3 Months of Movies (V) / 15 Months of Movies
/- 3 Months of Movies (I)
- 3 Months of Movies (II)
- 3 Months of Movies (III)
- 3 Months of Movies (IV)
- 3 Months of Movies (V)
Three months have passed again, so it’s time for another survey. And because I’ve been doing this for a year now, it’s also time for one year of “3 Months of Movies” (which actually is not 12 but 15 months of movies, but let’s ignore that for now). So, get ready for many numbers!
Since April I watched 48 movies, which is the most movies since the first 3 months (36, 31, 46 and 75 the last times). Although as always, most movies are more recent, this is the first time pre-1930 movies appear here, since I did some lessons on German silent movies and watched some of them.
The average rating is 6.8, the highest since I started this (compared to 5.9, 6.2, 6.3 and 5.8 in the last installments). Strangely, this time most of the ratings are 6 and 7 (compared to 7 and 8 previously). There is one 10, but no 1.
The reasons are widespread as usual, although Netflix is increasing. It means, by the way, that I just watch the movie because I saw it available on Netflix as opposed to movies I want to see and then find them there. Also: lots of movies for school, as this was a movie-heavy year.
Stereotypes
For some reason the stereotypes aren’t as bad as usual this time (I only counted 12), but maybe I’m just forgetting some because it was so many movies. It’s even hard to explicitly point out who is stereotyped as they are more cases of general stereotypical behavior and portrayals. It’s weird.
Depiction of Women
Also, fewer bad depictions of women, but still enough. As in other months, women are passive victims (Saw), passive bystanders (Man on Fire, Jaws: The Revenge), career-instead-of-family-bitches (Jurassic World), total dummies (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), easily seduced (Road House, Tiptoes), punching bags (Superman Returns), self-sacrificial (Nosferatu), refrigerated (At Close Range) or just window dressing (Smokin’ Aces).
On the other, this time there are lots of strong women to be found. From the neo-feminism of Mad Max: Fury Road and Spy to the normal but not really dependent on men characters in Victoria, Bridesmaids or The Congress to simple, grounded and nuanced characters as in Revolutionary Road or Inside Llewyn Davis. This was a really good run for women. There were 11 movies with women in leading roles, which is also a good ratio.
Race
Out of 48 movies, 4 featured non-white lead characters. This is still as bad as always, especially if you look at those four movies. Man on Fire has Denzel Washington, one of the few black actors who mostly is the lead actor in his movies, Bad Ass features Danny Trejo in a lead role, Scarface only technically has a non-white lead character who is still played by Al Pacino and A Separation is an Iranian movie, so not much effort was necessary.
Criticizing Society
This is always a difficult category, but there are quite a few movies that openly question the way things are going, most obviously The Congress, Revolutionary Road, Mad Max: Fury Road or Nightcrawler.
Best/Worst
Again, this is easy, as there is only one 10er movie and Mad Max: Fury Road was such an amazing blast of an intellectual action movie experience it clearly wins the prize here. That movie is an instant classic and I’d watch it again anytime.
But what about the worst movie? The worst ratings went to Jaws: The Revenge and On the Line, but the most anger I felt during Superman Returns. I was rarely as disinterested in finishing a movie than during Smokin’ Aces while Road House is the most entertaining bad movie I’ve seen in a long time because it is so ridiculous. How to decide? If you asked me which of these movies I’d least recommend to see it’d be On the Line. The movie is as incompetent as possible, sucks at every joke it tries to make, features non-actors unable to act and really dumb ideas about women and men. So, in a close race On the Line wins.
Now, let’s take a quick look back at the last 15 months!
In that time period I watched 235 movies, which adds up to roughly 15 movies per month. Not bad for having a family and a full-time job and a blog!
These 235 had 39 female lead characters and only 20 non-white lead characters (19 if you don’t count dinosaurs). That’s both not very much. If you look for female, non-white lead characters, you end up with merely three movies (and one of them is Catwoman).
Since all these numbers are probably too boring, let’s finish with the ten worst and ten best movies I watched in the last 15 months, since I rediscovered my passion and love for movies.
The ten worst movies:
10. After Earth
9. The Love Guru
8. Catwoman
6. Old Dogs
5. On the Line
4. Gamer
3. Battlefield Earth
What can I say? I love The Wolf of Wall Street! I know not everyone does because they either find it too extreme or not critical enough. I think the movie is so unique in being highly entertaining for three hours while at the same time having enough ideas about our culture and our time that is could be (and will be) discussed for years to come. This is a movie that is both extreme and subtle at the same time. It features some of the best direction by Martin Scorsese and the best acting by Leonardo DiCaprio that make the movie worth watching just to admire these two. I find it hard to imagine to see a better movie in the next 15 months. See you then!
