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2013 IN REVIEW: The Films I Didn’t See (September – December)
Oscar season! This is when the studios want to release the best films of the year (or so they say). Why? Because they want the films to be fresh in the voters’ minds. Prestige films and the like. Indie dramas, historical period films, war films, controversial films… If it can make you cry, your heartbreak, your spirit lift with joy, make you see things from a new light, this is the season.
It’s also a good time for seasonal holiday films. You’ve got your horror films to cover Halloween, your Christmas films for Christmas, and this year we even got an animated Thanksgiving film (though I’m not certain that all you people looking forward to a big piece of juicy turkey are going to love it). Meanwhile, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa get left out, once again. For some reason, this season was also rife with Christian films, from Kirk Cameron, to Miley Cyrus analogs, to Christmas miracles, the industry that claims to represent my faith has got you covered in that area. Woo.
It’s not all your typical films, though. More and more, Hollywood is figuring out that you should spread your action films and your romantic comedies throughout the year, rather than bunching them all into the middle. Consequently, we got a few Sylvester Stallone-involved flicks this season, a sequel to Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, as well as the latest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor: The Dark World.
Nevertheless, as with the first and second entries, I couldn’t see them all, so, as with the last time, here are the films that, as of this writing, I did not see from May– August 2013, in order of release, as noted on Wikipedia. Please note that, as in the past, I still reserve the right to watch any film that is listed here and then re-remark on the film in one of the upcoming articles on films I did see from 2013. So, yes, again, you might see some of these films again, and soon, since this is the last of the films that I haven’t seen from the year. Enjoy! Read more…
2012 IN REVIEW: My Top 10 Worst Films of 2012, featuring a review of the #1 Worst Film of 2012
As you may already know, I’m of the opinion that 2012 was a pretty strong year for films. But even in the best of years there is always a deluge of awful just waiting around the corner to ruin your good time.
Unless you want to actually watch a bad movie (and, let’s face it, sometimes it’s fun to watch bad movies), I strongly advise against watching any of the films below. And even if you are in the mood for a bad movie, I would still recommend never, ever seeing the film that quite literally stole the top spot on my list.
It was honestly so bad, I broke a few rules just to avoid having to write about it again and made my say here my final say on the movie overall. Previous lists never featured a built-in film review for any of the films that didn’t have one previously on The Viewer’s Commentary, but this film was a special kind of awful, and so I decided to treat it thus just for this occasion.
Which film could possibly be so bad to inspire such madness? Well you’ll have to read on to find out. … Or you could just scroll down and spoil the surprise, but… well, that would be kind a mean and hurt my feelings. I already compiled this list for you so that you could avoid them and have a good time, and all, and you’re just going to ignore all my hard work, aren’t you?… :( 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…
