Just another WordPress.com weblog

I wasn’t planning on doing a movie list, but Joe here inspired me, so here it goes.  Like the music list, I’m doing every movie I saw this year.

First, here are the movies released this year that I still want to see

Dogtooth, Winter’s Bone, Enter the Void, and Valhalla Rising.

And now, the list.

19. The Social Network

18. Kick-Ass-Having already insulted these in my “ten things that sucked” post, I’ve got nothing new to add.

17.      Defendor- A more realistic look at “real world superheroes.”  This is the movie Kick-Ass claimed to be.  Woody Harrelson does a great job with the title character, but a bland story and a reliance on luck and coincidence make this one forgettable.

16.      The Book of Eli-I’m getting sick of muted color schemes.  This was an okay movie, but please, no more.  Denzel Washington is running on autopilot, but Gary Oldman is appropriately cartoonish and Tom Waits has a small role, so it aint all bad.  The fights and battles are all impressive too.

15.      Easy A-No, I didn’t see many movies this year, but this one had enough sexy-adults-as-teens to keep me interested.  (Even the ugly kids were rich and beautiful)  The story was surprisingly funny, and Stanley Tucci was outright hilarious as “wacky dad.” I still don’t get why everybody was so well off, though.

14.      Centurion-The characters were all interchangeable and there’s too much digital blood, but also a lot of stabbing and chopping of limbs.  The battles in this medieval adventure story are all impressive and the movie moves fast enough that it succeeds.  The outdoor scenery is all beautiful too, just don’t expect any depth.

13.      Tron: Legacy-Really boring and terribly paced, but in a good way.  It’s the best boring movie I saw this year.  It also had the best use of 3D I’ve seen since Beowulf.  The simple color scheme is lovely.  As a friend pointed out, the simplicity of red/black/blue make it easy to follow and keeps it believable.

12.      Greenberg-Greenberg’s a lot like the Social Network.  The protagonist is an unlikable, self-absorbed asshole, nothing of importance happens, and it ends just when things start to get interesting.  Being fictional, Greenberg at least has a glimmer of hope.  Ben Stiller turns in a cringe worthy performance as the title character.  He’s a middle aged carpenter, barely anybody can put up with him, and any windows of opportunity are closing fast.  I want Greenberg to succeed.  I want him to become a better person.

11.      127 Hours-127 Hours beats you over the head now and then, trying desperately to make you “get it.”  This only accounts for a few brief moments in the movie though.  When the majority of the thing takes place underneath a rock, those things really stand out.  James Franco is great as real life asshole Aron Ralston, and Boyle’s excessive style of filmmaking really lends itself to the arm chopping scene.  He should make more gory movies.  It’s easily his best movie, considering it’s the only one I’ve enjoyed all the way through.

10.      Cyrus-Like Seth Rogen before him, Jonah Hill got really fat to play his best role ever.  Hill is the creepy title character in this low key romantic comedy with John C Reilly and Marissa Tomei.  Cyrus is Tomei’s creepy adult son that still lives with her.  Cyrus is short and sweet, and it mocks trance music.  I’m down with that.

9.      Iron Man 2-Iron Man 2 learns from the mistakes of the first movie, and creates some nice new mistakes while it’s at it.  Instead of a thrown together shitty ending, we’re instead barraged with too much happening at the beginning and none of it making any sense, but once the movie’s finally found itself, it picks up a lot.  The second half is a blast, and frankly, that’s enough for me.

8.      Black Swan-A little too melodramatic and goofy for me, this tortured woman-child tale is still told engagingly, and Natalie Portman’s performance is damn good.  It’d be cooler if she really was a were-swan, but what I got was still a fun 90 minutes.

7.      Shutter Island-As far as spooky and creepy goes, I liked Shutter Island a lot more than Black Swan.  Shutter Island had atmosphere, it had scares, and it had a much less predictable plot.  Both movies made me feel like a lab rat in a maze, with the director shouting at me from a distance, telling me which way to go, and…  Man, I don’t know where I was going with that.  Fuck it.  Both the movies are good, but neither are truly incredible.  That’s the point I wanted to make.

6.      Inception-For the longest time, I wasn’t planning on doing a movies list because I simply had nothing new to say. That’s exactly how I feel about Inception.  I will say that it’s a good movie.

5.      I Love You Phillip Morris-Gay prison romance from the writers of Bad Santa.  They left Zwigoff out of this one and directed it themselves, and it’s every bit as good as their last one.  The movie’s hilarious, but it still has respect for its characters.

4.      Scott Pilgrim vs. the World-Of the three big comic book movies released this year, two of them missed the point of the original material.  Unlike Kick-Ass, Scott Pilgrim had the basic sense to change the point.  No longer does Scott Pilgrim suck and need to grow the hell up.  He just needs love and self respect to conquer all.  (Mostly love)  I could do without pointless text inserts, and a little breathing certainly wouldn’t hurt.  I never saw why Ramona would want Scott, but it looks great, the jokes are hilarious, it has a pro-rock and roll message, and the fight scenes are the best I’ve seen in a long, long time.  It’s an odd movie, always jumping around and throwing more and more bizarre special effects at the viewer.  I’m glad to see people are catching on to Speed Racer and using more abstract, colorful and cartoony digital effects.  Realism is overrated.  Go Scott Pilgrim go.

3.      True Grit-God, here’s another one I’ve got nothing interesting to say about.  Hmm, let me try.  Let me try…  Okay, I loved the Bear man-that scene when Rooster and Mattie are lost in a blizzard and they get advice from a crazy old trapper.  Beautiful.  The ending has also got to be the most intense, brutal, heroic ending of any movie I saw this year.  And uh, shit.  I guess that was all I had to say.

2.      The Fighter-David O’Russell makes magic with Marky Mark.  Marky plays Mickey, a real life boxer from Lowell, Massachusetts, where they smoke lots and lots of crack.  Apart from him and Amy Adams, the cast is all fairly hideous, even Batman looks like a monster.  It’s got crack smoking, it’s got cop punching, and damn, does it have some hideous looking people.  It reminded me a lot of The Wrestler, except this one’s better, and that’s without the benefit of Mickey Rourke.  I love The Fighter.

1.      Toy Story 3-Toy Story 3 was simply the best. That’s just the way it is.  Nothing new to say here.  Stay tuned for more engaging reviews of other movies.

0.      TRASH HUMPERS. I don’t mean this as an insult. It just wouldn’t be fair to the other movies to judge them against Trash Humpers.  It exists on an entirely different plane of criticism.