Happy New Year!!! (2020)

• 2009
• 2010
• 2011
• 2012
• 2013
• 2014
• 2015
• 2016
• 2017
• 2018
• 2019

Now, the usual list...

• The Harry books turned 7.
• I turned 44.
• Did the 2019 big movies list.
• I compiled the decade in movie reviews.
• Ghostbusters 3 is coming out this summer as Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
• The Marvel/Sony deal fell apart, and came back together again.
• Crisis On Infinite Earths was a thing on TV.
• Corrections/updates turned into "Revisits", media updates became "Meedyah Morsels", and I spun off "Stuff From Facebook", and "Munchies and Crunchies".
• Shmegalamonga turned 11!!
• Halloween and Christmas rotated round in their new formats.
• Thanksgiving became the new depository for "Munchies and Crunchies".
• We lost Wembley. :-(

And, Trump has been impeached in the house, but Mitch McConnell is gonna let him go, because he's a demon in a turtle suit.
And, we lost a lot of Star Trek people, including Jack Donner.

And, I'm not gonna hope for 2020 to be any better, cuz it never gets better, and I just keep jinxing myself.


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All The Movies!! 2010-2019

Here's all of it!!
In one handy link! Again!

• Retroactive big summer movie recap (2008-2012)
• The lost summer movie recap (2012)
• The big summer movie recap. (2013)
• Big summer movie recap-recap (2013)
• The big summer movie recap. Part 2. (2014)
• Big summer movie recap-recap (2014)
• The big 2015-2017 movie recap.
• Big 2018 year end movie recap.
• Big 2019 year end movie recap.
• Spoiler Alert!: Compilation: 2012-2018
• Spoiler Alert!: 2019
• Big 2010's DECADE end movie recap!

Up next, 2020 starts with "Birds Of Prey", in February.


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Big 2010's DECADE end movie recap! (Compilation)

And here's those.

• Big 2010's DECADE end movie recap! (Part 1) (Comic book films)
• Big 2010's DECADE end movie recap! (Part 2) (Horror films)
• Big 2010's DECADE end movie recap! (Part 3) (Comedy films)

Up next, the decade end compilation of everything.

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Big 2010's DECADE end movie recap! (Part 3)

• Part 1 (comic book films).
• Part 2 (horror films).

And finally, the third and final part, the top 10 comedy films of the 2010's.
There weren't a lot of great straight ahead comedies this decade, and even less I saw at the theaters.
So, a lot of these, in fact most, overlap with the superhero genre.

There were already great comedies in the comic book movies list like Deadpool, and Ragnarok, but I didn't want repeats, so this isn't a list of pure merit, so much as runner-ups from the comic book list.

So, for what little it's worth, here's those.

1. Shazam!

Didn't get nearly enough of the box-office love it deserved.
It made money, but everyone should have gotten out to see it.

2. Lego Batman

Said it in the review, the "Spaceballs", of Batman.

3. Ghostbusters: Answer The Call

Goddamned right.
You knew I had to work this baby into one of these lists.

4. Zombieland: Double Tap

The first overlap with the horror list.

5. The World's End

Shaun would have been on the list, as would the first Zombieland, but, I missed them at the theater, so....

I said in the review I thought it would be a new classic, but that sadly hasn't materialized.
A lot of people even have this as their least favorite of the Cornetto trilogy.
I love Shaun and Hot Fuzz, but goddamn, this one had so much deep shit to say about addiction, and adulthood, and the traps of nostalgia, and conformity, and rebellion, and the failures of rebellion, and the traps of conformity, and the sickness of our modern society, and...I guess I got a lot more out of it than a lot of people. Go figure.

6. Ant-Man

This unassuming little film laid the groundwork for "Avengers: Endgame".
Who knew?
Anyone who read comics, that's who.
*Smug nod*

7. Ant-Man & The Wasp

Behind the first one by a decimal place.

8. Venom

The second overlap with the horror list.

9. Incredibles 2

Spider-Verse was better than this, but like I said up top, I didn't want repeats.
At least from the comic book list.

10. Sausage Party

Fun movie, I just wish they hadn't treated the animators like indentured servants.
I think that scandal probably hurt it at the box-office, and murdered its sequel chances.

Dammit, capitalism, why do you keep turning people into assholes?
Someone needs to do a raunchy animated satire on the money side of showbiz.
And pay their fucking animators.


Up next, the compilation!


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Big 2010's DECADE end movie recap! (Part 2)

Part 1 (comic book films).


And this is the second part, the top 15 horror films of the 2010's.
And it's basically all of them I got out and saw.
It would have been 20 if I saw more...

1. IT: Chapter One 

King adaptations dominate this list.
As well they should.

2. Doctor Sleep

Ditto.

3. IT: Chapter Two 

Double ditto.

Plus, what I said in the 2019 review.

4. Evil Dead (2013)

This was damned good.
I heard some reviewers say "Cabin In The Woods", rendered this pointless.
I don't agree.
I think there's room for both.

"The Rise Of Leslie Vernon", deconstructs slashers, but I can still go back, and watch Freddy and Jason movies.
I can still watch the Romero zombie movies after "Shaun Of The Dead", and "Zombieland".
It doesn't have to be one over the other.

5. Zombieland: Double Tap 

Speaking of Zombieland....

6. Prometheus

I said it here, at least it was trying something.

7. Venom 

The one and only comic book crossover.

8. Alien Covenant

Mostly stinky, but the arc of the android brothers kinda elevates it a bit.
Fassbender's acting is really great in this.

9. The Human Centipede 2 [Full Sequence]

As with Prometheus, hey, at least Tom Six was trying something new.

Ridley Scott was trying to say something existential and deep, but Six was just trying to shake up horror out of its boring rut with some crazy, shocking, wacky stuff.

Few heard his wake-up call.

It's why they're rehashing Stephen King.
He's the last guy they can remember ever being creative.

10. The Human Centipede 3 [Final Sequence]

Mostly what I said above about part 2.

I'd only add, it's a shame Six during and after this one kind of decided to mold his public persona into a sort of bad-guy wrestler Uwe Boll kind of deal where it's hard to like the guy.

I re-watched the films, and they hold up as some crazy wild stuff made by a talented guy.
He could be a respected filmmaker if he stopped it with the Andy Kaufman shtick.
Bummer.

11. Brightburn

I said it in the 2019 review, it's a one-watcher.
Yeah, this uses comic book tropes, but it's not adapted from an actual comic book, so my comment on Venom stands.

12. Halloween (2018)

Said it in the 2018 winter review, you pretty much have to be ga-ga for this franchise to give a shit.
I thought it was just so-so.
Still better than everything since part 4.

13. Pet Sematary

King movies adorn the top and bottom of this list!

14. The Dark Tower

Ditto.

15. Godzilla

Meh.


And that was the decade in horror films.
According to my tastes.
And what I saw at theaters.
I saw way more than this, but I gotta stick to the rules.
Your list will no doubt be different.


Up next, Part 3, the top 10 comedy movies!


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Spoiler Alert!: 2019

Previously with 2019-

Big 2019 year end movie recap.

Previously with these-

Spoiler Alert!: Compilation: 2012-2018


Whoops! Almost forgot to update these!
Well here we go!
Like the title says, spoilers, so bail out now if you haven't seen the flicks!!

1. Joker

Large chunks of the movie turn out to be Arthur's fantasy, including Zazie Beetz being his girlfriend, so you're no longer sure what's real, and what's a dream.
Arthur may not even be the Joker.
But, if reality is up for grabs, screw it, I choose to believe he's Joker.

Also, that Joker caused a riot that caused the Waynes to get shot, so we get Batman's origin along with Joker's.

In my head canon, it's this, then "Batman Begins".

Man, I hope they don't do a sequel, cuz this one was perfect, and said everything it had to.
But....it made a billion, so they will. *sad sigh*

2. Avengers: Endgame

Yep, I was right, Ant-Man's quantum realm stuff was the macguffin that fixed everything.
The dusted people all got snapped back.
And Thanos got snapped.

But, Iron Man and Black Widow still had to die.
And Hulk got crippled, and retired from hero-ing.
And Captain America married Peggy, and turned into an old man.

3. The Rise Of Skywalker

We finally got the name!

Rey is a Palpatine.
But she kills Emperor Palpatine, and takes the name Skywalker.
So, she's the Skywalker in the title.

And yes, they did redeem Kylo, and turn him back to Ben.
We didn't want it, but they did it.
But they did it in a way that even haters are satisfied with.

And the Leia scenes?
Wavey-hand overall, but brilliant for what little they had to work with.
And yeah, she dies, and yeah, I teared up a little.

4. Doctor Sleep

I said in the review...

I can't dig too far into stuff they added and leave out without spoilers, so when I do the 2019 spoiler reviews, I'll dig into it all the way there.
Stay tuned for that.

So, here's that.

The Overlook got burnt down in the Shining novel, so in the Doctor Sleep book, they do go back to the location, but it's just a burnt up husk, and just a couple of the ghosts pop up.
Here, the Overlook was still standing from the Kubrick movie, we get all of the famous ghosts, and Dan burns it down in this one just like the book ending to Shining.
This is what King meant in interviews about this one redeeming the Kubrick movie for him, because it retroactively restores the book ending.

There was a whole thread in the book where if you eat the "steam", of a sick person, you get their disease, so the True Knot had to be careful about that.
Dan beat Rose in the book by absorbing Abra's grandma's ghost, and getting her cancer, and then putting it into Rose.
Here, the Overlook ghosts kill her, and the whole disease thread is gone.
A ghost kills her either way, so it still works.

In the book, Dan and Abra are biologically related.
Jack had an affair, which lead to Abra's mom, which led to Abra, so Dan is literally "Uncle Dan".
Here, it's just a name of affection.

Because they're biologically related in the book, there's a scene where Dan tells Abra about how his grandfather was an abusive drunk monster who didn't know he had the shining, then his dad was abusive and drunk, and didn't know he had the shining, and then HE struggled with drinking, and violence, so she needs to watch out for that too.
It was a good scene, and I liked it a lot.
It's gone from the movie.
I get it, you don't need it, but still....

Dan lives in the book, and dies in the movie.
He's a ghost who can still advise Abra, so it still works.
And he sacrifices himself the way Jack does in the Shining book, so that all comes back.

As mentioned in my blog review, you get WAY more with the AA meetings in the book.
I didn't miss that bullshit.

You get way more with the True Knot in the book, and I missed that.
I mean, there's enough in the movie to get a good sense of them, but they could totally make a True Knot prequel movie without King even needing to write another book.
Just like there's enough Pennywise backstory stuff in the IT book for a Pennywise prequel.

Dick Halloran lived in the Shining book, and was physically there to advise Danny about the ghost-traps power/trick in the Doctor Sleep book.
The Kubrick movie, he dies, so he's a force ghost in the Doctor Sleep movie delivering the same information.
Same ghost loophole as dead-Danny.

The True Knot follow natural and man-made disasters to suck steam, and one of their big feeding grounds was 9/11.
Also, baby Abra experienced the 9/11 deaths.
That'd be good stuff to put into a True Knot prequel, I missed that stuff.

The thing with the "death flies", was a whole bigger thing in the book that's just mentioned in some dialog in the movie.

The thing with the coke addict chick with the baby that Dan leaves behind in his lowest rock-bottom moment was dwelled on more in the book.
It haunted him constantly.
We only get one nightmare scene of that.
I get it, it's a 2+ hour movie, you gotta cut it down.
It was great stuff on the page though.

The book went way more into how Dan's ghost-traps worked, and established that a ghost could indeed die in there.
They just hint at it in dialog in the movie.
In the book, tub-lady dies.
Her container rusts, and when he opens it to let her loose as a weapon against Rose, there's just dust and a bad smell inside.
The movie just says "screw it", and brings her back, because that's more crowd-pleasing.

Abra wasn't physically at the final fight in the book, she used force-project like she does at the showdown with the True Knot at the campsite in the movie.
They swapped that around.

Phew, there!
So overall, they shuffled some pieces around to get it to jibe with the Kubrick movie, but all the important bits of Dr. Sleep are there.
A damned good translation.

6. IT: Chapter Two

They kill Pennywise....with verbal bullying.
Well...I guess he deserves it.

They kinda stole that ending from the Monkey King arc in Swamp Thing, now that I think about it.

7. Shazam!

The third act, they do the Shazam family.
The Shazamily.

Shazamily fight the 7 Deadly Sins, and save Christmas.

I shit you not.
Sounds corny, but dammit, it works!

8. Captain Marvel

CM was empowered by an exploding faster-than-light drive, which was empowered by the Tesseract.
Therefore, by transitive property, she was empowered by the Tesseract.
So, she's got the same origin and power level as Scarlet Witch.

Seems a simple thing, but she spends the whole movie in amnesia figuring this shit out.

Also, her call-sign is "Avenger", and is the source of the name Avengers for the superhero team.

9. Dark Phoenix

Phoenix kills Mystique, goes on a rampage for most of the movie, finally gains control and kills all the bad guy aliens, abandons her body, and turns into the Phoenix.

Also, government stooges stick their dick in the way of this conflict.
Cuz government stooges.

Oh, and Jessica Chastain steals some Phoenix-force so that the final battle has a little bit more stakes.

It was "meh".
It hasn't left much of an impact.
I had to strain to remember it.
Good effects and set pieces through.
And the actors do a good job.

10. Terminator: Dark Fate

John gets unceremoniously murdered at the beginning.

The Terminator that killed him develops emotions, and becomes a person, and has guilt, and tries to make things right for Sarah by helping her kill Terminators via secret text messages.

Danny Ramos becomes the new John.
Grace becomes the new protector.

Sarah and Carl (the Arnold Terminator) get caught up in the whole thing.
Arnold dies yet again.

Kinda bleak, but they leave a little speck of hope that Sarah and Danny can change the future-past again.
But there's not gonna be a sequel, cuz of the crummy box-office, so scratch that.

11. Zombieland: Double Tap

No real big twist surprises.
It's just more Zombieland.
But that's not a bad thing at all.

12. Glass

They all die.

But in their sacrifice, people learn about superheroes, and in this universe, mere knowledge of superheroes creates superheroes.

So the Unbreakable/Split/Glass universe is left where it's just about to become the MCU/DCEU.

13. Brightburn

Um, pretty much the trailer in gorier detail.

The bad-Superman-kid wins.
They dangle a carrot of hope that he has a kryptonite, but his mom fails to use it, and he wins.

Total dark Elseworlds with a bleak horror movie ending.

Well done though.

14. Pet Sematary

I mean, the trailer already spoils that Ellie dies instead of Gage in this version.

Ellie kills the mom, and brings her back, then the mom kills the dad, and brings him back, and then the zombie family (including the cat) descends on Gage.

The end, cut to the Ramones song being sung by girls.

Meh.

15. Hellboy

Um....I don't even care.
Fuck it.


And that was 2019.
Up next, Birds Of Prey in February.


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Big 2010's DECADE end movie recap! (Part 1)

First part, the top 20 comic book movies of the 2010's.

1. Joker

If it were up against "The Dark Knight", it would be trickier to decide, but that was late 00's, so I'm free and clear!

2. Logan

Should have swept the Oscars.
We know now the voting members are openly biased against this genre.
It wasn't a conspiracy theory.

3. Captain America: Civil War

It's so easy as to seem lazy to put the MCU stuff in here, but damn it, they KILLED it this decade!
This is one of the greats.

4. Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame

I gotta give them a tie as one big movie.

5. The Avengers

The one that started it all, and launched the MCU into the stratosphere!

6. Black Panther

Fuck you, Terry Gilliam.
Not why it's on the list, but it needed saying.

7. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

Masterful.
Still the best Spider-Man.

8. Guardians Of The Galaxy

The one that showed the MCU was here to stay.

9. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

The one that put the Russo Brothers on the map, and got them Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame.

10. The Dark Knight Rises

It's not "The Dark Knight", but kiss my ass, I still love it.

11. Man Of Steel

DC's Iron Man.
Funny thing, all the people screaming for "The Snyder Cut", of Justice League, I never see them also boosting for MoS, or BvS, or Watchmen.
MoS is the origin of the fucking DCEU, and while they haven't had the success or breadth of films of the MCU, that's nothing to sneeze at.
DC hasn't had their Avengers or Infinity War....YET.
But they will.
And this one will be seen as movie history because of it.

12. Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice

The Snyder cut of this one is a masterpiece.
I have a feeling Snyder's version of JL isn't in as good a shape.
At least we've got this one.

13. Deadpool

Took superhero cinema out a whole new door.

14. Thor Ragnarok

Hemsworth honing his comedy chops on Vacation and Ghostbusters paid off like gangbusters!
Holy shit!

15. Spider-Man: Far From Home

Said it all in the review.

16. Spider-Man Homecoming

Ditto.

17. X-Men: Days Of Future Past

I said it way back then, Fox-Men's Avengers.
They never topped this one, IMHO.
Well, with X-Men titles, Deadpool was a whole other thing.

18. X-Men: First Class

It was the best one until "Future Past", and it's behind it by > < this much.

19. Wonder Woman

The DCEU's Christopher Reeve Superman.

20. Captain America: The First Avenger

Has a lot of similarities with Wonder Woman, but WW is a smidge better.


And that was the decade in comic book films.
According to my tastes.
Your list will no doubt be different.


Up next, Part 2, the top 15 horror movies!


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