HUGE Update on the Field (11/18/20)
Guys – it’s been a while since our last update but… we’re done! With the initial watches, at least. We watched 165 movies over the course of about eight months! Life got in the way for a bit there, but we’re back. Stay tuned for the next steps in our bracket project which will be coming in a post shortly after this one. But first, here are the final eight new movies we watched from our 2010s list:
10/3/20: The Ides of March (2011)
Tom: This was a pretty interesting political thriller with a great cast. Led by Ryan Gosling, George Clooney (who also directed and co-wrote), and Philip Seymour Hoffman, it’s a peek into the “modern” political arena and the cutthroat bureaucracy and scandal that take place behind the scenes. It’s a little bit obsolete in 2020 given the, well, openness of unsavory acts that have taken place, but this movie strikes me as if Clooney watched a lot of The West Wing and turned it into a proto-House of Cards or Scandal. If you’re into those types of movies/shows, you should watch this one.
Erin: This movie was like, the perfect plane movie. That’s a compliment! A movie about a political campaign that I would have found dreadfully boring a few years ago, The Ides of March possessed a tight script, a pair of gorgeous and talented leads, and intrigue to spare. It’s definitely worth a watch, especially if you are able to be on a plane in the next decade.
10/6/20: Before Midnight (2013)
Tom: As one half of the preeminent Richard Linklater stan blog on the internet, I knew I would love this one and it did not disappoint. It’s the third movie in a trilogy which explores a relationship decades after it began. Had I seen the first two? Nope. But it did not matter. Linklater just writes the most authentic screenplays and for some reason, his characters are instantly relatable while remaining complex and realistic. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, but it should have been nominated for more. Loved it. Will go back and watch the other two. You’ll like it if you liked Boyhood, Marriage Story, or Midnight in Paris. Even if you didn’t like the latter two, this movie is better than both.
Erin: I am the ultimate Richard Linklater stan (a Richard Linklover?) so this one was an automatic fave. This is the last movie in a fascinating trilogy where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meet up and just hang out every nine years. I watched the first movie (Before Sunrise) in high school, but you don’t really need to have watched it to catch this one. It’s gorgeous, thoughtful, and a character study at its purest.
10/14/20: Still Alice (2014)
Tom: Chalk this up on the list of Incredible Movies I’ll Never Watch Again (looking at you, Amour and Requiem for a Dream). Julianne Moore delivered possibly a top-five all-time performance in my opinion, which netted her a Best Actress award at the 2015 Oscars, as a professor diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Her character’s slow descent displays Moore’s subtlety and unmatched range, and her performance twists the viewer into rooting for Alice to accomplish simple tasks knowing that the worst is yet to come. Watch it if you want to be destroyed.
Erin: Okay this one is a heartbreaker. Julianne Moore is a brilliant professor who is diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. You know the rest. Now, when this movie was released, it got mixed reviews but raves for Moore’s performance. Of course, she is an absolute revelation--this is a knockout punch of a performance--but I actually really liked the movie overall as well. At least it wasn’t as mirthless as Amour.
10/16/20: Logan (2017)
Tom: This is the perfect comic book movie. It’s way better than the Old Man Logan comic arc it was loosely based on (which is still really good!). It should have been nominated for Best Picture but the Academy hates “superhero movies.” It’s hard to satisfy audiences bringing a saga to a close, especially one chronicling a complex and beloved character like Wolverine because of pressure, the inability to surprise, and financial considerations like leaving a moneymaking powerhouse open for a sequel. But James Mangold and the gang did the right thing here. Would’ve loved to see Sabretooth in this one to make up for the horrible X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie, but in the context of a standalone movie, Logan is a perfect bow on top of the Wolverine story.
Erin: I ADMIT IT: I fell asleep the first time I watched this. I swore that I had seen most of it, but upon a second viewing, I realized that I literally only remembered the scene where the girl is in the convenience store eating Pringles and wearing sunglasses. This is a great movie and an excellent superhero film. It feels like a true celebration of the character of Wolverine, and the ending is a bittersweet and effective passing of the torch. Very well done.
10/18/20: Harriet (2019)
Tom: This was one of those where you pretty much knew what you were gonna get. It was a traditional biopic-ish movie, but Cynthia Erivo was really great and it’s worth watching for her performance alone. She deserved the Best Actress nomination. Plus, I’ll never say no to Leslie Odom Jr. getting Hollywood money.
Erin: I usually am pretty critical of traditional biopics, but Harriet felt different to me. Maybe it was the powerhouse performance from the incomparable Cynthia Erivo? Or my fascination and embarrassment as I learned more details about Harriet Tubman’s life for the first time? Either way, Tubman is an American hero who is worthy of a million movies, documentaries, and books.
10/26/20: A Separation (2011)
Tom: The first Iranian movie to ever win an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, A Separation is another movie in the vein of Marriage Story and Blue Valentine in that it largely focuses on, you guessed it, a separation. It’s a sad, suspenseful, touching, charming, messy, challenging movie and attempts to fully capture the complexities of the dissolution of a relationship in the context of the Iranian legal system. If you’re looking for something a little different to watch, I definitely recommend this one.
Erin: This is a movie about a divorce. I already know that Tom is also going to say that it is what Marriage Story wanted to be, but it really is true! This was my first Iranian movie, and it was a wonderful watch. It felt like a play to me, and was a realistic and intriguing look into two families trying to make it as their lives begin to fall apart. Absolutely worth a watch--don’t be scared of subtitles, people!! We all have them on all the time when we watch Netflix anyway!
11/2/20: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Tom: Nineteen-year-old me was super excited for this movie when it was coming out, because apparently I’ve always been 53 years old at heart. I didn’t end up seeing it until now, and I don’t think I would’ve understood one word of it when I was 19. It’s a British spy thriller where one of the guys is a Soviet double agent – because why wouldn’t they be – and it was hard to follow at times, but thanks to Wikipedia and subtitles we mostly stayed on track. A cast containing Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Ciaran Hinds, John Hurt, and Mark Strong at least made it easier for me to follow based on the recognizable faces, and probably because of this I ended up really liking it.
Erin: I HAVE THE HARDEST TIME UNDERSTANDING MOVIES LIKE THIS. My face was scrunched up like, “...huh?” within the first three minutes. If you open up the filing cabinet in my brain labeled “spy movies” it contains one faded Post-It with “Jason Statham gave a breakout performance in Spy” on it. That being said, the *~*vibes*~* were on point in this movie, down to the top three (purposefully!) worst hair pieces I have ever had the pleasure of seeing on film.
11/16/20: Fruitvale Station (2013)
Tom: Another one that was just completely crushing. As the first of three Ryan Coogler/Michael B. Jordan collaborations (Black Panther, Creed being the other two), you instantly see the chemistry between director and lead. I am lukewarm on Jordan overall, as I think his acting can be a little forced at times, but he was just excellent in this as Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old who was killed by transit police in Oakland on New Year’s Day 2009 (this is not a spoiler – the real-life cell phone footage of the murder is the opening scene). Nothing about this movie was enjoyable, per se, but it’s necessary viewing. Coogler’s depiction of the final day of Grant’s life adds so much through understatement. Almost nothing special at all happens, but the entire 85-minute movie is rife with tension because you know what’s eventually coming. Heartbreaking and powerful.
Erin: I loved this one. With a running time under 90 minutes (MORE OF THIS PLEASE) and an incredible performance by Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station was an incredible debut from director Ryan Coogler. It tells the story of the last day of Oscar Grant’s life, before he was killed by a police officer on a subway platform in San Francisco in the early hours of New Year’s Day. I love that this dramatization of the true story was not dramatized. Oscar’s last day wasn’t anything spectacular, but it shows that he was human, he was important, and he deserves to be remembered, but more importantly, he deserves to be alive today. Watch this one.