The 2019 Movies I Didn't See

I write these posts every year to sort out my feelings toward some of the more prominent movies I've made a conscious decision to skip watching. I'm working through the last handful of 2019 films on my "To Watch" list, mostly foreign films with later domestic release dates. However, as my Top Ten list has been set for a while, and the queue of 2020 films is only getting longer, it's time to make some hard decisions.

Below are seven movies 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.

"Gloria Bell" and "The Upside" - Both of these films are remakes of foreign films that I've already seen, the original Brazilian "Gloria Bell" from 2013 and the French "Intouchables" from 2011. I'm more interested in "Gloria Bell," because it kept the same director, Sebastián Lelio, got much better critical notices, and stars Julianne Moore. However, neither of the original films impressed me in the first place, and I have no interest in seeing American takes. "Intouchables" in particular strikes me as the kind of sappy, tropey racial harmony parable that I've had more than enough of.

"Tolkien" - I think the marketing campaign borrowing so much from Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" films is what really turned me off from this. It's another literary biopic that draws parallels between the life of the profiled author and the books they would go on to write. There was an earlier project announced a few years ago that would have dramatized the friendship between Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, but that one didn't go forward, to my disappointment. This one reportedly sticks to Tolkien's early years, and seems to have been roundly ignored by everyone as a bore.

"Dragged Across Concrete" - I've watched only one of S. Craig Zahler's previous films, "Brawl in Cell Block 99," and I'm not ready for another one. Zahler makes very violent, very gory films that push boundaries and delight in making viewers uncomfortable. "Dragged Across Concrete" has gotten decent reviews, and I'm usually a fan of crime and heist films, but I am extremely wary of this one. The content is way out of my comfort zone, the pace is reportedly slow, and the running time is over two and a half hours. Good luck to Mel with the comeback, but I'm not subjecting myself to this.

"Good Boys" - I'm sure this is a good film, however, it's one of those coming-of age comedies full of R-rated content that I just find tedious. Writer/Directors Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky's credits include "The Office" and "Hello, Ladies," and I've liked lead actor Jacob Tremblay in everything I've seen him in. However, the prospect of watching a trio of profane sixth grade boys getting into escapades just fills me with utter disinterest. I'm happy that it made a lot of money and made a case for more original comedies, but I am not the audience for this film and I'm perfectly okay with that.

"Midway" - I do like a good Roland Emmerich disaster film, and this one didn't get horrible reviews. They were bad, but not horrible. The movie was a crowd pleaser and did well. However, I've watched an awful lot of epic war films from the '60s and '70s recently, and I can't muster up any enthusiasm for this one. I haven't seen the original "Midway" from 1976, which wasn't a particularly well received film to begin with, and notoriously reused footage from other films. The big draw of that film was an all-star cast, and the best "Midway" can come up with is Patrick Wilson and a Jonas brother.

"The Aeronauts" - Director Tom Harper made another film last year that I really enjoyed, "Wild Rose." However, "The Aeronauts" stars Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, two actors I haven't had the best luck with in recent years. A movie with the two of them alone in a balloon for ninety minutes, even if it was an action adventure flick, sounded rough. A major red flag is that the film was designed for IMAX and positioned as a prestige film, but critical interest has been absolutely nil. This sounds an awful lot like a repeat of "The Walk," the underwhelming Philippe Petit film.
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