I write this post every year to acknowledge some of the movies that I've made a conscious decision to skip watching. In some cases there's a reason, and in some cases there's just a lack of enthusiasm. I've got very strong completionist tendencies, so I hope writing about some of these films this way will help me put any lingering doubts to rest. So, here are eight films below that didn't make the cut this year. I reserve the right to revisit and reverse my viewing choices in the future. However, I still haven't watched anything from last year's list.
Mean Girls - Specifically, this is the "Mean Girls" musical adaptation that was originally supposed to be a streaming only release on Paramount+. I'm glad that this did well for everybody involved, but I wasn't the biggest fan of the original "Mean Girls" and have no interest in a musical version. The reviews were middling and there wasn't much of a marketing campaign. I also skipped the filmed version of the "Waitress" musical released around the same time.
Sasquatch Sunset - I like the idea of the Zellner brothers making an absurdist nature documentary spoof, following a nonverbal sasquatch family in the wilderness for a year. I just don't have any urge to actually watch this, especially since some of the sasquatch hijinks involve getting drunk and various sexual adventures. Reviews were good, and I'm sure that there's an audience for this, but I can't shake my suspicions that this is really a lowbrow sex comedy in arthouse drag.
Bob Marley: One Love - I've been avoiding most musician biopics lately, and the only reason this was ever on my radar was because the box office for "Bob Marley: One Love" was unusually high. I also generally enjoy Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch in just about anything. However, the reviews were dismal with the consensus being that this was a very typical musician biopic that didn't do anything interesting like use Lego animation or replace Bob Marley with a CGI ape.
Christmas Eve in Miller's Point - A tiny indie film about a family's holiday gathering that was championed by several critics, and roundly dismissed by others. This seemed promising, but after watching the trailer, I just felt exhausted. Endless family gatherings are something I don't particularly look forward to, and being stuck at someone else's family gathering for two hours seemed like a dire prospect. So send my regrets to Michael Cera and company, but I'm declining the invitation.
The Six Triple Eight - I can only take so many streaming prestige projects about the black struggle per year. So I watched "Blitz" and "The Piano Lesson," and totally ignored Tyler Perry's star-studded "The Six Triple Eight." Call me a snob if you must for not giving Perry a chance - especially with the movie getting very decent reviews - but I'd much rather watch the 2019 documentary about the 6888th than the dramatization. Still, this is the film on this year's list I was closest to sitting down with.
Madam Web and Kraven the Hunter - I watch just about all the big action blockbusters because I use them as palate cleansers. However, I finally reached the end of my patience with the Sony Spider-man adjacent films. "Madam Web" and "Kraven the Hunter" have no shortage of talented people involved, and I just couldn't bring myself to sit through more movies that I knew were going to totally waste them. I did, however, watch "Venom 3," which was better than I was expecting.
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter I - I take issue with Kevin Costner trying to make me watch half of a six hour miniseries on the big screen instead of the small screen. This was already going to be a hard sell because it's a western, and a "Chapter I," and three hours long, but Kevin Costner went and cast himself in the lead role. Reviews were okay, and "Chapter II" is reportedly better, but this one just has too many strikes against it.
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