Top 10 Movies & Shows Watched in Quarantine (So Far): C.C.C Issue #85

Top 10 Movies & Shows Watched in Quarantine (So Far) 

The world has always been a crazy place, but lately, it’s been even crazier than usual, as we’ve plunged into a worldwide pandemic that has forced most of us to stay home in self-isolation for over a month as of writing this. While this obviously isn’t ideal, there’s always a bright side. I’ve had time to catch up on plenty of things that I’m normally too busy to do, and one of those is, of course, watching movies and TV shows. 

With this abundance of free time, there really is no excuse for me not to post something here. I’ve debated what to post because I wanted to avoid centering anything around the pandemic—it’ll pass eventually, but when, exactly, things will be back to normal has been a question we’ve all been asking and will continue for ask for quite a long time. So, at this point, it’s kind of impossible not to address it, but I thought this might be the simplest and most positive way to do so. 

A few things to note: these are the ten best new things I’ve watched in quarantine so far (expect a part two at some point), but I am only going to talk about things I’ve watched for the first time. As easy as it could be to talk about watching Jurassic Park again for the thousandth time, I wanted to keep it fresher and share what new viewing pleasures I’ve had in these trying times. Not all of these are brand-new movies or even very new at all, but a few of them are, and nearly everything is available on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or YouTube.

10. Hot Rod (2007)

This indie comedy starring Andy Samberg before he was quite as well-known as he is now (thanks to the popularity of the show Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the Lonely Island music videos) was a box office failure when it came out, but it’s become something of a cult comedy, and now, having seen it, I get why. Samberg plays a stunt man who tries to raise money for his step-father’s life-saving surgery, but his biggest hurtle to overcome is his own incompetence. It’s honestly not that great, but there was just something about it that kept me watching all the way through. It’s full of strange characters and incredibly idiotic jokes, but is kind of endearing and pretty amusing, with plenty of supporting actors who went on to much bigger and better and funnier things. It’s a goofy little comedy that I probably wouldn’t watch again, but it’s still worth a one-time viewing if you’re a fan of Samberg and this particular brand of dimwitted humour. 

9. The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

Matthew McConaughey made a strong comeback in the 2010’s, but The Lincoln Lawyer is often forgotten as one of the earlier films in the so-called “McConaissance”. It’s based on the novel of the same name by Michael Connelly, and follows a lawyer who conducts his business in his car rather than an office and deals with some really scummy criminals. He takes on a particularly rough case that links back to another older case of his, and the safety of his colleagues, friends, and family become jeopardized. It’s not really anything special, but reasonably suspenseful and well-cast, with great actors like William H. Macy, Marisa Tomei, and Bryan Cranston in supporting roles. The camerawork is overly shaky and the cinematography isn’t that appealing, but it works mostly thanks to the performances and source material. If you’re into courtroom dramas but want something different than the usual fare, this does this trick.  

8. The Platform (2019)

This is the newest movie on my list, having just hit Netflix last month. It’s a dark science fiction tale of a prison with hundreds of different levels, and prisoners are always paired up, but are switched around at random to different levels. Food comes on a large square block that descends from above, down through the middle of the levels, stopping at each one for just long enough for the prisoners to get some food. This means whoever is at the top eats well, and whoever is at the bottom starves. We follow one guy’s attempt to beat the system and figure out the secret behind the platform, but it’s a brutal endeavor. The problem with The Platform is the mostly dissatisfying ending, but I won’t spoil it in case you still want to give it a watch. It’s a Spanish film, and very much R-rated, with some truly disturbing content, but is also an intriguing concept with some apt social commentary. 

7. The Quick and the Dead (1995) 

I’m a big fan of writer/director Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead franchise and his first two Spider-Man films, and I had no idea for the longest time that he had directed a western with such a high calibre cast, led by Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman. It has the familiar Sam Raimi style with fast-moving shots and interesting editing, but it lacks any fantastical elements and stays true to the western genre—perhaps a little too much, as it feels frequently familiar and a bit predictable at times. Having said that, it’s still fast, fun, and cool. A bunch of gunslingers compete in a tournament where they duel to the death and the winner moves on to the next round until the ultimate gunfighters face off in the final round. It’s not overly complicated, but it works. There are some great dialogue exchanges, good character moments, and satisfying revenge-seeking. A very well-made and entertaining flick that’s more than worth the time to watch.   

6. Jungle (2017) 

Danielle Radcliffe stars as a backpacker who embarks on a journey down a river in the Amazon with a shifty guide and a couple other friends. It’s supposed to be a fun experience, but survival in the jungle is rough, and it gets even rougher when Radcliffe becomes lost and has to get back to civilization all alone. I think Jungle surprised me the most of all the movies on this list. I had heard nothing about it when it came out and thought it looked a little over-Hollywood-ized, as these kinds of survival movies sometimes are, but it’s actually a very realistic and suspenseful film—one of the best survival films I’ve seen in a while—with a great performance from Radcliffe. It’s from the director of the crocodile movie Rogue, which is also a survival film, though Jungle is a lot more hopeful and better directed. The jungle scenery is dazzling, there are moments that made me squirm and sit up on the edge of my seat, and it’s fascinating to know it’s all a fact-based story and the characters are based on real people. Definitely an underrated film that deserves to be more well-known. 

5. Jelle’s Marble Runs

I wanted to branch off from just movies and include not only TV series but YouTube series as well. I saw something pop up on Facebook that was one of the many jokes about quarantine boredom, and it was about people who miss sports, showing a clip of a marble race: several marbles rolling down a trench dug in the sand. I thought it was funny, but then I kept thinking about the idea of racing marbles. So, on a whim, I looked it up on YouTube. Turns out there’s a channel dedicated to an intense marble racing league, and they pull out all the stops. They have over a dozen unique marbles, complex race tracks with alternate paths, jumps, and tunnels, a great commentator, on-screen stats, rankings, and so much more. As weird (and sad) as it sounds, it kind of is a good alternate to not having any sports on TV right now, and is actually a lot of fun to watch.

4. RedLetterMedia’s Quarantine Catch-Up 

The only YouTube channel I’ve been following for years that’s directly curtailed their content to reflect the times we’re living in is RedLetterMedia, and wow have they ever gone for it. The ongoing review series they produce called Half in the Bag has always been focused on reviewing movies new to the theaters, but obviously with theaters being closed right now, they can’t do that. The show’s setup is straight forward and has been the same forever: hosts Mike and Jay sit in Mr. Plinkett’s house and talk about movies instead of fixing his VCR. Now, they are unshaven, the house is filled with toilet paper, disinfectant, and even more bottles of booze than usual, they have a crude fence dividing the room so they keep six feet apart, and they are catching up on all kinds of different movies and shows and reviewing them in their typically hilarious conventions (along with some amazing jokes made about the pandemic). I can’t recommend these particular videos as strongly as anything else on this list, simply because they have a very specific brand of humour that will not be for everyone, and it’s a film review series that’s been going on for so long it might be hard to get into. However, if you want to see two drunk Milwaukee hack frauds crack some dark, cynical jokes about the world and Hollywood as it is in 2020, have at it.  

3. The Beach Bum (2019) 

Matthew McConaughey is Moon Dog, a stoner poet in the Florida Keys, and the movie is literally just him vibing for ninety minutes. It’s certainly not the kind of movie for everyone, but I found it thoroughly funny and enjoyable. Moon Dog is high the entire movie, he just stumbles through life, and with the exception of one major tragedy early in the film, things mostly just work out for him and he continues to vibe. The supporting cast is great too, with the likes of Isla Fisher, Snoop Dogg, Jonah Hill, Zac Efron, and Martin Lawerence. It has a great lead performance, a somewhat unconventional narrative, and is highly recommended. I’ll leave it at that. Watch The Beach Bum.

2. Doctor Sleep (2019) 

This Stephen King adaptation came and went with little fanfare last fall, likely because audiences were leery about a sequel to The Shining, which doesn’t hold up too well for younger audiences today, and it came out the week after Halloween, so everyone had had their fill of scares by then. It’s unfortunate, though, because Doctor Sleep is 1) an extremely faithful adaptation of the novel, with great care taken in capturing the themes and bringing scenes from the book to life in exact detail, 2), a satisfying follow-up to the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of The Shining, which made many changes from that source material, and 3) a wonderful fusion of Stanley Kubrick’s directing style with director Mike Flanagan’s style. With Oculus, Hush, and The Haunting of Hill House, Flanagan proved himself one of the better horror directors working today, and now with Doctor Sleep in addition to Gerald’s Game, he’s also one of the preeminent Stephen King adaptors, joining the ranks of Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption) and Rob Reiner (Misery). 

While I wouldn’t say Doctor Sleep is extremely exceptional by any means, as a tricky combination of keeping faithful to Kubrick’s unique vision as well as King’s (in regards to both novels), it’s a great accomplishment. I was particularly impressed with the casting of the characters and the recreated sets and characters from The Shining. Ewan McGregor was great as Danny Torrance all grown up, Rebecca Ferguson was the perfect choice to play the villain Rose, and even the small-bit supporting characters fit their parts, too. The sets of the Overlook were recreated with such precision I was blown away by them, and I was also surprised the choice was made to include so many of the characters from The Shining but all re-casted. It didn’t bother me as much as I thought it might, and I actually enjoyed those parts a lot. I read the book beforehand and wasn’t overly impressed by it, but the changes made for the film version were all good choices and strengthened the narrative, though it relied a little too much on nostalgia for Kubrick’s The Shining and is overly long, with the director’s cut (the version I saw) clocking in at 3 hours. Still, one of the better Stephen King films I’ve seen (and I’ve seen almost all of them) and highly recommended. 

1. The Boys (2019) 

Just when I thought I was done with superhero movies and shows, along comes The Boys on Amazon Prime, which tells a story featuring superheroes that I didn’t know I needed and never thought I would get. It subs out the familiar names and character models of the most famous heroes known like Superman and Aquaman and Wonder Woman, but these heroes (or “supes” as they’re called) are recognizable as intending to be like them…only they are fraudulent, corrupt assholes, and the titular boys are going to bring down the heroes and the corporation who manages them, exposing them for the scum that they are. Except, how can regular people bring down super-powered beings and a billion dollar corporation? Well, not easily. 

It kicks off with a guy named Hughie walking down the street with his girlfriend and a superhero with super speed called A-Train (obviously a riff on The Flash) literally running through his girlfriend at high speed and brutally killing her (by accident, allegedly), which sets off a chain reaction of events that lead to Hughie teaming up with Billy Butcher, played oh-so-perfectly by Karl Urban. Butcher hates supes for reasons that become clearer as the show goes on, and he pulls Hughie into the world of anti-superhero investigation. The curtain is pulled back on the seemingly heroic, friendly superhero team called “The Seven” (basically meant to be like The Justice League), led by Homelander, who has the powers of Superman, but in truth is far from the friendly face he puts on for the public. Through the experiences of Hughie and Starlight, the innocent newcomer to the superhero team, we see this world is not as black and white as most superhero-filled worlds are. It’s not just good vs. evil. It’s…complicated.    

I found The Boys to be extremely compelling, funny, and just a solid piece of entertainment. The first season has eight one-hour episodes, which felt like the perfect amount, and a second season is on its way. It’s gleefully violent and over-the-top in ways mainstream theatrically-released PG-13 superhero movies can’t be, but not in the same way something like Deadpool is violent and comedic. While often funny, I wouldn’t say The Boys is primarily comedic. It gets pretty dark at points, and almost every episode had at least one moment that made my jaw drop. If you aren’t completely burnt out on superheroes, or want to see something a little different than the do-no-wrong heroics we’ve seen too many times now, The Boys will be worth your time. 

The Shawshank Redemption (1994): Favourite Films Series

The Shawshank Redemption (1994): Favourite Films Series

Andy Dufresne is wrongfully accused of murdering his wife and her lover and sent to Shawshank prison, where he befriends Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding, the man who “knows how to get things”. They become friends, and as the years wear on, Andy never loses hope, despite the poor quality of life Shawshank offers, the harsh warden, the rapists, and the toll prison life takes on everyone. I don’t want to spoil anything, even though the movie is over twenty-five years old as of writing this, because if you are reading this and haven’t yet seen it, then let me explain somewhat briefly why it’s one of my all-time favourite films. 

Put only into words, The Shawshank Redemption sounds like it has potential, but for someone who has never seen it, words alone make it sound…alright? There’s no romance, just friendship, there’s little action or variety, and it’s largely just dialogue scenes set in a depressing prison. This is part of the power of cinema: it can take a solid concept and elevate it into a moving experience that wouldn’t be quite the same in any other medium.  

Frank Darabont had already been making a name for himself in Hollywood with numerous screenplay credits before he took on The Shawshank Redemption. Shawshank was to be his first directing job for a film to be released to theaters (his first being the television movie Buried Alive). It was his theatrical debut, and I can’t think of a more extraordinary debut. By the 1990’s, Stephen King had already put out dozens of novels and short stories. Darabont had a wealth of source material to pick from. He didn’t select one of the grander, flashier horror tales for which the author was most well-known like IT or Pet Sematary or Dark Tower. He bought the rights to adapt King’s short story Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption back in 1987, and in 1994, the film was finally released. Though it didn’t win any Academy Awards or make a significant amount at the box office, Shawshank resonated with those who saw it, and as the years went on, it gained greater recognition as being an exceptional film, and is now regarded by many as one of the greatest films of all-time. 

I can’t think of a single thing to criticize. The story is excellent. The dialogue is memorable, much of it pulled straight from the story. The camerawork is precise and purposeful. The editing is tight and impactful. The cinematography is somehow beautiful despite most of the film taking place in a prison made mostly of layered stone and steel bars and grey concrete. It’s a drab background that lets the characters pop out. The acting, too, is faultless. If Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins had turned in average performances—showed up, read their lines, went through the motions—the film would still be good, but they elevate it to a significantly higher level. Morgan Freeman has given many good performances, but this is certainly one of his greatest. 

There are many underrated aspects to Shawshank that sometimes get overshadowed (understandably so) by the big three highlights: the lead performances, the screenplay, and the directing. I can’t think of one bad performance from any of the supporting actors. The warden, played by Bob Gunton, is quietly detestable at first, then just gets more and more villainous as time wears on. Even Red’s gang of cohorts, most of whom don’t get much dialogue or even that much screen time, are all great. The character of Tommy Williams, a young, fast-talking crook, is introduced quite late into the story, but he makes a strong first impression, and despite only having a small part in the overall story, proves to be incredibly memorable even in that short time. 

The casting contributed significantly to the memorability of the characters, with great players like William Sadler and James Whitmore, just to name a couple. The music, too, is another underrated element of this masterpiece. It isn’t a big, imposing score, but it enhances many scenes, most memorably for me when there’s that sinister shot of the prison as Andy arrives and the music swells to make it even more foreboding, and the beautiful, hopeful music during the final moments of the film. In contrast, sometimes the absence of music makes certain scenes better, too, like when the new overweight prisoner is beaten to death in a horribly realistic manner on the first night, or when Andy negotiates with Captain Hadley on the roof as he’s about to throw him off. 

In the discussion of best Stephen King stories, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is up there, but it certainly isn’t in the top tier of his greatest works. In terms of the film adaptations, though, Shawshank Redemption is usually everyone’s number one pick. It’s a faithful adaptation, not leaving out any major elements from the story, and expands on the source material in eloquent ways. It’s a strange thing to consider one of the best stories to come from the mind of Stephen King isn’t a horror story or even a supernatural one. It’s a deeper, more meaningful tale, where the monsters are human and the focus is not on terror but on hope. Like Andy says, it comes down to a simple choice. “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”