Friday, December 21, 2012

J: Movies of 2012

I'm not sure why, but increasingly, watching a movie seems to me to be a big mental commitment. I can sit down and watch two or three hours of TV, no problem, but ask me to watch a movie and probably 9 times out of 10 I'm not up for it (just ask my boyfriend). That said, I did watch more movies in theaters this year than I did last year. Since there are so few, mini reviews of each!
  1. The Hunger Games
    The first theater we tried to watch this in had a fire alarm go off right at the moment where Prim's name gets called at the reaping and we had to evacuate! So we had to go to a second theater to watch it again from the beginning. I thought they did a pretty good job with the movie, even though I still don't think Peeta is right and I feel like people who didn't read the books would be confused. I did not like the second or third books in the series as much so I'm a bit apprehensive about the upcoming movies.
  2. The Pirates! Band of Misfits
    Honestly don't remember much about it except that it was fun?
  3. The Avengers
    I really enjoyed this! Of course I'm a Joss Whedon fan so I wasn't surprised but my only qualm was that I can't stand Iron Man or Robert Downey, Jr. But I thought the amount of Iron Man was very tolerable. I loved Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk and even Scarlett Johansson was pretty good.
  4. Brave
    I guess the trailers for this really didn't say much about the plot because halfway into the movie I was like, "Oh, this is what the movie is about!" Super cute and fun though.
  5. The Dark Knight Rises
    Great filmmaking for sure, but I'm not sure if I really liked it, especially when compared to The Dark Knight. I could not understand a word that Bane said, thought all the stuff in that prison was way over dramatic, and Christian Bale's Batman voice drives me crazy. But Anne Hathaway was surprisingly good as Catwoman and Joseph Gordon Levitt is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors!
  6. Step Up Revolution
    Pure fluff. Gotta love the people behind the Step Up franchise for realizing that plot is totally secondary and the audience is just there for the dancing. Was happy and a little relieved to see that Kathryn McCormick, one of my favorite So You Think You Can Dance dancers of all time, acquitted herself respectably as an actress and the flash mob stuff was pretty darn cool. Bonus: Eyebrows! Peter Gallagher is always welcome on my screen.
  7. Premium Rush
    Fun adrenaline kick. Another Joseph Gordon Levitt movie!
  8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
    I was apprehensive about this movie because I had read the book it was based on back in high school when it was all the rage among angsty teenagers and kind of wasn't sure what to think about it because I didn't feel like I really related to it. But the author of the book wrote and directed the film adaptation so I was hopeful too. And I'm so glad I saw it! It's just a great coming of age story, and the three leads are great - yes, even Emma Watson and her odd American accent.
  9. Pitch Perfect
    At first I was like, why is Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick slumming it in a Glee-derivative a capella movie? But really, there is nothing to be ashamed of with this movie. It's a lot ridiculous but actually pretty funny and smart.
  10. Argo
    The only "serious" movie I saw this year probably? A great story that I didn't know much about coming in, and kudos to Ben Affleck for making it really suspenseful and compelling.
  11. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
    Liked it, even though it was really...long. Martin Freeman was great as Bilbo and it just made me happy and nostalgic to see Middle Earth/New Zealand again. It's funny, I remember the book as being kind of a cute children's book but the movie made it all seem much more epic and serious. I'll have to read it again.
  12. Anna Karenina
    Update - Saw this! I really liked it - the staging and sets were really different and not what I was expecting, but thought Keira Knightley was great. Hoping to see this with my mom before the year is out. I've never quite finished reading the book...it's been on my list for years but have never gotten around to it and now I won't have time before seeing the movie, but oh well...
  13. Looper
    A bit more violent than I usually prefer, but very interesting premise and good acting. (I had no idea Emily Blunt was in this movie.) I was highly distracted by Joseph Gordon Levitt's facial prosthetics though.
  14. Les Miserables
    I watched the musical on Broadway years ago, but honestly never really understood the story? So this movie helped a lot in that respect. I thought there were quite a lot of pretty great performances - Anne Hathaway surprised me, and Eponine and Enjolras and Marius were all very strong. The biggest disappointment was Russell Crowe. His singing voice just annoyed me throughout the whole movie. I know they were going about it a little differently - emphasizing acting over pure singing, but he just did not sound good...
Movies I missed:
The Secret World of Arietty, Friends with Kids, The Cabin in the Woods, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Dark Shadows, Moonrise Kingdom, Safety Not Guaranteed, Your Sister's Sister, Beast of the Southern Wild, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Queen of Versailles, Wreck-It Ralph, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi, Zero Dark Thirty, This is 40

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