2020’s 2019 Movie of the Year
This is a weird category. Once I get past my top 10, I rarely tackle challenging material from the previous year, though I do sometimes find a few diamonds in the rough. This category emerged from one frustrating year in which I saw two movies far too late for the top 10, so I created this award to recognize them. Since then, the nominees are pretty lackluster (and indeed, the amount of films I watch that qualify are usually pretty low to start with). The last couple of years, for whatever reason, I’ve managed to see more things that would qualify for this than usual. None that I think would override my top 10 from last year, but it’s always nice when this category fills up.

So there you have it! Another set of nominations for the Kaedrin Movie Awards, well ahead of the Oscars, which have been delayed due to the Pandemic. This means that all the Kaedrin Movie Awards, including Arbitrary Awards and a Top 10 will most likely be posted before the Oscar nominations even come out, which will be a first (we’re usually well correlated, with only a week or so’s difference), though in true Kaedrin fashion, we’re still well after everyone else in the world has finished their 2020 recaps.

Vintage Science Fiction Month: Worlds of the Imperium

1 Comment / Science Fiction / /

Vintage Science Fiction Month is the brainchild of the Little Red Reviewer. The objective: Read and discuss “older than I am” Science Fiction in the month of January.

Keith Laumer is most famous for his series about the beleaguered diplomat Retief, which I think are a lot of fun, but he has a few other series that are well regarded too. Worlds of the Imperium is the first in a series of stories about parallel worlds explored by the Imperium, a government on one such alternate earth.

Worlds of the Imperium book cover

This first installment begins with the kidnapping of one Brion Bayard, an American diplomat visiting Stockholm. Laumer has a thing for diplomat protagonists, having served in the US Foreign Service himself. They say write what you know, so like Sturgeon and bulldozers, Laumer wrote about diplomats. Anyway, Bayard is whisked away in a strange vehicle and subjected to questioning about rudimentary history. As it turns out, he’s been kidnapped by the Imperium, a government from an alternate timeline that has developed a method of travel to alternate universes.

Thus far, they’ve only found two that were inhabitable (in others, earth had destroyed itself or never developed civilization in the first place). One is Bayard’s home (which appears to be our timeline), and the other features an earth ruled by a vicious dictator who has declared war on the Imperium. That dictator’s name happens to be… Brion Bayard. Can the Imperium convince Bayard to travel to the third timeline, impersonate the dictator, and halt the war? Spoiler alert: they can. But can Bayard succeed? That’s the rub.

The setup is all typical exposition-heavy SF info-dumping, but once the story proper gets going, it turns into more of a twisty espionage thriller. It helps that the info-dumping and alternate reality concept are pretty well done (if perhaps a bit elementary by today’s standards, I’m guessing it was more remarkable in its time). It’s very short and snappy, not wasting much time moving from one bit to the next, so even the info-dumps aren’t a real strain.

This might leave you wanting more in terms of characterization though, as the only person we really get to know at all is Bayard himself. He’s got a sharp and cynical edge to him that is well suited to his mission, but other aspects are left unexplored. There’s a perfunctory romantic angle that is simply tacked on and it feels like Bayard gets over his kidnapping and the implied permanent exile from his home a little too easily (did he have no attachments at home? No family? Friends?) Wait, I just realized that the government of the Imperium is based in Stockholm and Bayard is bonding with his kidnappers… this is surely not a coincidence. Anyways, in general, a lack of characterization doesn’t bother me much, so long as you make up for it with something else, which Laumer certainly manages.

It’s a fun, pulpy espionage thriller with a few interesting twists and turns. It might not get you thinking grand thoughts about the nature of the universe (though I suppose the SFnal concepts are interesting enough and well thought out, especially for its time), but it will keep you thoroughly entertained for the few hours it takes to read. If you’re looking to introduce yourself to Laumer, though, I’d recommend picking up the Retief! collection (there’s that exclamation point in the title again, something we don’t see much these days – maybe modern SF would be more fun if people wrote more stories that warranted a title with an exclamation point) before this. They’re entertaining stories too, and they also more prominently feature Laumer’s over-the-top sense of humor. Still, I wouldn’t mind visiting the Imperium again at some point, which is usually a good sign.