It's that time of the year again, after 365 days of movies, ranging form the incredible to the down right awful, it's time to look back over the films that have entertained me the most and the films that have entertained me the least. So here is part 1 of my countdown of the top 10 films that I've both loved and loathed. Check out part 1 after the jump.
Part 1 will cover films 10-6 that will include the best and the worst.
GET THE GRINGO (2012) Dir: Adrian Grunberg
Say what you
like about Mel Gibson, but my god does the man know story structure.
Ok you got me there that's actually a quote from South Park, but even
though Mel has had a tough few years, brought on by himself, he never
fails to make a good film. Edge Of Darkness was pretty good, The
Beaver went to places I didn't expect and Mel was great and now Get
The Gringo, known as How I Spent My Summer Vacation here in the U.K
(incidentally that's also the name of the Tiny Toons Movie). Get The
Gringo plays out and feels like a sequel to his 1999 thriller Payback
with Gibson unofficially reprising his role as Porter, sent to a
Mexican prison which is more like a walled off city. Gibson is dry
witted, Violent, crafty and an all-round scumbag but he plays The
Driver in a way that you route for him throughout the film. The film
is also quite violent. We all know Gibson likes the red stuff after
seeing The Passion Of Christ and Apocalypto and Get The Gringo is no
exception, when the shit hits the fan the action and the violence
goes hard core. It's a great underrated film and shows that Mel still
has the chops to do these kind of films, so even if you don't like
the way he's acted in the past few years, that should not stop you from
enjoying this great little film.
WORST
HAYWIRE
(2012) Dir: Steven Soderberg
I maybe
biased here because I absolutely hate Steven Soderberg's movies, be
it the popular Ocean's films or Erin Brockovich, I find his films all
miss something and Haywire is no exception, what seems to be missing
from Haywire is a plot, Action and characters I can relate to or root
for. Haywire is 93 minutes of basically nothing with a cast that
includes everyone from Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Antonio
Banderas, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender etc... who all have
nothing to do and this film was made on a budget of $23,000,000. If
Soderberg wants to know how to make an action film on a low budget he
needs to speak to John Hyams or Gareth Evans because Haywire is a
fucking awful film that made money because of it's high calibre cast.
Utter bollocks.
BEST
THE
ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: SECRET OF THE UNICORN (2011) Dir: Steven Spielberg
I know
Tintin was released in 2011 but I didn't see until it was released on
DVD and Blu-Ray so i'm classing it as a 2012 release. In fact quite a
few of these will be from Dvd and Blu-Ray releases. But what was it
about Tintin that has made me place in the #9 spot? The Adventures
Of Tintin is good old fashioned adventure film making, a globe
trotting adventure filled with action, suspense, comedy, intrigue and
some of the best motion capture CGI animation I have ever seen. It's
got some great performances from Jamie Bell as Tintin, Andy Sirkis as
Captain Haddock and Daniel Craig as the dastardly Sakharine. It
sports a fantastic screenplay from Edgar Wright, Stephen Moffat and
Joe Cornish and spot on direction from Steven Spielberg. John
Williams' score as usual adds so much more to a Spielberg film and
it's just a fantastic way to spend 107 minutes. Throughout the whole
film, it feels as though you're watching the Indiana Jones film that
Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull should have been. It really impressed me
and i'm not a huge fan of CGI animation but in the hands of Spielberg
and Peter Jackson, they really cooked up something special and I
cannot wait to see what Jackson does with the next film.
WORST
RED TAILS
(2012) Dir: Anthony Hemmingway
Red Tails is
the film George Lucas has spent years trying to bring to the screen,
the story of the Tuskagee Airmen, a unit of all black pilots
stationed in Italy during the second world war. What we should have
gotten was a hard look at racism and bigotry with the Airmen showing
that no matter what the colour their skin is, they're just as
important to the war effort. What we actually got was a badly
directed, written and acted film that looked artificial and quite
frankly seemed quite offensive to the real life pilots the film
portrays. Absolute garbage.
BEST
KILLER JOE
(2012) Dir: William Friedkin
WORST
HARD BOILED
SWEETS (2012) Dir: David L.G Hughes
I was kind
of excited to see this film as I'd heard that the film makers were
going to avoid the usual Guy Richie style gangsters and infuse this
film with a more Noirish feel. Well they didn't, they used
stereotyped gangsters and shot it at night to give it that noirish
feel. The hard boiled sweets of the title refer to each of the main
characters which to be honest was quite clever but the film was a
complete missed opportunity to try something different in the British
crime genre. We've seen this type of film made countless times before
and it just bored the living shit out of me. Not a good movie but at
least it wasn't another variation on the 'Essex Boys' story which I
think has about 600 films made about it. Hard Boiled Sweets is just a
boring movie that added nothing new to an already stale sub genre of
british cinema.
BEST
TED (2012) Dir: Seth MacFarlane
I guess your
enjoyment of TED really works if you enjoy the comedy of Seth
MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy and American Dad. For me I think
MacFarlane is comic genius. Family Guy has it's detractors but it
never fails to make me laugh out loud with it's very close to the
bone humour. Ted is no exception as MacFarlane brings his brand of in
your face comedy to the big screen in one of the most quotable and
consistently funny comedies since South Park The Movie. The film
follows John who as kid made a Christmas wish that his teddy bear
could really speak and guess what, his wish comes true and Ted
becomes a real talking teddy bear, fast forward to 2012, John is 35
and lives with his girlfriend Lori (played by Mila Kunis) and his
best friend Ted, who had become a celebrity during his younger days.
Anyway Ted and John spend their days smoking weed and watching Flash
Gordon but John's relationship with Lori is failing because John
won't grow up. I've seen Ted 3 times this year and each time there
are new lines of dialogue that I missed before. It's such a funny
film and at it's heart has quite a beautiful story covered with gross
out humour and genuinely creepy characters, Giovanni Ribissi dancing
to Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now is just one of the scenes in
which Ribissi steals much of the film. Mark Wahlburg turns in a
fantastic comic performance as a John seeing as he was acting against
a stuffed bear or a stick at times, and MacFarlane's line delivery is
so on the money the chemistry between the two is phenomenal.
WORST
ACT OF VALOR
(2012) Dir: Mike McCoy & Scott Waugh
This could
have been the action film of the year, instead it turned out to be
one of the worst. Now, the problem I had with Act Of Valor wasn't the
action scenes, those were actually pretty fuckin' awesome, the
problem I had was the generic plot and the piss poor acting coming
from the stars, real life 'active' navy seals. Now I know they're not
professionals but Jesus fuckin' Christ, Ridley Scott made a
convincing war film with Black Hawk Down with a cast of professional,
established actors and they rocked that film. The plot was non
existent and clichéd like a motherfucker, one guy finds out that his
wife is pregnant and guess what, he fuckin' dies twenty minutes
before the end of the film. This film really pissed me off but
luckily, it was one of a small few of action films that sucked ass in
a year that R rated action returned to the cinemas.
BEST
THE AMAZING
SPIDER-MAN (2012) Dir: Mark Webb
.jpeg)
Having had
no interest in seeing this reboot of the Spiderman franchise when the
film hit cinema's, I decided to skip it, that was a big mistake as
The Amazing Spiderman was a fantastic comic book film. I found my
self enjoying it a lot more than the Sam Raimi spidey film and found
Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker to be a more believable character
compared to Tobey McGuire's. I found I could relate to he more. I
also loved that they finally gave Spidey the Webslingers and Mark
Webb's direction was great. I only had one major issue with the film,
I didn't like the new costume. Andrew Garfield was great as
Spider-Man and Parker, Emma Stone continues to show that she is one
of the best actresses making movies and Dennis Leary is always a
great watch. It was also great to see Sally Field back in movies and
Martin Sheen did a great job as Uncle Ben, maybe better than Cliff
Robertson's. I've only recently seen The Amazing Spider-Man but it
made an impression on me which the first Raimi movie didn't achieve.
For that it finds it's place in my top 10 best of 2012. You can check
out my full review HERE.
WORST
PROJECT X (2012) Dir: Nima Nourizadeh
When I read
that a film called Project X was coming out I instantly got excited,
was the 1987 Matthew Broderick film where monkeys learn to fly jet
fighter getting a re-release?...sadly no, it wasn't, Project X turned
out to be a comedy about a group of teens who throw a party that goes
wildly out of hand with severe consequences and guess what?....i
fuckin' hated it. It's not funny and it's definitely not clever,
maybe because i'm getting older I just don't find these high school
comedies funny anymore and how come every school in the U.S has a an
almost infinite supply of girls who look like porn stars. Fuck this
film it's shit.
Well that's 10-6, to read 5-1 please click on the link below...
No comments:
Post a Comment