Movie List 2012: March

You know what? I don't think anyone even reads these lists. But whatever. I'm gonna do them anyways. It's fun to be able to have a record of such things. Anyways, let us take a walk down the road that is all the movies I watched in the month of March.



* = rewatched


March


36.

Source Code

When a terrorist bombs a train, authorities fear a larger attack is yet to come. The only hope of finding the identity of the bomber in time lies in an experimental piece of technology. Using a computer program scientists are able to create a recreation of the 8 minutes before the bombing occurred. A confused operative finds himself hooked up to enter the recreation and must repeat the experience until he can find the bomber. But as he repeats the situation he begins to question the nature of his role in this experiment.
Genre: Mind-fuck Sci-Fi/Action


I was curious about this one ever since I saw the trailer for it, but I wasn't sure. But I finally managed to get a copy from the library and DAMN! It was a lot better than I was expecting. I was expecting the main hook of the story to be the idea of this main character repeating the same 5 minutes over and over, like an Action version of Run Lola Run or something. And yet the real hook is the mystery of who this guy is, how he got to be here, and the development of his character along the way. If you go in wanting to see a typical action movie you're probably going to be disappointed, but if you go in expecting an interesting Sci-Fi movie then you're in for a treat.





37.

Attack the Block


A gang of street youths must protect their home from alien invaders.
Genre: Sci-Fi-Action Comedy


I love love love the premise to this one, but apparently that was my first mistake. The writing is kind of dumb, the aliens look so stupid it's hard to take them seriously, and I really didn't care about any of the characters.





38.

The Artist

When talkies start to sweep the world of film, a once famous silent film star finds himself struggling to accept the change.
Genre: Silent Film


I only saw this because we had it at the theater forever and people would not shut up about it. I went in thinking I'd hate it, but I actually enjoyed a lot of it. It's a lot of fun. It's rather clever, well shot, and well acted. There just happened to be a few things that bothered me. I don't like that the main guy is flirting with this girl while he's still married. I don't like that the girl didn't really have any character development to speak of. And I don't like that there's really no reason for this girl to love this guy as much as she does.

Oh, and sometimes she wears this fur coat thing that looks hideous and shouldn't be worn by anyone.





39.*

Milo & Otis

A puppy and a kitten are best friends and go on an adventure.
Genre: Animal Adventure


This movie is just so strange and unlike anything else. There's no people, the animals are real, and the animals don't talk. Well, technically the characters talk, but it's just the narrator doing voices over the footage. No peanut butter in the mouth or anything. These things alone make it so very different from anything else. The closest thing to it that I can think of would be Homeward Bound. But that movie had humans and individual voice actors.

To be fair Homeward Bound also doesn't sport the allegations of horrid animal cruelty that Milo & Otis does. I mean damn, it's entertaining and fun, but as an adult you have to wonder about some of the messed up shit they put those animals through.





40.

It Started With Eve

A rich man is at death's door and his son has come home to see him one last time. The man says he wants to see his son's fiancee before he passes, however, the son can't find his finacee and grabs the coat-check girl to play the role. But when his dad makes a miraculous recovery the son finds himself in a bit of a pickle.
Genre: Old Comedy


The theater I work at is going to be doing a Deanna Durbin film series in June so I've been trying to track down and watch some of them beforehand. I do the Twitter for the theater so it helps when I can actually say something about the movies.

I don't know what else to say other than it's a very silly movie...it's just so silly in the oddest ways possible. The dying father character is just so cartoonish, and the Deanna Durbin character jumps at any chance to sing, and there's a pinch fight...it's really the kind of thing you'd have to see to really understand what I'm talking about. It's pretty fun...just really silly.





41.

Christmas Holiday


An army officer is on leave for the holidays and when his plane gets grounded he winds up hearing a woman's story about how she fell in love with her criminal husband.

Genre: Old Noir


Another Deanna Durbin movie that is inexplicably bizarre. The whole thing starts out as the story about this army guy, but then the Deanna Durbin lady keeps butting in with her story and it turns out the army guy's story doesn't matter at all. Why is he in the movie then!? Why not just tell the Durbin storyline from the beginning instead of doing it in flashbacks? Plus there is an incredibly long church scene. And by "Church Scene" I don't mean "Scene occuring in a church" I mean "Scene that is straight up footage from a real church service that goes on forever." Durbin's acting is great though and it's really creepy seeing Gene Kelly playing a bad guy.





42.*

Exit Through the Gift Shop


An eccentric man gets caught up in the underground world of street art and decides to make a documentary about it. However, infamous street artist Banksy decides to turn the tables and make his own documentary about the man.
Genre: Documentary


This is probably one of the most interesting documentaries I've ever seen. Not only does it talk about street art (which I think is fascinating), but it also really makes you think about what exactly Art is. If you like street art or just art in general I strongly recommend it.





43.


Everything Must Go

A recovering alcoholic has just lost everything. His job, his car, his wife, and even his home. And even all of his stuff is on the lawn. Not having anywhere to go he returns to drinking and eventually is forced to hold a yard sale to get rid of everything he has left.
Genre: Drama


Will Ferrell is a surprisingly good dramatic actor. I wasn't really expecting that. But he's really very good. The movie does a great job at showing that alcoholism isn't always the wife-beating, no shirt ranting that you see all the time. Sometimes it just consumes your life as it slowly ruins it and takes everything that you cared about from you until all that's left is the booze. And yet overall the movie is hopeful. It shows him hitting rock bottom and discovering that he isn't just the sum of his posessions, that he does have something great to offer the world, and that his addiction is getting in his way.






44.*

Yes Man


Carl is a bit of a stick-in-the-mud and it's not only making him miserable, but it's threatening to ruin his relationship with his friends as well. But things change when he goes to a seminar that tells him to say "Yes". Now he's saying Yes to everything and everything is working out for the better. But can saying "Yes" bring on its own set of problems?
Genre: Jim Carrey Comedy


It's a Jim Carrey Comedy, what's there not to like? Ok...I lied, Mr. Poppers Penguins was impossibly stupid, but this one's pretty fun. Not the greatest thing under the planet or anything, but it's a simple movie that's quite enjoyable. The cast is great: Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel, Rhys Darby (particularly fantastic), John Michael Higgins, plus the side characters were all really fun. My only big complaint is that I don't really see the chemistry between Jim Carrey and Zooey Deschanel.





45.*

Double Jeopardy

A woman is convicted of murdering her husband, but while in jail she learns that he is secretly alive. After getting paroled she seeks to find him and, exploiting the 5th Amendment, kill him. Yet her parole officer isn't so convinced that she's telling the truth and is determined to stop her.
Genre: Action


Oddly this is Ashley Judd's movie, but she isn't all that great. Instead of playing the falsely imprisoned woman it's like she's actually playing the cold woman who murdered her husband. But who cares about her? Tommy Lee Jones steals the spotlight from Judd throughout the entire movie. He's the much better actor and he makes his character so much more interesting and complex than Judd's. And despite the movie's faults I really do rather enjoy it.





46.

Paranormal Activity 3

A camera loving videographer in the 80's records his experiences with a supernatural presence in his house.
Genre: Found-footagesque Ghost Story Horror


It seems that my friends are determined for me to see every one of these except the first one.

Anyways, it's alright. It's got a number of parts that gave me the creeps and some of the things they do with the camera are really pretty clever. But the thing I just couldn't get over was the fact that it was taking place in the 80's. It is terribly distracting and makes it little hard to take it seriously.





47.

UHF

A loser with lots of creativity manages to get a job managing a local failing UHF TV station and his quirky ideas begin to turn the place around.
Genre: Bizarre Weird Al Comedy


This movie kind of seems like a bunch of sketches that were strung together into a movie. The sketch parts are pretty funny like "Gandhi II" and "Conan the Librarian", and some of jokes are enjoyable, but the actual plot to the movie is pretty hokey and cliche.





48.

Beetlejuice

A married couple dies and finds themselves as ghosts, bound to their house and to a bizarre set of afterlife rules & regulations. But when a new family moves into the home and wants to change everything, the couple has to get the hang of this haunting thing real quick or else risk hiring a professional (yet shady) bio-exorcist by the name of Beetlejuice.
Genre: Quirky Dark Comedy


People have been telling me for years that I need to see this movie, but it never really seemed up my alley and thus I never bothered. But I finally got around to it. Frankly it was a lot better and a lot worse than I imagined it would be. It just didn't seem to know what kind of story it wanted to tell.

I mean you've got Tim Burton running the show so of course you're going to get some wonderfully memorable visuals, so you're starting off well. Then you've got a couple who dies and finds themselves bound to their house, a surprisingly bureaucratic system of the underworld, them attempting to learn how to properly haunt their house, their developing relationship with the girl who's moved into the house with her family. It's great stuff.

The real problem is Beetlejuice. I mean the real movie isn't about him at all and yet he's the title character and they keep shoehorning him into the plot. But he's just distracting. You don't need him at all. If you are going to have him in it then you've got to go all the way. In fact he could just have his own movie: A former assistant to an underworld caseworker who got fired and went off on his own to become a bio-exorcist, but now he needs to find someone to marry him so he can return to the land of the living. That's a pretty interesting premise if you ask me.

But mashed together neither plot reaches its full potential.






49.*

Wizard People, Dear Reader

An unauthorized and unofficial audiobook reimagining of the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that chronicles the story of the godly Harry Potter, his best pal and warrior Ronny "the Bear" Weasel, and their (admittedly skilled yet mostly awful) friend Harmony.
Genre: Auto-track Movie Parody / The Most Amazing Thing Ever


Wizard People, Dear Reader is the creation of a guy named Brad Neeley. Having never read the Harry Potter books he saw the movies and decided to create an audio book version of the story, but to make it more interesting he made it so that it could be played along with the movie.

I cannot put into words just how hilarious this thing is. The writing is pure genius. It is impossibly clever. It works on so many levels. I really could gush about this thing forever, so I'll spare you that. I'll give you a brief anecdote instead. This month I watched it with my friends from work, Rusty and Max. I had earlier gotten Max hooked on it, but we both hadn't been able to coerce Rusty into watching it. We finally were able to get him to watch it and we all laughed ourselves silly. Afterwards Max and I asked Rusty how he liked it. "Oh, I guess it was alright," he replied. What!? He laughed and laughed hard throughout the entire thing and yet he "guesses" is was alright. Some people I tell you.

To wrap things up, just know that I've watched/listened to this thing more times than I can count. In fact I've even got plans to watch it yet again later in the week. It's just that good. In fact, here I'll help you out. It's all on Youtube. Here's the first chapter:



Or if you prefer you can listen to it. You won't catch the little jokes referring to things on screen, but it's written so well and in audiobook format so it really is great either way. If you want to go down that road you can download the audio here.

What? You're at work/class/a funeral and can't watch videos or listen to anything? Well here's the full transcript!

So there. I've done all I've can to make it as easy as humanly possible for you to watch/listen/read the brilliance that is...Wizard People, Dear Reader!





50.

SUPER

When a man's wife is stolen from him he feels helpless. And then he has an epiphany and begins to dress as a superhero and bring vigilante justice to the wrong doers of the world.
Genre: some-undefinable-type + Comedy


I say this a lot, but I don't know how to explain this movie. It is just so very strange. It had some great moments, some memorable characters, and some pretty funny parts. But in the end? It just seemed like other things did it better. I suppose it has a lot of elements similar to Kick-Ass, but I found that it resembled Defendor much more. Except I felt Defendor was much better. It devloped its characters better and therefore had much greater emotions. Plus I hate it when movies have a "Women in Refrigerators" moment [that's when a female character is murdered/raped/tortured for no other reason than as a lame plot device to fuel the male characters' stories]. SUPER did use an WiR plot device and thus I take umbrage with it.