Monthly Report: December 2012

In the middle of the christmas hoopla, I found a surprisingly large amount of time for movies. At 30 films seen, December is probably my most intense month of the year cinematically speaking. Surprising indeed. There was a lot of good stuff, and little that was outright bad, so it’s a good slew of movies to close out the year with.

American Reunion (Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg, 2012)
Well, it’s better than the last four straight-to-DVD American Pie films. Not that that’s saying much. The nostalgia factor is what makes American Reunion work, in two ways. First, by having the audience remember the first parts of the series, and then by having a fondness for the old times be a centerpiece of the plot as well. It’s a good thing this is handled effectively, because the actual humor is often derivative, and while there are certainly some laughs to be had here, they don’t always hit the mark. If this is the end of the series, it’s a respectable way to close the doors, at least. Except there’s reportedly another film being planned, so I guess not. God damn it.
3/5

The Grey (Joe Carnahan, 2011)
What a terrific survival film. All the visceral elements were extraordinarily well done. I felt the plane crash. I felt the snow. I felt the cold water. And then there’s the wolves, who are as menacing as any movie monster I’ve seen in recent memory (except maybe the shark in Jaws.) Add in the spiritual elements of the story, and you have one great awesome package of a film. I mean, hell, it made me spontaneously applaud in my couch. That never happens.
5/5

Silent Night (Steven C. Miller, 2012)
Malcolm McDowell is really funny here in an Alan Rickman Sheriff of Nottingham way, where it seems like he’s not even part of the same movie as everyone else. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is weak humdrum slasher stuff. Skip this one.
2/5

Harry Brown (Daniel Barber, 2009)
Gran Torino‘s story in Attack the Block‘s setting, only with the violence ramped way up and with Michael Caine in the lead. This is certainly to oversimplify things, obviously, but it should give you some idea of what the film’s about. While the subject of a retiree turning vigilante is a field ripe for social commentary, there’s nothing done along these lines. No, this is a bloody revenge thriller through and through, and as such, it works really well. Caine is great, and it’s a treat to see him in a lead role these days.
4/5

 

Rewatch Ruminations: 8 thoughts on Batman Begins

I went back and revisited Batman Begins a few days ago. This was my first time stepping into Christopher Nolan‘s Batman-verse since seeing The Dark Knight Rises in theater this summer. I’ve been of the opinion since then that TDKR, while very good, was the weakest of the series. A close call with Batman Begins though, so a rewatch of this first entry seemed in order. Overall, I think this was my third or fourth time seeing Batman Begins. I’ve always enjoyed it. Not even getting into the new ground it broke for superhero movies or the box office impact the trilogy would go on to have, it’s also an entertaining movie in its own right.

Here are a few thoughts that sprung to mind for me during this rewatch. Warning: There will be spoilers ahead.

 

My Top 10 Favorite Movies of 2005

Just as the 2006 list featured plenty of comedies, this one has a surprisingly high amount of another genre: documentaries. Four of them appear on this list of ten, which, while not dominating, is certainly disproportionate if one looks at the amount of fictional and nonfictional movies I’ve seen from that year. Does this mean that 2005 was a weak year for “normal” movies? No, not really. The documentaries that made this list are all excellent and would have had a good shot of making the top 10 no matter what year they’d been released in. It just so happens that they all got clumped together in 2005. The ten films here are all 5/5 in my book, which is more than I can say for most other years.

I’m perfectly fine with this. Documentary films are often overshadowed by their fictional brethren, and I know some people who don’t even consider them movies at all. Which is ridiculous. Of course they are movies. They have the same power to move us, thrill us, shock us and make us laugh and think as any other genre of film. They deserve as much attention as anything, so I’m happy that four of them have found their way onto this list of mine.

As usual, this is 2005 as listed on IMDB.

10 – MARCH OF THE PENGUINS (LA MARCHE DE L’EMPEREUR, Luc Jacquet)

“There are few places harder to get to in this world. But there aren’t any where it’s harder to live.”

What always strikes me about this documentary is how much work it must have taken to shoot it. Showing the remarkable mating cycle of the emperor penguins of Antarctica, a lot of time was spent to capture every phase of the long process in a truly inhospitable climate. The result of the crew’s labor is a wonderful documentary that’s both informative and charming. The English-language version also plays the trump card of having Morgan Freeman as its narrator (though the Swedish one with veteran comedian Gösta Ekman behind the microphone is nothing to sneeze at either).

9 – THE WEATHER MAN (Gore Verbinski)

“Nothing that has meaning is easy. ‘Easy’ doesn’t enter into grown-up life.”

Here’s an oft undervalued film that Gore Verbinski put out inbetween the two first Pirates of the Caribbean films. Nicolas Cage plays a Chicago weatherman who’s unhappy with his life. His flaws are twofold: he takes no pleasure in his work, and he tries too hard to patch things up with his family. He can’t get over his ex-wife (Hope Davis), his kids struggle with weight issues and drugs, and his father (masterfully played by Michael Caine) is quietly disappointed by his son. It’s a comedy of the glum kind, where the laughs have to fight hard to break through the clouds but feel well-earned when they do. One of Cage’s best and most overlooked performances of the decade.