3 Months of Movies (VI)

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It’s that time of the year again, the time for reflecting upon the movies I’ve watched in the last three months. It was a weird time because it also covers the summer holidays during which I watched a crazy amount of movies at home and at the cinema, but since the holidays are over and school has started I barely watched anything. I’m not sure how this will pan out in the statistics but I remember that I was thinking during summer that I might break a record for watching the most movies in that timespan and now I know this will definitely not be the case. But who cares about records anyway? I only care about statistics.

It’s not an all-time record but I still managed to watch 51 movies in the last three months, which again is more than in the past (except for the first three months). Because of 1981 week, there is a high number of movies from this year but most movies are from the current decade again.

The average rating is 6.5, which is lower than last time but still above the average. Again, the most common ratings are 6 and 7. There is no 10 again but a clear 1.

Some changes here, as I steered away from the “personal interest” label. I watched a series of movies based on specific actors or directors and also increased my moviegoing.

Depiction of Women

Never too few in this category. Women are easily satisfied (Modern Problems), easily disarmed (Enter the Ninja), ready to let someone else fight for them (My Bloody Valentine), just treated badly in general (Straight Outta Compton), killed for the hero’s story (Southpaw) or just straight up exploited (Zombie Lake).

On the other hand, there are a couple of interesting strong female characters again. Die bleierne Zeit features only strong women and weak men, First Monday in October shows the first female Supreme Court judge as strong, Eden Lake has an interesting final girl, Fish Tank focuses on a very strong and multi-faceted female character (Michael Fassbender acts in a lot of movies with strong women), Ann Hathaway’s character in Love & Other Drugs doesn’t bullshit about anything, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation seems almost confused about the great Rebecca Ferguson character and Jennifer Lawrence basically plays a strong woman in every movie she appears in. And Barb Wire… well, decide for yourself if you are willing to watch that crappy movie. 14 movies had female leading roles, again thanks to Jennifer Lawrence. We should thank her every day, if you ask me.

Race

Out of 51 movies, 2 (two!) featured non-white lead characters. One is Hard Boiled, which was made in Hong Kong, the other is Straight Outta Compton. That’s not much.

On top of that, we have the racist depictions of Philippine people in Enter the Ninja, another questionable depiction of “Oriental” people in Prince of Persia, a similar questionable depiction of black people in End of Watch, the issues black people face in X-Men: First Class, the upfront racism of Pinocchio and more problematic black characters in Southpaw.

Criticizing Society

Die bleierne Zeit really questions the Germany of 1981, Blow Out is very disillusioned about the U.S., Brokeback Mountain makes no secret of how problematic society’s treatment of homosexuals is and Noah… well, I hope I’ll write about the complex issues in that movie eventually.

Best/Worst

Let’s get out the awards for this season! There is no 10 movie, so this is not as easy this time. I really, really liked the X-Men movies, The Burning Plain surprised me (despite all the bad reviews), Brokeback Mountain and Brothers were as good as I expected, but the movie that still lights my heart a little when I think of it is Blow Out. Brian de Palma’s great film just has so much going for it, amazing filmmaking, great acting, a suspenseful plot and relevant thematic elements that still ring true today. A semi-forgotten classic I was really happy to discover.

The other end of the spectrum is much easier because I feel that my rating system should start with 0 instead of 1 for a movie like Zombie Lake. While it has some nice trash movie moments (make-up coming off the actors, inexplicable dialogue and behavior, the hero being a Nazi Zombie), it also is so exploitative and cheap and slow. I felt almost ashamed that I gave it my attention.

See you again in January!