OK, it's Monday and I've been back in NYC for a couple days now - Christmas went OK and we drove up to Massachusetts on Christmas Eve, stopped at Foxwoods Casino where I won about $12, but we enjoyed their lovely new, renovated buffet. Then between free hotel breakfast, Christmas turkey dinner and going out with friends, we pretty much ate non-stop for four days straight. As promised, I'm back with my stats and breakdown of The Perfect Year, the Year That Was... well, it was a lot of things, as I'm finding out now, having just spent about 5 or 6 hours trying to break everything down by category.
This is an impossible feat, because in many ways, this was the year of the Mash-Up movie. Normally I'd just list the comedies, the dramas, the Westerns, and go from there, but this was no ordinary year. What am I supposed to do with an animated documentary film - does it belong in the animation category, or with the other docs? What about an animated super-hero film, where does that go? A comedy about Russian politics? Documentaries about American politics? A heist film that's set at a NASCAR race - does that belong under crime or sports? I've got one film about poker AND skiing, and another about boxing AND ballet - and on top of that, I don't remember if alien invasions count as horror or sci-fi, and one alien invasion film also had a fair amount of romance in it, great, where do I put THAT one? And does "Krampus" count as a horror movie, a Christmas movie, or both?
Do you see my problem? So many films were about more than just one thing - and to make matters worse, sometimes there was a documentary AND a fictionalized version of the same thing, like with "Apollo 11" and "First Man". There are other cases, so as a result, I've got like two of everything to break down. OK, so the simple breakdown isn't going to work this year, I've got to get REAL specific, like films based on British literature, or stories that displayed unconventional parenting. And I think I've got to mix the documentaries in with the fiction films, or I'll be here all night - and tomorrow is New Year's EVE! The 2020 chain is about to begin, so I'd better get started.
First off, the stats. Not just what films did I watch, but HOW did I watch them?
Films viewed on cable (and saved to DVD): 112
Films viewed on cable (not saved): 52
Films viewed on Netflix: 58
Films viewed on iTunes: 18
Films viewed on Amazon Prime: 9
Films viewed on Hulu: 9
Films viewed on YouTube: 6
Films viewed on Academy screeners: 25
Films viewed in theaters: 9
Films viewed on purchased DVDs: 2
Yep, that's 300. 164 watched on cable, so more than half. 100 viewed on various streaming services, so that's another 1/3 of them. And Academy screeners were just 1/12 of the total. And I'm glad I got out of the house 9 times, that's a bit low for me, but it was that kind of year. (Disney Plus came into my life too late to make the cut this year.)
Now, what was the best film of 2019, by my reckoning? I've got three films that scored an "8" from me, "Avengers: Endgame", "Spider-Man: Far From Home" and "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker". I'll have to go to the decimal points, and I don't think the new "Spider-Man" film earned any. I'm still processing "Star Wars: Episode IX" and I plan to see it again on New Year's Day, so it's possible that I may not like it as much the second time - but I watched "Avengers: Endgame" again on the flight to Vegas, and I think it held up, so I'm giving that one the nod, best film of the year. Let's say it was close.
Worst film? It appears I've got an 8-way tie for last place, all these films rated a "2" from me: "The Singing Detective", "Peter Rabbit", "Kicking and Screaming", "Spring Breakers", "Trolls", "Movie 43", "Very Bad Things" and "I Feel Pretty". Yes, even in a Perfect Year there were some very imperfect films.
About that Perfect Year, of course that only applies to the linking, my chain that started on January 1, 2019 with "Game Night", then had Jason Bateman carry over to the next film, and Natalie Portman carry over to the film after THAT, and so on for 300 films until I reached "The Grinch" on Christmas Eve. It was a massive feat of organization, I'd been trying for a few years to accomplish this, and I finally came through - it wasn't easy, I had to have back-up plans for my back-up plans. Oh, also I cheated. I think I've been pretty honest about this, like I sat on the reviews for "Dark Phoenix" and "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" for MONTHS because I saw those films in the theaters when they were there, but I had a feeling I would need to use them as crucial links in October. Thankfully, I was right, I would NOT have been able to build a coherent horror chain in October without them. Also, it was very helpful in July to know that I COULD build a chain to the end, at least one path existed that would get me to "Star Wars" and "The Grinch", even if some of the pieces were missing at the time. Then cable TV ran the missing pieces I need, like "Can You Ever Forgive Me" and the new "Predator" film. So what if I had to rebuild the documentary and horror chains on the fly? So worth it.
And if I'm being honest, the Perfect Year chain wasn't 100% Perfect - it ended one film too early with "The Grinch". Now, at the time I planned that as the end point, that film only linked to ONE other film, "Daddy's Home 2", so it seemed like a great place to stop. But, months later, this new Christmas film titled "Klaus" came out, and Rashida Jones could have carried over from "The Grinch" to another Christmas film, only I ran out of slots. So "Klaus" has to be tabled for next year, and I'll have to find another way to link to it. Those are the breaks.
Now, let's get to my Hot Topics for 2019 movies:
1) SUPERHEROES - Might as well start here, with "Avengers: Endgame". I figured out after "Infinity War" that most of the disappeared heroes would be coming back, I just didn't know exactly how. After killing Thanos, the Avengers used Pym particles to travel in time via the quantum realm, visiting key moments in MCU history to assemble a new set of Infinity Stones. Problem was, they traveled back to a time when Thanos was still alive, so they had to face him again. This time, some other Avengers made big sacrifices to bring the others back, so they could all kill Thanos. Again. But man, what a wild ride! The lead-in film was "Captain Marvel" in March, and the lead-out film was "Spider-Man: Far From Home" in July. 23 films in Marvel's Phases 1-3 over 11 years, and now that's over. But nothing's really over, because Phase 4 starts up next year.
Plus I saw the Spider-Man tangent films this year, "Venom" and "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse". I didn't like them as much as some other people did, but "Spider-Verse" won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and it's hard to argue with that - clearly it connected with many people, but come on, Spider-Ham? The spider bitten by a radioactive PIG? What the frick was that?
The X-Men also came to the end of their franchise with "Dark Phoenix", their rights were at Fox, but Disney bought Fox's assets, so there's a chance they may re-boot the X-Men again in a few years, meanwhile I'm waiting to hear if they're going to finally release the "New Mutants" film next spring as planned. Delaying that film TWICE really messed up my plans in 2019, thankfully I was able to recover and maintain the chain.
DC/Warner battled back with "Aquaman", which I enjoyed - and it shared an actor with "Captain Marvel", so it fit right into my chain this year (umm, after I avoided watching it last year...). Some of the DC heroes also appeared in animated form in "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", and in parody form in a speed-dating segment in the comedy anthology "Movie 43".
That just leaves "Glass", which is a superhero-ish film from a different universe, the M.Night-iverse, and combined the characters from "Unbreakable" and "Split" to form a trilogy, but now boom, that one's over, too. I gave that one a 6, for excessively dicking-me-around with its plot.
Next year, in addition to "New Mutants" (I hope), the spotlight falls back on female superheroes, with "Black Widow" and "Wonder Woman: 1984".
2) SCIENCE FICTION - Let's table talk of superheroes for a bit and move on to the next big topic. This last couple weeks of the year has been all about "Star Wars" for me, waiting for the film, watching trailers but trying to avoid spoilers, and then right after getting all my Christmas shopping done and all my cards and CDs in the mail, it was finally OPENING DAY and time to finally find out which narrative threads Episode IX was going to close off, and which questions would remain unanswered, to be the narrative fuel for future novel and comic-book tie-ins. (And they're coming, one about Kylo forming the Knights of Ren, and a hardcover book about the recent activies of the Resistance, for starters...). OK, so maybe "The Rise of Skywalker" wasn't the BEST "Star Wars" film ever in the franchise (I'll need to rewatch it at least one more time to be sure) but J.J. Abrams did pretty well in trying to get back to the agenda he had when he directed Episode 7, and reject some of the nonsense (animal rights, Chewie going vegetarian) that Rian Johnson put into Episode 8. One chapter said Rey's parents were important, the other said they were nobodies - how do you reconcile that? J.J. found a way - was it the BEST narrative solution? Probably not, but at least it's a definitive answer, and we get a resolution to the Reylo relationship, while most other things were left open-ended. Still, it's a satisfying conclusion of sorts to 42 years of filmmaking, 12 features total if you count all the tangential spin-offs.
But I watched some science fiction outside of "Star Wars" too - like "Annihilation", that film with two Star Wars actors, Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac. I recall that was something of an alien-invasion film (more of those in just a minute). I also watched the long-awaited feature version of "A Wrinkle in Time", based on a book that I LOVED as a kid, I read it many times over. The film version was, Eh, OK I guess. Visually stunning, but a film sometimes just doesn't measure up to the way you imagined it when you read the book. Maybe I'm too old now to appreciate it. Another 6 score, which isn't BAD, it's still a passing grade, but it's still not a 7 or 8. Rounding out the Sci-Fi category are "The Core", a film about fixing the planet from within, "The Cloverfield Paradox", about weird events taking place on a space station, and a couple of think-pieces, "Enemy" (a man tracks down his doppelgänger, but I still don't "get" it) and "The Box" (a man offers a couple money if they push a button on a box, which will kill someone they don't know), which I thought had one of the most inventive plots I'd ever heard of. But I think both films just enjoyed being weird, and in both cases, the events that took place didn't live up to their premises.
Then there's "What Happened to Monday", a film set in a future world where multiple children are not allowed, only when identical septuplets are born, their father comes up with an interesting way to hide them in plain sight. And "Sorry to Bother You", which is really a film about racial politics, but it is set in an alternate reality, and if you've seen it, you may realize it has some sci-fi elements to it near the end - but no spoilers here.
2.5) ALIENS and ALIEN INVASIONS - Again, I can't recall what I did in previous years with this topic - do these films count as sci-fi, or as horror? They're a bit of both, so let's deal with them right here in-between.
"Annihilation" was one, "Venom" was another already mentioned, and even "Dark Phoenix" featured aliens coming to Earth, in search of the Phoenix power. Then there's "Alien: Covenant", and "The Predator", the latest installments in two sci-fi franchises. The xenomorphs in "Alien" certainly suggest "horror movie" to me, and they took another stab at following the threads of the "Prometheus" prequel and inching us ever-closer to the storyline of the original "Alien" film - only this time, humans were colonizing another planet and encountered the foul creatures, and of course, it didn't end well. The new "Predator" film featured a rag-tag bunch of failed soldiers coming together to stop the latest hunter alien, in another sequel film that could lead to more sequel installments down the road.
Then there was "The Great Wall", where Matt Damon witnessed the Chinese battling alien monsters during Medieval times. Back in the near-future, aliens also invaded in "The Host" and "A Quiet Place". In "The Host" the aliens took over human bodies, but in "A Quiet Place", they were more interested in EATING human bodies. But the kicker is that those aliens were blind, so humans found a way to survive, provided they didn't make any noise - which we, as a people, are pretty TERRIBLE at doing, so guess what usually happens? We're back to "Alien", where people are food.
It wasn't always about eating humans, though - in "Race to Witch Mountain" the aliens walk among us, they look like us, and they're just trying to get home. They looked like regular teens, and they needed a cab driver's help to get out of Las Vegas - yeah, I know THAT feeling.
3) HORROR FILMS - I can't talk about "A Quiet Place" without also talking about "Bird Box", a nearly identical film (umm, sort of, I think). Remember, I said that this year it felt like there were two of everything, so two post-apocalyptic films where people are threatened by an unseen force, and have to live off the grid to stay alive. And in one film the humans couldn't make any noise, and in the other, they couldn't LOOK at the bad things, or they'd go all crazy and suicidal. The two films were like opposite sides of the same coin, but did we ever really find out what was going on in "Bird Box"? Was the threat a bunch of vicious aliens, or was it more like an invisible virus or something? I think they left it pretty open-ended, which was a bit unfortunate.
But let's also talk about some more conventional monsters, like "Godzilla, King of the Monsters". The big mutated lizard came back with a bunch of his MUTO friends, like Rodan and Mothra and Ghidorah. Again, this neatly followed the last "Godzilla" film, but is also intended to set up future films like "Godzilla vs. Kong". Speaking of giant apes, another film this year was "Rampage", where a gorilla, wolf and crocodile got super-mutated and attacked Chicago. And then the Christmas monster-movie "Krampus" (from the same director as "Godzilla, King of the Monsters) taught us that we need to keep Christmas in our hearts, or a big scary German monster will send evil elves into our houses. OK, good to know.
Another film based on a video-game (like "Rampage") and featuring Dwayne Johnson (like "Rampage") was "Doom", where the Rock and several others fought zombies on Mars. Yep, that happened. And then zombies popped up in two other films, "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse" and "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". Neither really appealed to me, and mixing Jane Austen's novel with a zombie film just didn't work, not even as a mash-up - it was a confusing mess.
Then there were two vampire films, "Let Me In", which was an American re-vamp of the Swedish film "Let the Right One In", and "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation", which had a whole collection of famous monster characters, like the Wolfman, the Invisible Man and the Mummy. I had originally planned to watch a bunch of classic Mummy films this year, but the linking had other plans for me, so they'll have to wait. Anyway, as you can guess from the title, in this installment they all go on vacation, taking a cruise through the Bermuda Triangle to Atlantis.
I watched a couple of horror-comedy mash-ups, too - like "Tucker and Dale vs. Evil", essentially a parody of slasher films. College students mistake the innocent Tucker and Dale for murderous rednecks, but end up dying due to a series of accidents, and the two hicks get blamed. And "Velvet Buzzsaw" was something of a black comedy set in the art world, which also featured a bunch of people getting killed in very inventive ways, perhaps by an evil force - only it's pretentious art critics and gallery owners dying, so who cares?
A couple of films based on Stephen King stories rounds out the topic - "Gerald's Game" and "1922". Neither one is standard horror fare, in "Gerald's Game" a woman gets tied up in a sex game with her husband, only then he has an accident, and she's left tied to the bed. And in "1922" a farmer enlists his son to help kill his wife, and then he has to deal with the guilt, like in Poe's classic story "The Tell-Tale Heart". Finally there's the mash-up of heist film with ghost story "The Vault", and the mash-up of children's animated film with ghost story "Coco", which was a very difficult film to link to, I'd been trying and failing for quite a while.
Because of two planned events - New York Comic-Con and our planned vacation in Las Vegas, I found myself with fewer time in October to watch horror films - but that worked out OK, because the chain I was able to put together wouldn't have filled up a full month anyway. So a shortened chain fit the bill perfectly, and the last-minute inclusion of "The Host" and "The Predator" allowed me to drop several films that didn't really fit with the theme anyway, so there, you see how everything manages to work out? I still had to include "Loving Vincent" and "Alpha" in the chain, and those aren't horror films at all, but at least I dropped the film about golf.
3.5) FILMS ABOUT BIGFOOT (OR YETIS) - Bigfoot is technically a mythical monster, right? Only the three films I watched about him weren't horror films at all - two were animated kids films, like "Coco" was, so maybe they fit here, between horror and animation. The other was a live-action Christmas comedy called "Pottersville", and technically it just had a guy dressing up like Bigfoot to fool people. But in "Missing Link", Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch) was a real character, who after being discovered in Oregon, wanted to go to the Himalayas to meet the Yetis, who he believed to be his family. And "Smallfoot" dealt with an animated tribe of Yetis, who came into contact with humans for the first time, and that rocked their world.
4) ANIMATION - Speaking of animated films, it was also a big year for them, beyond the ones already mentioned ("Coco", "Smallfoot", "Missing Link" and "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse").
Also for the kiddies, there was "Peter Rabbit", "Early Man", "The Shaun the Sheep Movie", "Sherlock Gnomes", "Trolls", "Toy Story 4", "How to Train Your Dragon: the Hidden World", "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", and "The Grinch".
For older teens, there was "Ralph Breaks the Internet", and "Loving Vincent". And for adults, "Revengeance" the documentary "Tower", and the partially-animated "Welcome to Marwen".
(Also partially-animated were "Paddington 2", "Christopher Robin", "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle", and "Mary Poppins Returns", but I'll cover those again under British literature.)
5) FANTASY FILMS - This is another one of those in-between categories, films that aren't really sci-fi, not really horror, they're just, you know, fantastic and sort of out-there. I'll drop them in here, because really, I'm not exactly sure WHERE some of them fit in. I'm talking about films like "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" - is it a comedy, a drama, what the hell was it? It was about a magical toy store that seemed to be sort of alive, and the weird man who ran it, or perhaps let it run him. I'm still scratching my head over this one - and it was the second film I watched in 2019! I just knew it was going to be a very weird year after that.
Then there are the "alt-reality" films - like "Sorry to Bother You" and "The Cloverfield Paradox", which I already addressed - but also "Girlfriend's Day", a film set in an alternate world where society revolved around greeting cards, and greeting card writers were revered as genius poets (let me guess, a greeting card writer wrote that screenplay...) and also, people in that world could not write about emotions unless they experienced them first-hand. That's a bit odd, and an oddly specific plot point.
"The Singing Detective" also depicted another reality, but it was a film-noir fantasy that took place inside a writer's head while he was hospitalized for psoriasis. Yeah, I didn't really understand this one. Equally as vexing was "Mother!", which used a weird story about a couple expecting a baby, and living in a house that gets invaded by visitors as some kind of allegory about God, Mother Earth (or was it Mother Nature), plus Adam, Eve and the religion that humankind forms, which spirals out of control. A very obtuse film if you don't pick up on the allegory.
This brings me to "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote", another film where I wasn't sure what was real and what was fantasy. Terry Gilliam's long-in-development film about an actor who believes he's the fictional character, and his encounter years later with the director who first cast him in the role FINALLY got released to iTunes, so I could see it. I'll always watch a new Gilliam film, though the last two or three have been so far out there that I barely understood them. Dumb it down, Terry!
And the final "fantastic" film was "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald", the second film in that series (spun off from "Harry Potter") with Eddie Redmayne as a magic-user who collects and cares for a menagerie of magical animals. I know there's an audience out there that digs these films, but this episode got WAY too caught up in the politics of magic, but really, what film this year WASN'T about politics, on some level? You may say this was a film about magic-users who are prejudiced against the muggles, but all I saw was a thinly veiled Trumpian analogy about people who wanted to Make Magic Great Again. This leads me rather neatly into the next topic, which is:
6) BRITISH LITERATURE (can I just call it Briterature? or do we prefer "Brit Lit"?) - "Fantastic Beasts" comes from the author of the "Harry Potter" books, J.K. Rowling - so that counts as Brit Lit, but I watched a whole bunch of films this year that also qualified. "Paddington 2", for one, and TWO films tangential to the books of A.A. Milne, "Goodbye Christopher Robin" and "Christopher Robin" (I couldn't link between them, but at least I got to them both in the same year!). One was more fact-based about the life of the world's most famous author's son, and the other was a fiction, about Christopher Robin growing up and getting a job and forgetting how to be a child, as most of us tend to do. But most of us don't see Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore talking to us and moving around...
Then of course there was the awful film "Peter Rabbit", based on the stories of Beatrix Potter, only the film really had very little connection to the original stories, and for some reason told kids that if you're being threatened by a farmer, it's OK to expose him to something he's allergic to. I still want to know WHY he had blackberries on his farm in the first place, if he was so allergic to them. I also watched "Mary Poppins Returns", a sequel to the original Disney film, but also based on the books by P.L. Travers. Also for the kiddies there was "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle", based on "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling, even though Disney released their new version just a year or so before. And finally the animated film "Sherlock Gnomes" based (loosely, of course) on the detective novels from Arthur Conan Doyle (mixed with a little Shakespeare left over from the first film, "Gnomeo & Juliet".).
Doyle's characters also turned up in "Holmes & Watson", which I assume was more of a parody of the Robert Downey Jr. "Sherlock Holmes" movies than a spoof of the detective genre itself, which was a shame. They had the chance to make a great "Airplane"-like parody of Doyle's novels, and they just wasted my time with dick jokes and vomit gags. The 2018 reboot/update of "Robin Hood" was similarly misguided, combining the classic British novel with the elements of a heist film, plus practically giving Robin Hood super-hero like abilities (Hey, kids, he's just like Hawkeye, only he lived in Medieval times and he wasn't an Avenger. Plus he stole stuff, but only from bad people!)
The work of Jane Austen was vulnerable to being mashed-up, too, to create "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", which somehow worked as a concept in a popular paperback novel a few years ago, but man, it just didn't work as a movie. Sure, they turned the Bennet sisters into strong female zombie-killing characters, but the whole structure was off - when the zombie apocalypse hits, people aren't going to keep going to high teas and fancy balls and casually kill a few zombies on the way home, it's going to look more like "The Walking Dead", with nomadic bands of survivors trying desperately to stay out of their way. Set in the same time period (umm, I think?) was "Bright Star", a biopic about the too-short life and love of John Keats. Another one lost to consumption.
6.5) MORE BRITISH LITERATURE, BUT SPECIFICALLY KING ARTHUR - Can you believe I watched FOUR films this year about this fictional king? That's right, you can look back as far as you want into the historical records of kings and queens of Britain, and you're never going to find Arthur, or anyone related to Arthur. Easiest explanation: he didn't exist. So why all the books and movies, then? I think the oldest film that I watched ALL YEAR was "Knights of the Round Table", released in 1956. That film's an absolute mess, if you ask me. It was much easier for me to watch "Camelot", the 1967 musical version of the same story. My mom tried to get me to watch it when I was a kid, but I didn't have the proper attention span for it - so 45 years later (let's say...) I finally made it happen. It's intriguing, especially that bit about Merlin aging backwards, but how exactly does that work?
I also watched the 2004 film "King Arthur", with Clive Owen as Arthur and Keira Knightley as Guinevere - only she was portrayed as some kind of warrior Druid princess (funny, she doesn't look Druish...) who was in league with Merlin. That was a neat way to tie a couple story elements together, plus make her a stronger woman at the same time. This felt like a more modern action movie for sure, but they also monkeyed with the story's timeline by pushing it back closer to the fall of the Roman Empire, implying a transition from centurions to knights. Sure, let's just pretend the Dark Ages never happened. Plus they downplayed the sword-in-the-stone thing, and essentially nixed the whole love triangle between Arthur, Gwen and Lancelot. Is that really the best move?
Finally, there was "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword", the latest update of the tale, released in 2017. In this one Arthur was a street-brawler (thanks to Guy Ritchie) and they REALLY stripped the story down - no Lancelot, no Guinevere, and very little of Merlin. They added a new villain, Vortigern, Uther Pendragon's brother, who usurps the throne and gets rid of Arthur, making it decades before Arthur learns who he is and that he has a claim to be king. Cue the "Rocky"-like training montage and introduce the multi-cultural Knights of the Round Table, and you'll see how far this story has evolved over the years. Arthur has weird flashbacks whenever he holds Excalibur, and Vortigern has weird relations with an evil octopus - God, I wish I were kidding about this.
7) REAL BRITISH ROYALTY - Again, King Arthur wasn't real. But this leads me to talk about films with REAL kings and queens, like (in chronological order, I think) Robert the Bruce in "Outlaw King". He was the King of Scotland starting in 1306, and fought for Scottish independence. You may remember him from a supporting role in "Braveheart", but he deserved a movie of his own.
Robert the Bruce's daughter had a son who was Robert II, and from there you can trace the Scottish lineage down to the title character of "Mary Queen of Scots". Mary had a claim to the British throne, but during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, so really, it was never going to happen. Mary was a Catholic ruler in Protestant Scotland, while Elizabeth was an Anglican ruler in a country that still was upset over the break with the Catholic Church. The simplest solution, I think, would have been for them to swap thrones, but that's not how these royals tend to do things - so the only way to settle it was with a war. While both Queens agonized over whom to marry (umm, maybe don't marry the gay guy? Forget it, who listens to me?) they fought over who deserved to rule Britain, which led to Mary QOS being imprisoned and beheaded, and Elizabeth having no children. BUT that opened the door for Mary's son James to become king (that's James VI of Scotland, aka James I of England). James begat Charles I, who begat Charles II, who was succeeded by his brother James (VII and II), who begat Mary (of William and Mary) who begat Queen Anne.
Queen Anne's reign was depicted in "The Favourite", a film about a servant girl who comes to work at the castle and gets noticed by the Queen (turns out Anne's got an eye for the ladies, and her close personal friend/life partner Sarah is practically running the country.). Queen Anne had been married, but back then all the royal marriages were arranged, and love wasn't even part of the equation. She'd also had like 17 miscarriages trying for an heir, and what the hey, people were gay back then too, they just didn't talk about it as much. Eventually the new girl is in and Sarah's out, but I really didn't understand the ending at all.
Queen Anne died without leaving any children (wow, there's a shocker) so the throne went to her second cousin, George I. A few Georges and a William later we find Queen Victoria (seen in "Holmes & Watson") and then came Victoria's son, Edward VII, then Edward's son, George V, and George's son Edward VIII, depicted in the movie "W.E.". This was the Edward who abdicated the throne for the love of Wallis Simpson, allowing his brother, George VI, to rule (as seen in "The King's Speech", he was also the current Queen's father.). But "W.E." was a very confusing film (umm, directed by Madonna, that could be part of the problem) that tried to use a split-timeline approach to connecting the royal romance of Edward VIII to a more modern story about a woman who falls in love with a Russian security guard. Total narrative fail.
8) WORLD WAR II - Speaking of British history, I had a special focus this past year on World War 2, it being the 75th Anniversary of D-Day and the 80th Anniversary of the start of the war, this felt very appropriate. Three films tacked the war from the British perspective - "Dunkirk", for all its storytelling faults and mucking about with three non-concurrent timelines, did tell the story of one battle from three perspectives - from land, sea and air. Then "Darkest Hour" detailed Churchill's rise to power and the same incident, the "Operation Dynamo" rescue of the soldiers from Dunkirk, from yet another angle. A related film, "Churchill", focused on events closer to the end of the war, when Churchill raised opposition to the D-Day plan, but it still happened and helped the Allied troops to break through the Nazi lines and start to take back France.
The war's effects in other countries were seen, too - "The Zookeeper's Wife" detailed what took place at the Warsaw Zoo, which became a refuge for Jews to hide to escape Nazi persecution. And "Defiance" told a similar story, with Jews hiding in forests in Belarus. Closer to home, "Swing Shift" told the story of American women entering the workforce to make planes while their husbands were off fighting in WW2, and what happened after some men came home, and others didn't.
8.5) OTHER WARS - While I was mainly focused on WW2 this year, stories set in other wars popped up, too. "Flyboys" told the story of American pilots who traveled to France before America joined the war, to train for dogfighting against German aircraft. And part of "Goodbye Christopher Robin" showed A.A. Milne fighting in the trenches of World War I, and suffering PTSD after, though back then they called it "shell shock".
Earlier in January, I had a small grouping of films about more modern wars, like "12 Strong", about the war in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, and "Seal Team Six", about the raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound a few years later. And "13 Hours" documented the notorious incident in Benghazi, which was a bone of contention during the 2016 election. And "Last Flag Flying" told the story of a soldier killed in Iraq, and his body being transported by train, accompanied by his father and other Vietnam veterans. And speaking of Vietnam, in July I watched the documentary "The Fog of War", in which defense secretary McNamara admitted that mistakes were made.
9) AMERICAN POLITICS + HISTORY - While I'm on the topic of modern wars, I managed to watch an advance screener of "Vice", and I was rooting for that one during the Oscars, it was one of the few nominated films I'd seen before the ceremony. I don't think Christian Bale's performance as Dick Cheney got enough attention, because it was a true transformation in appearance and speech, and bear in mind that Bale neither looks nor sounds anything like Cheney. Why George W. Bush and his VP were never brought up on war crime charges, that's a question that still plagues me. OK, so the film won for Best Makeup, it certainly deserved that, but also more. Maybe it was that non-linear narrative thing, which I always complain about (see below) or perhaps people wrote off this film as merely liberal propaganda. But I thought it was very relevant.
Other dramas about Presidents and politicians included "Chappaquiddick" (Teddy Kennedy's accident), "The Front Runner" (Gary Hart's scandal), and "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House" (Nixon's Watergate scandal). But the past was merely prologue, because our current POTUS dominated the headlines, and got impeached late in the year - I got an advance peek at what was to come by watching "Get Me Roger Stone" in July. Stone would be arrested in January and indicted in November, sentencing should happen in February 2020. Stone was also connected to the takedown of New York's governor a few years ago, as seen in the doc "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer". And the scandals and liberal outrage came to a boil in two docs directed by Michael Moore, "Capitalism: A Love Story" and "Fahrenheit 11/9".
Other docs about politics included "Koch", a focus on the late mayor of NYC, "RBG", about the very alive Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg, and "An Inconvenient Sequel", with former VP Al Gore still trying to get people to watch his powerpoint presentation on climate change. I also celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing with two films, a drama ("First Man") and a documentary ("Apollo 11"). Again, it seemed that any story worth telling this year sort of got told twice. Then there was "The Most Hated Woman in America", about the kidnapping of atheist and activist Madalyn Murray O'Hair. (Kidnappings were prevalent this year, but I'll get to those in just a bit.)
10) RELIGION - In addition to that film about the world's most prominent atheist, religion also popped up in the documentary "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief". I'd seen parts of this doc before, but never sat down and watched the whole thing, that was long overdue. This is a fake religion (aren't they all?) based on science-fiction (aren't they all?) but one that's really taken off in the last couple of decades, and somehow got tax-exempt status as it bought up more and more real estate. In the end, is it a business, or is it a cult? (Aren't they all?)
There were also two films about nuns, one serious and one comic. "The Nun's Story" starred Audrey Hepburn as a Belgian woman who enters a convent, becomes Sister Luke, and does missionary work in the Congo. And "The Little Hours" had Aubrey Plaza and others as a bunch of foul-mouthed medieval nuns who get drunk, fool around and practice witchcraft - so two very different films there.
In other religious news, "Eat Pray Love" told the story of a divorced woman who lost everything, yet still somehow could afford to travel to Italy, India and Indonesia to "find herself" and somehow not get fat on Italian pasta. Then she got rich writing a book telling other people how to do the same thing, but that love didn't last - look up to what happened to Elizabeth Gilbert after her travels, and you'll learn a very different story. Speaking of that, I also watched two films about religious gay conversions, one that apparently worked ("I Am Michael") and one that didn't ("Boy Erased"). Again, two sides to every story. Which brings me to:
11) LGBTQ ISSUES - Quite unintentionally, it seems this category gets a little bigger every year. Not that there's anything wrong with that... In addition to the 2 films about gay religious conversion, I finally got around to watching "Moonlight", the Best Picture Oscar winner from 2016 that told the story of a black man's sexual identity journey, via another split timeline (again, see below...).
And two of those films about British royalty had gay characters - "Mary Queen of Scots" and "The Favourite", the latter of which focused on Queen Anne's relationships with women. Emma Stone from that film also appeared in "Battle of the Sexes", about the famous tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King, but it was also about King's relationship with a woman while she was married to a man.
I noticed how the portrayal of gay characters has changed over time, from films like "The Children's Hour" (where teachers accused of being lesbian were ostracized) to "Notes on a Scandal" (where the lesbian schoolteacher was the blackmailing villain - though I'm not sure that's an improvement...). This trend continued to an even more recent film, "Can You Ever Forgive Me?", where two gay characters forged autographs - though in that one, it was more like they just happened to both be gay, so maybe that's a slight step forward.
Things improved slightly in the documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor", when Fred Rogers showed acceptance of an actor on his TV show who was gay, and then of course during romance month I watched "Jenny's Wedding", where a woman came out to her parents and married her partner. There was also a lesbian couple in "Under the Tuscan Sun", but they broke up.
Gender issues were also raised, tangentially, in films like "Missing Link", "Billy Elliot" and "Green Book", though that last one was really more about -
12) RACIAL ISSUES - Not a huge topic this year, like I still have never celebrated Black History Month because I'm always pre-occupied with romance films during February, but the topic came up enough times to warrant a discussion. "Green Book" was front and center, as a black pianist and an Italian bodyguard went on tour together in the South in the 1950's. Spike Lee hated it, pointing out that it was just a reverse "Driving Miss Daisy", but wasn't that, in itself, a sign of cinematic progress? The white guy was the chauffeur for the black guy, there you go, racism solved - only it wasn't. Spike fought back with his own film, "BlacKkKlansman", about an African-American cop who infiltrated the KKK with the help of an undercover white cop. And then there was "Sorry to Bother You", which flipped that script, and had a black tele-marketer pretending to sound white on the phone to become more successful - only that film got really weird at the end, take it from me.
Things weren't all that bad, though - interracial couples were featured in films like "2 Days in New York", "The Week Of", "A Wrinkle in Time" and "The Big Sick". "Moonlight" told the story of a black man growing up and finding his sexual identity, and "Girls Trip" showed us that four black women can go on vacation together in New Orleans and get into just as much fun/trouble as anyone else. And the same goes for the crazy, rich Asians featured in "Crazy Rich Asians". But less fun was had by a Mexican immigrant in "Beatriz at Dinner" and the Iranian immigrant family in "House of Sand and Fog".
Racial tensions also came up in "Suburbicon" (black family in a white neighborhood), "The Hate U Give" (black teen shot by white cops), "Marshall" (black man falsely accused of a crime), "If Beale Street Could Talk" (umm, ditto), "Higher Learning" (race riots on campus) and "Fist Fight" (white teacher bullied by black teacher). The documentary "13th" explained a lot about why this sort of thing takes place in the U.S., how the system has been rigged against African-Americans since shortly after the Civil War.
13) BACK TO SCHOOL - speaking of campus tensions, as seen in "Higher Learning" (college) and "Fist Fight" (high school), my annual round-up of school-based films wasn't just limited to high-school, or to September for that matter. This year I explored every level, from kindergarten in "Toy Story 4", up to an adult going back to college in "Life of the Party". Plus The Rock attended his high-school reunion without any clothes on in "Central Intelligence".
Other films set at colleges were "Mona Lisa Smile", "Kicking and Screaming", and "The Stanford Prison Experiment", covering art history, umm, philosophy (or was it writing?) and psychology. Plus "The Wackness" covered the important last summer before college, a woman went back to work at her college in "Frances Ha", and "Spring Breakers" depicted a spring break that got way out of control.
Meanwhile, Peter Parker went on a summer class trip in "Spider-Man: Far From Home", even though there's really no such thing, and bad high school experiences were detailed in "Notes on a Scandal" and "The Place Beyond the Pines". Then a bunch of adults were trying to get their GED's in "Night School".
As for the younger crowd, that kid who plays Young Sheldon was getting ready to return to elementary school in "Our Souls at Night", the child of a famous author got bullied at boarding school in "Goodbye Christopher Robin", and a family of four children got home-schooled in "The Glass Castle".
14-25) WATCH THIS SPACE -
Jeez Louise, I'm not even half done breaking down the topics of my 2019 films, but I've somehow run out of time. I think the problem was that it took me about 5 or 6 hours just to get all my topics organized, figuring out which films belonged in which categories - and many of them fit in multiple categories, so it's very complicated. But let's face it, I overthought it and I ran out of time. As I write this it's 2 am on January 1, and if I don't publish now then I can't start Movie Year 12 on time.
So many other topics I have to cover from the films of 2019 - like serial killers, bank heists, kidnappings, Russian politics, puppetry, Christmas, mental illness, unconventional parenting, films about actors, artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers, and the giant romance chain that took up all of February and half of March! Plus there were SO many films that didn't follow linear narratives, that I have to call ALL of them out on it. And SO many documentaries! Look, I'm just going to need some more time on this, but I've got to post and then watch my first movie of 2020. I'll skip ahead to the breakdown of who appeared in the most films this past year, because I know you're DYING to find out which former (or current) U.S. President won. But I'll come back and update THIS POST HERE over the next week or so with my takes on the remaining topics.
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How to get on this list - an actor (or non-actor) must have appeared in at least THREE films, and documentaries count, even if archive footage is used. Animated films count too, even though they tend to use only an actor's voice and not image - that's still an appearance. But singing on a song in a film's soundtrack is a vocal appearance, too, only I don't count that - otherwise Paul McCartney and Elton John would always have an edge. Last year I watched a ton of documentaries about rock and roll music, so rock stars that were either interviewed on camera or appeared in concert footage did very well. (McCartney did make the list this time, with fewer appearances than last year, but most other rockers are absent this time around. C'est la vie.)
This year, since I watched a lot of political documentaries, it seems that U.S. Presidents, and to a lesser extent First Ladies, seemed to dominate. Five of the top 6 are Presidents - and in total 11 Presidents made this list, along with four vice presidents and six First Ladies. There's also a fair number of senators, several Supreme Court justices, ex-Gov. Schwarzenegger, a mayor or two, and various political activists. Hell, even Vladimir Putin, Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler made the list, that's just how these things go. Political figures appeared everywhere, even in the fiction films, because using archive footage of a President or V.P. is a quick way to establish a time-frame for an action film.
Other spots on the year-end countdown went to talk-show hosts - Jimmy Carson, Dave Letterman, Oprah, Colbert, Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Whoopi, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and even past hosts like Jay Leno, Regis Philbin, Merv Griffin and Ed McMahon made the cut - these are people who collectively have hosted every comedian and Hollywood actor on their shows, plus poked fun at every political figure, so of course they're going to turn up in documentaries. (James Corden also made the list, but for his acting roles, not with footage from his TV show...) And representing the news division, the list features current news personalities like Wolf Blitzer, Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper, Brian Williams, George Stephanopoulos, Katie Couric, and to set the tone for pieces set in the past, there was Walter Cronkite, Harry Reasoner, John Chancellor, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Barbara Walters, Maria Shriver and even the deposed Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose.
Yeah, about that - this list is by no means meant to be seen as an endorsement of the people on it - I don't care to promote Putin's or Hitler's agenda any more than I have to, but if their footage was used, they made the list. I know we're not supposed to talk about Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose and Michael Jackson any more, nor do I condone any behavior exhibited by Woody Allen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jeffrey Tambor, Kevin Clash, or for that matter, Clarence Thomas, JFK and Hugh Hefner. Hell, Bill Clinton and Trump are serial predators and abusers, and I can't remove them from the list, so I can't really officially blackball anyone. I can't draw the line anywhere that I should, so I'm just listing here, I'm not commenting good or bad on anyone, this is just how many times I saw them in movies this year. If you've got some breaking scandal, this is neither the time or the place.
Other paths to getting on this list? Well, it doesn't hurt to be a famous person that someone's making a documentary about (though that's not a guarantee, neither Roger Ebert, Robin Williams or Richard Pryor qualified for the year-end list). Or you could be a documentary filmmaker who interviews people or narrates your own films - that worked for Alex Gibney and Errol Morris. Another good method is to be friends with or related to Melissa McCarthy - give it a try! Beyond that, it helps to be someone like Nicole Kidman or James Franco, an actor with a long career who's also constantly putting out new work - or someone like Warren Beatty or Jack Nicholson, someone not working now, but their classic stuff tends to pop up in documentaries about Hollywood.
Or you could be a character actor like Richard Jenkins or J.K. Simmons, they always tend to make my list. Oddly, with 6 appearances for Richard Jenkins and 5 for J.K. Simmons, it was something of an off-year for both of them - I expected them to score much higher. But perhaps I've already seen the bulk of their filmographies, and the future belongs to Brian Tyree Henry and Brian D'Arcy James - who can say?
It was also a good year to be in a Marvel movie, whether that was "Avengers: Endgame", "Spider-Man: Far From Home" or even "Dark Phoenix" - many people from those casts made the list in some form. 23 actors from "Avengers: Endgame", 14 from "Spider-Man: Far From Home" and 8 actors from "Dark Phoenix" qualified.
Beyond that, it's pretty random. Nicole Kidman beat Tom Cruise, 9 to 4 (Katie Holmes also beat out Cruise this time around...), and it was Jane Fonda over Peter Fonda, 5 to 3 (but Jane Fonda tied with both Robert Redford AND Lily Tomlin 5-5, with Dolly Parton in third) and Shirley MacLaine tied with Warren Beatty 4-4, so that's a push. And in other scores it's Chevy Chase over Bill Murray (443), Donald Trump beat Alec Baldwin (9-5), Chris Rock beat Adam Sandler (5-3) and it's Mel Brooks over Carl Reiner (4-3). Enjoy the rest of the strange juxtapositions that follows:
15 Appearances:
Bill Clinton - "12 Strong", "Rumor Has It...", "Quincy", "13th", "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", "RBG", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer", "Get Me Roger Stone", "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley", "Always at the Carlyle", "Race to Witch Mountain"
14 Appearances:
Ronald Reagan - "Vice", "20th Century Women", "13th", "Koch", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", "Leaving Neverland", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone", "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley", "Billionaire Boys Club", "Race to Witch Mountain", "Let Me In"
13 Appearances:
Richard Nixon - "Vice", "20th Century Women", "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House", "Apollo 11", "13th", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone", "The Fog of War", "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", "Dogville"
Barack Obama - "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden", "Vice", "Quincy", "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "13th", "Koch", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "RBG", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone", "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley"
11 Appearances:
Johnny Carson - "The Most Hated Woman in America", "The Paperboy", "The Front Runner", "Apollo 11", "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", "Life Itself", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic", "Billionaire Boys Club"
10 Appearances:
George W. Bush - "12 Strong", "Quincy", "Molly's Game", "13th", "Koch", "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "RBG", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
9 Appearances:
Tom Brokaw - "Vice", "The Front Runner", "13th", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Leaving Neverland", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "RBG", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"
James Franco - "Eat Pray Love", "I Am Michael", "Nights in Rodanthe", "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs", "Flyboys", "127 Hours", "Spring Breakers", "The Vault", "Alien: Covenant"
Nicole Kidman - "Aquaman", "Destroyer", "Boy Erased", "The Paperboy", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief", "Filmworker", "Dogville", "The Portrait of a Lady"
Donald Trump - "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden", "13th", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "RBG", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work", "BlacKkKlansman"
8 Appearances:
Hillary Clinton - "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden", "Vice", "13th", "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", "RBG", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Whoopi Goldberg - "Vice", "Quincy", "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Robin Williams: "Come Inside My Mind", "Gilbert", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic", "Top Five"
Oscar Isaac - "Annihilation", "A Most Violent Year", "Suburbicon", "At Eternity's Gate", "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "W.E.", "Triple Frontier", "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
Dwayne Johnson - "Central Intelligence", "The Rundown", "Skyscraper", "Baywatch", "San Andreas", "Rampage", "Doom", "Race to Witch Mountain"
John F. Kennedy - "Chappaquiddick", "The Most Hated Woman in America", "First Man", "Apollo 11", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Get Me Roger Stone", "The Fog of War", "Always at the Carlyle"
David Letterman - "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Life Itself", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", "Gilbert", "Love, Gilda"
7 Appearances:
Bruce Greenwood - "Swept Away", "The Captive", "The Sweet Hereafter", "Gerald's Game", "The Core", "The Place Beyond the Pines", "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House"
Liam Neeson - "The Commuter", "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs", "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House", "The Last Laugh", "Widows", "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker", "Daddy's Home 2"
John C. Reilly - "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Tale of Tales", "The Little Hours", "Stan & Ollie", "The Sisters Brothers", "Ralph Breaks the Internet", "Holmes & Watson"
Barbara Walters - "Vice", "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Gilbert", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic", "Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief"
Oprah Winfrey - "A Wrinkle in Time", "Quincy", "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "Leaving Neverland", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Life Itself", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"
6 Appearances:
Cate Blanchett - "Hanna", "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle", "Notes on a Scandal", "The Gift", "Ocean's Eight", "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"
Steve Buscemi - "The Week Of", "I Think I Love My Wife", "The Death of Stalin", "The Grifters", "Norman", "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"
Rose Byrne - "Peter Rabbit", "Adult Beginners", "Adam", "I Give It a Year", "The Meddler", "The Place Beyond the Pines"
Jimmy Carter - "Vice", "20th Century Women", "13th", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "RBG", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Dave Chappelle - "You've Got Mail", "Quincy", "A Star Is Born", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "The Last Laugh", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic"
Common - "Movie 43", "Ocean's Eight", "Girls Trip", The Hate U Give", "Smallfoot", "John Wick: Chapter 2"
Katie Couric - "Leaving Neverland", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "RBG", "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer", "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley", "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"
Walter Cronkite - "First Man", "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House", "Apollo 11", "Tower", "13th", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Willem Dafoe - "Streets of Fire", "What Happened to Monday", "Vox Lux", "At Eternity's Gate", "The Great Wall", "Aquaman"
Adam Driver - "Frances Ha", "Logan Lucky", "BlacKkKlansman", "Paterson", "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote", "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
Domhnall Gleeson - "Mother!", "Goodbye Christopher Robin", "Peter Rabbit", "Frank", "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
Samuel L. Jackson - "Captain Marvel", "Quincy", "Avengers: Endgame", "Spider-Man: Far From Home", "Glass", "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
Richard Jenkins - "Rumor Has It...", "Eat Pray Love", "The Core", "It Could Happen to You", "Cheaper by the Dozen", "Let Me In"
Diane Lane - "Nights in Rodanthe", "Under the Tuscan Sun", "Paris Can Wait", "Streets of Fire", "Tully", "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House"
Melissa McCarthy - "Love, Gilda", "Life of the Party", "The Happytime Murders", "The Boss", "Central Intelligence", "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"
Nancy Reagan - "Vice", "13th", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Always at the Carlyle"
Julie Walters - "Sherlock Gnomes", "Mary Poppins Returns", "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again", "Paddington 2", "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool", "Billy Elliot"
5 Appearances:
Alec Baldwin - "Mission: Impossible - Fallout", "Paris Can Wait", "A Star Is Born", "BlacKkKlansman", "Always at the Carlyle"
Elizabeth Banks - "Pitch Perfect 3", "Swept Away", "Movie 43", "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", "The Happytime Murders"
Kathy Bates - "P.S. I Love You", "Rumor Has It...", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "The Highwaymen", "The Boss"
Joe Biden - "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "RBG", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley"
George H.W. Bush - "13th", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Jessica Chastain - "A Most Violent Year", "The Zookeeper's Wife", "Molly's Game", "Life Itself", "Dark Phoenix"
Kevin Clash - "Tully", "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "The Happytime Murders"
Robert Downey Jr. - "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "The Singing Detective", "Avengers: Endgame", "Lucky You", "Spider-Man: Far From Home"
Ben Falcone - "Cheaper by the Dozen 2", "Life of the Party", "The Happytime Murders", "The Boss", "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"
Michael Fassbender - "The Light Between Oceans", "The Snowman", "Frank", "Alien: Covenant", "Dark Phoenix"
Laurence Fishburne - "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "Last Flag Flying", "The Mule", "John Wick: Chapter 2", "Higher Learning"
Jane Fonda - "Vice", "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", "Filmworker", "Our Souls at Night"
Rudy Giuliani - "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden", "Koch", "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer", "Get Me Roger Stone", "The Last Laugh"
Jake Gyllenhaal - "October Sky", "Enemy", "Spider-Man: Far From Home", "The Sisters Brothers", "Velvet Buzzsaw"
Ethan Hawke - "Before Sunrise", "Before Sunset", "Before Midnight", "Born to Be Blue", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind"
Katie Holmes - "The Singing Detective", "The Gift", "Logan Lucky", "Ocean's Eight", "Always at the Carlyle"
Brian D'Arcy James - "Molly's Game", "1922", "First Man", "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House", "Dark Phoenix"
Lily James - "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again", "Darkest Hour", "Baby Driver", "Sorry to Bother You", "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"
Martin Luther King Jr. - "13th", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "Life Itself", "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine", "BlacKkKlansman"
Jude Law - "Vox Lux", "Captain Marvel", "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald", "Exit Through the Gift Shop", "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"
Jay Leno - "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Gilbert", "Exit Through the Gift Shop"
Matthew McConaughey - "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past", "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", "The Paperboy", "White Boy Rick", "The Sea of Trees"
Ben Mendelsohn - "Captain Marvel", "The Place Beyond the Pines", "Spider-Man: Far From Home", "Darkest Hour", "Robin Hood"
Jack Nicholson - "Life Itself", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic", "Filmworker", "Always at the Carlyle"
Michelle Obama - "Quincy", "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Robert Redford - "Avengers: Endgame", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", "Our Souls at Night", "The Old Man & the Gun", "Always at the Carlyle"
Chris Rock - "2 Days in New York", "The Week Of", "I Think I Love My Wife", "The Last Laugh", "Top Five"
Arnold Schwarzenegger - "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "Life Itself", "The Rundown"
Martin Scorsese - "The Grifters", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Life Itself", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Trespassing Bergman"
J.K. Simmons - "The Snowman", "The Meddler", "The Front Runner", "The Gift", "Spider-Man: Far From Home"
Stellan Skarsgard - "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again", "King Arthur", "Filmworker", "Dogville", "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote"
Jon Stewart - "The Beaver", "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work", "The Last Laugh", "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"
Lily Tomlin - "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work", "Love, Gilda", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic"
Naomi Watts - "Vice", "The Sea of Trees", "Eastern Promises", "Movie 43", "The Glass Castle"
4 Appearances:
Mahershala Ali - "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "The Place Beyond the Pines", "Moonlight", "Green Book"
Jonathan Aris - "All the Money in the World", "The Death of Stalin", "Bright Star", "Churchill"
Roger Ashton-Griffiths - "Christopher Robin", "The Death of Stalin", "Bright Star", "The Portrait of a Lady"
Eric Bana - "Special Correspondents", "Lucky You", "Hanna", "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"
Warren Beatty - "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Life Itself", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic", "Always at the Carlyle"
Kristen Bell - "Movie 43", "Burlesque", "The Boss", "Ralph Breaks the Internet"
Annette Bening - "Captain Marvel", "20th Century Women", "The Grifters", "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool"
Wolf Blitzer - "Mission: Impossible - Fallout", "Leaving Neverland", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Mel Brooks - "The Last Laugh", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic", "Toy Story 4", "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"
Michael Caine - "Sherlock Gnomes", "Quincy", "The Weather Man", "Dunkirk"
Linda Cardellini - "Avengers: Endgame", "Green Book", "Welcome to Me", "Daddy's Home 2"
Steve Carell - "Battle of the Sexes", "Vice", "Welcome to Marwen", "Last Flag Flying"
Dick Cavett - "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"
Kyle Chandler - "Game Night", "The Spectacular Now", "First Man", "Godzilla: King of the Monsters"
Chevy Chase - "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Life Itself", "Love, Gilda", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic"
Dick Cheney - "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power"
Stephen Colbert - "Quincy", "13th", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer"
Bradley Cooper - "The Place Beyond the Pines", "A Star Is Born", "The Mule", "Avengers: Endgame"
James Corden - "Peter Rabbit", "Trolls", "Ocean's Eight", "Smallfoot"
Billy Crudup - "Eat Pray Love", "Alien: Covenant", "The Stanford Prison Experiment", "20th Century Women"
Tom Cruise - "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back", "Mission: Impossible - Fallout", "Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief", "Filmworker"
Joan Cusack - "The End of the Tour", "Welcome to Me", "Snatched", "Toy Story 4"
Matt Damon - "Suburbicon", "Promised Land", "The Great Wall", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind"
James D'Arcy - "The Snowman", "Avengers: Endgame", "Dunkirk", "W.E."
Rosario Dawson - "The Captive", "Top Five", "Sorry to Bother You", "The Rundown"
Julie Delpy - "Before Sunrise", "Before Sunset", "Before Midnight", "2 Days in New York"
Bruce Dern - "Chappaquiddick", "White Boy Rick", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", "Our Souls at Night"
Stephen Dillane - "Outlaw King", "King Arthur", "Darkest Hour", "Mary Shelley"
Michael Douglas - "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past", "Avengers: Endgame", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"
Joel Edgerton - "Red Sparrow", "Boy Erased", "Life", "King Arthur"
Jimmy Fallon - "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "The Last Laugh", "Gilbert", "Always at the Carlyle"
Vera Farmiga - "The Commuter", "The Front Runner", "Special Correspondents", "Godzilla: King of the Monsters"
Gerald Ford - "20th Century Women", "13th", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Harrison Ford - "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Leaving Neverland", "Always at the Carlyle", "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
Jim Gaffigan - "Chappaquiddick", "Super Troopers 2", "Gilbert", "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"
Richard Gere - "Nights in Rodanthe", "Movie 43", "Norman", "Always at the Carlyle"
Alex Gibney - "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer", "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley", "Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief", "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"
Al Gore - "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"
Carla Gugino - "The Singing Detective", "Gerald's Game", "San Andreas", "Race to Witch Mountain"
Kathryn Hahn - "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "Captain Fantastic", "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"
Tom Hanks - "You've Got Mail", "Quincy", "Filmworker", "Toy Story 4"
Woody Harrelson - "Venom", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "The Highwaymen", "The Glass Castle"
Randy Havens - "Boy Erased", "The Front Runner", "Logan Lucky", "Godzilla: King of the Monsters"
Goldie Hawn - "The Banger Sisters", "Overboard", "Swing Shift", "Snatched"
Salma Hayek - "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Filmworker", "Beatriz at Dinner", "Tale of Tales"
Holly Hunter - "Swing Shift", "The Big Sick", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Trespassing Bergman"
Ed Helms - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "Chappaquiddick", "Tag", "The Clapper"
Christina Hendricks - "Pottersville", "Fist Fight", "Toy Story 4", "Dark Places"
Brian Tyree Henry - "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "White Boy Rick", "Widows", "If Beale Street Could Talk"
Nicholas Hoult - "The Weather Man", "The Favourite", "Dark Places", "Dark Phoenix"
Hugh Jackman - "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "Missing Link", "Movie 43", "The Front Runner"
Michael Jackson - "Quincy", "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Leaving Neverland", "Always at the Carlyle"
Lyndon Johnson - "Apollo 11", "13th", "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", "The Fog of War"
Anna Kendrick - "The Voices", "Trolls", "Pitch Perfect 3", "Drinking Buddies"
Ben Kingsley - "Sexy Beast", "Life", "House of Sand and Fog", "The Wackness"
Ed Koch - "13th", "Koch", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Always at the Carlyle"
John Krasinski - "Promised Land", "13 Hours", "A Quiet Place", "Baby Driver"
Tyler Labine - "Super Troopers 2", "Tucker and Dale vs. Evil", "Flyboys", "The Boss"
Brie Larson - "The Spectacular Now", "Captain Marvel", "Avengers: Endgame", "The Glass Castle"
Jennifer Lawrence - "The Beaver", "Red Sparrow", "Mother!", "Dark Phoenix"
Stan Lee - "Captain Marvel", "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "Venom", "Avengers: Endgame",
Jennifer Jason Leigh - "Annihilation", "The Spectacular Now", "White Boy Rick", "Welcome to Me"
Ron Livingston - "Drinking Buddies", "The End of the Tour", "Shimmer Lake", "Tully"
Kelly Macdonald - "Goodbye Christopher Robin", "Special Correspondents", "Ralph Breaks the Internet", "Holmes & Watson"
Shirley MacLaine - "Rumor Has It...", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", "The Children's Hour", "In Her Shoes"
Rachel Maddow - "13th", "RBG", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone"
John Malkovich - "Velvet Buzzsaw", "Bird Box", "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile", "The Portrait of a Lady"
Eddie Marsan - "Vice", "White Boy Rick", "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle", "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House"
Steve Martin - "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Love, Gilda", "Cheaper by the Dozen", "Cheaper by the Dozen 2"
Joel McHale - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "Adult Beginners", "Game Over, Man!", "The Happytime Murders"
Stephen Merchant - "I Give It a Year", "Sherlock Gnomes", "Movie 43", "The Last Laugh"
Seth Meyers - "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden", "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Always at the Carlyle"
Errol Morris - "The Fog of War", "The Thin Blue Line", "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley", "Life Itself"
Viggo Mortensen - "Eastern Promises", "Captain Fantastic", "Green Book", "The Portrait of a Lady"
Eddie Murphy - "Koch", "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", "Gilbert", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic"
Kumail Nanjiani - "The Big Sick", "Hello, My Name Is Doris", "Fist Fight", "Central Intelligence"
Chris O'Dowd - "Mary Poppins Returns", "Molly's Game", "Loving Vincent", "The Cloverfield Paradox"
David Oyelowo - "A Most Violent Year", "A Wrinkle in Time", "The Paperboy", "The Cloverfield Paradox"
Regis Philbin - "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "Gilbert", "Always at the Carlyle", "Cheaper by the Dozen"
Natalie Portman - "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium", "Annihilation", "Vox Lux", "Avengers: Endgame"
Vladimir Putin - "12 Strong", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Icarus", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Harry Reasoner - "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House", "13th", "The Fog of War", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"
Trevante Rhodes - "12 Strong", "Moonlight", "The Predator", "Bird Box"
Joan Rivers - "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Serial Mom", "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work", "The Last Laugh"
Margot Robbie - "Goodbye Christopher Robin", "Peter Rabbit", "Mary Queen of Scots"
Saoirse Ronan - "Hanna", "Mary Queen of Scots", "The Host", "Loving Vincent"
Maya Rudolph - "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", "Love, Gilda", "Life of the Party", "The Happytime Murders"
Mark Ruffalo - "Rumor Has It...", "Thanks for Sharing", "Captain Marvel", "Avengers: Endgame"
Pablo Schreiber - "13 Hours", "Nights in Rodanthe", "First Man", "Skyscraper"
Amy Schumer - "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley", "The Last Laugh", "Snatched", "I Feel Pretty"
Tye Sheridan - "The Stanford Prison Experiment", "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse", "Dark Places", "Dark Phoenix"
Cobie Smulders - "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back", "Avengers: Endgame", "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", "Spider-Man: Far From Home"
Steven Spielberg - "Quincy", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Filmworker"
George Stephanopoulos - "RBG", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Emma Stone - "Battle of the Sexes", "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past", "Movie 43", "The Favourite"
Hilary Swank - "P.S. I Love You", "The Core", "The Gift", "Logan Lucky"
Jeffrey Tambor - "Under the Tuscan Sun", "The Death of Stalin", "Trolls", "The Last Laugh"
Tessa Thompson - "Annihilation", "Avengers: Endgame", "Sorry to Bother You", "Creed II"
Justin Timberlake - "Trolls", "Wonder Wheel", "Leaving Neverland", "Capitalism: A Love Story"
Matt Walsh - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "Movie 43", "Widows", "Life of the Party"
Jacki Weaver - "The Voices", "Widows", "Life of the Party", "Bird Box"
Brian Williams - "Capitalism: A Love Story", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Gilbert", "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"
Michelle Williams - "Venom", "All the Money in the World", "I Feel Pretty", "Always at the Carlyle"
Jimmy O. Yang - "Crazy Rich Asians", "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", "Life of the Party", "The Happytime Murders"
3 Appearances:
Christopher Abbott - "A Most Violent Year", "Vox Lux", "First Man"
Numan Acar - "12 Strong", "The Great Wall", "Spider-Man: Far From Home"
Christina Aguilera - "Burlesque", "Exit Through the Gift Shop", "Life of the Party"
Woody Allen - "The Last Laugh", "Trespassing Bergman", "Always at the Carlyle"
Joe Alwyn - "Boy Erased", "The Favourite", "Mary Queen of Scots"
Fred Armisen - "Game Over, Man!", "Battle of the Sexes", "The Little Hours"
Rosanna Arquette - "Desperately Seeking Susan", "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding", "Billionaire Boys Club"
Richard Ayoade - "Early Man", "Paddington 2", "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part"
Sarah Baker - "The Meddler", "Smallfoot", "Life of the Party"
Christian Bale - "Vice", "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle", "The Portrait of a Lady"
Ike Barinholtz - "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House", "Snatched"
Jason Bateman - "Game Night", "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium", "Central Intelligence"
Joy Behar - "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Gilbert"
Jamie Bell - "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool", "Billy Elliot", "Defiance"
Osama Bin Laden - "12 Strong", "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden", "Vice"
Emily Blunt - "Sherlock Gnomes", "A Quiet Place", "Mary Poppins Returns"
John Boehner - "Vice", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Cory Booker - "13th", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Douglas Booth - "Loving Vincent", "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", "Mary Shelley"
Richard Brake - "The Death of Stalin", "The Sisters Brothers", "Doom"
Steven Breyer - "Capitalism: A Love Story", "RBG", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Jeff Bridges - "Only the Brave", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Spider-Man: Far From Home"
Josh Brolin - "Only the Brave", "Avengers: Endgame", "Sicario: Day of the Soldado"
Daniel Brühl - "2 Days in New York", "The Zookeeper's Wife", "The Cloverfield Paradox"
Bill Burr - "The Front Runner", "Gilbert", "Daddy's Home 2"
Barbara Bush - "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Jeb Bush - "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Laura Bush - "Quincy", "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power"
Gerard Butler - "P.S. I Love You", "Movie 43", "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"
P.J. Byrne - "Green Book", "The Clapper", "Rampage"
Nicolas Cage - "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "It Could Happen to You", "The Weather Man"
Bill Camp - "Red Sparrow", "Vice", "Molly's Game"
George Carlin - "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work", "The Last Laugh"
Ben Carson - "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Paul Chahidi - "Christopher Robin", "The Death of Stalin", "The Voices"
Gemma Chan - "Captain Marvel", "Crazy Rich Asians", "Mary Queen of Scots"
John Chancellor - "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"
Charlie Chaplin - "The Last Laugh", "Love, Gilda", "W.E."
Jeff Chase - "Baby Driver", "The Rundown", "Dark Places"
Robert Clohessy - "A Most Violent Year", "27 Dresses", "The Place Beyond the Pines"
Toni Collette - "In Her Shoes", "Velvet Buzzsaw", "Krampus"
Clifton Collins Jr. - "Super Troopers 2", "The Vault", "The Mule"
Teddy Coluca - "A Most Violent Year", 'The Week Of", "Top Five"
Jennifer Connelly - "Only the Brave", "House of Sand and Fog", "Higher Learning"
Anderson Cooper - "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief"
Maddie Corman - "Adam", "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding", "Wonder Wheel"
Kevin Costner - "Rumor Has It...", "Molly's Game", "The Highwaymen"
Ted Cruz - "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Billy Crystal - "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Baby Driver"
Benedict Cumberbatch - "Avengers: Endgame", "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle", "Dr. Seuss' The Grinch"
Alan Cumming - "Battle of the Sexes", "Always at the Carlyle", "Burlesque"
Bette Davis - "P.S. I Love You", "Always at the Carlyle", "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"
Viola Davis - "Eat Pray Love", "Nights in Rodanthe", "Widows"
Elizabeth Debicki - "Peter Rabbit", "Widows", "The Cloverfield Paradox"
Jamie Demetriou - "Game Over, Man!", "Sherlock Gnomes", "Paddington 2"
Robert De Niro - "Life Itself", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Trespassing Bergman"
David Denman - "13 Hours", "The Singing Detective", "Logan Lucky"
Princess Diana - "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "Leaving Neverland", "Always at the Carlyle"
Cameron Diaz - "In Her Shoes", "Very Bad Things" ,"The Box"
Kim Dickens - "The Gift", "House of Sand and Fog", "The Highwaymen"
Ann Dowd - "Captain Fantastic", "Norman", "It Could Happen to You"
Robert Duvall - "Lucky You", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Widows"
Shelley Duvall - "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Filmworker", "The Portrait of a Lady"
Kate Easton - "Last Flag Flying", "Ocean's Eight", "You Were Never Really Here"
Zac Efron - "The Paperboy", "Baywatch", "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile"
Carmen Ejogo - "Alien: Covenant", "Born to Be Blue", "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"
Chris Evans - "Captain Marvel", "Avengers: Endgame", "Spider-Man: Far From Home"
J.D. Evermore - "The Paperboy", "First Man", "The Host"
Jon Favreau - "Avengers: Endgame", "Spider-Man: Far From Home", "Very Bad Things"
Will Ferrell - "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", "Holmes & Watson", "Daddy's Home 2"
Flea - "Boy Erased", "Baby Driver", "Toy Story 4"
Peter Fonda - "The Most Hated Woman in America", "Life Itself", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"
Jamie Foxx - "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", "Robin Hood", "Baby Driver"
Nelson Franklin - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "Battle of the Sexes", "Captain Marvel"
Zach Galifianakis - "A Wrinkle in Time", "Missing Link", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Peter Gallagher - "Adam", "Hello, My Name Is Doris", "Burlesque"
Brad Garrett - "Christopher Robin", "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work", "Ralph Breaks the Internet"
Ricky Gervais - "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "Special Correspondents", "The Last Laugh"
Mel Gibson - "The Singing Detective", "The Beaver", "Daddy's Home 2"
Newt Gingrich - "13th", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer"
Ruth Bader Ginsburg - "Capitalism: A Love Story", "RBG", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Adam Goldberg - "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", "Before Sunrise", "Higher Learning"
Barry Goldwater - "Rumor Has It...", "Get Me Roger Stone", "The Fog of War"
Gilbert Gottfried - "The Last Laugh", "Life, Animated", "Gilbert"
Richard E. Grant - "The Portrait of a Lady", "Can You Ever Forgive Me?", "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
Seth Green - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "Godzilla: King of the Monsters", "Krampus"
Max Greenfield - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "Hello, My Name Is Doris", "The Glass Castle"
Judy Greer - "27 Dresses", "Pottersville", "Our Souls at Night"
Merv Griffin - "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", "Love, Gilda", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic"
Greg Grunberg - "A Star Is Born", "The Cloverfield Paradox", "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
Tiffany Haddish - "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", "Night School", "Girls Trip"
Bill Hader - "Love, Gilda", "Toy Story 4", "Ralph Breaks the Internet"
Jon Hamm - "Tag", "Baby Driver", "Always at the Carlyle"
Naomie Harris - "Moonlight", "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle", "Rampage"
Kevin Hart - "Night School", "Top Five", "Central Intelligence"
Elisabeth Hasselbeck - "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Gilbert"
Scott Haze - "Only the Brave", "Venom", "The Vault"
Hugh Hefner - "Life Itself", "Gilbert", "Love, Gilda"
Shirley Henderson - "Tale of Tales", "Stan & Ollie", "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
Jim Henson - "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"
Audrey Hepburn - "The Nun's Story", "Paris When It Sizzles", "The Children's Hour"
John Michael Higgins - "Pitch Perfect 3", "The End of the Tour", "Shimmer Lake"
Jonah Hill - "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot", "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"
Ciaran Hinds - "Red Sparrow", "First Man", "Race to Witch Mountain"
Adolf Hitler - "Defiance", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Darkest Hour"
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith - "The Commuter", "Mary Poppins Returns", "Paddington 2"
Tom Holland - "Avengers: Endgame", "Spider-Man: Far From Home", "The Lost City of Z"
Tom Hollander - "Hanna", "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle", "Bird Box"
Lester Holt - "Leaving Neverland", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Djimon Hounsou - "Aquaman", "Captain Marvel", "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"
Rosemary Howard - "Promised Land", (CUT: "Super Troopers 2", "The Sea of Trees"), "The End of the Tour", "Glass"
Billy Howle - "Dunkirk", "Outlaw King", "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
Charlie Hunnam - "The Lost City of Z", "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword", "Triple Frontier"
Bonnie Hunt - "Toy Story 4", "Cheaper by the Dozen", "Cheaper by the Dozen 2"
Toby Huss - "Girlfriend's Day", "Destroyer", "The Front Runner"
Poorna Jagannathan - "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding", "Thanks for Sharing", "The Weather Man"
Peter Jennings - "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "13th", "RBG"
Steve Jobs - "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley", "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine", "Always at the Carlyle"
Scarlett Johansson - "Captain Marvel", "Avengers: Endgame", "Spider-Man: Far From Home"
Jake Johnson - "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "Tag", "Drinking Buddies"
Alex Jones - "Vice", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Damon Jones - "Life of the Party", "The Happytime Murders", "The Boss"
Toby Jones - "The Snowman", "Christopher Robin", "Tale of Tales"
Rashida Jones - "Quincy", "Tag", "Dr. Seuss' The Grinch"
Noah Jupe - "Suburbicon", "A Quiet Place", "Holmes & Watson"
Dennis Keiffer - "The Happytime Murders", "The Rundown", "Bird Box"
Anthony M. Kennedy - "Capitalism: A Love Story", "RBG", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Jacqueline Kennedy - "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Always at the Carlyle"
John Kerry - "Molly's Game", "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer"
Keegan-Michael Key - "Toy Story 4", "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation", "The Predator"
Greg Kinnear - "You've Got Mail", "Movie 43", "The Gift"
Zoe Kravitz - "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"
David Krumholtz - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs", "Wonder Wheel"
Matt Lauer - "The Beaver", "Leaving Neverland", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Greta Lee - "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "Pottersville", "Top Five"
Thomas Lennon - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", "Pottersville"
Joe Lieberman - "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone"
John Lithgow - "Pitch Perfect 3", "Beatriz at Dinner", "Daddy's Home 2"
Robert Longstreet - "Aquaman", "The Old Man & the Gun", "Sorry to Bother You"
Matt Lucas - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "Sherlock Gnomes", "Missing Link"
Natasha Lyonne - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "Hello, My Name Is Doris", "Girlfriend's Day"
Billy Magnussen - "Game Night", "The Meddler", "Velvet Buzzsaw"
Bill Maher - "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work"
Matthew Maher - "A Most Violent Year", "Captain Marvel", "Wonder Wheel"
Steve Mallory - "Life of the Party", "The Happytime Murders", "The Boss"
Thomas Mann - "The Stanford Prison Experiment", "Welcome to Me", "The Highwaymen"
James Marsden - "27 Dresses", "The Box", "Welcome to Me"
Garry Marshall - "Overboard", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Race to Witch Mountain"
Stacy Martin - "Vox Lux", "All the Money in the World", "Tale of Tales"
James McAvoy - "Sherlock Gnomes", "Dark Phoenix", "Glass"
Paul McCartney - "Quincy", "Filmworker", "Always at the Carlyle"
Ed McMahon - "The Most Hated Woman in America", "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "The Weather Man"
Scoot McNairy - "Promised Land", "Frank", "Destroyer"
Ian McShane - "John Wick: Chapter 2", "Pottersville", "Sexy Beast"
Kenneth Miller - "Only the Brave", "12 Strong", "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden"
Logan Miller - "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past", "The Stanford Prison Experiment", "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse"
Christopher Mintz-Plasse - "Trolls", "Movie 43", "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"
Al Mitchell - "Tag", "The Hate U Give", "Billionaire Boys Club"
Matthew Modine - "Sicario: Day of the Soldado", "Revengance", "Filmworker"
Alfred Molina - "Vice", "The Front Runner", "Ralph Breaks the Internet"
Michael Moore - "Capitalism: A Love Story", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Life Itself"
Chloe Grace Moretz - "Movie 43", "Dark Places", "Let Me In"
Jeffrey Dean Morgan - "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding", "P.S. I Love You", "Rampage"
Tracy Morgan - "Fist Fight", "The Clapper", "Top Five"
Bill Murray - "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III", "Love, Gilda", "Always at the Carlyle"
Franco Nero - "John Wick: Chapter 2", "The Lost City of Z", "Camelot"
Nick Offerman - "The Hero", "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", "The Little Hours"
Frank Oz - "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story", "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey", "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
Gwyneth Paltrow - "Thanks for Sharing", "Avengers: Endgame", "Higher Learning"
Randall Park - "The Meddler", "Aquaman", "Snatched"
Chris Parnell - "Battle of the Sexes", "Life of the Party", "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"
Dolly Parton - "Koch", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic"
Pedro Pascal - "The Great Wall", "Triple Frontier", "If Beale Street Could Talk"
Robert Pattinson - "Life", "The Lost City of Z", "Filmworker"
Sarah Paulson - "Ocean's Eight", "Glass", "Bird Box"
Michael Peña - "12 Strong", "A Wrinkle in Time", "The Mule"
Mike Pence - "Vice", "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Wayne Pére - "Venom", "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House", "Billionaire Boys Club"
Joaquin Phoenix - "The Sisters Brothers", "You Were Never Really Here", "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot"
Chris Pine - "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "A Wrinkle in Time", "Outlaw King"
Chris Pratt - "Avengers: Endgame", "Movie 43", "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part"
Jack Quaid - "Logan Lucky", "Smallfoot", "Rampage"
Dan Rather - "13th", "Get Me Roger Stone", "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"
Vanessa Redgrave - "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool", "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold", "Camelot"
Carl Reiner - "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "The Last Laugh", "Toy Story 4"
Keanu Reeves - "The Gift", "John Wick: Chapter 2", "Toy Story 4"
Andrea Riseborough - "Battle of the Sexes", "The Death of Stalin", "W.E."
Krysten Ritter - "27 Dresses", "The Hero", "Mona Lisa Smile"
Tim Robbins - "Thanks for Sharing", "I.Q.", "Welcome to Me"
Julia Roberts - "Mona Lisa Smile", "Eat Pray Love", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Stephen Root - "Hello, My Name Is Doris", "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs", "Life of the Party"
Charlie Rose - "Fahrenheit 11/9", "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley", "Top Five"
Jeffrey Ross - "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work", "The Last Laugh", "Gilbert"
Isabella Rossellini - "Life Itself", "Trespassing Bergman", "Enemy"
Meg Ryan - "I.Q.", "Addicted to Love", "You've Got Mail"
Bernie Sanders - "13th", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Adam Sandler - "The Week Of", "Top Five", "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"
Liev Schreiber - "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "Movie 43", "Defiance"
Seann William Scott - "Super Troopers 2", "Movie 43", "The Rundown"
Chloe Sevigny - "The Snowman", "Dogville", "Beatriz at Dinner"
Garry Shandling - "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work", "Love, Gilda"
Michael Shannon - "12 Strong", "Lucky You", "Pottersville"
Al Sharpton - "Koch", "Leaving Neverland", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Harry Shearer - "Life Itself", "The Last Laugh", "Love, Gilda"
Charlie Shotwell - "All the Money in the World", "Captain Fantastic", "The Glass Castle"
Kenny Sheard - "13 Hours", "12 Strong", "John Wick: Chapter 2"
Maria Shriver - "The Front Runner", "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley"
Mitch Silpa - "Welcome to Me", "The Happytime Murders", "The Boss"
Sarah Silverman - "Battle of the Sexes", "The Last Laugh", "Ralph Breaks the Internet"
John Slattery - "Mona Lisa Smile", "Avengers: Endgame", "Churchill"
Kodi Smit-McPhee - "Let Me In", "Alpha", "Dark Phoenix"
J.B. Smoove - "Movie 43", "Spider-Man: Far From Home", "Top Five"
Sam Spruell - "The Voices", "Defiance", "Outlaw King"
David Steinberg - "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "The Last Laugh", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic"
Daniel Stewart Sherman - "I Think I Love My Wife", "The Box", "Marshall"
Meryl Streep - "Mary Poppins Returns", "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again", "Baby Driver"
Cecily Strong - "The Meddler", "Love, Gilda", "The Boss"
Billy Slaughter - "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back", "Billionaire Boys Club", "The Highwaymen"
Rich Sommer - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", "Hello, My Name Is Doris", "Girlfriend's Day"
Sebastian Stan - "Avengers: Endgame", "Destroyer", "Logan Lucky"
Roger Stone - "Fahrenheit 11/9", "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer", "Get Me Roger Stone"
Mickey Sumner - "Battle of the Sexes", "Frances Ha", "The End of the Tour"
Channing Tatum - "Logan Lucky", "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", "Smallfoot"
Juno Temple - "Wonder Wheel", "The Most Hated Woman in America", "Notes on a Scandal"
Olivia Thirlby - "Chappaquiddick", "The Wackness", "The Stanford Prison Experiment"
Clarence Thomas - "Capitalism: A Love Story", "RBG", "Fahrenheit 11/9"
Marisa Tomei - "Avengers: Endgame", "Life Itself", "Spider-Man: Far From Home"
John Travolta - "The End of the Tour", "Gilbert", "Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief"
Stanley Tucci - "The Core", "It Could Happen to You", "Burlesque"
Alan Tudyk - "Tucker and Dale vs. Evil", "Welcome to Me", "Ralph Breaks the Internet"
Annabelle Wallis - "Tag", "W.E.", "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"
Kate Walsh - "Under the Tuscan Sun", "Girls Trip", "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House"
Katherine Waterston - "Alien: Covenant", "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald", "Logan Lucky"
Celia Weston - "Adult Beginners", "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", "The Box"
Shea Whigham - "Vice", "First Man", "Sicario: Day of the Soldado"
Ben Whishaw - "Mary Poppins Returns", "Paddington 2", "Bright Star"
Forest Whitaker - "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind", "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", "Sorry to Bother You"
Isiah Whitlock Jr. - "Thanks for Sharing", "The Old Man & the Gun", "BlacKkKlansman"
Kristen Wiig - "Mother!", "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World", "Welcome to Me"
Gene Wilder - "The Last Laugh", "Love, Gilda", "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic"
Bruce Willis - "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part", "Always at the Carlyle", "Glass"
Alan Zweibel - "The Last Laugh", "Gilbert", "Love, Gilda"
Now, for the movies I didn't get to: this is a bit of an odd list, and it's here because I changed my path so many times this year, in order to maintain my linking. At least five times, maybe more. So here are the films that, for one reason or another, were part of the plan at one point, but then didn't get watched. Hey, there's always next year, right? And since I ended up with one continuous linked chain for the first time, I can't be too mad that I didn't get to see these films - if I had, maybe I would have broken my chain! We'll never know...but here's a shout-out to what I didn't watch:
"Warrior" - due to a recording error on my DVR. "Joker" - because it was released too late in the year, and I didn't have time to change my plans around. "Shazam!" - because it didn't link to anything on my list when it was playing in theaters. "Hellboy" - this one was also in theaters, but it disappeared so quickly, I never got the chance to see it. Same goes for "MIB: International". I could have seen "John Wick: Chapter 3", and fit in between two Ian McShane movies, but I think I ran out of summer slots. "The Circle" - I thought this would be a natural way to link to "Toy Story 4" via Tom Hanks, but the chain had other ideas. "The Perfect Score" - it linked to "Avengers: Endgame" via two actors, but really, what didn't? "Project Almanac", and about 7 other films about time travel, because they hardly link to anything at all... 9 old horror films about mummies that I taped off of TCM, but don't form a coherent chain - I could only link these by character, and not by actor. "Willard" and "Ben" - same deal, they link to each other, but not to anything else. Same goes for "The Blind Side" and "Bad Santa 2", although with so many other films starring Christina Hendricks this year, I really should have fit "Bad Santa 2" in somewhere, only none of her other films were close to Christmas time. "Call Me By Your Name" - I had a problem with an Academy screener that wouldn't play back in 2018, and it ran on cable this year, but I just couldn't find a place for it.
I had to drop a few films that DID fit in - only I didn't have enough slots, and something just had to go, namely "The Equalizer 2", "I Love You, Daddy", and "It: Chapter Two". That last one would have involved a trip to the theater, and I was much too busy in October, with NY Comic-Con and a Vegas vacation. By next October it will probably be running on cable, and I can build a chain around it then. I had to drop a few animated films from this October's chain, too, like "Ferdinand" and "Leap!", plus "The Killer Inside Me" and "The Greatest Game Ever Played", but I think the resulting horror chain was much stronger because of that. I dropped "Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?" from my documentary chain, and I think that was another smart move. I avoided the new Disney "live-action" versions of "Dumbo", "Aladdin" and "The Lion King", but they're all still on my list, and now that I have Disney+, they're free to watch, right?
So the good news is that all of these films are STILL on my list, or on one of my many lists, and whether they're available to me on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, cable or Academy screeners, I'm still tracking them all - plus all the other films from 2017, 2018 and 2019 that I wasn't able to get to, or were put on the back-burner by my inefficient linking system. But I've got a rough plan that should get me to about Mid-March, and that includes seeing films like "Joker" and "The Irishman" in January, also "Shazam!" and a bunch of other DC Comics films, plus "Pacific Rim: Uprising", "Bad Times at the El Royale" and even "Mortal Engines" -
Then in February I can start another romance-themed chain that could last until Mid-March, that's how many films on this topic I have, but extending the chain past February worked out well for me in 2019, so I may try that again. As you might expect, there's a bunch of Sandra Bullock films, several Reese Witherspoons, three Scarlett Johanssens, a couple Katherine Heigls, even a few Diane Keatons, Mary Steenburgens and Kevin Klines. The tentative end of that chain links to the "Tomb Raider" reboot, and I haven't figured anything out beyond that, but I'll have to just block it out when it gets closer, it's still very far off, and a lot can change between now and then. But I'd like to also get to films like "The Dark Tower", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Rocketman", "The Girl in the Spider's Web", "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women", "Johnny English Strikes Again", "Cold Pursuit", and then maybe a few Bergman films if I can arrange it. And I'm working on a Hitler-themed chain for April, if you can believe that.
Beyond that, I'm willing to go almost anywhere that the chain wants to take me. Yes, I make the chain but sometimes the linking takes over and leads me with it, oddly enough, and that worked out pretty well in 2019. So let's do it again, in just a few days - I've got my starting point picked out and I'll watch (just about) anything I haven't seen before at this point. Who knows, maybe I'll finally get to those "Twilight" films in 2020?
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
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