5 best things I watched this year (so far)

It's August already (what the fuck, right?). While the Oscar season is not yet here I gotta say I don't really care about it this year since my last anticipated movie of the year premieres in 5 days and there's no way in hell Academy nominates anyone from a horror movie. Anyways, there's still 4 months till my end of the year list is completed. I'm sure there's still many interesting movies and TV series to be released this year, but it looks like a sure bet that the three movies I'm about to talk about here will be in my top 10 of 2019. And I also have to feature TV categories in my awards this year, because as you are about to read, TV is officially better than movies this year.

5. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
score: 8,2/10
Thank God for Keanu Reeves. I'll get to why this summer has been disappointing later but at least we got this beautiful wave of love and lust over the world kindest immortal. And he gave us so much this summer - his entrance in Always be my Maybe and from what I am told delightful work in Toy Story 4 (which I still haven't seen since it just opened here and it has Polish dubbing, so no thank you, because dubbing over Keanu is crazy and I won't pay to witness it). But the movie that truly rocked was John Wick 3. Sure, there are times when it gets too crazy - with its plot not action - but it entertained, astonished, and it gave us not one but TWO of those belts moments.

4. Midsommar
score: 9,2/10
Ari Aster's Midsommar is the most unique horror film we got since, well, his last one - Hereditary. With Disney delivering one derivative thing after another and easily scoring billion dollars in the box office when everything else struggles, at least studios like A24 still give us something other than CBM and live action cash grab remakes of old classics. With wonderful execution and flawless performance from our brightest rising star Florence Pugh, Midsommar is definitely going to make many appearances on my end of the year lists.

3. Avengers: Endgame
score: 9,5/10
This year there is a common factor among most movies I watched - weak third acts. Avengers: Endgame is a loving fan service and huge thank you note to the fans of MCU, who watched all the movies and supported and loved it for over a decade. And the third act brings with it a culmination of 11 years of MCU becoming more and more iconic with every movie. Seeing all the heroes together and hearing Cap finally say "Avengers! Assemble!" has been one of the highlights of the movie going experience for a lot of people. That makes the last act one of the best of the year, even though the movie's very ending is haphazard, as lovely as it looks and feels.

2. Barry 2x05 ronny/lily
score: 9,8/10
There are ordinary people. And then there's Bill Hader. His performance in this series is astonishing - there are individual scenes that made his Emmy win last year more than worthy. Add them all up and his Barry is one of the best performances you'll ever see and hopefully he wins again this year. But that's not all he did. He co-created the show, he produces it, co-writes it and he directed several episodes. And it's most impressive in this one. People say "Barry is great but there is this one episode that is just AMAZING!' and in every single instance they are referring to ronny/lily. I myself watched it twice in the row when I was watching the series earlier this year. An insane and entertaining episode, that feels like the mix between one of the opening scenes of Kill Bill and The Sopranos' most fun episode - Pine Barrens, features Barry trying to do the right thing and get the man he is supposed to kill out of town. And then things start becoming progressively more and more insane - including superglue, crashed windpipe and one particularly savage child - this episode is a roller coaster of tension and humor. Just throw Emmys at that man.

1. Stranger Things 3x08 The Battle of Starcourt
score: 9,9/10
This summer, when it came to blockbuster movies, they sucked. But American audiences (which matter the most since the profit is bigger for the studio from box office from USA than from overseas) still found a way to embarrass themselves by giving their money to anything Mouse throws their way, only to sit on their ass at home when actual good summer blockbuster (Hobbs and Shaw) came along. If you guys don't make It Chapter Two a hit, then I don't know what I will do. The film will do fine since, like Aquaman, it has my hype backing (have you seen my twitter lately?). And yes, I am taking credit for Aquaman making a billion right now.

On the bright side, the Americans did do one good thing this summer.They stayed home and watched Stranger Things 3, making this season the most successful yet and pretty much ensuring Netflix won't cancel it. The entire season 3 of Stranger Things is the most fun I had with anything this year, but the season's finale is a true wonder. With shortage of good blockbuster movies this year The Battle of Starcourt was even more welcomed - the episode looks better than most of big budget Hollywood films, particularly in insane sequence when the monster was inside the mall and getting hit with the fireworks. It's over an hour long and it delivers everything - action, fun, laughs and emotion.  For all the talk how the series borrows from other things, it is very creative. What other show out there stops mid action to deliver a musical sequence that delights the audience? And that ending. Nothing will make us cry harder this year.