Blindspot 2016: final rankings

WOW. I’m done! Can you believe it?! I most certainly can’t. My 2016 Blindspot list was the list I’ve bitched about the most, not because of the bad movies but because I struggled so much getting time to site down and watch the films I chose. I’ve been really bad with schedules, which really ddin’t help the matter. But anyway, let’s stop that now because yet I still somehow managed to see all each and every film listed.

My list of 2017 is up tomorrow, and I’ve at least seen a number of them in preparation with my bestie and the remainders are great films won’t feel like a bit of a chore to get through. I also have most of those films already available, which was one of the reasons I took so long with 2016’s Blindspot – struggling to find these films.

Here’s a rundown of from least favorite to favorite. The scores are listed, but I’m not too worried about that right now, just basically listing what I remember actually liking the most.

Spot #12: Home Alone (1990)

Rating: 6/10

This is definitely the movie on the list that I should have watched way early in my life to really love it. I can see why people my age would love it if they saw it as children, and probably has the same sentiment towards it as I do towards a film like Matilda, which again reminds me that I really want to watch Matilda again. Home Alone was lost on me, I really couldn’t find any interest in a story where the main character was a child.

Spot #11: Love Actually (2003)

Rating: 6.5/10

There are people that actually think that this is one of the best romantic comedies of all time. I could not disagree more. There are critically few characters that are even remotely likeable and I was highly offended by most of their actions. Eugh.The best thing about this film is Colin Firth and Alan Rickman, and if those two men can’t convince me that a film is worth it, nothing can.

Spot #10: Back To the Future (1985)

Rating: 7/10

The same as Home Alone here – missed my chance. It was much more appealing though as there were at least older characters, but I still felt my attention wavering once or twice.

Spots # 8 & 9: Kill Bill Volume 1 (2003)& 2 (2004)

Rating: 7.5/10 and 8/10

Yes, I am fully aware that these are Tarantino films so low on my list, but I have my reasons – mostly (and I might get shot for this bout of honesty), is that I found the story a bit lacking on both and overly violent even for Tarantino. I am such a fan of Django Unchained, Inglorious Basterds (my favorite), and Pulp Fiction, and these two didn’t get anywhere close to touching my top favorite films of his.

Spot #7: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Rating: 8.5/10

I had trouble finding films this year that convinced me of its originality, and ESotSM is one of the very few that could convince me that creative talent was still alive and well. I loved Kate Winslet with her crazy hair, I adored Jim Carrey, Mark Ruffalo was adorable and Frodo was a sufficient level of creep in here. Hey! Kristen Dunst didn’t make me gnash my teeth.

Spot #6: Warrior (2011)

Rating: 8/10

This movie! I was bent double with anxiety. Who must win? Does any person deserve to lose? Performances by Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy were phenomenal. I cannot accept that this film tanked in the box office, it is truly great.

Spot #5: Memento (2000)

Rating: 8/10

Another frequenter of my Blindspots has been Christopher Nolan. He’s such an intelligent man and it comes through in his films. Memento was this year’s pick, and I unsurprisingly loved it.

Spots #3 and 4: Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986)

Ratings: 8.5/10 (both)

Yes, I agree. How haven’t I seen these two films up until now?! I lived for 26 years without the knowledge of how awesome Ripley was or how gross the chestbursters are, and although my life wasn’t sad before, it is all the richer now.

Spot #2: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Rating: 9/10

Both numbers one and two for me were really sad and thought provoking films that provided insight into the very best and the very worst of the human nature. Pan’s Labyrinth is the ONLY film that could have beaten out To Kill A Mockingbird.

Spot #1: Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Rating: 9/10

The winner of the year is the gut wrenching and incredibly poignant Pan’s Labyrith. This is a bit touchy feely, but watching this film made me want to cry for two reasons – the beautiful directing and the sad story of Ophelia and her desperate escape methods from the horrors of her world.

Well, there we have it. I enjoyed the majority of this list – truly it is probably only numbers 10 – 12 that really grated on me, and yet I am not displeased about spending time with them. Did you do a Blindspot in 2016? Comment below t and I haven’t discovered your undoubtedly awesome page, send me the link below 🙂

January 12, 2017January 11, 2017 by Natasha Categories: 2016, Blindspot, Movies, movies, UncategorizedTags: Alan Rickman, Alien, Aliens, Back to the Future, Blindspot, Blindspot 2016, Carrie-Anne Moss, chestburster, Christopher Nolan, Colin Firth, Elijah Wood, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Gregory Peck, Guy Pearce, Harper Lee, Home Alone, Jim Carry, Joe Pantoliano, Joel Edgerton, Kate Winslet, Keira Knightley, Kill Bill, Kirsten Dunst, Love Actually, Mark Ruffalo, Marty McFly, Memento, Pan's Labyrinth, Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, Sigourney Weaver, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Hardy, Uma Thurman, Warrior 9 Comments

August 2016: Watched, Read, Loved

Watched:

At home:

Bring it on Again. I was in a mood where I felt I could handle cheerleaders, and decided to go down the dark dark road and watch some Bring it On. It really wasn’t bad at all, and I thought this second one was actually way better than the one with Kristen Dunst in.

Bring it on: All or Nothing

Hayden Panateirre and Solange Knowles do the whole face off then friends routine in this Bring it On sequel. This one is the best of the lot, and there is a lot of sneaky humor in if you know where to look.

Zodiac

I am still so impressed with this movie. It is a great cast and an excellent story, and I wish I’d thought to put it on my Blindspot list this year! (if only because I already had it available!)

Blindspot: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This is my Blindspot for JULY, mind you. I have decided that I can’t commit to this exercise next year – it is truly a great concept but I am rather undisciplined and it takes some time and effort sourcing these movies. My plan is to Blindspot you all for a couple of weeks to catch up and end this project properly at the end for the year. Zoe gave me a great idea to do, which I will develop, and tell you all about it when the time comes J As for the movie, I really really loved this film.

In cinemas:

I haven’t been able to get to the movies as much as I’ve wanted to the past few months. I managed to watch Suicide Squad. I liked it, and it seems that a lot of people really hated it. There are some flaws, but it wasn’t as bad as everyone is making. I actually think I will get the DVD when this is released, just to give you an idea of how much I enjoyed it.

Series:

I finished the highly entertaining Vampire Diaries season 4. I’m not sure whether I can start with Season 5 before my exams, which is probably not the best idea for anyone’s marks at this point. You can read my reviews of Season 1 and Season 2 in the links. Season 4 felt a very slight dip in quality. I felt however that it actioned a lot of items on its’ plate, and that it followed a natural progression for all the characters. And OMFG the males in this show is so ridiculously attractive ❤

Jessica Jones. WTF? This show went from okay at the beginning and just went downhill as the season went on. So many things went wrong, so many bad writing choices. I am really the Marvel fan, but this was a bad job and no one is convincing me otherwise.

Read:

I’m actually reading a lot of books again, and playing around with reviewing them again as I haven’t done them in ages and they were reviewed at the beginning of this blog. I reread Twilight (don’t ask) with the intention of reviewing all four books, but I am struggling with New Moon – it is definitely the most tiresome of the series. I ordered Marian Keys’ latest novel (The Woman Who Stole My Life). I am really excited about that. As usual I have about ten million reads to get through. I made a list here and haven’t really touched that list yet, so I should likely also focus on that. I think when I have my degree it won’t even be the success of completion that will satisfy me the most, it will be the freedom I have to do what the hell I want.

Favorite links:

Zoe sent me this Thor clip to watch. It is so funny! Mjolnir even has his own bed!

What’s been happening in your life?

September 7, 2016September 2, 2016 by Natasha Categories: 2016, Life, Life Lately, UncategorizedTags: August, Bring It On, Bring it On again, Bring It On In it to win it, cheerleaders, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jake Gyllenhall, Jessica Jones, Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Katy Perry, Kristen Dunst, Kristen Ritter, Life Lately, Marian Keyes, Mark Ruffalo, monthly rundowns, Movies, New Moon, Olympic Games, Reviews, Robert Downey Jnr, Stephanie Meyer, Suicide Squad, The Woman who stole my life, Thor, Twilight, Vampire Diaries, Zodiac 5 Comments

Blindspot 2016: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Plot: When their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a procedure to have each other erased from their memories. But it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with.

Rating: 8.5/10

Phew! I am so glad I finally got to watching one of the movies on my list. I have been terrible so far with Blindspots this year. I don’t know why – maybe I’m just way too busy and a lot of the movies aren’t looking that appealing for me. I’ve had some which really disappointed me – especially Love Actually and Home Alone. But I really want to finish this list even if I’m not doing this run next year. I mean, I really love the theory behind Blindspot, but I am personally way too rushed and disorganized to pull off watching older movies in specific time frames.

Anyway, back to the actual review here. I avoided reading anything about this movie before I watched it. I had heard that it was particularly good, but I had no idea what to expect. It turned out to be an excellent decision, because it has been a while since I found anything to be so refreshing or unique.

The first thing that really impressed me is with how well this movie flowed. It was an effortless move shot to shot. I also really enjoyed that while there were parts of this film that could have been confusing it really wasn’t, and that the mystery didn’t cause confusion because it was so well laid out.

Another thing I really loved was that each actor/actress was in such a different roles they would usually get cast in. Jim Carrey is the star here with an unparalleled performance as the main character. He was painfully sweet and adorable, and just wanted to hug him and make him feel secure. It is standout work here in my opinion, some of the best of his career. Kate Winslet was also enormously surprising. I’ve always admired her work, but I am forever more linking her to Rose in Titanic, and Clementine can’t be more different to the classy Rose. I was always unsure whether I liked Clementine or not. She was dramatic and insecure and mistreated Joel terribly in my opinion. But she was also unique as a character and an entity in Hollywood scripts. It is rare to see such a perplexing oddball female character depicted. Elijah Wood was such a little creep as Patrick. I mean really, what he did was gross. Young Mark Ruffalo is also in here. I’m just loving the guy at this point. He is such a great actor, and I’ve caught a couple of films where he is in lately and every single time I thought him well layered and talented. Stan is really just every young guy around – a little goofy, enjoys his job but still not immune to the temptations life has to offer. He was worth a few chuckles because I just know so many guys like him at this point, though sadly not quite as attractive.As for the last female star, I can never really decide whether I like or dislike Kristen Dunst. I really liked her as Mary Stevo because she refrained from coming across as whining. She was so sweet and light at times, only to have her shocker revealed to her when she least expected it.

There are a ton of other things I really enjoyed – the story especially, but I won’t go into too much here because you want to watch this without spoilers. I also appreciated the length, it was just right. There is also something really feel good about this entire film, an underlying optimism that is absent from so many other films. It is totally worth the watch if you have the time!

September 5, 2016September 2, 2016 by Natasha Categories: Blindspot, Movies, movies, Review, Reviews, UncategorizedTags: Blindspot 2016, Elijah Wood, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Movies, Reviews, Tom Wilkinson 7 Comments

Blindspot 2016: The list

I wanted to say happy Tuesday but since it has long since been established that Tuesdays are actually the real Mondays, I’ll just say: keep strong, friends. I’ve finally managed to pick some Blindspot choices – I actually went through IMDb’s Top 250 and chose a lot of them from there. I should get a post up sometime about what I’ve seen on that list.

Alien (1979)

I know. I’m ashamed.

Aliens  (1986)

Same ↑

Home Alone (1990)

I have no idea why I never saw this as a kid. I’m really interested.

Kill Bill Volume I (2003)

Tarantino is my man of the moment and really looking forward to this. It might be a bit violent for my taste but I am still willing to try.

Kill Bill Volume II (2004)

Same ↑

Back to the Future (1985)

When Back to the Future Day happened last year I hid in my room, ashamed and sad  to not take part in such festivities.

Memento (2000)

What is a Blindspot list from Natasha without a Christopher Nolan education?

To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)

This book wasn’t a part of my education at school (fuck you, Government). I want to get to both the film and the book this year.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

I haven’t really read up about this because I hate spoilers, so really keen to see what it is about.

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Dark fairy tales? IN.

Warrior (2011)

Tom Hardy, my husband. But it also shows up on the IMDb list so it is worth a watch. Can’t wait.

Love Actually (2003)

Because my bestie hated it and everyone else loved it (or most people). So I will go see what I will see.

What did you pick? Link me your posts below 🙂

January 12, 2016January 6, 2016 by Natasha Categories: 2016, Blindspot, Movies, UncategorizedTags: Alien, Aliens, Back to the Future, Blindspot, Christopher Nolan, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Gregory Peck, Guy Pearce, Home Alone, James Cameron, Kill Bill Volume 1, Kill Bill Volume 2, Love Actually, Memento, Pan's Labyrinth, Quentin Tarantino, To Kill a Mockingbird, Uma Thurman, Warrior 11 Comments