Hacker Cinema
Spontaneous
2020 · Film · 102 min
Directed by Brian Duffield
When students in their high school begin inexplicably exploding (literally), seniors Mara and Dylan struggle to survive in a world where each moment may be their last.
3 positive1 neutralfrom 4 commenters
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4 comments on Hacker News
(Not the poster you’re asking)
What sort of thing are you into? What are some movies you really like? Would help to tune any suggestions.
[edit] Meanwhile, some shots in the dark:
- The Green Knight — Based on the story by the Pearl Poet and expanded and adapted with a combo of other Arthurian tales and the filmmakers’ own twists. Basically, a lonely, somewhat psychedelic (but not in a bright-kaleidoscope-colors sort of way…) dark fantasy journey with tasteful hints of dozens of influences adorning it. A great Winter watch, too. Benefits from the best screen and system you can get in front of.
- You Won’t Be Alone — Broadly horror-themed but not in a Hollywood monster movie or Halloween popcorn muncher sort of way. It’s not really aiming for scares, exactly. Comically similar themes and message to a major widely-lauded off-kilter film from the same year (2022) but approached from a very different angle. Macedonian language. You may worry in the first twenty minutes that you’ve stumbled into the Easter European Indie Movie Doldrums of Mediocrity, but persevere, it starts to come together and develop purpose before long. Hard recommend for fans of The Witch who liked the “historically accurate” grossness & mythology of that film, but it’s not as firmly in the horror genre as that was.
On the lighter (and not quite as good, good) side:
- The Kid Detective — Semi-comedy. Imagine the stereotypical middle-aged guy who’s never topped their time as a high school quarterback. Now imagine if instead of playing football, they were a kid detective (you know, Nancy Drew sorts of stuff) and that is the thing they peaked at in high school. That’s our protagonist. Film sags at times but the premise is so fun and relatively-well-used that it’s still a good time, if that blurb above piqued your interest at all. Certainly a sort of noir, with all that entails, so if Your Hero getting his ass kicked more than doing the ass kicking bothers you, avoid (as with lots of noirs)
- Spontaneous — Dark high school romance-comedy. Also, people, all over the place, have started occasionally suddenly exploding for no evident reason. That’s the movie’s deal. It took me embarrassingly long to realize what it was really about (or, at least a major one of the things it’s about) and it punched me in the damn gut when I did. Oof.
Just a quick glance at Letterboxd....
Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Both Knives Out movies
Parasite
Nope (probably just in the "good" grouping, not great)
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That's, uh... just from the "popular this week" screen. And only the ones I've seen, so I know they're good. But I'm pretty sure all those are last five years, or close to it.
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Digging back to 2018 and later (we can say 2018 counts since 2023 just started, right?):
Annihilation
Sorry to Bother You
High Life
Midsommar
Uncut Gems (god it's so good)
Jojo Rabbit
The Lighthouse
The Green Knight
CODA
Spontaneous ([EDIT] It seems very dumb but wow is it a gut punch, when you start to think about what you're watching and make some connections to real life)
Red Rocket (small-scale brilliance)
RRR
Watcher
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I just realized I misread you as asking for 5 good ones from just one of the last 5 years, not 5 total from the last 5 years, but I think that gets the point across? Despite my leaving off a whole bunch that may be more taste-specific, not having watched even 1/3 of the films from that span I have good reason to believe are good, not exhaustively mining that timespan (I bet I could double the size of that list without changing how I was selecting them), and also omitting a bunch of more-popular movies that I think were at least decent.
[EDIT] Hell some years you could get to 2-3 good ones just by looking at what A24 produced that year, nothing else.
If you watched the film "Happy Death Day" (if not the lesser sequel) and enjoyed its exploration of a kind-of goofy mashup (Ground Hog Day x Teen Slasher), the same director made a film built on, roughly, a similar concept, just called "Freaky". If you already suspect you might like it, don't read anything and just watch, though you may be able to guess the mash-up from the one-word title. It's fun, and well-made.
I'm struggling to think of much else that I've personally seen, from last year, that wasn't a little too indie or "genre" for me to recommend it to someone whose tastes I don't know—I didn't get much new watched, and mostly caught up on some reputedly-great stuff I'd missed from the prior five years or so (I keep up with a mix of pop junk food films, which I do like, and the "good" stuff, but usually don't have time to watch anywhere near all of either) aside from some fairly taste-specific newer material I watched.
Some other titles I'm seeing, from people I know and trust, for 2020, include: First Cow; The Old Guard; Portrait of a Lady on Fire (technically a 2019 film, but widely available in 2020); Wolfwalkers (animated); Spontaneous; Bacurau; Blow the Man Down. There are lots more, that's just a varied sampling.
Comedies - Spontaneous, Popstar, Everybody Wants Some
Deconstruction/Meta/Anti-trope -Jump Street movies (count for both this and comedy as do some of the others), The Lego Movie, Cabin in the Woods, Better Watch Out, I'm Thinking of Ending Things
'Film' instead of movie - Another Round, Thorougbreads, The Lighthouse, Ex Machina