Monday, November 20, 2006

Brief Year in Review

It wasn't until I compiled this list of the 54 movies released this year that I've seen that I realized how impossibly far behind I am in my viewership. Last year I saw over seventy in theatres and a handful of these I didn't even see until DVD. I also realize there are at least 25 movies from the past year that I want to check out. Anyhow, I wanted a bit of content up on the blog to provide discussion but there is far too many movies here for me to do in depth reviews of each. I've even opted to leave out any specific comments about any since I'll do a top 10 of the year, and probably a worst list as well. I'll make it simple for now:

Absolutely Don't Miss: Brick, Casino Royale, Clerks 2, The Descent, The Departed, Half Nelson, Hard Candy, Little Miss Sunshine, Lucky Number Slevin, Running Scared, Stranger than Fiction, V For Vendetta

Very Good Watch: Beerfest, Borat, Catch a Fire, Crank, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Fearless. Find Me Guilty, Inside Man, Mission Impossible III, The Prestige, Thank You For Smoking

Decent Watch: 16 Blocks, Babel, CSA: Confederate States of America, The DaVinci Code, Employee of the Month, Flags of Our Fathers, Hostel, Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest, Silent Hill, Taladega Nights, The Wicker Man

Eh(aka watchable for their own reasons): Art School Confidential, The Black Dahlia, District B-13, Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, The Guardian, Hills Have Eyes, London, Nacho Libre, Over the Hedge, She's the Man, Snakes on a Plane, X-Men: The Last Stand

Don't Bother: An American Haunting, The Illusionist, The Notorious Bettie Page, The Return, RV, See No Evil, Slither, Superman Returns, Waist Deep

Some of these fall somewhere between categories and I forced myself to place them for the sake of not having 54 categories for 54 movies. I'd be happy to give more detail as to why I've ranked a certain film in a certain place.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can I still make gay jokes? I don't know how to make conversation without gay jokes.

Nico said...

I can't believe you don't have Thank You For Smoking in your "Don't Miss" section... That movie is equivalent to Running Scared in it's respective genre. There's no in between for this movie, either.

Cubby said...

I thought Thank You For Smoking was really good and it's definately at the top of it's category...but I just felt like something was missing. It needed something else to put it over the edge. I thought Katie Holmes was pretty weak, but I'm not quite sure that was it.

And anonymous...it's obviously Dave. Nobody else is so reliant on gay.

Nico said...

I just can't budge on TYfS. It's the only film I liked HER in. (For the masses: I loved Batman Begins, but hated her in it; HATED her in Wonder Boys and Phone Booth, thought both mediocre; enjoyed both her breast in The Gift)

Aside from that, cool Blog...

I'd like to see that 25 Most Wanted list posted...

Anonymous said...

Alright mr.
The illusionist was a great movie. I take offense that you couldn't loose yourself in a simple love story that keeps the audience guessing. It wasn't a movie meant to be bigger then life, so I truelly think it ranks above employee of the month which was a piece of crap movie you saw fit to put as a decent watch.

~EmJ

Cubby said...

EmJ,

The Illusionist was a weak film. That wasn't to say I didn't derive any viewing pleasure from it. I tend to find SOMETHING worthwhile about most movies. A movie would have to be a real groaner for me to have nothing nice to say. The Illusionist just falls into the category that the bad outweighs the good by too much, and I coulnd't in good conscience tell someone to watch it.

As far as Employee of the Month, I'd heard nothing but bad things about that movie. Perhaps I went into the theatre with low expectations. Whatever the case, I found it to be decently funny. Is it good film making? No. Good acting? Certainly not. Jessica Simpson couldn't convincingly act like Jessica Simpson. But as a movie with a ridiculous premise and equally ridiculous humour it worked well enough.

Anonymous said...

stranger than fiction... gooooood flick.