Saturday, December 31, 2011

The State of Mindless Movies

So, another year has come to and end. This is the first full year for the Mindless Movie Marathon. It was also the first full year where we each skipped some movies – I didn’t see Contagion, but because Evan doesn’t do reviews anymore, I doubt anyone realized that the M³ was represented. I left Evan off the ticket for Kung Fu Panda II (I took my nephew instead) and Harry Potter 8 (although we saw that one later on Blu-Ray, about a month after our Harry Potter Marathon).

Anyway, I thought I’d give a rundown of all the reviews and columns posted this past year, in case anyone missed one and desperately needs to catch up. Like last year, it’s organized by quality (well, by how much I liked the movie – Theatre, Blu-Ray, DVD, Free on TV, and Avoid at all costs) instead of date. One thing I notices was that there were less Theatre movies and more Blu-Ray and DVD movies than I would have liked. On the other hand, we didn’t have any Free on TV or Avoid movies. Maybe we’re getting more discerning. I was hoping that wouldn’t happen because I want to like movies. Big, dumb movies. Oh well, on with the show …

Theatre Movies

The Green Hornet – Seth Rogan as a superhero? Yes, but only because Jay Chou actually does the work.

Battle Los Angeles – The critics may not agree with us (do they ever?) but we found it action packed and very exciting.

Paul – Funny, funny movie.

Fast Five – Turn your brain off, as well as any understanding you have of physics.

Kung Fu Panda II – Animated fun. Just as good as live action, and plenty funny.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Also includes reviews of the previous two.

Horrible Bosses – Incredibly funny, R-rated comedy.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – Includes part 1 as well.

Captain America – Great action movie with funny lines. Pretty much my prototypical movie

Sucker Punch – I liked it a lot, but no one else did.

Conan the Barbarian – Gratuitous action all the way through, and dual-wielding swords.

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows – Guy Ritchie knows how to make a good movie.

Blu-Ray Movies

The King’s Speech – I downgraded it to be fair to action movies.

Source Code – Good plot and acting, but not enough action for me.

Thor – Giant spectacle, but not quite enough action. Maybe if the next director is worse than Kenneth Branagh, it’ll be better.

Priest – Vampire movie with some cool things, but standard action

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – Not quite as good as the previous incarnations (which are included).

Super 8 – Tries to harken back to E.T. but didn’t really become the phenomenon it wanted.

X-Men: First Class – Good movie with good actors.

The Green Lantern – I like it, but no one else did.

Cowboys & Aliens – a bit too serious for its title.

Killer Elite – a bit too long for its own good, but it’s a pretty decent movie none-the-less.

Moneyball – Brad Pitt doing Brad Pitt things (acting well) and a song that’ll get stuck in your head. Plus, math!

The Three Musketeers – Silly, silly movie. What did you expect. Widest disagreement ever between Evan and myself. We can no longer talk about this movie without getting into a heated exchange.

Immortals – Pretty good movie, but some scenes that’ll make people wince.

DVD movies

The Mechanic – Not much action. For Jason Statham, that’s unacceptable.

Drive Angry 3D – Plenty of action, but it was even stupider than we prefer, and we prefer pretty stupid.

Hanna – Not much action. Tries to be a good movie, so critics ate it up. We did not.

30 Second or less – Not enough action for an action movie, not enough comedy for a comedy movie. Still funny though.

Colombiana – Not a lot of action. Quite disappointing.

Drive – Again, not a whole lot of action. More quick, brutal violence.

In Time – So much potential, but so many standard movie things it drove me nuts.

Tower Heist – Not as good as the critics would have you believe. Not much action or comedy.

So besides all the reviews, if there wasn’t a movie to go to see, I would write something on my own. Perhaps of a movie I saw on DVD, or something about movies. I also started to branch out into other entertainment areas (mainly games). So here’s the collection of those.

The Year in Movies (2010) – This column from last year.

Mindless Movies 2011 – Looking forward to all the movies released last year.

Nothing Happens! – My favourite dramas. Not much action or comedy, but good anyway.

Death Race Duology – I reviewed both recent Death Race movies.

Valentines Day – My gripes about how love is portrayed in Hollywood.

Humour – Different kinds of funny in movies and TV

Religion and Film – How religion is used in entertainment

Dragon Age II – I played it through three times, and wrote down a bunch of stuff from that.

The Crucible – One of my friends was in this play, so we went to support her.

Game of Thrones – I watched the first two episodes, and was a little disappointed. Then I read all the books, but didn’t review them, because it was August by the time I finished.

If Life was an RPG – I realized there were a lot of analogies between life and games.

Sports-Break: New Kickoff Rules – I did some math to evaluate how a rule change would affect the NFL season. I have no idea if it’s actually holding true or not.

Big Trouble in Little China – Hilarious movie from the 80’s.

The Worst Survivor Ever – After whatever apocalypse comes, I won’t do so well.

Pilot Season – Every year, a bunch of new shows debut, and most get tossed out.

Star Wars: The Old Republic – I got the chance to Beta Test this game for a weekend about six weeks before it came out

Nostalgia – How we perceive things from our childhood, and how that affects what we like now.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back – classic movie I want to watched before SWTOR drops.

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi – Finishing off the classes trilogy before SWTOR drops.

So that’s been the year in Mindless Movies. Thank you to all who’ve regularly stopped by. Thank you to all who just dropped by once and wondered what the heck this was all about. Thank you for all the feedback. Thanks to everyone who came to a movie with us. And a big thanks to Evan, who constantly puts up with the mindless movies I like, and my endless flow of comments during them. Here’s to much more mindlessness.

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