3 Months of Movies (III)

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Another three months have passed already, so it’s time to take a look at all the movies I watched in that period. Which aren’t that many, unfortunately. Last time, I was frustrated that it was less movies than in the first three months and now it’s even less than that. I hope I’ll have more to look at in April. But I just don’t always have time for movies. Or I use my time for other endeavors (like a fallback to video games recently). Or the amount of movies stresses me because I want to write about all of them and don’t find time for that too. Anyway, I think there will be more movies next time. This time, I’m focusing on all the movies from 21 Jump Street to Kriegerin.

Since October I watched only 31 movies (compared to 46 and 75 in previous three months). Only 6 were from before 2000, although 1940 is really old and new. Still waiting for that pre-1980s theme week (which is just around the corner)!

The average of ratings was 6,2 (compared to 6,3 and 5,8 before), so there seems to be a consistency here. This time 8 is the most used rating. There is only one 1 and no 10 this time. A 10 movie every three months would be nice.

By now the reasons have changed a lot. Podcasts are the clear majority now, followed personal interest and Netflix, which is almost the same.

 Stereotypes

10 movies had some kind of stereotype presented, so that’s about a third of all the movies. These included Asian stereotypes (Above the Law, The Interview), women stereotypes (Catwoman, Superman III), Native American stereotypes (Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1), African-American stereotypes (Superman III, Yankee Doodle Dandy), Eastern European people (Borat). The oldest movie here, Yankee Doodle Dandy, is probably the worst although Catwoman is such a collection of clichés it comes close. 21 Jump Street jumps out as  the best example of a movie specifically trying to defy some stereotypes.

Depiction of Women

As always, there is not much positive to say here. Women are again mostly shown as weak and passive (Above the Law, Twilight, Cool As Ice, Gun the Man Down, Trespass), bitchy (The Land Before Time), irrational (Catwoman, Interstellar) or stupid (Superman III). 14 out of the 31 movies show women in some stereotypical way. Catwoman still counts as one of the worst for me because it pretends to do the opposite, or also Fur.

Again, there are some movies featuring strong women, 8 out of 31. Some of these characters work (Above the Law, Kriegerin, Gone Girl, Was bleibt), while something like How to Train Your Dragon only shows strength by adopting male attributes. 5 movies have women in leading roles, which is at least something, but I’d say only 2 of them really work (Kriegerin and Marie Antoinette) which makes this quota even worse.

Race

Again, only 2 movies with non-white leads (or three if you count dinosaurs), but one of them is Catwoman and the other is After Earth, so I don’t know if two of the worst movies of all time really benefit African-Americans.

Criticizing Society

Really not much to find here. You could count Gone Girl if you like or maybe The Conspirator or even Marie Antoinette. But everything is a bit of a stretch. Some people would probably claim Borat here, but not me.

Best/Worst

This time, this is not easy, as there is no 10 movie, but three with a 9. Those are Akira, Submarine and Gone Girl. Akira has impressed me a lot, but when I think of Gone Girl, I still reflect upon it and am amazed by all the things it tries to say. It’s also the movie I want to watch again the most, so I’ll go with this one.

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The worst should be easy, since there is only one 1, which is Cool As Ice, but if I compare that with After Earth, I have to go with that one. Cool As Ice is so obviously trash, but not really offensive, but After Earth is such a stupid (and as I said in my review) almost dangerous movie, that it takes the foul cake.

 And that’s it already. See you again in April!