31 December 2010

2010

lol
So it's been a mental year for me in terms of film watching. The final number came out at 151 films watched this year. This doesn't include repeat watches of course, because who cares? 151 is over twice the amount I watched last year. Various reasons there. I had 2 months where I watched 30 films (or more). In April I vowed to watch a film a day or at least the equivalent (some days I had to miss one so I caught up within a day or two). In October I vowed to watch all the Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street films that I hadn't already seen in order to somehow understand... or at least to... fuck... ok... just to watch them. Progress had to be made on my horror sequels article! As well as that I vowed to only watch horror films apart from new releases, for obvious reasons. Somehow I managed to stick to all my vows and it's left me with that hefty number.

This came up when I Google image searched "151"
Now there are some things to be pointed out here. Of those 151, only 52 of them were new releases in the cinema. (I'm counting Metropolis here as a new one because it was my first time seeing it and it had a new 25 minutes of footage which appeared to me to be absolutely essential to understanding the plot.) Anyway, those new releases were as follows:


Sweet mother!
Rather than doing some sort of top 5 bottom 5 thing I think I'll just mention some films worthy of note. Be it bad or good. Then I'll make an attempt at a favourite and least favourite. Starting from the top I think it's funny that the first 2 films I saw this year were the fascinating, haunting and plainly beautiful piece of art that was The Road & the utter shit bollocks that was It's Complicated. I don't really need to say much else, that sums both of those movies up really. Some other nice ones were Ponyo, I Love You Phillip Morris, Kick-Ass, Cemetary Junction, Perrier's Bounty, Four Lions, Splice, Piranha 3D and Buried. Some bad news now with The Wolfman, Alice in Wonderland, Repo Men, Whatever Works, The A-Team, Devil, The Town, Paranormal Activity 2 and Saw 3D. Let's not forget the mediocre The Lovely Bones and Extract.

There were some surprises along the way too. Legion was far more fun than was expected (or should've been) and Shutter Island was far more disappointing than I thought. Amazing soundtrack aside, I saw the twist coming from the trailer. Not good. How to Train Your Dragon was far far better than Dreamworks' back catalogue had caused me to expect but they managed to resolve that hiccup with Shrek Forever After. The Killer Inside Me left me cold while Easy A threw me for a loop and put a huge smile on my face. Could be a future classic! For me anyway, I don't care about the "real world".

They don't care about me either
I mean, obviously there are some big boys to mention here. The Social Network pretty much scored top marks and is appearing in many best of 2010 lists. It's obvious why, there's not a huge need to go into it. It's just a very good film. Inception the same. I feel both of these films have had everything said about them so I can leave it here. The same goes for Toy Story 3 although I will say that I was weeping like a full grown baby behind those 3D glasses. That's the real reason that movie was in 3D because it certainly didn't do much for the film. Harry Potter 7a was a pleasant journey leaving me itching for the final chapter while TRON: Legacy tickled me far more than it appears to have done for most people. And of course A Nightmare on Elm Street taught us all how to hate again!

Oh and Resident Evil: Afterlife prompted me to run home and make this comic:

If you saw the movie it would make sense... possibly
But yes, finally for my top and bottom of 2010.

Starting with the bottom:

No it is NOT
 Odds are that a lot of you didn't see this film. Count yourselves lucky. Jesus fuck... where to begin. This film fell somewhere between trying to be a zany comedy and trying to be a parody of a zany comedy. Basically, whenever the atrocious setups and bad characters began to reach a point where you felt you had to leave the room, the film would give a sly wink and nod as if to say "don't worry... we know it's shit" only to not offer anything good to back it up with. As well as all that, it felt like a bad kids movie with lots of adult gags thrown in for no reason leaving it somewhere lost in between. Useless to anyone.

And my top film of 2010:

Hardly surprising really
I'm sorry if this was predictable but come on! I can't help what I like! And what was yooooouuur favourite then?! Inception?!?! Oh please, how ORIGINAL!! Ahem. Anyway, yeah I really dug this. Now, being a big fan of the comic and the director Edgar Wright I came to this a little biased. The comics really speak to me and I relate to them in a way I haven't experienced with anything before. The film doesn't have as much of that personal poignancy but it retains the strength, charm and wit of the source material. Yes, there are some weak points but I feel like this movie highlights a corner of culture untapped by cinema effectively until now. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was always going to be a movie for me so of course I loved it. But I don't think that diminishes my need to say so. Also it has an opening credit sequence that's transcendental. I enjoyed

Ok that's it. Watch the good ones. Avoid the shit ones.

Or don't, whatever.

Happy new thing.
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