Yes, the worst excuse to recommend movies is back.

This is a weird year for me. Three big franchises started, all of which have gone on long enough to go fully off the rails. I guess four franchises but one of them isn’t trying to force new movies out anymore. We have three Takashi Miike movies that I felt were worthy of consideration. DreamWorks Animation established itself as a real competition to Pixar and Disney, although none of them release enough movies to real have to compete with each other. There’s some very interesting movies from the world cinema ranging from absurd comedy to horror to drama.

Some movies I considered but decided not to include:

Black Hawk Down, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge!, Monsters, Inc., Shrek, Training Day, Super Troopers, Bijitâ Q, Yeopgijeogin geunyeo, Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India, Zoolander, La Ciénaga, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Donnie Darko, Ocean’s Eleven, The Royal Tenenbaums, Y tu mamá también, Atanarjuat, The Fast and the Furious, A Beautiful Mind, Wet Hot American Summer, Koroshiya 1.

I know this is a wild list. It doesn’t stand to reason that the first LotR is discarded this way. Yet, here we are. It’s a good movie but it has never really done it for me and this is a very subjective list you shouldn’t take seriously. The movies closest to getting in were actually…

• Black Hawk Down is very good but also forever stained by the stench of US Army involvement. Yes, I understand that it is very hard to make these kinds of movies without that but you know what? I’m happier without propaganda
• La Ciénaga is also an excellent movie but it is kind of slow in a way that doesn’t really feel satisfying to me. I don’t know. Maybe I should have.
• Zoolander has had huge cultural impact. I still hear Blue Steel being mentioned without any other reference.

With that in mind, let’s get to the actual movies.

Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain or Amelie

The easiest choice. I was at a stage in my life where I was actively looking for something different regarding movies and then I saw this weird little gem of a movie where everything is just wonderful. Sure, in some ways it goes against my personal aesthetics and my usual appreciation of everything dark but that is another point for it. It is so fascinating and charming that it can melt the heart of even someone like me.

Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi or Spirited Away

This should have been the easiest choice, really. There’s only two family movies on the Sight & Sound Critics’ Poll of 2022. The other being My Neighbor Totoro. That is how big Miyazaki is. He is the only director who has been able to make a family movie that has made such a strong impression on viewers that it can get a significant amount of votes in a poll like that. And he did it twice.

No Man’s Land

Two soldiers, from different sides, get stuck between the lines together. It’s satire about the absurdity of war as well as how bureaucratic all of this can get. You don’t often see movies from Bosnia and Herzegovina and you don’t expect to see a movie from there win an Oscar (the one that often feels like the most important one to me).

Siu Lam juk kau or Shaolin Soccer

Okay, if No Man’s Land is absurd satire, this is just absurd comedy. A team of shaolin practitioners come together to form a soccer team and win the league, including the evil team known as Team Evil. Of course. There’s a love story, some philosophy and everything you might want from a martial arts sports movie.

El espinazo del diablo or The Devil’s Backbone

Early Guillermo del Toro. This is just a horror movie with some great visuals and a politically charged setting. Del Toro is very hit or miss for me. So often there’s great world building and mood but also so often there’s just something intangible missing. This one, on the other hand, is just great.

Katakuri-ke no kôfuku or The Happiness of Katakuris

The least disturbing of the Takashi Miike movies I considered for this. And the weirdest, which is a strong statement considering his work.

Mulholland Dr.

I assume there’s no explanation needed? I guess if I just put aside the first LotR movie, I should explain this. This is a top ten Sight & Sound Critics’ Poll movie. While it took me a while to warm up to this (and Lynch’s work in general), the mystery of this movie is just great. The discourse around this movie is both to it’s benefit and detriment. So often it just devolves into trying to figure out the mystery, as if the movie was about that.

Sennen joyû or Millennium Actress

Admittedly, I always mix this up with Perfect Blue and Paprika (although certain scenes from Paprika are always clearly from that specific movie), two other movies from the same director. They are all quite weird. I probably shouldn’t get them mixed, because they are all quite singular movies. This one being about a journalist and his cameraman traversing through the memories of the titular actress. Even more weirdness here. Honestly, this whole list has been very, very weird.

The Others

Okay, this is more straightforward then most of the movies on this list. No twist here. Wink, wink.