This year we have introduced the label TV-series in addition to Movie and Article, and applied it retroactively to the past posts. On the same plot above you can see the number of seasons of TV-series doubling between the first 3 years and the 4th. This trend is both linked to more TV-series of better quality being produced nowadays, and to our tendency of watching more of them, which also partially explains the lower number of movies reviewed this year: watching TV-series takes a lot of time!
Looking at the evolution of the number of Articles posted, we see that it dropped after 2 years from about 15 per year to 6. Indeed at the beginning we had more the tendency to post Articles about various subjects, often two Posts per festival (one before one after), while now we make only one Post per festival and do not make much other Articles.
Statistics
Following the tradition of the past yearly articles, we will now examine the age of the movies we are watching. The plot below shows the number of movies and TV-series reviewed per year of production. On the 4th year we haven't watched any movie older than 1963 and surprisingly few movies from 2009-2012, but the addition of those movies to the other years keeps on confirming the same trend: an amount of movies watched between 1991 and 2008 linearly increasing, a peak of movies from the 70's and 80's, our favorite period for Cinema, and then some older movies that we watch out of a taste for the History of that Art.
More in detail, let us have a look at the repartition of movies reviewed not by production year but by age with respect to the review year. The plot below shows a very similar trend among the 4 years of JoRafCinema: 10-15% of the movies reviewed date from the same year (i.e. past 6 months), 40-50% from the year before which makes 50-65% for the past 1.5 year. The rest is mainly spread over the previous 10 years. The only small deviation to this trend seems to have occurred during the first year when the majority of movies we watched were a bit older (more movies up to two years old).
Another usual infography we provide every year is the repartition of production countries. Comparing the World map below with the ones from the past years we can see some trends. Movies produced in the USA are still the ones we watch the most, followed with a large margin by France and England always with almost equal numbers, then Germany and Japan, incredible for a country so far away and with a relatively limited production but not so surprising when you know our taste for movies from this country. Then follow Canada, Spain and Italy, and a bunch of assorted world countries like Norway, Sweden, Argentina, South Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark, Russia and Hong Kong which complete the list of countries from which we have seen more than 10 movies, but we have seen in total movies produced or co-produced by 70 countries.
We can notice this year for the first time the apparition of movies from Vietnam, Qatar, Cuba, Estonia and Morocco, at last giving JoRafCinema a presence on the North African continent (we have already seen co-productions from the Republic of South Africa).
Almost all countries of Europe are represented apart from Bosnia, Albania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Belarus. Missing countries from the New World are Paraguay, Venezuela and most central America, still an excellent progression compared to two years ago. Notably missing from Asia are Laos, Burma and Pakistan. Note a stagnation of the number of Asian movies reviewed on JoRafCinema (because we didn't attend to the Udine Far East Film Festival this year) except for Japan (because of the Nippon Connection Festival and also of the movies seen during the flight to/from Japan).
The following diagram is also a classical one at JoRafCinema and presents all the genres defined on our blog. The bubble size is driven by the number of movies. The larger the size, the more movies JoRafCinema has been watching. The bubble colour is driven by the average rating as shown in the scale: the darker blue the lower average rating, the darker red the higher average rating. The label displays not only the Genre but also the Number of movies and the Average rating.
Visually we can draw some conclusions. The small dark blue bubbles (here Melodrama) depict Genres completely underrepresented. We cannot say really that we do not like them, we just do not watch much Melodrama (7 only). The large dark red bubbles (here Thriller and Drama) depict Genres correctly largely represented according to JoRafCinema's taste. Inversely, small dark red bubbles (here Epic, Western, War and Black comedy) depict Genres that JoRafCinema should watch more as these are genres we like but do not watch much. Large light blue bubbles (here Action, Horror and Horror) depict Genres that JoRafCinema might watch too much with regard to our taste. Actually it is not right to conclude on Genres with very small number of movies, as the statistics are strongly biased.
Compared to last year, we watched no Melodrama, we watched relatively few Polar, Thriller and Adventure, while we generally like them. We watched relatively more Documentaries, War movies and Comedies. We watched relatively good Epic, Horror and Western movies, but relatively bad Music and Romances.
Recommendations of the year
Among the 222 movies and TV-series watched by JoRafCinema from July 20th 2015 to July 20th 2016, we have selected the ones that we wish to recommend, particularly ones that were less heard of.
[Jo]:
- The most memorable movie this year for me was The Devil's Candy, highlight of the Gérardmer Fantastic Film Festival, maybe paving the way for a return of the Possession sub-genre and for sure demonstrating that the best movies are seen at Festivals and not in traditional cinemas that show only a formatted selection nowadays.
- Other very good movies discovered at the same Festival: another possession story called The Witch, a new and original take at a classic myth with Frankenstein and the bloody Western Bone Tomahawk with Kurt Russell.
- Another great Festival this year was the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival where I could see the hilarious Mi Gran Noche by Álex de la Iglesia and the very well-done Italian super-hero movie Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot.
- I was impressed by two War movies in two different styles: the second World War Fury with Brad Pitt and the modern warfare Eye in the Sky.
- I liked two Comedy/Romances: the rather old Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow and Gwyneth Paltrow, and the recent and touching French Rosalie Blum.
- In the category of realistic SF movies making me love Space exploration, last year had Interstellar and this year had The Martian by Ridley Scott with Matt Damon.
- I was glad to watch one one the first movies by Nicholas Winding Refn: Bleeder and the British Documentary 56 Up that has followed the same people for 56 years!
- My favorite TV-series watched this year were in that order the first seasons of Narcos, Gotham and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Interestingly, the highest ratings I gave this year went to older movies, possibly meaning that for me a movie can hardly reach 9/10 if it hasn't aged 10 years. In this category I found my favorite animated movies The Incredibles and Bolt, the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski, Paul Verhoeven's Robocop and Starship Troopers, M. Night. Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, James Cameron's Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, John McTiernan's The Hunt for Red October and John Milius' Conan the Barbarian.
From all the movies I have seen the last year, I would recommend some for their quality and other for their specific value.
- The Neon Demon is visually wonderful and opens new perspectives for experimental style in rather commercial movies. And I like experimental movies that are most of the time short cuts and not much reported in JoRafCinema.
- Captain Fantastic is a movie that can wake many ideas and behaviours and therefore a must see for people questioning their own lifestyles.
- Angry Indian Goddesses is an amazing movie not only breaking the stereotypes about Bollywood but also giving a view on the condition of women in India over several classes. The production and styles used in the story telling show excellence. Remind that India is the largest cinema producer in the world.
- Maybe the most original movie of the year is as often from Japan. The man who was eaten is a movie that is so crazy from the plot and looks so simple from the realisation. It reveals a future big Japanese director Keisuke Kondo.
- From North American productions, some quite original ones are Dope, a nice comedy about young geeks that manage to get out out of the ghetto with their being geek, and Me and Earl and the dying girl, a wonderful dramatic comedy to discover for its amazing humour and starting youth romance.
- A directing and acting challenge for Tom Hardy was the excellent Legend. Amazing performance from this amazing actor!
- The Fencer is my favourite new movie of the past year, from Estonia, with a lot of history, of drama, of emotions.
- From Sweden Sophelikoptern is a strange movie with strange events, strange dialogs, that make this movie definitely original and fascinating, thus exceptional even if not excellent.
- For the sake of cinema history, it is important to watch La ragazza che sapeva troppo with its expressive acting, voices and soundtrack, which makes the psychology of the characters more visible. It is indeed a milestone in the Giallo sub-genre defining the ingredients of the recipe for the Giallo. Next step was watching Sei donne per l'assessino and the introduction of the colour in this expressionist style.
- My best ratings of the year went to The Mission, a dramatic adventure in the XVIIIth Century that is important to me due to my roots and ties to the History; and to Being good for its strong story and subtle and emotional acting.
Film festivals
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| JoRafCinema at the Zombie walk of the Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival in 2011. |
Finally, we wanted to take the opportunity of this yearly article to summarize the good and bad about all the film Festivals we have been to over the years.
- One of the first we went to is the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy. We have retroactively written report on the edition of 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011, and reported live on the editions of 2014 and 2015. We love the town, the food, the venue, the selection and the organization. This Festival will always keep a special place in our hearts, although the quality of its movie selection has somehow degraded over the years.
- Our favorite Fantastic Film Festival is the one of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, to which we went in 2004, 2014 and 2016. The selection is excellent, it has interesting retrospectives, famous guests, a very friendly area to chill-out and the lakeside city is lovely. Only drawback: the cost of life there.
- Another excellent Fantastic Film Festival is the Gérardmer one to which we finally went in 2016. It is also located in a lakeside town but the winter time makes it less attractive. An upside is that there are not many festivals in this season so it is welcome. It includes even more famous guests and jury but lacks a chill-out area.
- Yet another good one is the BIFFF in Brussels where we went in 2012 and 2013. One has to go there for the beers and atmosphere (also during the projections) but not for the quality of the projection rooms (vast exhibition halls).
- I [Jo] have been for a long time a regular customer of the Munich edition of the German Fantasy FilmFest, probably since around 2005, and reported on the years 2012, 2013 and 2014. So as not to wait a full year for the next edition, it now shows two days of movies six months later, during an event called the Munich Fantasy Filmfest Nights, followed in 2013, 2014 and 2015. The Festival mood is completely absent, it is more a selection of movie shown in premiere which is a good point. Also it was close to home.
- We have also attended smaller Festivals within the network of European Fantastic Film Festivals. One was the MotelX of 2013 in Lisboa, Portugal. The town is beautiful but we were missing a real Festival atmosphere, and the movies projected were not really premieres, more like one or two years old. Another one was the Espoo Fantastic Film Festival in 2010 near Helsinki, very small and not really interesting. We also attended the Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival in 2011 (no report but a list of movies), which was a nice experience for the selection, the location and the activities like a Zombie Walk.
- The Nordic Film Days Lübeck has become a classical festival for JoRafCinema that we visited in 2014 and 2015 (list of movies). The city is lovely in the November days, the people are very nice and there are always some events around that open other doors than cinema and Northern Europe (Filme erzählen; Crisis Cuisine).
- The Festival San Sebastian / Donostia Zinemaldia visited in 2014 is excellent for the wide view on Spanish and Latin American cinema. The city is very nice as well. Unfortunately the city is very expensive and it is a long journey to go there.
- The Nippon Connection in Frankfurt (list of movies) visited for the first time in 2016 may become one standard because this festival has a really great atmosphere, the neighbourhood becomes fully Japanese with Japanese drinks, food, products, actors and directors. And also because it is quite easy to travel to Frankfurt.
On a new continent, we will be looking into going to maybe one of the following Festival offered in South America:
- The Fantaspoa-International Fantastic Film Festival is the largest film festival dedicated exclusively to fantastic genre films (fantasy, science fiction, horror and thriller) in Latin America. It is occurring annually in Porto Alegre in May.
- Anima Mundi is a Competitive Brazilian video and film festival devoted exclusively to animation. It takes place end of October in Rio de Janeiro and beginning of November in São Paulo.
- The Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre also takes place towards the end of October and is devoted to fantasy, horror, bizarre and science fiction genres.
- The Puerto Rico Horror Film Fest is held annually in October, with parallel events ranging from a fashion show to a zombie walk.
- The Valdivia International Film Festival is an international film exhibition and competition, held annually mid-October in the city of Valdivia, Chile.
- The Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente is an international festival of independent films organized each year in the month of April, in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
We wish you all a happy cinematographic year 2016-2017.
Jo&Raf
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