Nathaniel's Top Twenty (Plus) of 2020

by Nathaniel R

Swallow, one of 2020's twenty best

Dementia, toxic masculinity, mental illness, economic inequality, nationalism, and racism were impossible to miss in 2020. And for once I'm not even referring to the soulless depravity of the GOP! Those were also recurring themes in world cinema this past film year. The silver lining is this: difficult topics and trying times can make for great art. This past year's best films were hardly a cheerful lot, but the best filmmakers know how to incorporate tonal variety to keep their movies three-dimensional and lively with ideas, moods, and unforgettable scenes.

The following movies greatly enriched a very tough year. Whether you already love them or are yet to discover them I wish you the best film experiences with these...

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January. It's a Wrap

Wow, time sure is speeding up. It's already the end of January which means Sundance is in progress and awards season in full crazy swing. And it also means Nathaniel's Film Bitch Awards begin. Here are highlights from the month that was in case you missed them.

12 highlights
• Interview: Kingsley Ben-Adir Murtada with One Night in Miami's Malcolm X
• The Furniture: Promising Young Woman "an agent of heaven or hell?"
• Monsoon Wedding Cláudio had never seen it. We're glad he loved
• Best Supporting Actresses of a Certain Age Who were the oldest nominees?
• Doc Corner Gunda Glenn goes to the buzzy farm
• Familiar Faces: Chris Nolan Nathaniel looks at which actors the action director most loves throwing around in his twisty spectacles
• Stage to Screen to Oscar? Christopher checks the (abundant) stats with Ma Rainey in the mix this year
• Gay Best Friend: The Next Best Thing is it as bad as you've heard?
• Cloris Leachman and Cicely Tyson - we lost two greats
• The Ghost of Promising Young Woman Lynn Lee wonders about "Nina"
• Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford the most exciting TV news this month
• The Father Eric wonders why people aren't talking about this gem

4 most discussed articles
• 9th Annual Team Experience Awards Promising Young Woman reigns
• Oscars Acting Races where we were at on January 22nd (though this is always changing!)
• Ellen Burstyn's Oscar History Claudio investigates
• Year in Review: Thirst Traps feat. Ahmed, Plaza, Majors, etc

COMING IN FEBRUARY
The Golden Globe Awards, SAG nominations, FYCs for Oscar categories, the 10th anniversary of the 83rd Oscars, TV classic "The Muppet Show" and a centennial tribute to Lana Turner.

Year in Review: 20 Best Movie Posters

by Nathaniel R

The Year in Review party continues. Contrary to those headshots against monochrome backgrounds titles you see while scrolling through Netflix, the movie poster as an artform is not dead. It just has diminished in popularity and might soon be evolving. The upright rectangle has been the norm for almost a century, probably because it was just-right for magazines and newspapers. But both of those modes of information-distribution are outmoded. The standard shape might still continue in dominance, though, given that it's also the shape of a phone but who knows. But we digress. The 20 best movie posters for 2020 films after the jump...

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Year in Review: Greatly Abbreviated Box Office Lists and 'What Ifs'

the year in review lists are winding down but not quite yet done!

If you had predicted that Bad Boys 3 would be the biggest grosser of 2020 in January, nobody would have believed you.

We shan't rehash what's happened to movie theaters this past year (everyone knows). But normally at this time we have tons of fun compiling extensive deep-dive lists of how well movies of various genres and types of releases did. And of course we can reflect on how the success impacted their awards chances (Parasite never would have won Best Picture without that incredible theatrical run, becoming the biggest subtitled hit in the US in the past 16 years. Since there was only the first three months of the year with normal box office the lists are VERY strange and in some cases we just couldn't do them. But here's an extremely abbreviated version of what we normally do...

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Year in Review: Greatest Thirst Traps

by Team Experience

Beauty is the eye of the beholder and so is sex appeal and cinematic eye candy. So take these rankings as seriously as they were assigned which is to say, barely seriously at all. T'was but a glancing approximation of how many lists each hottie showed up on from our teammates and whether they were high up on said lists. At any rate these faces (and bodies) and born-to-perform stars deserve your wide open appreciative eyes when they're working it onscreen. 

We meant to post this last night when the mood was more drunken and festive but it's okay to start a new year off lustily, too! Please to enjoy our choices for the greatest thirst traps of 2020. Which of these stars made you quiver under your bodice or weak at the knees these past twelve months? 

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