68 Planet B-Boy | 12.06.08
69 Love Actually | 12.08
70 Yes Man | 12.20.08
71 Elf | 12.20.08
72 Elf | 12.25.08
73 Frost/Nixon | 12.16.08
74 Slumdog Millionaire | 12.27.08
75 Baby Mama | 12.30.08

Knowing full well I would never reach 100 films 9 or 10 months into the year, I cut down the goal to 75, and I just barely made it. At a certain point, I thought I was basically just watching anything that I could possibly get my hands on, and it started to feel like a waste of time, but in actuality, I feel pretty good about watching crap. I mean, how do you recognize crap if you haven’t seen it a million times? It will also make me think twice about writing scenes where you use a dead body to protect yourself from dying. I’m thinking of Bourne, here, not just Bad Boys 2.

The month of December usually comes with standard holiday films, though this year there really were only two films, one of which is less “traditional” and one that has become a classic.

This is also the time where Oscar Buzz drives the viewing, and I have to say that I enjoyed Frost/Nixon more than Slumdog Millionaire. In fact, I would give F/N a re-watch before Slumdog. The only reason I can give you is because I thought Slumdog was overrated and a bit kitschy in the way it all played out. It definitely has trademark Boyle despair and does a decent enough job of pulling you through, but I thought that it was uneven, even for all the talk of the positivity in it. And it cannot be said enough that I am an avid fan of subtlety in a film, and this was certainly not about that.

I could go on defending the fact that I was not enthralled by it, but that would be too much defense, as it wasn’t as if I didn’t like it at all. But you don’t believe that, do you?

In any case, to prove that I love subtlety in film, I watched Baby Mama as my last film of the year.

That concludes my list. I’m going to try to do a monthly as we go along this year. Have a good weekend!

59 Rachel Getting Married | 11.7.08
60 Mission: Impossible | 11.8.08
61 Bad Boys 2 | 11.8.08
62 Ashes of Time Redux | 11.11.08
63 Happy Go Lucky | 11.14.08
64 Recount | 11.15.08
65 JCVD | 11.22.08
66 Casino Royale | 11.29.08
67 Four Christmases | 11.30.08

Bad Boys 2 was probably the most ridiculous, gratuitous action film that I’ve ever gotten Owl to watch. I felt a little dumber having watched it as well but it was so action-packed! I think Jonas told me about the part where they throw dead bodies out of a truck in order to slow down pursuers, and I was appalled and then I saw it and was really appalled because maybe I thought he was making that up.

It’s pretty safe to say that I’m a Daniel Craig fan. More so, than, say a Tom Cruise fan, although someone did tell me that Cruise did all that rock climbing at the beginning of Mission: Impossible himself, out on a rock in the middle of nowhere. Believable, yes, insurable? Probably not.

I’ve never been much of a Mike Leigh fan, mostly because his earlier films are wrought with sadness. Happy Go Lucky had some, too, but somehow it wasn’t the same type of despair that made Life is Sweet so hard to watch. Or, maybe I’ve just become a wimp at watching movies that ask something from their audience. I like Happy Go Lucky pretty well, all in all.

We saw JCVD in a tiny littler theater in the East Village, the same place we saw Ghost Town. They some good popcorn over there, and it’s usually pretty empty on Friday nights, which is odd for a movie theater on a Friday night. JCVD was good, surprisingly so, even though I’d read several reviews saying that it was very well-done for a washed up action star (I’d like to see Seagal do something like this… but not really) and it brought back some memories of Double Impact. Awesome film.

54 CJ7 | 10.01.08
55 Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist | 10.03.08
56 The Year My Parents Went on Vacation | 10.17.08
57 Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead | 10.17.08
58 W. | 10.20.08

I came home one night and to my surprise Owl had rented CJ7. It’s directed by Stephen Chow, the same guy that did Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, but it’s totally wacky in a different way than those other two. Not that much Kung Fu in it at all, but there is some whacked-out alien being in it. I dunno, man, it was just odd though. I’d watch Shaolin again in a second, but CJ7 was just too weird for me, maybe because I kept looking at it through the lens of “kid’s movie”, which just makes it seem weirder.

The rest of these movies I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about, because they were all that unmemorable. I mean, I suppose I have to laugh at Michael Cera’s line about being in a tiny car again, which is pretty good, but I have no recollection of The Year My Parents Went on Vacation whatsoever, even though I’m positive I was awake and attentive the whole time. I’ve seen Rosecrantz & Guildenstern a few times and actually could tell you quite a bit about it, but none of it would make any sense. We’d just seen Hamlet performed in September out at Fort Tryon park, which was a very enjoyable experience, and this just fit right in, even though I think I watched it starting at 1 in the morning and stayed up through the whole thing. W. was, um, forgettable. Am I sensing a common theme here?

46 Big Trouble in Little China | 9.1.08
47 The Bank Job | 9.5.08
48 Nobody Knows | 9.10.08
49 Out of Africa | 9.12.08
50 Man on Wire | 9.13.08
51 Ghost Town | 9.19.08
52 The Corporation | 9.20.08
53 Battle in Seattle | 9.31.08

There are only a handful of films that I can attest to having watched several hundred times as I was growing up. Big Trouble in China is one of them. Others: Ghostbusters, Real Genius, The Last Dragon. They all have earned their cult-classic status forever in my book, and watching BTILC in the theater reminded me that good films such as these are under-appreciated and are of a bygone era. I miss movies like this, and no re-make will ever do it justice. That said, I’d love to see a re-make.

Jonas mentioned that he saw both Man On Wire and Ghost Town just recently, and I we had a brief discussion about Ghost Town, which he, rightly so, was rather dismissive of it. Light and airy. I thought it was funny though, and it reminded me of late-80’s/early-90’s romantic comedy. I can’t put my finger on as to why, but it just did. We couldn’t disagree more about Man On Wire though, which I thought was grossly overrated and frankly, just boring. I fell asleep in the theater, and I never do that. Additionally, I thought the guy was a raging asshole and an egomaniac disguised as a clown. I’m not going to deny that his feat was a amazing, but the person simply just was not.

And as if you didn’t know, Battle in Seattle was pretty dumb. Also: Nobody Knows was incredibly depressing, The Corporation, really, really long.

36 WALL-E | 8.1.08
37 Step Brothers | 8.7.08
38 In Bruges | 8.8.08
39 Hellboy 2: The Golden Army | 8.9.08
40 Pineapple Express | 8.9.08
41 Wanted | 8.18.08
42 Tropic Thunder | 8.24.08
43 Traitor | 8.29.08
44 Constantine | 8.31.08
45 Hamlet 2 | 8.31.08

August was a good month for movies. I think these posts are really less an exercise in reviewing films and more an exercise in recalling what kind of month I had. This one included a couple of days where I was in NYC and Owl was in Seattle, which was how I managed to catch In Bruges, Hellboy 2 and the Pineapple Express in a matter of 3 days. In Bruges was good, but it was surprising to me that it was nominated for an Oscar in writing—I didn’t find it all that well-written, at least not to the point of recognition for an award. That said, I didn’t find any of the writing in the Oscars this year all that exciting.

Pineapple Express reminded me that yes, indeed, you can still find the things you found funny when you were 16 funny when you are almost 30. The only other film in the whole list that I’d really recommend seeing is Hellboy 2, if you’re into that kind of thing (of course, WALL-E, but we talked about that last post). The rest of these comedies are throw-aways, including Tropic Thunder, which I thought was poor and sophomoric attempt at meta-film. That and I think Jack Black has last all his charm, and Ben Stiller has indeed, never had any. Throw Will Ferrell into the mix and you have a good case of the same-old, same-old.