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2012 IN REVIEW: Neither the Best, Nor the Worst Films I Saw
This same section of my 2011 in Review had 17 films listed on what I, at the time, called “The Films I Liked.” 2012 being the first full year that I was blogging, I made a concerted effort to see as many films released in the year as I could afford. And, wouldn’t you know it? This list has 31 films on it — films that I realized I didn’t always entirely like, too, but were not necessarily worthy of being put on any kind of definitive “Worst of…” list that I could come up with. I could have been a pessimist and just put all the bad movies on the naughty list or something, but I’m feeling especially upbeat right now, and so I’ve decided to rename this list as a list of the films that were “Neither the Best, Nor the Worst Films I Saw.”
As the name would imply, these are a mix of films that range from bad to good, but never awful nor excellent. Some of these films are possibly even films that I may not even feel much of anything towards, so I just put them here because I saw them and they met the criteria for making this year in review — that is, they were released (at least widely) in 2012, and I saw them at some point before writing this, either theatrically or on DVD.
There is one exception I made for this list, and I will be making it again for another film in a future list, and that is for the film that is marked with an asterisk (that’s the little star symbol that looks like this: *). It featured previously on my 2012 IN REVIEW: Films I Didn’t See list, and yet I finally saw it now that it’s on video, and I felt that it was good enough to comment on here. I won’t be making that exception for every film I’ve since seen from 2012 since starting this year in review, but I’m making some exceptions and marking them as such.
Anyway, without further delay, here are the films that were neither great nor awful, the good films on down to the bland ones that I saw from 2012: Read more…
2012 IN REVIEW – The Films I Didn’t See: May – August
Ah, summer — the time of tentpole blockbuster films that are meant to pad out the studios’ budgets for the next few months. I believe I saw most of the major films released during this period, at least at some point in the year, if not the theatre: The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, Men in Black 3, Battleship… Overall, it was a more than satisfying year for quality summer blockbusters that pleased both audiences and critics. … Well, probably not Battleship. That movie was awful.
With so many films that release in theatres that are best seen actually on the big screen, though, it was only inevitable that smaller and/or less interesting films fell by the wayside of my attention span. Critically acclaimed features like Beasts of the Southern Wild and Oslo, August 31st would get unfortunately lumped in with similarly ignored-by-me crap like Step Up Revolution and That’s My Boy this past summer, which isn’t a commentary on their quality as much as it is a reflection of my time and budgetary restrictions. (I subscribe to a number of rental services and still buy and go see movies in theatres, but I can only do so much and thus prioritize quality spectacle films usually over the quality comedies and dramas.)
So while I do believe I got the most out of my summertime viewings that I possibly could, let’s go over the films that I somehow managed to not see as of the time of this writing, for better or for worse. Read more…
2012 IN REVIEW – The Films I Didn’t See: January – April
2012 was a surprisingly satisfying year for movies, whether you wanted serious dramas or escapist fantasies, but it’s pretty much impossible to for any one person to see all the movies that come out within the span of one year, and I’m no different.
While I tried my best to see most of the big movies and the movies that came out in 2012 and all the movies that I was interested in, whether in theatres or on home video, there were many that I admittedly never got around to, didn’t care to getting around to, or had never even heard of to get around to them.
Though 2013’s just getting started, I’m going take some time to look back on the past year over the next couple weeks, starting with the films that I didn’t’ see. As with last year, the commentary below is not necessarily going to match up with my final impression of any given movie once I do actually come around to seeing them (if at all), and is solely meant to express why I never got around to it and, possibly, whether or not I intend to see it all. This is all based on plot synopses, Rotten Tomatoes scores, Wikipedia entries, a few external reviews, and, of course, the films’ trailers, and, once again, are not necessarily reflective of a final opinion of a film.
I start, of course, at the very beginning for this first part. Lots of films released during this traditional dumping ground period were smaller films, films that were released in foreign countries or film festivals back in 2011, or were just outright given their timeslot because the studio just had very little faith in the film’s performance at the box office. Sometimes films fall into all three categories. You’ve possibly even forgotten about them or haven’t even heard about them, or maybe you forgot you heard about them and only vaguely remember the name, maybe a few clips from the trailers you saw some time long ago. I know that was the case for me.
But that shouldn’t discourage you from seeing some of these films. Many of them actually look quite promising, and I’ve even added several to my various media queues, too. Hopefully you’ll find some films among the rotting corpses of the genuinely awful ones that were exiled to the early year winter and feel compelled to give these films a second (or third) glance once you remember what they are. Read more…
2012 IN REVIEW — Happy New Year! Let the reminiscing commence!
Happy New Year, everyone! 2012 has come and gone, and we’ve made it into 2013 still standing, despite what some may have feared. Lucky us! It’s looking like 2013 will be an exciting year for franchise films, what with a new Star Trek, Iron Man, Thor, Superman, and Die Hard, but then there’s also original material like Guillermo del Toro’s awesome-looking Pacific Rim and District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, too! (I’m sure there are some other movies in there that aren’t sci-fi or fantasy-based, too, that might turn out to be good, but these aren’t usually the types of films that generate buzz so early on until they’re shown at film festivals.)
But before we jump into the films of the new year, let’s take a look back at what was supposed to be the final year of the planet as we know it through the films that were released in our apparently bygone twilight period. As with 2011, in the coming weeks, I will be deconstructing 2012 into the following categories (subject to being broken down into smaller parts):
- Notable Films I Managed to Avoid Seeing
- The Films I Liked in 2012
- The Worst of 2012
- My Top 10 Favorite Movies of 2012
Since 2012 was also my first full year of blogging, I aimed to see more theatrical releases and, barring that, renting 2012 releases as soon as I possibly could, but there are still some notable films that I just wasn’t able to get around to, mostly due to having to gauge my expenses — usually because films were released so closely together. That being said, I’m really looking forward to looking back on what turned out to be one of the more exciting and satisfying years in film, in my humble opinion. But, in case you can’t wait, feel free to peruse through the archive and check out all the parts of 2011 in Review, conveniently ordered out for you below!
- 2011 in Review: Notable Films I Managed to Avoid, For Better or For Worse — January – April, May – September, October – December
- 2011 in Review: The Films I Liked
- 2011 in Review: The Top 5 Worst Films I Saw
- 2011 in Review: My 10 Favorite Films — 10 – 8, 7 – 4, 3 – 1
Special Review: “2012” – Eat, drink, and be merry…
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Produced by: Harald Kloser, Mark Gordon, Larry J. Franco
Written by: Harald Kloser, Roland Emmerich
Cinematography by: Dean Semler
Edited by: David Brenner, Peter S. Elliott
Music by: Harald Kloser, Thomas Wander
Starring: John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson, Liam James, Morgan Lily, Thomas McCarthy, George Segal
Year: 2009
Disclaimer: Aside from the insertion of images, film credits, and tags, this review is being written by someone who not only was having a couple drinks whilst watching this awful movie (and therefore was likely not paying too much attention), but was also very likely written while having a couple more afterward. Why? Have you SEEN this movie? It’s awful! One would need a few drinks to take any pleasure out of it! …That, and my roommate and I thought this would be a fun (possibly funny) experiment to see how well I write after a few drinks. All the great writers were abusers of substances, right? And so I figured I should review this before the big day comes, December 21, while everyone still supposedly has the time to read this. This review will not be edited once posted. My apologies to anyone who thinks I’m a bad influence. Hope you enjoy it as much as I hated this movie!
Disclaimer to the disclaimer: I am not an advocate of substance abuse, and this was all conducted within the safety of my apartment. Do not by any means take this an endorsement of illegal activity, irresponsible behavior, illicit drug use, and general, overall stupidity! Read more…