We tried to watch Superbad on Sunday. We didn't even get as far into it as we got with The 40 Year Old Virgin (10 minutes). The 8 minutes of Superbad that I did see earned it the distinction as being the nastiest movie I've ever seen. That being said, it was also very funny. I traded it in for The Nanny Diaries, starring Scarlett Johansson. I wasn't expecting too much from it but it ended up being up there with Reign Over Me as one of the more thought provoking and enjoyable movies of the year. Rent it, it will make you feel sorry for extremely rich people and glad for whatever existence you are making for yourself and your family. Incidentally, my sister was a New York nanny for a summer and had stories to tell that fit right in with this movie.
I watched a lot of movies this year. We have the Blockbuster mail-in thing so we get a constant stream of movies for pennies on the dollar. What follows are the best movies of the year (not necessarily released this year).
Stranger Than Fiction - awesome movie, funny, profound, well made, well acted, all around masterpiece.
Reign Over Me - intense, moving, insightful, great music.
The Nanny Diaries - well aimed and well presented satire, illuminating, one of those movies that makes you glad for your own life.
Amazing Grace - good story, inspiring, good acting, educational.
Jim Gaffigan, Beyond The Pale - Gaffigan's comedy special is mostly clean and very entertaining.
Driving Miss Daisy - I hadn't seen this one in years, what a great film!
Never Cry Wolf - I hadn't seen this one in years either, this movie is Dnaces With Wolves before Dances With Wolves (except it is set in the 80's and is Jeremiah Johnson-ish in terms of style and production).
Batman Begins - The only superhero movie of the year that was worth anything (Well, Superman wasn't so bad either).
Babette's Feast - Pretty good foreign flick. It's an oldie. The critique of caricatured puritanism is well done and persuasive.
What follows is movies that should be ashamed of themselves:
Transformers - good beginning, terrible story, terrible action, all around joke of a movie.
Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer - Just plain lame.
Catch and Release - awful story, weirdly done (in the bad sense of weird). This movie is in Hope Floats territory.
Crash - manipulative, over-the-top, preachy, disturbing, not enjoyable at all.
You Kill Me - dull, miscast, wasted effort.
Tenacious D In the Pick of Destiny - some funny parts, overall uninspired and one-dimensional - a lot of wasted potential here.
Chuck and Larry - terrible, stupid, frustrating, ignorant, etc.
UPDATE:
I forgot about the movies I saw in the theater.
Ratatouile - Great story, very enjoyable.
Pirates 3 - I love these movies.
The Darjeeling Limited - Classic Anderson, a bit heavier than his others, rich in detail and a delight to the senses.
Enchanted - clever and fun, could have been better, Amy Adams is a special talent.
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A game in which players toss a jackknife in various prescribed ways, with the object being to make the blade stick firmly into the ground. [From the phrase mumble the peg, from the fact that originally the loser had to pull up with the teeth a peg driven into the ground.]
7 comments:
let me tell you, as one who sat through 'Superbad' just the other night, you didn't miss anything.
I also rented 'Chuck and Larry' that night (I am still patting myself on the back for that one). Chuck and Larry had the potential to be funny (in the same way I found blades of glory to be funny), but it fell well short. I didn't forsee such a bomb coming from Sandler.
I could probably count on my hands the number of movies I have seen this year, and I don't remember any of them.
I too thought that Superbad is probably the nastiest movie ever seen, but also very funny. It's only a slight exageration of my click of friends in high school - although we were much to afraid of/confused by women to focus so much on sex.
Blades of Glory was funny. It was exactly what I expected - not much and cheap entertainment. The very fact that you even rented Chuck and Larry speaks poorly of your taste in movies. Ditto with Pick of Destiny, Transformers, Fantastic Four, etc. I have no desire to see Crash.
I just saw No Country For Old Men - better than Fargo and I think Fargo is definitely a top 15 movie of all time.
I cannot wait to see PT Anderson's new movie - There Will Be Blood - I think it could be a modern day Citizen Kane. PT Anderson is a genius - Magnolia, even though almost unwatchable, is a masterpiece and Boogie Nights is absolutely flawless. This breaks the mold for him a bit, but I think it will be incredible.
Little miss sunshine was pretty good. Stranger than fiction was great.
I can't think of too many more...
Ok, went over to Robert Ebert's website to look over his recent movie list to jog my memory. Man, I really do love movies - this is kind of a random stream of consciousness type list of thoughts re: movies seen this year and movies I want to see:
American Gangster - eh. The script was just not good. The topic wasn't enough to keep my interest - I just can't have too much sympathy for a dealer like Washington's character. Unlike the Sopranos, which made me root for Tony, I just didn't particularly care about Washington's character (can't remember his name). Crowe seemed to mail it in. Looks like an alcoholic. I think this filming was around the phone incident in NYC.
Beowulf - worth seeing in 3D - very cool. Probably never watch it again, but loved the experience. Ray Winstone also look nothing like Beowulf in real life - he's the fat english guy in Sexy Beast FYI.
Dan in Real Life - Kristin saw this with my mom and sister and aunt cousins/other women folk over thanksgiving and loved it, said it was great acting, nothing over the top, lovable characters, and wants to see it again with me. I didn't really want to see it before, but she gave it a good review - said it really wasn't a chick flick.
Eastern Promises - heavy film, hard to watch at times. After having a newborn baby, really hard to watch certain scenes where you don't know what's going to happen to baby and subject matter in general, but Viggo Mortenson was incredible. Cool plot twist that I didn't see coming and great acting on great dialogue. Some part of me is fascinated by Russian culture. Just watched a History Channel special on Moscow, Ivan the Terrible, etc and I never watched those things but was enthralled by this one. I don't really want to go there, but the history/people fascinate me.
Flags of Our Fathers - too preachy. Lileks gave a good review of this movie along with Letters from Iwo Jima that I agree with. Too much introspective - they were heroes and USED by the government, man - etc. God forbid the government try to raise money to fund a must win war. Anyway, Letters was much the same. I'm suppossed to forget about what really happened to Iggy because one other officer talks to an injured Marine about California? Keep in mind that the real life Bradley - the corpsman played by Ryan Phillipe in the film - refused to visit his son in Japan when he was getting an advanced degree over there.
Gone Baby Gone - I really want to see this, but I'm not making any special effort to do so. Mainly because Ben Affleck is involved in it. Although his brother, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris and the whole Mystic River vibe make me want to see it.
In the Valley of Elah - really wanted to see this one too, but just didn't. Wow Tommy Lee Jones is a good actor in the right role. Also, Jason Bateman is making a bit of a character actor comeback - Arrested Development kind of revitalized his acting career I think. Which brings me to Juno - really want to see that when it comes out and will probably see it in its opening week.
Into the Wild - was fascinated by the book by Krakauer (Into Thin Air author), but can't get into wanting to see this movie because the kid in it is the same kid from Alpha Dog and that was such a terrible movie that he is now tainted by it.
Assassination of Jessie James BTCRF - want to see it, but the late/limited releases worries me. Probably will be dissapointed.
Darjeeling Unlimited - want to see this too. I love Wes Anderson, but he's gotten a little too Wes Anderson recently with Life Aquatic and all that. Probably will wait until it comes out on DVD.
I want to see I Am Legend too, but worried it will be too much of a Zombie/gore fest.
Kite Runner - excellent book, will it be a good movie? I hope so.
Sweeney Todd - I will see this on opening weekend.
Charlie Wilson's War - can't wait to see this too. A bit of a jump start for Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts I think. I know alot about this topic - recently read Ghost Wars (definitive book on CIA/US involvement in Afghanistan and the financing of islamic rebel force against the Russians and then the Russian puppet govt as well as US/Pakistan/Saudi relations. And NO, the CIA did not create Al Qaeda - I got so damn mad when I read that on your friend Jon's blog. I didn't even want to respond to it, but such an assertion reflects nothing more than a willful ignorance/conspiracy theary cult-like mindset that logic and fact cannot penetrate. Bottom line - the CIA ain't that capable folks. Same with the 9/11 conspiracy stuff. Complete and utter bullshit. Anyway...
Walk Hard - looks stupid. I like John C. Reilly, but this movie has flop written all over it. Wont see it.
Matt, I have mercifully forgotten many of the movies I have seen this year as well. I love movies, but I like less and less of them.
Jason, I updated the post to include the movies I saw in the theater this year. The Darjeeling Limited was really good. But good luck finding it in a theater (blogger keeps telling me that I am spelling theatre wrong, but "theater" doesn't look right to me). When you see it on DVD make sure you go out and eat some fully seasoned exotic food afterwards. If you like Indian food that would be perfect.
We rented Chuck and Larry against George's better judgment because we were bored one night, had a free rental, and I love Adam Sandler (Spanglish, 50 First Dates, Punch Drunk Love, Reign Over Me, even the Wedding Singer- who would've thought he would make such a bad one after these?). So it says more about George being an agreeable husband than it does about him having bad taste in movies. Although renting Transformers and Tenacious D was all him (as in I didn't even watch those), so maybe it just shows he is overly optimistic about movies in spite of a few red flags waving wildly in front of the jacket on the shelf at the video store :) I guess that since he didn't like any of those movies, his taste isn't really the question, just his ability to guess how good or bad a movie will be based on the general idea which is hard you know, because sometimes there are really good surprises and sometimes there are really bad surprises. I will say that Never Cry Wolf is the most BORING movie I have ever seen in my life and am really surprised he is including it in the best he's seen this year.
I quite agree about Stranger than Fiction though. What a fantastic movie! I thought the Nanny Diaries was too sad to recommend although Miss Potter and Reign Over Me were so sad that they left me with a sick feeling for several days. I also enjoyed Becoming Jane in the theater, but it was another one that was a little sad. I really don't like it when the relationships don't work out! And movies set in the past often have them not working out for really frustrating social reasons, so it is unjustly sad. And especially when relationships don't work because someone dies! Then they will have this little half smile tacked on at the end, like everything works out sort of, maybe, possibly. And I think, "but the part I just invested 2 hours in didn't work out at all!" But a movie can be very well done without having a happy ending, so I am just rambling, I guess. But I thought y'all might could use a girl's perspective.
Some fun ones y'all haven't mentioned:
Bourne Ultimatum
Casino Royale
Harry Potter 5
Meet the Robinsons
All good popcorn flicks . . .
Leigh really doesn't like movies, and I don't go unless there's action, explosions, etc. I tend to rent them to watch when I'm on call and there is nothing going on.
Y'all are thinking way too much about your movies, by the way.
I forgot about the Bourne Ultimatum. I enjoyed it. Good action flick.
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