Hello, everybody!
The ninth edition of Monthly Rewind is here, and we’re doing September!
I mentioned in the last post that I’m going to change how I did these going forward, and that’s going to happen here. I originally did all the movies I watched that month and gave my reactions to all those movies, good or bad. The new change is that I’ll still be doing that, but this time with only the movies that really left an impression or stood out. I’m not saying I won’t mention the bad movies, but for the most part, it’s going to be the ones that stood out.
If you know something came out during that month, or year, and it’s not on here. It’s a good chance that I haven’t seen it – yes, even after all these years – or I just completely missed it while putting the list together. It’s a lot of movies after all.
Alright, let’s get started with 2010!
2010
Buried
Machete
Easy A
The Town
Thoughts: Let’s start off with the Ryan Reynolds-led Buried. The movie is all Reynolds, as it follows his character, Paul – a U.S. truck driver working in Iraq – who after an attack wakes up buried alive inside a coffin with a lighter and a cell phone that is running out of battery. It’s a race against time movie, and one of the movies that, to me, showed Reynolds can really do more than be the “funny guy.” I really liked Buried when it came out, and there are some heart-pounding moments in there, so go give it a chance.
Next is Easy A, the movie that made Emma Stone a definite household name in my house (after appearances in Superbad, The House Bunny and Zombieland). The movie was basically a modern-day retelling of “The Scarlet Letter” seeing Stone’s Olive, a good student, who helps a friend by letting the school think they had sex, and the story gets out of the control. I honestly really love this movie. I think it’s a smart comedy that is held together not just by Stone, but the supporting cast too of Amanda Bynes, Patricia Clarkson, Thomas Haden Church and Stanley Tucci.
Next on the list is Machete, originally just a fake trailer for the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino movie Grindhouse, the fanfare for the trailer and the enthusiasm for doing an actual movie by Rodriguez and Danny Trejo – who appeared in the trailer as the titular character. We then got the whole movie, which kept the grindhouse, B-movie feel with Trejo getting his first lead role in a feature-length film in his long career. Honestly, I love the cheesiness of it, and seeing Trejo in, let’s face it, a role he was born to play was great.
Finally, Ben Affleck’s The Town. Only Affleck’s second directorial effort, The Town followed a crew of thieves, led by Affleck’s Doug, who ends up falling for banker manger (Rebecca Hall) from an earlier heist, trying to avoid an FBI agent on the crew’s tail (played by Jon Hamm) and keeping this crew together to pull one more big heist. The film doesn’t have too many actual heist, and the selling point of the movie was the characters, which was nice. The highlight being Jeremy Renner’s short-fused James, which sky rocketed Renner’s career.
2011
Saving Private Perez
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
Contagion
Warrior
Drive
Moneyball
Thoughts: A shout-out to the Spanish language movie Saving Private Perez, which yes, is an action comedy that plays on the Saving Private Ryan concept, where a Mexican crime lord is forced by his mother to save his missing brother in Afghanistan. Please actually give this a chance, because I couldn’t stop genuinely laughing.
The other shout-out here is the horror comedy Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine play loveable hillbillies who vacation to their cabin in the woods when they are mistaken as murderers by a group of college students once they start getting killed off. I remember watching this at a film festival, which was part of their “Midnight Showing” and it was a great time.
Next is the too-close-to-reality now film Contagion. Following government and CDC officials as they work together to find a cure for a virus that has spread far too quickly. I mean, you’re living it guys, what more do you want. The eerie part for me? They filmed the movie at my local mall – where I actually watched the movie!
Let’s talk about the divisive Nicolas Winding Refn film, Drive. Starring Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stuntman and mechanic who moonlights as a getaway driver, but when he falls for his neighbor (Carey Mulligan) and her husband (Oscar Isaac) gets out of prison, things get complicated. In more so, when the husband hires him, the job goes wrong and Driver (yes, that is his credited name) has to fight for his survival. I remember watching it and thinking, yes, this is different from what I expected, but I still ended up liking it. I know others were fooled heavily by the marketing – I’m looking at you lady who sued the studio for falling for the marketing.
Next is the baseball film Moneyball. A biopic on Billy Bean’s historic and successful attempt to make the Oakland A’s a team to fear by employing a computer-generated analysis to get players, formulated by Peter Brand, played by Jonah Hill – in one of his early more serious roles. I have an in-and-out relationship with baseball, and when I watched Moneyball, I was kind of on the out, but I really dug the movie a lot!
Finally, the under-appreciated sports drama, Warrior. The film sees estranged brothers, played by Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy, who join a MMA tournament – unbeknownst to each other – for their own reasons. I LOVED Warrior, and I couldn’t stop recommending it to people after I watched it. The drama of the film and story could have been good on its own, but seeing it blend together was great. Edgerton’s Brendan is doing it to help his family who’s struggling, while Hardy’s Tommy, who returned from war, is doing it for his own reasons, and asks the help of his equally estranged father – played wonderfully by Nick Nolte. Honestly, if you haven’t watched it, please do so. It doesn’t matter how “predictable” it is, it’s still enjoyable as hell.
2012
Looper
End of Watch
Dredd
Thoughts: Let’s start off with the sci-fi time traveling film Looper. Directed by Rian Johnson and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Joe, a hired gun for the mob from the future and “closes loops” for people they want to get rid of. Unfortunately, they send Joe from the future (Bruce Willis) back and the cat-and-mouse game begins. The movie is put squarely on the shoulders of Gordon-Levitt and Willis, who carry it all the way to the end, and the movie clearly puts the whole time-travel conversation to the wayside – for the most – in a great scene between the two Joes.
Moving on, let’s talk about David Ayer’s End of Watch starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as two Los Angeles police officers and friends who gets into a situation out of their control. The movie was shot in a documentary-style fashion with some old fashion traditional filmmaking, which really gives the movie a different feel from other movies similar to this. Ayer may divide fans and critics, but I do think that End of Watch is one of the better, and arguably, his best movie to date (the other being Fury).
Lastly, Dredd, the second and more serious take on the character (and one where he ACTUALLY KEEPS HIS HELMET ON!). The movie starred Karl Urban as the titular character, who is teamed up with a trainee named Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), and end up locked in an apartment complex run by Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) who is pushing a new drug called SLO-MO. I LOVE Dredd. From the setting, the characters, the grimy gritty feel and hard R rating to Urban’s take on the character.
2013
Insidious: Chapter 2
Prisoners
Rush
Thoughts: I’m going to shout-out James Wan’s sequel to Insidious, titled Insidious: Chapter 2 which is almost immediately follows the events of the first movie, while also openly expanding the world and upping the scares from the first movie.
Next is the near-perfect crime mystery Prisoners, directed by Denis Villeneuve (which I think people forget he directed). The film followed Hugh Jackman’s Keller, whose daughter and her friend go missing, and when the police – led by Jake Gyllenhaal’s Detective Loki (yes, that’s his name!) – let their prime suspect go, played greatly by the ever reliable Paul Dano, he takes matters into his own hands. The mystery really plays out for the entire movie, and when it finally hits, it’s like a gut-punch. I remember walking out and thinking “damn that was great!” Also, a supporting cast of Viola Davis, Terrence Howard, Maria Bello and Melissa Leo.
Finally, the Ron Howard-directed biopic of the rivalry between Formula One drivers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl in his breakout role). Not only did Bruhl steal the show from an equally game Hemsworth, the thing that I remember most about the film is the amazing score by Hans Zimmer, with “All But Won” being the standout.
2014
This Is Where I Leave You
The Equalizer
The Guest
Thoughts: A shout-out to The Equalizer, the Denzel Washington-led and Antoine Fuqua-directed feature film adaption of the TV series of the same name. Washington plays Robert McCall, a man with a mysterious past who wants to live a quiet life, until he meets a young girl (Chloe Grace Moretz), who is under-control by Russian gangsters and can’t stand idly by. The movie takes a slow approach to everything leading to an epic final confrontation.
Next is the drama comedy This Is Where I Leave You. The movie follows the Altman’s, whose father just passed away and his final wish was to have all of them in their childhood home one last time. Of course, each sibling is carrying their own baggage and coping with their father’s passing in their own way. I really feel for the movie, and connected to it in my own way. Besides that, the cast is absolutely stacked with Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Corey Stoll, Rose Byrne, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant, Ben Schwartz and Jane Fonda.
Finally, the Adam Wingard-directed and Simon Barrett-written follow-up to You’re Next, The Guest. Dan Stevens (who is breaking away from his Downton Abbey image) plays David, who introduces himself to the Peterson family, claiming to be a friend of their son who just died in action. When the family welcomes him, despite the dismay of daughter Anna (played by Maika Monroe pre-It Follows fame, which came out around the same time), a series of incidents may be connected to him.
I was already on the Wingard/Barrett bandwagon after You’re Next, and The Guest just solidify my seat. Stevens’ unnerving look and mannerisms sell the character, along with the score by Steve Moore, which gave the movie a 70s and 80s vibe, which overly sold the movie for me.
2015
Black Mass
The Visit
Thoughts: I want to give Black Mass the shout-out here since it was the first movie in a long while – at that point – that sold me back on Johnny Depp being a great actor. His transformation to Whitey Bulger is horrify, a good way, and the much promoted dinner scene from all the trailers really sold the movie and Depp for me. That’s not to say I thought the movie was a home run, because it wasn’t. The movie had its faults, but with a strong supporting cast around Depp like Joel Edgerton, Dakota Johnson, Kevin Bacon, Peter Sarsgaard, Jesse Plemons and Benedict Cumberbatch to name a handful, Black Mass should have been more of a home run than it ended up being.
The second and last movie in 2015 was the return of M. Night Shyamalan with The Visit. The movie had Shyamalan back behind the camera, with the found footage approach of two siblings (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) visiting their grandparents for vacation when they start to notice they’re acting stranger as the days go by. While it wasn’t on the level of his early work like The Sixth Sense, Signs or Unbreakable, the movie was a huge step in the right direction following his lackluster directorial efforts, I’m looking at you The Happening and The Last Air Bender!
Another thing that probably helped was the Shyamalan now had Blumhouse behind him – most likely to keep him in check – which was already established as a go-to for horror directors, but not yet the powerful that we know today. The twist in the movie was also much more grounded than other Shyamalan movies, which also helped in the long run of the movie.
2016
Storks
Thoughts: Storks was, admittedly, a movie I wasn’t completely sold on when I first saw the trailers. That said, I went in with no expectations and was BLOWN AWAY by the movie in the end. The movie has storks now delivering packages instead of babies, but when an order for a baby suddenly appears, the best delivery stork, Junior (voiced by Andy Samberg), wants to make good on the order and goes to deliver the baby with Tulip (Katie Crown), an inventor that was orphaned to the storks as a baby.
Seriously, this movie is so DAMN GOOD! I love Storks and instantly jumped to my Top Ten favorite animated movies of all time. The humor is spot on, and ridiculous in a good way, while being genuinely funny, heartfelt in others. I’m serious, if these lists do anything, let it be that it got you to watch Storks.
2017 (SPOILERS for Mother! in this section)
Mother!
Battle of the Sexes
It
Thoughts: Let’s start with a shout-out to Battle of the Sexes, the film telling the story of the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell). I really liked the movie with a real-life story I really didn’t know about – I knew about King, but not Riggs – so I was heavily invested in the story and the performances.
Oh, Mother! what discussions you gave us after your release. Darren Aronofsky’s mysterious film had a lot of eyes on it before the movie came out, and then it came out and people were confused that the masses went online to figure it all out. The allegoric take of Jennifer Lawrence being Mother Earth, Javier Bardem being the big man upstairs and Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer playing Adam and Eve was an interesting way to tell the story of man’s greed and being easy to corrupt. I still honestly don’t know how I feel about Mother!. I liked the performances, and the jolting third act is effective, but the way the movie goes about getting there is sluggish.
Now we get to the more mature and heavy-handed horror reimaging of Stephen King’s It, directed by Andy Muschietti (Mama). Muschietti broke the long story into two parts, one following The Losers Club as kids in 1989, and one following them as adults returning to Derry to face Pennywise, played horrifyingly terrific by Bill Skarsgard. I’m going to highlight Part One since I think that’s the best of the two, and that’s mainly because of the young cast is so damn effective playing Pennywise’s potential victims, or them standing up to bullies and bonding.
I know everyone has their own preference of which It was better, but personally I liked this version of It more. He’s more terrifying and unsettling than Tim Curry’s. It probably helped that this was a feature film with a bigger budget and a hard-R unlike the TV movie.
2018
Mandy
Free Solo
Thoughts: A shout out to the documentary Free Solo about Alex Honnold, the rock climber who attempts to climb El Capitan in a free solo fashion aka no rope. It’s a interesting look into what it takes to a free solo rock climber and Alex himself, who is a character himself. It’s also intense to watch, and for me, who saw it in IMAX, I was on the edge of my seat.
Finally, the Nicholas Cage-led Mandy. The heavy-metal, dream-like horror fantasy that saw Cage’s Red going after a cult led by Linus Roache’s Jeremiah Sand after brutally murdering the love of his life, Mandy (Andrea Riseborough). This movie is not for everyone. It was barely for me. It’s a little too out there for me to be honest, but I did appreciate what the movie was trying to do. Cage’s performance is just the right amount of Cage, with Riseborough’s somewhat haunting performance as Mandy holding down the fantastical elements and Roache’s Sand being the perfect fragile alpha male.
The standout scene, at least for me, that isn’t Red fighting biker “mutant?” killers, but Mandy’s lengthy confrontation with Sands that is trippy in itself. Again, not for everyone, but if you can appreciate the weirdness of it, Mandy could be for you.
And that’s it everyone. Admittedly, this was still a lot movies, but I can’t help that enjoy a lot of movies more than others. But more importantly, I want to know what you guys think about this. Let me know what your favorite movies in September were?
Movies with Chris 