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2012: A Good Movie Year


Colon Leftbracket

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I remember awhile back when my family decided to go to the movies, they all decided to see The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. Now I really don't like that series for multiple reasons so I had to choose another movie to see while they watch their movie.

To my dismay there was slim pickings at that time where all the movies were pretty boring looking. I asked for a ticket to see Paranormal Activity 3, not because I really care for the movie but its a flick my friends saw and enjoyed so I might as well stop feeling left out of the conversation. Things suddenly got worse as they discovered that the projector was broken and had to be fixed, so naturally they told me to see a different movie. I ended up settling for Tower Heist which you may or may not remember because it was a pretty unremarkable Ben Stiller/Eddie Murphy comedy. The only reason why I enjoyed it at all was because I had the whole theater to myself and it was nice to see Eddie Murphy return to movies despite his returning movies to be pretty lame.

 

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NOW, this year my family wants to see The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 which is thankfully the last of these bad movies, but still an experience I'd rather avoid after proving myself absolutely right that I was correct on skipping out of Part 1. This time though I'm having the exact opposite problem, I can't decide what movie I want to watch!

 

Hell this entire year has been filled with good movies and films (there's a difference in my opinion).

 

February 17th; marked the release of the Studio Ghibli animated film The Secret World of Arriety, unfortunately I have not seen it, but its Studio Ghibli so as long as its better than Ponyo I'll be pleased. Though I've heard its a bit short and feels a bit rushed, so its not like a new Ghibli classic, but even Ghibli's lesser films tend to amaze me.

 

March 2nd; released The Lorax which strangely I also haven't seen. Though it exploded on the Internet into what seems like a cult classic and still has a pretty dedicated fandom. It seems well animated at least, but I usually have mixed opinions when it comes to the Seuss movies, so I'm not sure if I will like it.

 

March 23rd; was the cinema explosion known as The Hunger Games now judging it as an interesting action flick I'd say its pretty good. I've heard as a book-to-film adaptation it's less than stellar. But judging it as a serious piece of art film is rather difficult. There's nothing I find insulting with the acting and everyone does a pretty good performance. The film really sucks you into this nightmare dystopian society and makes you feel a part of this deadly game. It really seems to take teenage audiences seriously and thinks that teenagers can handle material this dark maturely. But it all falls apart with a few of the cinematic decisions, namely the shaky cam. The action scenes are near unwatchable. I understand they wanted to censor a lot of the violence, but I feel they could do it in a much better way. The big final battle, its too dark to see what's going on and the camera goes haywire, so it makes for a confusing climax. So if its a good film that's really up to your judgement... I'm gonna say no, but really close!

 

April 14th; The Cabin in the Woods, okay... who has seen this movie? Because I haven't, and I really felt like I didn't want to. I think everyone went on assuming it would be a boring horror flick that maybe we'll buy on DVD around Halloween if we have nothing better to watch. Well apparently the Katniss-lead House at the End of the Street wasn't interesting enough for audiences this Halloween season so they actually went back and watched this Cabin movie... and apparently people are saying it went HIGHLY underrated! People are calling it a new modern horror classic, which I find confusing... if its so good how did it go unnoticed for so long? I'll check it out soon enough, but anyone want to kinda confirm these claims?

 

May 4; Do I even have to explain it? The Avengers! I probably don't have to explain this movie to you, but I feel its one of the most entertaining action movies I've seen in a long time, especially in the superhero genre. Now do I think its an honest to goodness film like its rival The Dark Knight? Well, no... I'll say it gets close, but from the amount of humor this movie drives itself on its near impossible to try and take seriously. Its probably the closest I've seen Marvel to impressing me on a serious film merit, but its mostly just a fun kickass movie.

 

June 22nd; Pixar's Brave sees its release and not having seen it yet, I'm not quite sure what to think of it... I'd say if its any good, it has the WRONG advertising staff making ads for it. Whenever I see an ad for this movie/film, I swear it looks like Dreamworks took over because all they show are the lame, quirky joke parts that aren't funny or entertaining at all. Pixar is more about great touching moments on top of stunning animation, but if its like I see what's advertised then I think Pixar has picked up some bad habits from making Cars 2 and is really going downhill... especially since Planes is and upcoming movie... blehhhh!

 

June 29th; Magic Mike... ummm... I want to see... because... reasons....

I MEAN... Ted... yes Ted is a movie that came out on June 29th that I want to see and have not seen because I am slow at seeing movies... yes I totally meant Ted

Ted seems to have a fun concept and some of the jokes seem funny. Hopefully it doesn't feel too much like Family Guy though... because that's a show that really needs to stop... its not very funny these days...

 

July 3rd: The Amazing Spider-man finally gives people what they want, a retry! I know a TON of people think Spider-man 3 is what killed the Spider-man franchise, but I want to say that it was just the whole trilogy. The whole trilogy just seemed really dumb and silly and it had a natural progression of silliness The first flick had a high degree of silliness, but the origin story was done well enough that we could hardly notice. The second movie was pretty over the top in silliness but we were still hyped over from the first one to really care. The third one just exploded and caved in on itself with silliness and then people panicked. Now this new webslinging reboot I have yet to see (like a lot of movies) but I've heard its pretty solid.

 

July 20th; Alas finally the mega block buster comes out of the shadows and The Dark Knight Rises! How excited was I for this movie? VERY! How blown away was I by this film? Meh... not really...

I'd say this was a very disappointing film... still a fun action movie that I enjoyed, but if I wanted to take it seriously against The Dark Knight I'd say this epic conclusion is out of its league. The plot is pretty dumb, there are some big plot holes, and the EPIC CONCLUSION didn't CONCLUDE correctly since it leaves itself pretty open ended. Hell its also pretty vague too since I've heard different interpretations about certain elements of the ending. I'd say it was a huge disappointment, but still one of the better movies this year.

 

August 17th; Hey we've come full circle, The Expendables 2! I actually did a review on that so if you can find that I'd go looking for it. It's just a fun action flick with some all time badasses. It's just fun!

ParaNorman also released on the same day. I haven't seen it yet, but I really looked down on it for some time. It just seemed like a second rate 3D animated film that will be forever hidden in the shadow of Tim Burton, but from what I've heard its freaking great! I'll see it sometime soon I suppose.

 

September 28th; Looper... another movie that I haven't seen and didn't hear about much until just recently. I've been hearing that its probably one of the best action flicks in a while outside of the superhero genres, a classic in time travel movies, and a must see for Bruce WIllis fans. The plot sounds REALLY stupid where a man is sent people from the future he must execute and then he's sent Bruce Willis who is actually himself from the future. REALLY DUMB... or GENIUS! I can't tell, I've heard its mostly the latter. But how badass would it be to learn that you turn into BRUCE FUCKING WILLIS in the future!

 

October 5th; Taken 2... because... well... I really liked the first one... and I'm sure if I don't see it Liam Neeson will hunt me down or something.

Frankenweenie a new Tim Burton animation... so... why not. Actually I've heard that this one is kinda an upset for Burton animation fans, so that's depressing. I've heard that ParaNorman is actually better, so that's a surprise at least. I should watch both and get back to you guys which one I think is better.

 

October 26th; Cloud Atlas I've seen ads for it and I can't tell if it looks amazing or it may be trying too hard. I finally got this question answered when a friend of mine came back from seeing it and he said its one of the best movies he's seen in a long time and he cannot reccomend it enough. Usually him and I have similar opinions on movies so I may take his word for it for now and I'll see how good it is some time soon. Anyone see it? Want to tell me if it is truly amazing?

 

November 2nd; Ah.. just yesterday Wreck-It Ralph came out and this animated movie by Disney has had TONS of hype behind it. It really has been trying to capture the spirit of video games. For a while I was buying into it seeing all sorts of cool references to some of my favorite video games. After a while I started seeing it more as just Video Game References: The Movie and I thought it would probably be just a bunch of disappointment made purely for nostalgic appeal.... and then recently THE HYPE RETURNS! I REALLY want to see this movie! Who knows it might just be a new animation classic much like the older Pixar films. A friend of mine actually said he liked it better than most of the Pixar greats which REALLY puts this film on a high pedestal. This film might be the one I choose to see when my family decides to waste their time on that other movie.

 

November 7th; Now to the near future! Skyfall, the new James Bond movie is set to release and you could say I'm looking forward to it. It's a James Bond movie so... really what else is there to say, he's like the Doctor Who of action movies.

 

December 14th; Well its... The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey! Come on... who doesn't like the new Lord of the Rings films? It may be one of the best book-to-film adaptations of all time, and perhaps one of the most perfect movie trilogies since Back to the Future or Star Wars: The Original Trilogy. So The Hobbit has a lot of hype to live up to and I haven't read the book, but I'm sure it will be such an amazing journey. Perhaps the best film of the year!

 

December 25th; Ohh boy Christmas Day! What movie could we watch to keep up our holiday spirits? Les Miserables? Yeah one of my favorite musicals is getting a movie adaptation... and really I don't know whether to be excited or scared. I HIGHLY doubt they could ever hope to match the amazement of the play, but maybe perhaps they could try to get as cinematically close as possible.

 

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Final List:

 

The Secret World of Arriety

The Lorax

The Hunger Games

The Cabin in the Woods

The Avengers

Brave

Magic Mike

Ted

The Amazing Spider-man

The Dark Knight Rises

The Expendables 2

ParaNorman

Looper

Taken 2

Frankenweenie

Cloud Atlas

Wreck-It Ralph

Skyfall

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Les Miserables

 

WOW That is a LOT of great movies this year! Now I can't attest for all of them since I haven't seen all of the yet, but I'm going with which ones I think will be the best this year has to offer.

It might be easier to just decide a worst movie than a best movie which is normally harder because I'm not so easily amazed by movies these days. For a Worst Movie of the Year, I'll probably have to go with This Means War... I mean seriously... watch an ad for this thing... its really BAD!

No but if I had to pick a best at this point it would have to be The Hobbit I mean come on, its a safe bet! Seriously! Unless it goes the route of The Dark Knight Rises and becomes a major disappointment I'm not too sure then. I guess Cloud Atlas if its as good as I hear or maybe its about time we have an animated film of the year and it goes to Wreck-It Ralph. Point is there's a lot of good movies!

 

Anyway, what do you think? Did we have a good movie year? What are some of your favorites? Which ones did I include that you didn't like? Which ones did I forget to add?

Just leave a comment below.

5 Comments


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The only movies I saw this year were Titanic 3D, Battleship and the Avengers. And I liked all of them alot.

 

Yeah, I'm very picky as to what I want to see :/

 

Mah favorite was actually Battleship, since, unlike Titanic, I had never seen before. I didn't really care about the acting, it was more for the good 'ol aliens in warships which dolphin dive. Overall, I love it. It's given me some crazy imagination fuel for some reason, too :P

  • Brohoof 1
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@, when I saw battleship advertised I thought it would be absolutely horrid, but I've heard from other people that it was surprising good so I'll give that one a shot later on.

 

Titanic is pretty good, but a bit overrated. I guess it must be pretty damn good if you are way into the romance, but for me the movie seemed to move at a snail's pace. They could've told the same story in under 2 hours.

 

Yeah and I know the feeling of being picky in what I want to see, which is why I'm surprised that there are so many movies this year that I actually DO want to see.

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I'd like to confirm that Cabin in the Woods, Looper, and Arriety are well worth your time, especially the first two.

  • Brohoof 1
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@@Pony Joe, and @@Pencil Hoof, Thanks!

 

Cabin and Looper did look kinda stupid to me at first, but I've been hearing all sorts of praise for them even from people who I'd expect to trash them, so more opinions on this is helpful.

 

I'll probably see these movies soon whenever I can.

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