Saturday, February 8, 2020

The Best Overlooked & Underappreciated Movies of 2019

Academy Awards Special: the Middle Child Movie Guide

     Hollywood’s big night is here, and as usual, the Best Picture nominees are the stars of the evening. The center of attention. Of course, the critics have questions. Did the Academy get it rightDid they really nominate the best Best Pictures? Who got snubbed? And is the Academy being selective enough? Are there too many Best Picture nominees?
     This year, there are nine. Nine! That does seem like a lot. But when you consider there were 786 movies released in the U.S. and Canada in 2019 according to Statista, maybe it’s not so many? Of course, that also means there are hundreds of other movies that won’t get to bask in the Oscar limelight. Far from Hollywood favorites, we hardly even know their names. But they’re out there. The Middle Children of the movie industry, yearning for your attention.
     While the lucky nine spend the evening basking in the glow of their nominations and exchanging accolades with their film families, I'd like to shine a little limelight on those less loved films. There are lots of websites where you’ll find lists of these lesser known movies. I looked at lists from Looper, Indie Wire, Screen Rant, Parade, Thrillist, and The Daily Beast. There are 123 different titles on these six lists. That's a lot of overlooking, not to mention a lot of... looking. If you saw just two a week, it would take over a year to see them all. I really love popcorn, but I still don’t think I could do it. So I combined the lists, narrowing it down to those titles that were on more than one -- the crème de la passed over movie crème. I figure the more lists you appear on, the less “most overlooked” you are, right? I mean, ideally, if you were genuinely overlooked, you wouldn’t be on any of these lists.
     I was able to trim the list down to 29 movies. I gave each a star to indicate how many lists they’re on and linked them to their trailer. Look at all the hours of work I'm saving you! Maybe now you might have some time to actually see some of these.
     To be honest, out of all 123 movies, I’ve only seen five  -- and only a pathetic one from the “short list.” In fact, I only saw four of the Best Picture nominees, so why listen to me? Clearly, those aren’t the kind of credentials that make me what you’d call a movie buff, even though did I mention that I really love popcorn? But while I may know diddly squat about cinema, when it comes to being overlooked and underappreciated, unfortunately I am somewhat of an expert.

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  Her Smell
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                            Blinded by the Light           Fast Color                High Flying Bird
 
                                      Little Woods                   Luce                        Monos
                                             The Last Black Man              Wild Rose
                                                in San Francisco
**
                                     Apollo 11                   The Art of                   Brittany Runs
                                                                     Self Defense                 a Marathon
                                         Crawl                  Dark Waters                Fighting with
                                                                                                          My Family
                                    High Life                  Give Me Liberty             The Kid Who
                                                                                                         Would Be King
                                  Knives & Skin            The Mustang               The Nightingale
                               The Peanut Butter           Plus One                      The Report
                                       Falcon 
                                 The Souvenir              Sword of Trust        Under the Silver Lake

                                                  Wild Nights with              The Wind   
                                                           Emily

1 comment:

Middle Children need to be heard!