Double Or Nothing: 2013, 200 Movies, 100 Words (Complete!)

[Master Gunner]

You're about 6 movies behind your goal right now. Hardly insurmountable.

[King Kool]

I need to watch four movies for Fourthright, one more for Muppet month, and some more stuff just to fill it out. I know I'm behind on current releases by a lot.

[King Kool]

Well, being sick for a week and PAX sure didn't help any of this.

Movie 35: The Croods - This could be the level for acceptable competence for an animated film. Caveman Dad wants to keep his family safe despite an ever-changing world. The prehistoric environment makes his protective nature understandable AND the action exciting. The Croods themselves are interestingly designed, with the lead female Eep less traditionally beautiful than the average. Perhaps there are too many cute animals populating prehistory (and they make damn sure none of them get left behind). But it's a way better kids' film than Escape. I think it's even better than the Flinstones. I just hope they don't make this into a franchise.

Movie 36: Olympus Has Fallen - Everyone has said it: THIS is the real Die Hard 5. A less than ideal hero has entered a building under terrorist control while the bad guys menace hostages and communicate with the good guys. The pretentious villain blames his murders on the uncooperative government (who argue about protocol). Perhaps the terrorists want something different than they claim (which I guessed almost immediately). It's exactly Die Hard, but that was TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. This passed the time, but when it's not derivative or merely passable, it tries way too hard to have a message about terrorism in this completely ridiculous movie.

Movie 37: Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo - This movie isn't very funny, so let's skip that. Deuce becomes a gigolo, but when he meets the women, he's repelled by their abnormalities and can't bring himself to do them and makes friends instead. The theme is about how women always seem to hate their bodies. So... why does the movie make fun of these slightly abnormal and mostly INCREDIBLY beautiful women? This movie isn't about understanding (the blind character shows they don't give a damn about that). Is this a fantasy about getting gorgeous, lonely, damaged women? I'm pretty oblivious to movie sexism, but this stuff bothered me.

Ok. Three months. Thirty-seven movies (though I'll be going tomorrow). Also, I might need one of my feminist friends to watch Deuce Bigalow to see what they make of it.

[King Kool]

Movie 38: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone - I have a real objection to movies that don't know what they're writing about, especially magic. This movie depends entirely too much on stage tricks that are impossible without editing or computer graphics. (Computerized SMOKE? Really?) Jim Carrey's Criss Angel parody is underutilized, Steve Carell gets most of the laughs, but only when he gets boisterous and silly in a way inconsistent with his prior dickishness. If he's already barely a character, I wish they'd let him be funnier. This movie just isn't trying. Its sole achievement might be Olivia Wilde as the least necessary romance subplot in cinema history.

Movie 39: G.I. Joe: Retaliation - Is this really a sequel? Yeah, Zartan is back, and so is Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes (whose mask no longer has that ridiculous mouth), but all the protagonists are new characters. Cobra Commander gets rescued, but he just leaves Destro behind. Are you serious?! We spent all that time on Destro in the first movie, including that inexplicable prologue with his ancestor getting a metal mask, and now he's just gone? What's COBRA without Destro? The first film was disappointing and outlandish, but this could be ANY dull, rote, overly edited action movie about betrayed soldiers and nuclear weapons.

Movie 40: Highlander 3: The Final Dimension - I'm not too picky, am I? Is it too much to ask these movies to have good sword fights. It doesn't need a good bad guy (which it doesn't have, though Van Peebles surely had fun). The sword fights are only passable. The rest of the movie is waiting for Connor and the bad guy to waste time for an hour before finally fighting for five minutes. They expand Connor's history, and they retcon The Quickening's nonsense, but... who gives a damn? It's so boring. Can there ever be enough Immortals around so we can get ONE character that's interesting?

Even if I don't post them right away, I want to write these the day I see them instead of trying to think of what the movie made me feel a week later.

[King Kool]

Movie 41: Moonrise Kingdom - I just. Don't. Get. Wes Anderson. Two kids who elope from summer camp and turn their tiny island sideways. The leads are actually very good, but they have to recite Wes Anderson dialogue, which can sound unnatural even from veteran actors. I don't know what the point was, and I definitely don't find it amusing, which is fine. I'm glad we have a Wes Anderson, but... this movie is either capricious pointless silliness (someone is hit by lightning and is perfectly fine. Is that funny?) or a deep impenetrable metaphor. Either way, I can't get in. Still better than Sideways.

Here's the corresponding Toast Reviews, with some other announcements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOPULnDwAfU

[Mara Kalat]

I watched MRK last year and found it thoroughly entertaining. Not because any of the situations were particularly laugh or thought-provoking, but just because it was so... different.
I guess the quirk isn't hiding the appeal for you, but actually is the appeal for (some) people.

Also, you're keeping pace way better than I imagined, wow!

Mara.

[King Kool]

Yeah, let me be clear: I'm glad there IS a Wes Anderson. I just don't find his movies all that funny. Maybe my mind can conjure weird things up with such ease, simply being quirky just doesn't do it for me.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

So kind of like the George Galloway of film-making; you're glad he's there to keep everyone else on their toes, but heaven forbid he ever gets into power.

[Master Gunner]

You are now 10 movies behind schedule, sadly. To meet your goal, you will have to watch at least one movie every 41 hours from now on.

[King Kool]

Movie 42: 30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - It's strange that a movie with so many references is so unfunny, it couldn't possibly appeal to anyone who has seen all those movies. This is for people who watch television and see commercials for these movies. There's no attempt to make a story, or any observations about the characters they're including. When Abe Lincoln appeared, I hoped he would be the ghost. Nope! The ghost looks like Bane so they can joke that Bane's mask makes him indecipherable. My only laugh was when Julia Child raced her electric mixer against a whisk (in a clip from Julia and Jacques).

Check out that clip here, I swear it's the only thing even close to funny in this movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7mtEoMFJ60

Also Watched On DVD, But It Don't Count Because It's A TV Show: Stripperella (the first seven episodes).

I pretty much never rent TV shows, so I'm surprised I was just like, "fuck it, I'm watching this and I'm gonna give it a shot." Still not sure how I feel about it. It's got some funny moments. If I'd watched this AFTER 30 Nights, I think I would have thought it was the funniest fucking thing I'd seen in my life.

[King Kool]

Movie 43 (not THAT Movie 43): Abduction - Often, the intriguing setup can't live up to the resolution (See: Unknown). I like movies where someone goes off the grid and fends for themselves (here, it's for about two minutes), I like the building to the climax where several separate forces threaten to converge (but never quite do). I liked tiny bits of this movie, but the plot is a utterly perfunctory hunt for a MacGuffin wanted by amazingly well equipped Russian gangsters, the action completely nonsensical, and the teenage drama is no good (Of COURSE his neighbor and crush has a jerk jock boyfriend!). There's nothing new here.

Movie 44: The Darjeeling Limited - Call the neighbors and prepare your fainting couch: there's a Wes Andersone movie I actually liked. Maybe it's because there's only three protagonists and the movie doesn't shuffle around. I also liked how the three protagonists are all brothers with different hangups, and when one of them leaves for a moment, the others talk about him and gamely try to keep secrets. Don't get me wrong: I still don't think it's FUNNY, but I don't think this one's trying to be as funny OR as precious as Kingdom. It's just an interesting movie about these three characters traveling through India.

[Metcarfre]

Darleeling Limited is one of my (and my family's) favorites.

[King Kool]

Movie 45: Scary Movie 5 - Unlike 30 Nights, there's a TINY effort to weave the plots of the targeted movies together. It's at the service of jokes that clatter to the ground without even a snort. When the pool cleaner invited his pool cleaner friends for a party, I laughed. That's it. They're bringing up crap from two years ago (Was Black Swan really that ripe for parody?) and I'm STILL not laughing. With all the deleted stuff visible in promotional material (Ted is on the poster, and NOT in the movie!), it's clear they had no real direction going in. It's a pointless, rudderless movie.

I also finished the last six episodes of Stripperella.

[King Kool]

Movie 46: Treasure Planet - There is so much labor put into the design of this movie, yet they never quite put as much thought into the story (though it IS an adaptation). It falters a bit when the computer graphics and traditional animation don't blend (though not as badly as the similar Titan A.E.). John Silver's awesome, if perhaps TOO sympathetic. Not sure why they can breathe on their ships, and some of the space sailing is maybe too similar to regular sailing. Did the treasure have to be goddamn gold and jewels? I'm torn on this one. Still better than Star Trek.

I have to avoid certain words while writing these. I try to avoid abbreviations like CGI, or hyphenated words. "Titan A.E." is accurately spelled that way, and it counts as three words.

[King Kool]

Movie 47: Rushmore - Wes Anderson Month isn't getting any easier. This time, the story follows (almost exclusively) Jason Schwartzman as a young, intelligent, yet distracted youth who also does some pretty nasty and manipulative things for someone he's infatuated with. Things go wrong, his life is upended, but can he reassemble it in one colossal, probably impossible artistic endeavor at the end, despite the fact that the third act makes it clear he hasn't learned shit? I have no hate for this character, but nor have I sympathy. Still, I don't think we'd have Lost in Translation without this, so... it's a wash.

The Toast Review is here.

I should just try watching something every day until I catch up.

Also, about Treasure Planet (which I keep typing as "Treasure Island": I totally forgot about the pirate who speaks entirely in farts! What the hell is up with THAT guy?

[King Kool]

Movie 48: Trance - Another thriller with an intriguing premise that can't quite get there. Sometimes, these movies are let down with a mundane solution to the premise. This time, the answer is really complicated and muddy. But there's not that many moving parts in this movie, so... there's only so many ways it can go. I could sorta see the finish line from the middle, if not the twists. I think this pretzel got twisted one too many times, and I was pretty fed up with it by the end. It's a much lesser version of Memento, and that was twelve years ago!

These hundred word reviews take a long time to write. Jeez, did I spend this much time last time?

Also, let it not be said that I'm the coolest guy in the world, but at least I'm not on the IMDb message board trying to get the 411 on the "graphic nudity" aspect of the R rating this one got.

Also, fuck headaches. It's kept me from seeing two movies for two weeks in a row.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

If 100 words doesn't seem enough, here's 1000 I wrote about trance after I saw it:
This film is... different, but then again I did kinda expect it to be. Psychological thrillers are rarely simple affairs, but most tend to generate their weirdness from either a confusing, tangential plot or by employing every trick of cinematography in the book in an effort to mess with your brain. Trance does neither of these things, but nonetheless this is most certainly not your average mid-afternoon popcorn film.

The plot centres around an art heist; our main protagonist is Simon (James McAvoy), a young art auctioneer who gets himself mixed up in a plot to rob a Goya painting, 'Witches In The Air'. However, for reasons that can't really be explained without giving away any spoilers (the film's somewhat odd storytelling structure makes it a veritable spoiler minefield), and in some respects are never fully explained at all, the painting manages to go missing. Blame for this falls squarely on Simon, who is suffering that old cinematic trope of amnesia, leading him to not remember what has happened to it. Indeed, one of the characters even puts in a subtle meta-commentary to this effect- but I'm getting sidetracked. Suffice it to say that the group, or more specifically their leader Frank (Vincent Cassel) pick hypnosis as a potential solution; and here the word 'psychological' rapidly prefixes itself onto the tag of 'thriller'.

Amnesia as a plot device is a cliché seemingly as old as the hills, but here it gets the Danny Boyle treatment, and a subsequent new lease of life. Other reviewers have frequently compared the film to Inception for its superficially similar subject matter of the human mind, and it could be argued that what Inception did with dreams Trance attempts to do with memory. However, the comparison is not an especially valid one; whereas Inception was a fast-paced action film that perfectly showcased Christopher Nolan's talent for scope and grand gestures, Trance is a far smaller affair that plays to Boyle's strengths of bringing out the little moments. Here, the concept of memory is not only used as the core plot concept, but after being taken as it stands, it is summarily twisted, bent, lost, found, stamped all over, made to run around in circles for three hours, soaked, wrung out to dry and then left in a tangled mess that renders the simplicity of the original concept almost unrecognisable. Suffice it to say that this film most certainly does not take the obvious route with its subject matter.

Tinkering on the minute level is also evident in the film's plot, an equally twisted affair that makes a marked departure for the more straightline storytelling of the other Boyle films I've seen. This might have something to do that this is the first of Boyle's films for a while not to be based on a pre-existing book (see Trainspotting, Millions, Slumdog Millionaire & 127 Hours) have been based on screenplays adapted from existing books, but here we have an entirely fresh script, co-written by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge. The latter, I glean from a little research, was something of a Boyle regular during his early career (this is their fifth film together), and some stylistic similarities between this and their most famous collaboration (Trainspotting) become clear once you realise the link exists.

For the film's first hour, Trance doesn't offer much that could be said to be special; it's an unconventional but perfectly understandable film that is written, directed and acted well, but doesn't seem like it's going to break any major rules. The first and second acts establish a few character relationships, a few ideas that look like they're going to become important later on, nothing especially out of the ordinary. Indeed, if you're anything like me, then you'll think you've figured out what 'The Big Twist' will be somewhere around the hour mark, and will be just about ready to start feeling smug when the third act kicks in. And kick in it does; not only are the pace and tension each cranked up several notches, but the plot's initial strangeness begins to give way to mayhem as chronology shifts back and forth, the worlds of hypnosis and reality begin to converge and the film's themes and story really begin to twist themselves into the aforementioned tangles. Everything made out to be some important concept, a feature that we are sure will turn out to be important, is left by the wayside, and all the small details, slipped in so subtly and hidden so well, take on new significance- a peculiar reversal that, when I think about it, I'm surprised ever worked. That it does is testament to the way every contributor to the film begins to show their class during this period; James McAvoy puts the finishing touches on a stunningly versatile acting performance that covers just about every emotion and character trope known to humankind, whilst co-star Rosario Dawson (who plays hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb) begins to show the character beneath all the subtle woman-of-mystery stuff from the second act. Boyle too puts himself on show; all the careful execution of the first two acts, all the subtlety and false leads, all the things only hinted at through the minutiae of character behaviour, all are finally paid off in his chaotic finale, and it shows his skill off marvellously.

However.

I can appreciate an awful lot of things about Trance. I can appreciate the fantastic acting, I can appreciate the clever, intriguing storytelling, I can certainly appreciate the directorial skill. But somehow... I find I can't quite enjoy it. Maybe it's something to do with having unsympathetic characters, nobody we can ever think of as a hero (or, for that matter, antihero), maybe it's that the plot doesn't really have any consistent underlying emotional scenes, or maybe it's just that all the things that really matter by the end are not given enough time to make themselves feel meaningful, amidst the mayhem of the third act. Honestly, I'm not quite sure, but it's a shame, frankly; Trance is smart, quirky, exceptionally well done and tells a story like nothing else. I only wish it could feel meaningful too.

One last thing; how in the name of hell this film was given a 15 rating I have no idea. I don't really have an opinion on the BBFC rating system, whether it's appropriate and so forth, but I do have an opinion that if you have an 18 rating and a film with torture, nudity about as blatant as it comes, rather graphic gore, enough corpses to keep a coroner busy for a month and it doesn't get it... well what the hell is an 18 then?

Sorry about that, just felt the need to share

[Metcarfre]

If 100 words doesn't seem enough, here's 1000 I wrote about Trance after I saw it:

Honestly makes the whole thing so much better.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Damn, sorry. Would a sneaky edit be inappropriate?

[King Kool]

Movie 49: Bottle Rocket *NOT RUSHMORE, WHY WOULD YOU EVEN SAY SUCH A THING, I CAN'T EVEN- Wes Anderson's first feature brought us the Wilson brothers planning a heist. The biggest difference from the other films is how loose the dialogue is: characters talk over each other all the time. It's not so precious and cultivated. I sympathized with these robbers more than the characters in Rushmore, maybe because they weren't robbing as some sort of statement or because it was right. It was like they were doing it to do it, and weren't so smug about it. Bear in mind, I still don't think it's funny. Maybe I just can't handle Owen Wilson with short hair.

Toast Review is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auBSwLRNsmQ

Edit: I ONLY EDITED IT TO ADD THE TOAST REVIEW, WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, HOW DARE YOU

[Metcarfre]

Wait, do you mean Bottle Rocket?

[Genghis Ares]

I love Wes Anderson movies. It's difficult to explain why I enjoy them so much. I don't think they're meant to be strictly funny movies. They're sort of Modern(In a weird, floating time period kind of way) Fantasy Adventure Dramas.

[King Kool]

Movie 50: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - Maybe this is supposed to be a take on Moby Dick. Maybe the leopard shark is supposed to represent Steve Zissou himself, carelessly tipping over the life of the woman who had his estranged son. Do you think maybe he won't kill the poorly computer animated shark because he now understands it or something? I wouldn't think about this metaphorical crap if the movie wasn't so goddamn capricious. At one point, the picture temperature changes and I thought the following sequence was a dream, but apparently not. Probably my least favorite of all of them. And it's still not funny.

The toast review of Life Aqautic is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbbeujDSQUU

Movie 51: 42 - I actually accept the dramatization of this much more than the Social Network because, ironically, the scenes are more clearly dramatized (though the scene with the kid in the ballpark is REALLY on the nose). Thankfully, it's not the Blind Side or The Help, where the real protagonist is the magically virtuous white women (or man). It's Jackie's movie. It's almost like Lincoln, where Ford's character plays with baseball fans expectations. It's perfectly acted, nicely shot and directed and somehow... boring as all hell. It's baseball; baseball IS boring. Perhaps it's hard to build suspense when you know the outcome.

Movie 52: Oblivion - (With SPOILER TAGS, for the first time ever!) Seriously. If I could fill 100 words substantively without talking about why this movie is dumb, I'd do it.

So this takes place sixty years in the future, but their commander has a strong southern accent. I was like, "Why was she born with that accent if Texas or wherever was destroyed before she was born? She's probably the bad guy." Why do they make Tom Cruise's flashbacks SO clear? You just KNOW this woman is going to show up in the present and somehow be related to the action. I called the "wife"thing right before he said it. And the radiation zone is just a place his bosses don't want him going to. Come the fuck ON.

Also, this month is going to be MAKEUP MAY. I'm going to try to watch something for every day in May. (I watched two today, so I could skip tomorrow, but I will hopefully end up with thirty-one movies watched in May. If you have me on Twitter, Steam, whatever, please feel free to harass me to get me to watch movies this month! You have my permission!

[King Kool]

Movie 53: Total Recall (2012) - A friend insisted I watch this. Yeah, it's full of lens flares, and it's basically The Bourne Runner (and borrows from many other films). There's no reason to tell this story again, making all the Hollywood stops like an elevator. Yet it succeeds where that damn Star Trek reboot failed because the action is GOOD with actual tension. It IS Len Wiseman, a decent action director. Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel are both good female action stars (though there should've been more characters so Beckinsale doesn't have to do EVERYTHING). I'll never watch it again, but it passed the time.

May 3, 3 movies in Makeup May.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

"Makeup May" makes you sound like a deluded ex-partner, to my strangely twisted mind...