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The year is already three quarters in, but considering what the Fall and Winter usually mean for quality films, the best just might be yet to come. Let’s hope so, because there have been a whole lot of okay films, but very few that are actually great. From the first four months or so, there was really only one good film. Kingsmen. It’s a Matthew Vaughn movie, which means you know it’s got to be good, but how long can this guys track record last? It’s him Tarantino and the Coen Brothers on the list of diectors who can do no wrong. Even guys like Wes Anderson and David Fincher have had misfires. The same goes for Paul Thomas Anderson and Danny Boyle. But Vaughn is a rare talent and he has yet to disappoint. Kingsmen is the one movie that made it out of those first few months without barely a scratch.

After that, the other great movies were Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Ant Man, and Jurassic World. If there was a number five movie it would have to be Avengers: Age of Ultron. Oh, and of course, there’s Burnt, (which won’t actually be released until the Fall), the Bradley Cooper, chef in London flick. That might actually be my favorite movie of the year so far. It’s definitely up there.

Another movie that’s got a spot on the list, as of now. The movie Spy, starring Melissa McCarthy. That Paul Feig is another director who really seems to be able to do no wrong. His movie Bridesmaids was in my top three of the year 2011, and then his film The Heat made my top ten of 2013. Spy is not quite as good as either of those films, but it is still a lot of fun.

And then there’s Mad Max: Fury Road, a movie that I didn’t love the first time, but definitely appreciated. This is a movie that I absolutely want to see again and dig into a little more. It’s a movie that will hold a place on my list for now and very likely will end up there, maybe even in a better position on the list, by years end.

That makes eight films already. Now, of the eight, none are terrific. Even still, it’s nice to have a jumping off point, going into the fall and winter seasons.

 

Here’s the list as it stands right now….

 

1) Burnt

2)  Kingsmen: The Secret Service

3) Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

4) Straight Outta Compton

5) Ant Man

6) Spy

7) Jurassic World

8) The Avengers: Age of Ultron

9) Mad Max: Fury Road

 

By years end, I don’t expect Spy, the Avengers movie, or even Jurassic World to still be on the list. Instead, you can bet The Hateful Eight has a good chance of being on there. Other than Deathproof, I don’t think there’s ever been a year when a Tarantino movie didn’t make the list. And then there’s the new Bond movie, Spectre, which just might be pretty great, considering it was directed by Sam Mendes (the same guy who made Skyfall, which was also great.)

Now, regarding what the year looks like from a financial point of view, so far Jurassic World is the big winner (it is actually the third highest grossing film of all time.) There’s a sequel on the way. Other success stories that already have sequels in the works from this year include The Equalizer and Kingsmen. The Equalizer and Inside Out are both movies that were good, but not great. These are the kinds of movies (and Trainwreck too, I suppose) that were enjoyable, but far from anything that would earn a place on the years top ten list.

Another movie I expect to see on the list by years end is the new Star Wars film, the Force Awakens. As directed by JJ Abrahms, this film looks superb. Abrahms seems to be doing everything right, using practical effects wherever possible, and really trying to capture the spirit of the original trilogy. He is a great filmmaker who has never made a bad film (Star Trek Into Darkness is his weakest, and it’s still pretty good.) Something tells me that his forray into Star Wars will be great!

 

Movies Missed:

 

Cinderella

Ex Machina

Get Hard

The Gift

Paddington

 

 

Something really interesting happened over the past year or so. The spy movie came back. In a major way. The one series that’s been kicking around the longest has been James Bond. That goes all the way back to Sean Connerey in the sixites, and never really went away. But right now we’ve also got the Mission Impossible films and the Bourne movies, and they all seem to be doing remarkably well.

This past weekend, Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, the fifth film in the series, opened, and it was great. Not only that, but it came in ahead of schedule (it was slated to hit theaters in December and instead got moved up to the first weekend of August,) and achieved instant critical as well as public acclaim. The movie is quite good and is doing very nicely at the box office. So much so, that they are already at work on the next film in the series, which will probably start production next year.

All of that with the newest Bond movie coming out this Fall. And that’s on the heels of the last Bond movie, Skyfall, which made the most money of any film in the series to date. This was such a huge milestone that they got the same director back, which is almost unheard of for these kinds of movies. But Sam Mendes is super talented and what he did with Skyfall was very impressive.

And then there’s the Bourne movies, and a lot can be determined from looking at what’s happening with that series. Matt Damon had walked away from it after completing his trilogy. Every one of those movies was good, but he had just had enough. The fans and public disagreed. They wanted him back. And with that kind of demand, he is now coming back. There is a new Bourne film in production right now, to be released next year. The movie has just cast Tommy Lee Jones as the man who will most likely be hunting our guy down. The director is returning favorite Paul Greengrass (who helmed the last two Bourne movies.)

Now, it’s not all glitter and gold for these films. The Jeremy Renner Bourne spinoff film, The Bourne Legacy, was not very well liked. And that’s partially what brought Matt Damon back into the mix. But people tend to like Renner over all, based on the projects he picks (he is a major player in both the Mission Impossible univers as well as the Avengers films.) And now, what we are looking at in the future, is a crossover in the Bourne universe. My guess regarding this series is that after the new movie with Damon and Tommy Lee Jones, the next one features both Matt Damon and Renner. And if that does well, who knows, maybe Renner gets another shot at his own version and the series keeps going with both Damon and Renner headlining their own films.

There are many questions that reamin up in the air about all this, such as how long will Daniel Craig continue to play Bond (hopefully as long as possible,) and who will direct the new Mission Impossible movie that they begin working on next year. There’s been talk of getting director Christopher McQuarrie back, the man who directed this last film Rogue Nation, but I’m not in favor of that idea. Granted Rogue Nation was pretty great, but even still a trademark of the series has been that they get a new director for every movie, and I would love to see that keep going. There are two directors who I think should strongly be considered.

Those directors are Doug Liman and Bryan Singer. Liman recently worked with Tom Cruise on Edge of Tomorrow, which was great. It didn’t do very well at the box office, but word of mouth has been huge on this thing, and it is still generating buzz and catching on with the public. Even though it didn’t make much money, the movie is known to be so good and so well-liked that they are actually talking about making a sequel. So Liman, who is a good filmmaker (Swingers, Go), would be a nice addition.

The other one is Bryan Singer. This is the guy behind nearly all of the X-Men movies (4 of the 6.) He’s the guy who directed The Usual Suspects (while Christopher McQuarrie wrote it.) Singer has worked with Cruise before on the movie Valkyrie. Now, that’s important because it seems like Cruise wants to work with directors that he has had experience with in the past. Cruise is the producer of the series, and his trust in the filmmaker is very important. The list movie, Rogue Nation, was by McQuarrie, who Cruise had just worked with in Jack Reacher. And the last point for Singer is that he needs to do something besides X-Men that catches the publics attention. His other attempts (Superman Returns, Jack the Giant Slayer) have not done very well. Still, my money is on Liman, because of how well-regarded Edge of Tomorrow is. Not only by the public, but also, and more importantly, by Cruise.

It’s a very interesting time we are in right now with these spy movies. Of course we will never see a crossover between the main characters, and that’s probably a good thing. As long as they keep expanding their universes on their own, and as long as the movies keep coming out great, then the more movies they make, the better. That being said, there probably is no room for any new series to enter into the mix. This summer gives us a movie called The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which is in the same kind of genre, and I doubt it will do very well. But what those other movies are doing is tremendous. The Mission Impossible films keep adding a new character to the mix with every film (first Ving Rhames, then Simon Pegg, then Jeremy Renner, and now Alec Baldwin.) Based on how good these films have been, how great Skyfall was, and how the Bourne movies are getting back in the saddle with Matt Damon, there are more promising things to come.

 

Disney Panel: Star Wars, The Force Awakens

Comic Con 2015

This year was an interesting Comic Con. It was the first year since the launch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, back in 2007, that Marvel decided not to show up. That’s kind of crazy, considering that the Iron Man panel from that year basically launched Comic Con into the home for superhero movies, and also that the Iron Man panel was so instrumental to the success of the Iron Man movie, as well as all of the MCU films that followed it. Still, despite Marvel not being present at Comic Con in any way this year (not even to promote Ant Man which was a little surprising), the weekend event was still a major success. Chalk that up to the two other studios making comic book films, Warner Brothers and Fox, really picking up the slack to make up for it.

The event began on Thursday with a panel for the new and final Hunger Games movie, but the real fun didn’t start until Friday when the cast of the new Star Wars film took the stage. They were accompanied by director J.J. Abrahms, writer Lawrence Kasdan (who wrote some of the original three films), and producer Kathleen Kennedy. First, the new cast came out, including Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac. Then the original three came out. Mark Hammil (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), and finally Harrison Ford (Han Solo.) They fielded questions from the audience, and then a four minute reel was shown that contained footage from the new film, behind the scenes filming, and interviews.

Saturday brought on even more. This was the big comic book movie day. Warner Brothers took the stage first to promot their D.C. cinematic universe. There are two big films being filmed right now at this studio. The first is Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. The entire cast took the stage for that one, including Ben Affleck as Batman and director Zack Snyder. They answered questions and then showed a lenghty new trailer for their movie. This trailer, just like the Star Wars footage, came in at nearly four minutes, and it explained a lot, including the connection between Bruce Wayne and the events from the end of Man of Steel.

The other big D.C. movie is Suicide Squad, and that also got a full panel with the entire cast. Director David Ayer stepped up to the plate challenging Marvel and explaining why the D.C. universe is better. This cast didn’t really answer questions, but they did bring a trailer for their film, and unlike the previous panels, this was the first time we were ever seeing footage from the movie. The trailer ended with Jared Leto’s Joker doing his maniac laughs and spouting a few lines.

The other studio with it’s hand in the comic book movie world is Fox, and they had two panels as well. The first was for the upcoming film Fantastic Four, directed by Josh Trank. That movie is being released in a few weeks and by all accounts should not be very good. This comes based on all of the news about problems on the set and the director being fired from a Star Wars spinoff project. Then again World War Z was riddled with on set problems and that turned out to be pretty good, so who knows.

The second panel by Fox was for X-Men Appocalypse, the new X-Men movie that will be released next year and the final film of this prequel trilogy which was started with Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class. Director Bryan Singer and the cast was on the stage showing concept art of Appcalypse and I believe some footage as well which has yet to be released to the publc. The same can be said of the Deadpool panel that followed. This one featured Ryan Reynolds, Morena Bacano, T.J. Miller, and other members of the cast as well as the director. They showed their first trailer.

So there were six panels that really blew the roof off of Hall H. The Star Wars, Batman Vs Superman, and Suicide Squad panels, as well as the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool panels. Now, on a negative note, there were no major announcements here. That means nothing about who Chris Pine is playing in a DC universe film (Green Lantern or someone in the Wonderwoman movie), nothing about Tyrese (also rumored for that Green Lantern), nothing about Ben Affleck directing the first new Batman movie (news of that broke about a week after), and no Justice League lineup panel. And that’s all from D.C. I’m not sure what Fox could have broke regarding news, other than maybe a Fantastic Four – X-Men crossover film, and it’s too bad they didn’t do that, because it would have been great promotion for people to go out and see this new Fantastic Four movie. Still, with all the new footage, the lack of announcements was not such a big deal. Hats off to both Warner Brothers and Fox for stepping up to the plate in Marvel’s absense. Can’t wait to see how all of these films turn out.

 

 

A new round of sequels and remakes news has really popped up in this past month. That’s not too surprising since by now, mid-June, we are firmly in the middle of the summer movie season and seeing which films are doing well enough to get sequels or determine trends.

Right now the biggest hits of the summer have been The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Jurassic World. There will most likely be sequels to all three of these movies (obviously we already know about what’s coming next for the Avengers, with next years Captain America: Civil War looking a lot like another Avengers film itself.) The other big movies so far have been San Andreas and Pitch Perfect 2. And then there’s the movie that is the biggest loser so far, regarding the box office, and that would be Tomorrowland. Apparently Disney has already lost so much money from this film, that they pulled the plug on a third Tron movie that was in the works, because it would have been similar.

The recent sequel and remake news starts with the Rock announcing that he will be making a Big Trouble in Little China remake. There’s a good deal of backlash here, since that movie clearly doesn’t need to be remade and will never be able to capture the same eighties-B movie, John Carpenter-Kurt Russell, bad special effects, feel again. To help smooth things over, The Rock has publicly stated that he wants to get Carpenter back, either directing or producing. This all came out right after The Rock’s film, San Andreas, made a ton of money.

Other news is that Joe Carnahan might be directing Bad Boys 3. It will have the same cast, of course, and I like Carnahan stepping in as the director. This is the guy who made Narc and The Grey. He also made some lousy movies, including Smoking Aces and The A Team. Basically, when he stays on a smaller scale and goes for darker, grittier films, he is at his best. I’m just happy that the director won’t be Michael Bay. It’s about time they pump some new blood into these movies, and change up the style a little.

The Paul Feig Ghostbusters reboot also has some news. This is the new Paul Feig – Melissa McCarthy project. They also have a movie out this summer which is doing well and is supposedly pretty good. This summer the actor-director duo have given us Spy, a sort of spoof on the James Bond – Mission Impossible franchises. With Ghostbusters, we have known that the four members were Kristin Wiig, McCarthy, Kate Mckinnon, and Leslie Jones. Those later two actresses are in the current Saturday Night Live cast. Wiig was a former member. And now we learn that Cecily Strong will also be in the movie (another current member of SNL.) It seems like a little too much taken from the same pool.

That being said, we also learned recently that Emma Stone was indeed offered a role in the Ghostbusters remake and turned it down. That makes me feel a little better about the SNL cast being chosen, because it means they went to the right people first and didn’t just jump in bed with SNL. Stone should have done it and would have been perfect. Still, with Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy, it’s gotta be pretty good. These two have had success in all three movies they did together… Bridesmaids, The Heat, and now Spy.

The Ghostbusters remake still has other casting news, which is that Chris Hemsworth (Thor) has joined the cast to play the secretary. In the original films it was always a team of guys with a female secretary (Annie Potts playing Janine.) Now, it will be an all female team with a male secretary.

Finally, there is the Netflix / Marvel news that John Berenthal (Shane on The Walking Dead,) will be in the new Daredevil season, playing The Punisher. Daredevil had a tremendous season 1 and really got the public’s attention. It got people in Hollywood talking to the point where Tom Hardy started saying he’d like to play the Punisher (he probably meant on the big screen, and not on Netflix,) and the Jason Statham got into talks about playing the villain Bulls-Eye fro the Netflix show. That deal fell through, and Berenthal stepped up. This guy was great on the Walking Dead and in the Wolf of Wall Street, and I hear he is pretty awesome in Fury tos.

 

 

 

 

   

 The three best movies of this year were films that did just about everything right. These were terrific masterpieces of cinema. The movies were Whiplash, Locke, and Guardians of the Galaxy, in that respected order.

Whiplash was a powerhouse movie of outstanding performances, a dark character study, and a story that kept you surprised as it constantly moved down new paths. JK Simmons gave the performance of his career, and won a well-deserved best supporting actor oscar. Miles Teller was great too, and I really like that this kid is building up his credibility before appearing in the new Fantastic Four movie, (both Whiplash and the Spectacular Now were great.)

After Whiplash comes Locke. What a film. A crowning achievement in how much they were able to accomplish with so little. This is one of the most experimental movies I have ever seen. The entire film takes place in a car with one single character on screen. Other than that, it’s just voices on the speaker phone. And yet the movie comes alive due to a riveting screenplay with some truly wonderful dialogue. It’s amazing how captivating this film turns out to be.

Next comes the big blockbuster of the bunch. Guardians of the Galaxy. The new Star Wars of sorts. Certainly the Star Wars of the superhero universe. It’s the movie that proves that Marvel can do no wrong (although some of their movies aren’t great, such as Thor 2.) This film has fantastic action, humor, characters, and storytelling. And who could forget the music? It all comes together in a movie that is visually spectacular. This is the movie that announces Chris Pratt as a new A list star, and the biggest thing to come out of 2014.

After those top three, the next movies on the list are great, but also slightly flawed. Gone Girl is next and while it is incredibly suspenseful, the movie does go on a little too long. Something tells me the more I see this movie, the more it will drop to a lower spot on the list. That’s because it’s a mystery and the problem with all good mysteries is that once you know how it ends and how things are going to turns out, the excitement and suspense will never be there the same way again. Sometime a movie has enough going to overcome that (Like The Usual Suspects and L.A Confindential,) but more often than not, the twist is what makes the movie so special.

A movie that is terrific in a completely different way is The Grand Budapest Hotel. This one is an artisitc gem. It’s one of those films that works on all levels, meaning that even when the dialogue isn’t especially brilliant, the atmosphere and beauty of the scenery or movement or camera shots makes up for it. The story isn’t spectacular, but this is a comedy and in most comedies it’s the humor that counts. This is no exception. The laughs are there and so are the thrills including a ski chase or hotel hallway gun fight that are both fantastic.

X-Men Days of Future Past is one of the better movies in that series. It just has such a winding storyline that connects to tons of other films in the series while at the same time giving us something very creative and new.Tthis is the time travel movie of the X-Men universe. Just like the 2009 Star Trek, that used an alternate reality and jump on the timeline to change the whole world of the movie, X-Men Days oF Future Past uses the same strategy. That means characters and events in the X-Men history were all altered. And the action was pretty great too. Just the Quicksilver stuff alone was terrific.

22 Jump Street is the rare comedy that is as good if not better than the original. It’s pretty remarkable, actually. Birdman gets points for creativeness, being filmed in what feels like a single, long tracking-shot. The camera never stops moving, and it turns out to be a pretty amazing trick.

Captain America: the Winter Soldier is one of the most impressive things imaginable. A superhero movie that has come out over ten years since the craze began (14, actually, since it all started with X-Men in the year 2,000), and is absolutely one of the best there is. Sure, it’s not in the top two or anything (Batman Begins and Iron Man hold those spots on my list), but it’s up there as not only a great superhero flick with fantastic fights and action, but also a cool mysterious conspiracy plot.

The Lego Movie is a good bit of fun. It’s one of those movies that is filled with clever jokes and hidden meaning ideas. It’s a superhero story of sorts in a Matrix kind of way about a guy who is prophecized to be amazing, but seems like just an average joe. Call it Kung Fu Panda meets Star Wars. The results are pretty spectacular. Unfortunately, there’s not enough room for it on this year’s list.

That’s because the final spot goes to John Wick, the best action movie in years. It’s a surprise that Keanu Reeves is back at it again, but he’s been looking for the right action movie to hit over the past few years now (appearing in 47 Ronin and Man of Tai Chi). It is this movie, John Wick, which turns out to be his big winner. The movie did so well that there is already a sequel in the works. This is a revenge thriller done right, complete with great stunt and fight choreography.

Top Ten of 2014

1. Whiplash

2. Locke

3. Guardians of the Galaxy

4. Gone Girl

5. The Grand Budapest Hotel

6. X-Men Days of Future Past

7. Birdman

8. John Wick

9. Captain America: the Winter Soldier

10. 22 Jump Street

2014 Full List

 

 

 

Movies missed:

Selma

Still Alice

Under the Skin

While We’re Young

2013 was an interesting year. It was the year of the accopalypse comedy, giving us both This Is The End and The World’s End, (both similarly titled and both in the summertime.) The best part is that they were both very good films. This was the year of both The Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle, two very different movies that came out at the same time of the year, and were clearly connected. That connection was simply Martin Scorcese and Robert Deniro. American Hustle was meant to be like Goodfellas and other Scorcese movies. It accomplished its goal and even added comedy into the mix along with everything else. On top of that, the movie featured Scorcese’s former go to man, Deniro, in a small role. Meanwhile, The Wolf of Wall Street featured Scorcese’s current go to guy, Leonardo Dicaprio, and was directed by Scorcese himself. The movies were both about con artists or guys who ripped people off and had the FBI out to get them.

And then there were the unique movies that couldn’t be put into any of the usual categories. Movies like Blue Jasmine and The Way Way Back. One was a depressing yet wildly fascinating drama, and the other a heartfelt coming of age summer story. These were all incredibly likeable movies featuring all-star casts in smaller roles. From Sam Rockwell in tThe Way Way Back to Andrew Dice Clay in Blue Jasmine, these films were perfectly cast with actors hitting it out of the park. Cate Blanchet even won an oscar for Blue Jasmine and boy did she deserve it.

In some of the more familiar genres, we got a great thriller with Prisoners and a throwback animated movie with Frozen, that was clearly a tribute to the older Disney films of the nineties, complete with musical numbers and fairy tale atmosphere. And then there were the final two spots. At least three movies got kicked off the list, not quite making it into a final position. those films were Iron Man 3, The Wolverine, and Side Effects. All good films, but none of them great. Instead, The Heat proved to have real comedy chops that got funnier with each repeat viewing (just like Bridesmaids), and Man of Steal proved to have enough style and flavor to make it pretty intriguing. That movie was too long and maybe a little too dark, but it was packed with creative ideas and powerful emotion. Just like The Way Way Back and Blue Jasmine, this was a movie where casting really made a difference. Kevin Costner, for example, in a small role, was dead on the money, playing the human adopted father of Clark Kent.

At the end of the list, the final three spots were reserved for movies that definitely had their flaws (Man of Steal – way too much destruction at the end, and The World’s End – too much time spent on the Lamp ending,) but were overall pretty great.

1. Prisoners

2. This is the End

3. Blue Jasmine

4. The Wolf of Wall Street

5. The Way Way Back

6. Frozen

7. American Hustle

8. The World’s End

9. The Heat

10. Man of Steal

1. Silver LiningsPlaybook

2. Django Unchained

3. Moonrise Kingdom

4. The Avengers

5. The Cabin in the Woods

6. 
 Argo

7. The Amazing Spider man

8. Wreck-it Ralph

9. Hitchcock

10. Seven Psychopaths

2012 was unfortunately not a great year for movies. It was more of a year where people jumped on board things that weren’t anything special and pretended that they were amazing. I’m talking about movies like Lincoln or Beasts of the Southern Wild (both nominated for bes picture, if you can believe that.) Of course, this all came at the end of the year, and there is plenty to talk about from earlier on.

The year started with movies like The Grey and Chronicle. Those movies weren’t anything special, but they also weren’t half bad, the way most January movies tend to be (compare that to the January movies of this year, 2013, Broken city, Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters, and Gangster Squad.)

The first really good movie of 2012 was 21 Jump Street. That movie was written by Jonah Hill, and like the rest of the Judd Apatow team members for writing and starring in their own movies (Seth Rogen, Jason Segal), Hill scored a very funny movie here. it was followed by a few other movies that were okay, like Wrath of the Titans, and it all led up to Cabin in the Woods,the Avengers, and Moonrise Kingdom. All in late April or early May. Both Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers were written and produced by Joss Whedon. He’s the guy who also directed The Avengers movie and really gets the most credit for how that movie turned out. Good as that film was, Cabin in the Woods is even better. This was certainly Joss Whedon’s year.

Moonrise Kingdom was a mid-year entry by filmmaker Wes Anderson who hadn’t really been relevant for a while. Anderson’s last three movies (The Life Aquatic, the Darjeeling Limited, and the Fantastic Mr. Fox), weren’t nearly as good as his first three (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and the Royal Tenenbaums). It was Moonrise Kingdom that was going to set the stage for how the third part of Anderson’s career would be going. the movie turned out to be a lot of fun, and right at home with those first three films, about a kid who acts like an adult and is full of himself, as well as his own, creative ideas.

There were other decent movies out at the start of the summer, but none that were that memorable. Ted was funny, but not really any better than 21 Jump Street. Snow White and the Huntsman was cool with all of it’s visuals, but in the end it turned out to be the same old cliched kind of a movie that appears everywhere we look (hero makes a rousing speech to get the knights to go to war at the end.) Prometheus and Savages and Men in Black 3 were all just okay. None of them was truly bad, but at the same time there wasn’t a one of them that was anything special at all. At least they were all a lot better than the Hunger Games, which is another one of those movies like Lincoln and Beasts of the Southern Wild, that I think everyone just fell in love with because everyone else was in love with it. People stopped thinking for themselves this year and it became a disaster.

Things started to get interesting at about the midpoint of the summer (really the midpoint of the year). The movies that should have been good weren’t and the movies that had no reason being any good were. I’m talking about the way that the Dark Knight Rises was lousy, and yet was the movie with more potential than anything else around. And while that movie didn’t meet expectations, the Amazing Spider Man did. That movie was surprisingly well-made and interesting. I say surprisingly because the director only made one movie before, (500 Days of Summer), the lead actor (Andrew Garfield) only starred in one movie before (the Social Network), and it was way too soon after the last Spider Man trilogy to be rebooting the franchise. Yet it worked.

Another movie that should have been a lot better than it turned out to be was the Bourne Legacy. It looked like Jermey Renner was a good choice to take over (and to be honest, the problems weren’t his fault), but the movie itself fell way short of the other Bourne films. That’s really because of the writing which couldn’t decide if it wanted to be it’s own thing and stay away from the other Bourne movies or wanted to be an exact clone and just copy their formula. It was an absolute mess. By the time the fall began, two thirds of the year were over and there were only five good movies to talk about. The Cabin in the Woods, the Avengers, the Amazing Spider Man, Moonrise Kingdom, and 21 Jump Street. That meant in the final portion of the year, the fall and start of winter, there needed to be 5 other good movies just to have enough for a top ten list. Luckily there were.

Argo was an instant classic and became one of the best movies of the year. Silver Linings Playbook was even better, knowing down the pins as both a black comedy and a psychological drama. The new Quentin Tarantino movie, Django Unchained, didn’t disappoint either. That movie might have been a little too long, but it was still filled with clever dialogue, intricate plotting, and some wild action.

Finally, there was Looper and Zero Dark Thirty. Both movies were good and almost great. Zero Dark, like Django, was just a little too long. It was always interesting, and powerful, but not nearly as gripping as director Kathryn Bigelow’s last movie, the Hurt Locker. and Looper had a lot of cool ideas to it, but also in many ways felt like something we had seen before. We’ve seen plenty of time travel movies, and today it’s always going back in order to do something, not just going back for fun. In Looper, it’s not the main characters going back, but other characters (the target) who the main characters need to kill. It’s a pretty cool take on the genre, but still ends up feeling kind of familiar.

I’m really happy about Argo and the Avengers and Silver Linings Playbook and the Cabin in the Woods. Other than those four movies, however, everything else felt like it was good, but not great.

My number five movie of the year is Moonrise Kingdom, and even that film isn’t quite as good as Wes Anderson’s earlier trilogy. it is certainly miles better than the last three films he made. Between him and Tarantino with Django, we had some great filmmakers turning in some awesome work. Even Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, might not have been on the same level as his Lord of the Rings films, but it was still pretty cool (Certainly the best of his three Hobbit films.)

Most disappointing of all was how much Christopher Nolan dropped the ball with his final Batman movie. Thankfully the other two superhero movies of the year (the Avengers and the Amazing Spider Man) picked up the slack and made up for Nolan’s lousy entry in the genre.

To end on a positive note, I’m glad that Silver Linings and Argo recieved the attention they did. Those were the two great movies of the end of the year, and Joss Whedon’s two films were the two great movies from the start of the year. Everything else fell somewhere in the middle, both in terms of where in the year it was and also in terms of how good or bad it was.

 

2011

Year End Wrap Up

Top Ten of 2011

1. Win Win

2. Bridesmaids

3. Midnight in Paris

4. X-men: First Class

5. Horrible Bosses

6. The Ides of March

7. Moneyball

8. The Descendants

9. Attack the Block

10. The Artist

I’ve seen just about every one of these movies more than once. It’s the multiple viewings that really tell you how a film will hold up, and which movies you can watch again and again. A truly good movie is good on more than just a first viewing. That’s the reason for Bridesmaids rising to the number 2 spot, and for Horrible Bosses making it onto the list at all (in the top 5 of the year, no less.)

Midnight in paris is good, and you can definitely watch it more than once, but Bridesmaids is hilarious, and Win Win is pretty perfect. I love the best friend (Bobby Canavale) in Win Win, who is a major reason for why the movie ends up so great.

X-Men first class is definitely one of the better X-men films, and while I don’t love the whole team atmosphere as much as I like it in X-Men and X-2, the Magneto scenes are terrific. It’s his movie and he really dominates the first half of the film nicely as he goes around hunting Nazis.

Horrible Bosses is one of those repeat viewing movies that gets funnier each time. Charlie Day in particular, really adds a lot to the humor level, and Jason Bateman as the straight man is also pretty great. Kevin Spacey is the weakest boss, but Jennifer Aniston has never been hotter and Colin Farell playing a coke head is a lot of fun.

After those five, the next five movies are good, but not great. The Descendents, for example, by director Alexander Payne, isn’t nearly as good as some of his other movies (Sideways and Election), but it is still entertaining. Especially the whole bit about Clooney deciding what to do with his land. The Ides of March is the better Clooney movie, because it moves faster and has a darker feel. The Descendents is black comedy, only it’s not really all that funny. With the ides of march, it plays no games with letting us know what it really is. The movie is a political thriller involving death and double crossing.

Moneyball is also on the list, and that’s the movie more than any of the others (well, that and Horrible Bosses,) that I didn’t really care for the first time I saw it. The multiple viewings are what got me to really appreciate the film. It is definitely a little slow at times, but the movie is smart and creative, and somehow finds a way to turn what would seem like a boring topic, into an interesting film. The topic is the management of a baseball team, and specifically using a mathematical formula to figure out which players to keep and which to send packing. There is very little actual baseball playing in the movie. It’s all behind the scenes of the organization stuff.

Rounding out the top ten are Attack The Block and The Artist. Those are the two I am most uncertain about, and could see getting kicked off the list at some point. I like The Artist for what it is… funny, light-hearted, and a tribute to silent movies. But the plot is also pretty basic and the movie is slow at times, more than it should be.

Attack The Block is definitely a film I need to see again. I saw it once, and it was pretty funny and creative, but I can’t be sure yet if it holds up under multiple viewings. So far, it seems like it belongs, but it’s definitely a big question mark for the future.

 

2010 Year in Review:

Top Ten List of 2010:

1. Shutter Island

2.The Town

3. Inception

4. The Social Network

5. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

6. Kick Ass

7.True Grit

8. The Fighter

9. Black Swan

10. Hot Tub Time Machine

The two biggest movies of 2010 were Inception and The Social Network, and both pretty cool. Inception was the closest thing we’ve had to revolutionary all year, and it did give us a whole other world that is open to possible sequels, just like the Matrix did back in 1999. We all know how those sequels turned out. Avatar, last year’s version of the it film, will also have sequels sometime in the future.

 If I’m being honest about the best movies of the year, I’m going all the way back to January, which is something the oscars never do. I wonder if they even can. They say January is the dumping ground and I wonder if it’s because movies released at that time can’t even be considered for the next year’s oscars. That’s a shame, because I thought Shutter Island was pretty great. It’s the first movie I saw all year, and I still consider it the best.

After that there’s the Town. And then Inception. Those are definitely my top 3, and as far as I’m concerned, the only really great films of the year. Then there are things like Edge of Darkness, which thrills you, but not in the same way that Inception or Shutter Island did, where you could go back and watch them again and again and see all new things.

Toy Story 3 was pretty creative, and one of the better Pixar animated movies I’ve seen in a while. Better than Up and better than Wall E. Maybe even better than Ratatouille. And I thought all three of those movies were pretty great.

Other movies on my list include The Social Network and Black Swan, both enjoyable, neither one fantastic. Those two movies both kept you feeling the tension throughout, and did not disappoint by the end. I also liked Scott Pilgrim Vs the World, a movie that was intentionally made to feel like a video game, and all the better because it embraced that. It was about our hero battling ex boyfriends who were like guardians at the end of every level. The movie had fun spoofing both games and anime.

Also on the list is The Fighter was great mainly because of the fantastic performances surrounding Mark Wahlberg. Christian Bale as the brother, Melissa Leo as the mother, and Amy Adams as the girlfriend, all gave powerhouse performances. They really brought the story to life, and I have to say, I love the way the movie made its decisions, not based on the audience and the feel good ideas, but based on what might be the reality of the situation.

Other movies on the list are Kick Ass, True Grit, Hot Tub Time Machine. These are the three guilty pleasure movies of the bunch (although most people would consider True Grit more of an art house film.) That movie has the Coen Brother’s stamp all over it, and is rich with dialogue and atmosphere and humor in ways that only they can do. Kick Ass, similarly, is a movie that bares the mark of it’s director, Matthew Vaughn, and just how creative and interesting the movies that this guy makes all turn out to be. It has fantastic atmosphere and gets the best performance out of Nicholas Cage that he’s given in years (maybe even the last great one he will give.)

Hot Tub Time Machine rounds out the list, and it just barely made it on. This is not a great movie, but it is certainly funny and creative. One of the best gags in the movie involves a bellhop who the boys know is someday going to be losing an arm. Every time he has a close call, the guys watch intently thinking this will be the moment when it happens. It’s a movie that just manages to work. The It comedy of the year, (Like Horrible Bosses is to 2011.)