The Lists: 10 Universal Truths We’ve Learned At The Movies
This isn’t mine. I didn’t write it. Eric Snider (be sure to check out his work over on film.com) did. Just figured I should reveal that quick before anyone got to screaming “THIEF!“. But I laughed so hard while reading it that I couldn’t not crib and post it here. If I had a better way to link to this other than the blatant theft way, I’d have used it. And because I don’t, and probably never will, the cut-and-paste method will have to do as a my way of sharing it with you.
Click on the pic to check out the full story…
The 84th Academy Award Winners Are…
The 84th annual Academy Awards are over. Yay. I’d love to say more but I didn’t watch them this year. Spent the evening burning through season four of ALLY MCBEAL (Robert Downey Jr was ten tons of awesome during his run) with AngieBee. This Oscars have become too much about awarding movies that have already won dozens of awards already (I mean, seriously, how many more f**king awards do THE ARTIST and THE IRON LADY really need?) and showing off expensive fashions that the 99% can’t afford.
Unless the Academy actually opts to recognize movies worth recognizing (IE leave the Oscar-bait flicks out and focus on the ones actually changing the cinematic landscape) next year, I might be completely over the Oscars. Tough to admit that but absolutely true. Show does nothing for me anymore.
Click on the pic for the full list of winners…
Adamantium Bullet’s Top Ten Of 2011
I’m no fan of writing lists. I love reading lists — checking out what my favorite authors loved and hated at the cinema is always a thrill — but when it comes to writing them, I always end up getting a headache. There’s just something about forcing every film released in a single year to battle it out for the top spot that really bothers me.
I guess the main issue I have with the whole process is that I’ve not seen all the movies that came out this year, so writing a BEST MOVIES OF 2011 list would be incomplete if I wrote it because I haven’t seen every film that came out in 2011 and shouldn’t pretend like I did. Personally, I never got around to seeing BELLFLOWER, MONEYBALL, CONTAGION, TAKE SHELTER, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, 50/50, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, THE DESCENDANTS, THE IDES OF MARCH, MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, I SAW THE DEVIL, YOUNG ADULT, THE ARTIST, HUGO, SHAME, THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, WAR HORSE, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL, SHAME and …well, the list of films I didn’t see this year is pretty long.
But, as much as really don’t dig doing BEST OF lists, I kinda have to do one regardless of whether or not I‘ve seen every film released this year. For one thing, this is the slowest news week of the year and I need stuff to post. For another, there might be some folks out there who are genuinely interested in what I feel was the best of the best from last year. Might just be one or two people interested but I feel I have an obligation to them and I am not the kind of the guy who ditches obligations.
That means that a list must be written and it must be written by me…because I’m the law around these parts. But instead of doing some half-assed BEST OF list, I’m going to list my top ten favorite movies of 2011. What you’re about to read isn’t meant to represent what I thought were the most important and groundbreaking films from last year but rather the ones I found to be the most entertaining. These are the films that stuck with me and didn’t evaporate from my memory once my review was written.
Remember, these are what I consider to be the most entertaining films of the year and this is in no way meant to represent what I feel were the absolute best films of the year. Seriously, re-read that last line till it burns into your memory. I don’t want anybody giving me shit because HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (gleefully insane and proud of it) snuck into the #4 spot and HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 (great ending to the series but it’s only one half of a real film) and TREE OF LIFE (incredibly dull and lifeless) are nowhere to be seen.
Click on the pic to find out what films made my personal top ten of 2011…
The 31st Annual Razzie Winners/Losers Are…
The 31st Annual Razzies went down last Saturday. In case you didn’t know, the Razzies are pretty much the anti-Oscars. Instead of awarding the best of the best in Hollywood, they opt to recognize the worst of the worst. And while I’d love to say that they really nailed the biggest stinkers this year, I can’t. The Razzies were really off the mark this year and chose to completely hammer a movie that wasn’t great, but certainly wasn’t the worst film of the year: THE LAST AIRBENDER.
Believe it or not, I actually kinda liked this flick. It’s not a great movie by any means, but it certainly isn’t the worst film of the year. FURRY VENGEANCE was hands down the worst film of the 2010. Other films far worse than AIRBENDER were fellow Razzie nominee SEX AND THE CITY 2, THE NUTCRACKER IN 3D, CATS AND DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE, THE SPY NEXT DOOR, BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR (made in 2008 but didn’t receive a wide release till 2010) and LEAP YEAR. Pick any of the above and you’ve got a better choice for “Worst Film Of 2010”.
But apparently the Razzies decided to jump on the “We Hate All Shyamalan” train (which, just to be completely honest here, is the most thinly veiled case of widespread racism I’ve ever seen) and pretty much gave all the awards to AIRBENDER. It’s not really hard to find the worst of the worst, so how did these guys fail so badly at doing what they supposedly do best?
Click on the pic to see the complete list of winners/losers…
The 83rd Annual Academy Award Winners Are…
The 83rd Annual Academy Awards went down on Sunday and…well, it was pretty much what was to be expected. THE KING’S SPEECH won most of the big awards and unique pics like INCEPTION, BLACK SWAN and WINTER’S BONE pretty much got the shaft. Not completely shafted, mind you, but enough that the Academy made it abundantly clear that they are 100% devoted to the old-school way of handing out awards (IE “important movies” are rewarded while originality is not). Picking hipsters like James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host the show might be a step in right direction for earning points with modern audiences, but giving all the awards to blatant Oscar-bait like SPEECH is not.
Speaking of Franco and Hathaway, I thought they did pretty good. Franco definitely clocked out around the halfway mark, but he was solid for the first two hours or so. The opening montage of the two running amok in the Best Picture nominees was cute and the sight of Franco in a dress is something I won’t be able to erase from my memory no matter how much booze I drink.
Here’s the opening for those who missed it (easily the best part of the show):
Hathaway fared better, actually maintaining a steady flow of interest for the entire show and even doing a musical number (one that ripped on previous Oscar host Hugh Jackman) at one point. Sure, she seemed to be screaming most of her lines and a couple of those dresses (particularly the black number she wore towards the end) were complete eyesores. But you have to respect the gal for doing the best she could and for poking fun at her own movies (an early joke about LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS had me in stitches).
Dug Kirk Douglas presenting Best Supporting Actress. Nice to see he’s still as feisty as ever. It was also pretty cool to see Eli Wallach up during the Lifetime Achievement Award section. Oh, did you realize that Helena Bonham Carter was the big winner of the night? Oh sure, she didn’t win any awards for herself, but three of the films she was in last year (THE KING’S SPEECH, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART I and ALICE IN WONDERLAND) earned 17 nominations and 6 wins. Impressive.
THE FIGHTER star Melissa Leo dropping the f-bomb during her Best Supporting Actress speech was nice, as was Christian Bale’s reference to it later. Gotta love that Bale can poke fun at his own image like that. And while the Bob Hope hologram was a little weird, it was also pretty cool. Trent Reznor winning Best Original Score for THE SOCIAL NETWORK was a fun moment, though Daft Punk should’ve been nominated and won for TRON LEGACY. Just saying.
Click on the pic to read more and the full list of winners…
Super Bowl 2011 Teaser Trailer Round-Up
To be completely honest, I watch the Super Bowl for the movie trailers. Not the game, not the standard commercials (which mostly seemed to degenerate to “Ow! My balls!” levels this year), but the uber-brief (most max out at 30 seconds) teasers for all the big movies that are hitting theaters this summer. Been doing this way since 1996 and I’ll probably do it till the day I die. Just figured you should know.
And now that is out of the way, here’s most of the big teasers that hit last Sunday with a tiny bit of commentary and a couple of still accenting some of the more interesting moments. Click on the pic to check out the trailers for CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, THOR, COWBOYS AND ALIENS, TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON, SUPER 8, BATTLE: LOS ANGELES, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES and FAST FIVE…
The 81st Annual Academy Award Nominees Are…
The nominees for the 81st Annual Academy Awards have been announced and it’s pretty much the group of films that you were expecting. THE SOCIAL NETWORK, TRUE GRIT, 127 HOURS, THE KING’S SPEECH, BLACK SWAN and THE FIGHTER are all here, as are some lesser known films such as WINTER’S BONE, THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT and BLUE VALENTINE. The full list is below. Feel free to comment, rant or complain about which movies are missing, which ones don’t belong here and why you don’t feel that the Oscars are relevant anymore.
As for me, I have only a few questions. Number one, what is the deal with Christopher Nolan not getting a Best Director nod? INCEPTION landed a Best Picture nod and a Best Screenplay one, but Nolan was totally snubbed in the director category (the Director‘s Guild had no problems giving him a Best Director nod a few weeks back). Seems a bit strange to me that this happened, especially since INCEPTION was such a big hit and critical darling. I guess James Cameron is the only director who’s allowed to score Best Director nods for popular fare.
Click on the pic to read the full list of nominees…
Adamantium Bullet’s 10 Least Favorite Movies Of 2010
While I may not like writing lists, “Worst Of” lists are fun to write. There’s nothing more therapeutic than ripping the shit out of some movie that you paid good money to see and it let you down. Great movies are hard to lump together and rank above each other, but a bad movie is a bad movie. There’s no doubting it, there’s no questions about it and usually everybody agrees when a movie is a stinker.
Like my TOP 20 FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2010 list, this list isn’t meant to represent every film that came out this year. It simply represents the movies that I watched (or attempted to watch) and not the ones that I didn’t see. Also of note, VAMPIRES SUCK isn’t included here because that isn’t a movie. It’s a series of jokes strung along for 70 minutes. That’s not a movie. That’s a MAD TV sketch gone awry.
To be on this list of suck, you’ve got to be an actual movie. No extended skits or spoof films here, only the crappiest of the crap. Welcome to my TOP TEN LEAST FAVORITE FILMS OF 2010 list.
Click on the pic to check it out…
Adamantium Bullet’s 20 Favorite Movies Of 2010
I’m not a fan of writing lists. I love reading lists, stuff like THE BEST MOVIES OF 2010 and the TOP TEN FILMS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2011. But when it comes to writing them, I end up getting a headache.
The main problem I have is that I’ve not seen all the movies that came out this year, so writing a BEST MOVIES OF 2010 list would be incomplete if I wrote it because I haven’t seen all the movies that came out in 2010. I didn’t see THE TOWN, haven’t had a chance to see TRUE GRIT or BEST WORST MOVIE, never bothered checking out SHUTTER ISLAND, BLACK SWAN or NEVER LET ME GO and I basically avoided TOY STORY 3 and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. And that’s just the big films that I missed. There’s dozens of smaller ones that I’ve been meaning to watch but just haven’t gotten around to.
Thing is, this is the end of the year and this is also the slowest news week of the year. That means that a list (two of them to be exact, one for the good and one for the bad) must be written and it must be written by me…because I’m the law around these parts. So, instead of doing some half-assed BEST OF list, I’m going to do list of my favorite movies of 2010. A list that represents the best of what I got around to seeing and what I really enjoyed this year. And after this list, I’ll post one that represents the absolute shit that I’ve seen this year, but more on that in a bit.
Click on the pic to check out my 20 favorite movies of 2010…
THE 10 DOUCHIEST MOVIE DOUCHEBAGS
Picking just ten douchebags from all of the movies ever made is pretty much impossible. There’s just no way to really do it. Everybody has their own definition of a movie douchebag and everybody has their personal favorites. Matter of fact, when brainstorming for this list, AngieBee immediately brought up Wesley’s buddy from WANTED. Now, to me, that character was just a jerk, plain and simple. Harmless little bastard who happened to be nailing Wesley’s girl on the side. In other words, there’s a thousand dudes like him in the movies and there will be a thousand more down the line.
To AngieBee though, this guy was a pure douchebag. I actually got the feeling from her that maybe she secretly hoped that Wesley wasn’t returning home to get his father’s pistol, but rather to execute the best friend and the cheating girlfriend in cold blood. That’s how much my gal despised this dude.
But, this is my list and these do not in any way represent the all-time greatest douchebags of film. Maybe I’ll get to that list one day, but for now, this list is what I’ve got. Basically, these are the characters that annoyed me the most, the characters that for whatever reason do something so douchebaggy that they’ve irritated me for a lifetime, these are the jerks that you want to see get killed in the most graphic way possible (even if they are in a romantic comedy or sci-fi fantasy) or, at the very least, punished for being such a douche.
Click on the pic to check out the list…
Theatrical Reviews
- STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
- IRON MAN 3
- SINISTER
- PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4
- TAKEN 2
- PITCH PERFECT
- HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET
- DREDD 3D
- LOOPER
- RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION 3D
- THE EXPENDABLES 2
- TOTAL RECALL
-
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