Back at the start of the year, I introduced this challenge I was setting myself to watch 100 new-to-me movies within the year and today I’m here to finally share an update on how that’s going and to talk through the movies I’ve watched.
I’ve seen nine in total, so I’m definitely behind but I’m still holding out hope that I’ll be able to catch up and finish the challenge in time. I’m planning to do a more in depth look at the movies and stats later on in the year, probably halfway through, so for now we’re going to go into the movies themselves.
The Emperor’s New Groove
I know a lot of people my age consider this one of their childhood movies, but for whatever reason, I wasn’t interested in it as a kid. I’d see memes and whatnot of it for years and finally decided to watch it. It was different than I was expecting—I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Also, Yzma? Literally the best.
Venom
I meant to see Venom in cinemas but it just didn’t end up happening. Ever since then I’ve just been putting it off. And look, this wasn’t as terrible as I’d be lead to believe. Tom Hardy is brilliant, but beyond that, it was just alright. I’m interested to see where the next movie will go and how this might tie into the rest of the MCU, but I don’t see myself really revisiting these beyond that.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Just to keep things really eclectic, I thought I’d throw in a foreign language film. Honestly, I’d been wanting to watch this one for a while and finally noticed it was on Stan, a streaming service we have here in Australia. Are you ready for my one semester of film studies to kick in? Okay, so this was a visually stunning film but even better than that, the sounds! Seriously, the use of sound and music in this really impressed me. I wouldn’t call this a very dialogue-heavy film, but the images and the sound were just perfect. Such a beautiful film.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage
It took me almost a month, but I did manage to get around to this one. This was honestly pretty bad. It has its few funny moments but on the whole, it was bad. For one, the characters felt very lazily written, particularly the villains. I’m still intrigued by how this’ll come into the MCU, but that’s it.
The Batman
This was my first cinema experience of the year and I feel kind of mixed about it. I should start by saying I’m not a Batman or DC fan really—I just don’t enjoy them the way I do Marvel films. But it was an amazing film cinematography-wise and RPattz was honestly incredible in the role, but there was just a lot happening with the plot and I think with a half an hour cut off the running time it might’ve been a tighter film.
Death on the Nile
Well, this one was a doozy. I had planned to see this in cinemas too but now I’m really glad I didn’t because it was terrible. The acting was sub-par and the characters are all drastically different from those in Christie’s original novel. There’s a lot that just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Admittedly, I still do like Kenneth Branagh as Poirot though no one will ever replace David Suchet for me. Apparently, a third film is in development, so I hope there’s a better script and better actors in that one.
Lady J
Apparently, I had a thing for French films for this part of the year. I really liked this at the beginning—I love a good period drama and a female revenge story, but then I just got kind of bored. It’s certainly a beautiful film—there are some gorgeous shots, but I just didn’t feel any emotional connection to the story or any of the characters.
The King’s Men
I picked this one out thinking it would be a fun movie to unwind to but it turned out way more emotional than I had anticipated. This has a pretty cool cast and I picked who the villain would be from the start, but it was an okay movie all in all. The cast is pretty incredible, but I have to admit that some of the ways certain historical figures were depicted left me feeling a bit uncomfortable.
1917
So I guess war movies are a theme as well so far this year. I have to say that this is an absolutely stunning film—the cinematography is undoubtedly gorgeous. The movie itself was a little confusing at parts and some parts of the plot were just too convenient. But the acting was well-done and it was definitely an interesting film.
So that’s it for now. If you have any recommendations for me, I’d love to hear them!
Earl Grey Books 