Joeblade

My annual film round-up, in which I pick out 20 films I saw during 2019 that I think are worth talking about. →

2018 was an odd year in film for me, as, while I watched more films than ever -- 333 according to Letterboxd -- I found slightly fewer than usual that I felt enthusiastic enough to write about, with only 16 highlighted below rather than my usual 20, and many of 2018's biggest hits leaving me, not cold as such, but just...not significantly moved. It's perhaps a sign I need to change my approach to how I watch things; we'll see how 2019 goes. →

Ten years and 18 films later, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is approaching an ending of sorts, as a burgeoning cast and converging narrative meet the real-world realities of contract expiry and expanding budgets. Avengers: Infinity War may not be the final film of the MCU, but it definitely feels like, and is being marketed discreetly as, a culmination. It may not be the end, but it could be the beginning of the end. →

It’s starting to feel that Duncan Jones has an issue with timing. After the instant classic Moon and the brisk and punchy Source Code, Jones disappeared off into the wilderness to return five years later with Warcraft, a decent fantasy action piece that unfortunately arrived after the cultural phenomenon of World of Warcraft had long since peaked. Mute, described by Jones as far back as 2009 as his “love letter to Blade Runner” arrives now on a platform that heavily promoted its own Blade Runner-influenced production — the TV series Altered Carbon — just weeks before, and also just a few months after an actual Blade Runner sequel has been and gone. In this context, the impact of Mute is, well, muted. →

My annual film round-up, in which, as usual, I pick out 20 films to highlight, the only requirement being that I saw the film during 2017, regardless of when it was released. →

To be clear upfront, Street Fighter is a mediocre film and you absolutely should not waste any time on it. If you have an opportunity to watch it then there is almost certainly something better and more worthwhile you could be watching instead. Director Steven de Souza was a successful screenwriter (48 Hrs., Commando, The Running Man, Die Hard), but he definitely didn’t become a successful director. Street Fighter fails as an action film, a fighting film, and as a videogame adaptation. This isn’t a “Street Fighter is actually good” piece. And yet. →

Thor as a character has worked best on screen when he’s been allowed to be funny; that’s not to say he isn’t good when serious as well, but there’s a balance that needs to be struck to get the best out of him. The original Thor found that balance, contrasting the serious Asgardian family drama with Thor’s fish out of water antics on Earth, and the film became one of my unexpected favourites from the Marvel stable. Thor: The Dark World on the other hand is an uneven, gloomy film that only sparks to life when Loki is around, and while I’ve grown more forgiving of the film after multiple viewings, I still find it a damp and dreary piece. →

I’ve written a few times before about my gaming ability but to recap: I’m terrible-to-average at games generally, and even worse at games that involve playing against real people. Splatoon, first on the Wii U and now on the Switch, is ostensibly a team-based online shooter, which is so many of my least-favourite words it’s amazing I even typed them all together like that. Despite this I’ve found myself sinking hours into Splatoon without complaint, enjoying the game and willingly returning for more. →

I saw Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element on release in 1997, and immediately hated it. Being a cynical, sneering teenager, I had no time for the bright and colourful visuals, the self-consciously wacky characters, the broad, slapstick comedy, the baffling Lee Evans cameo. Eventually though, as the real world grew progressively duller and my hair increasingly greyer, I came to appreciate the film for what it was rather than what it wasn’t, and it’s now a film I check on every few years. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets has a lot in common with The Fifth Element, and having trained myself to appreciate the former, I found it easy to appreciate the latter. →