Of
all the lists I make (almost) every year, this is the one that causes the most
debate for obvious reasons, so this year before you start hollering, I made
space for movies I DIDN’T SEE (that you liked)… but after my list that is!!
1.
STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS:
While I agree the sequel lacked the
initial spark of the first J.J Abrams directed movie, I blame this on us
already knowing the characters by now, so all that drama that comes with
forming a new team is gone, but that didn’t mean the drama was taken out of
this worthy sequel and if you never saw Benedict Cumberbatch before, well I’m
sure after watching this you’d go see Sherlock
and everything else he’s in and at some point in your life will attempt to yell
at someone who pisses you off, “KHHHAAAAAAN!”.
2.
GRAVITY:
This is the simplest movie plot of the
year and the most linear (no subplots), everything else about it, the acting,
the effects, the sound (or lack of) to the CGI is anything, but simple! For the
first 20 minutes of Gravity, the camera absolutely does not cut away from the
action, it keeps rolling. This alone should qualify director Alfonso Cuaron for
an Oscar in either direction or
cinematography. And the acting? Will leave you forgetting that other guy,
what’s his name… Clooney! Sure, he brings his charm, but it’s Bullock who
carries the movie and not just cause she’s the lead, but because she carries it.
3.
THOR: THE DARK WORLD
By Odin and all the nine realms, I never
thought I’d pick a Thor movie over an
Iron Man one, but here we are! Unlike
most of the year’s superhero movies that suffered from their second half, it is
the second half here that makes Thor: The
Dark World good. If the Dark World,
as has been described by critics is just here to hold us till the next Avengers movie, we’re quite please with
this appetizer. Despite its underdeveloped characters, mainly its chief villain
and his associate, the movie still packs a punch… and a hammer!
4.
LOOPER (2012 Release):
Two Bruce Willises (is that even right?)
in one movie?! Sign me up! One played by Willis, the other played by
Gordon-Levitt in this time-travel warp. My future self came back to write this.
5.
FAST & FURIOUS 6:
Zoooooom… … … there goes the review and
any justification I have for placing this movie this high up the list! My
reasons are as long as the infamous runway in the movie! Rest in peace Paul
Walker!
6.
IRON MAN 3:
The first movie to divide fanboys this
summer was Iron Man 3, but there’s no
denying the cast and crew put up a great performance, not to mention it has the
best second act in any superhero movie I’ve seen with that cute little kid!
7.
NOW YOU SEE ME:
The trick to movies that involve
deception or slight of hand, to use a magic term is that they are best made
when the misdirection is very simple. Take for example Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, where the deception is…
well, you’ll have to watch it if you haven’t. However, the problem is when they
become complicated. Now You See Me
tows a fine line between deciding whether it belongs to the first category or
the second. Not everyone will be happy with the ending or the plot for that
matter, but one thing is for sure, the story does string you along long enough
to keep your attention… like any good magic trick! The movie in itself is one
big joke (whether it was intended to be or not), because most viewers will be
misdirected by the magic that they may not notice the plot holes in the story…
and that’s a good trick! Let’s see which word you remember now from this
review! …Is it “trick”?!
8.
JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE FLASHPOINT PARADOX:
Based on the graphic novel that stars
The Flash, Flashpoint Paradox did for
DC what their live action movie of
the summer (Man of Steel, I’m looking
at you) couldn’t do in my opinion and that’s keep you thoroughly entertained.
Now granted if you’re not a comic book fan and know nothing about The Flash or
any other DC character aside from
Superman and Batman this may not be your cup of tea as it requires some past
knowledge of the DC universe. That
said it’s definitely one of the best animated movies of the year and proves
there is one thing DC does better
than Marvel and that’s animation!
9.
LET ME EXPLAIN:
Shit… I can’t explain, but Kevin Hart
can. The stand up comic sold out Madison Square Garden for two nights straight
for his latest stand up set and it’s easy to see why… a deerbra was involved!
10. DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012 Release) (Winner for Best Supporting Actor at the 2013 Oscars):
The “D” may be silent, but our
enthusiasm wasn’t! Simply put… the Black guy won! What else do you want?!
11. THIS IS 40:
Dramedy of the year, This Is 40, a spinoff of Knocked Up is as amusing as it is weird
with great performances all round, especially from the Apatow girls.
12. HOW TO MAKE MONEY SELLING DRUGS (Documentary of
the year):
This hilarious (and yet sad) look at the
drug trade will keep you intrigued from how to sell it to the politics that
keeps it a money-making business that just can’t be stopped by the so-called
“War on Drugs”. It features former drug dealers like rapper 50 Cent to former
drug abusers like his boss Eminem (the irony).
13. WRECK-IT-RALPH (2012 Release):
Not since the Toy Story franchise in my opinion has an animated movie told a
story with so much joy and emotions involved. Wreck-it-Ralph from Walt
Disney, the same house that gave us Toy
Story may have another franchise on their hands.
14.
DESPICABLE ME 2:
Despite the plot being drawn out a
little with a side-story involving those lovable minions, DM2 still entertains.
15. THE WOLVERINE:
A predictable second half kills a very
dramatic and entertaining first half. Almost the same problem with Man of Steel really, minus the
predictability.
16. TRANCE:
Since they’re going to be many
comparisons to Christopher Nolan’s Inception,
let me tell you what I think Trance did
better than Inception: the ending.
17. THE HOURS:
Paul Walker’s first posthumous movie (he
has two more coming in Brick Mansions
and of course Fast & Furious 7,
we hope!) is at times tedious. It works on the one-man-verses-the-elements
formula that has succeeded in films like I
Am Legend with Will Smith, Buried
with Ryan Reynolds and most recently this year’s Gravity with Sandra Bullock. The
Hours succeeds slightly less well, but be sure will be brought up whenever
this yet-to-be-properly named genre (survival drama?) is discussed in future!
It may not be the best of the genre, but it personifies it. And unlike the
other mentioned-above movies, The Hours
is one you’ll probably only watch once, but it’s still okay!
18.
MAN OF STEEL:
We thought Iron Man 3 had divided fan-boys… we were wrong! In comes Superman
in Man Of Steel, able to leap tall
buildings in a single bound and divide opinions like Moses did the red sea! I
for one was not completely satisfied and I’ll explain in rhyme:
Man of Steel tried to sell me a dream/
I wasn’t buying/
Some call me a hater/
I’m just justifying/
The first half was superb/
Second half dying/
You know I’m telling the truth/
You the hater, stop lying/
That battle in Kansas was the shit/
But everything after that… just took a
hit/
19.
OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL:
Quite colorful; literally and story
wise. It’s amazing how no one had ever made a prequel to the Wizard of Oz before, especially when you
consider there are 13 books in the whole series. Well Sam Raimi, he who
directed the original horrifying Evil Dead
and gave us the better version of Spiderman
has and it’s beautiful. Never mind some minor inconsistencies in the story or
how quickly things move in the character department, we all pretty much know
the story, so we get it. It’s interesting to point out despite its 2 hours and
10 minutes; Raimi had to cut out scenes that Disney thought were terrifying in order to keep its PG rating. That said; it would’ve been
wonderful to see it in all its horrifying glory.
20. LINCOLN (2012 Release) (Winner for Best Actor at the 2013 Oscars):
There is no contest here, when you first
see Daniel Day Lewis as America’s 16th president, you don’t see Day
Lewis the actor. Nah, you see Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States
in all his glory and right-jokes-at-the-wrong-time personality. While Day Lewis
might have got much of the praise of this movie, the supporting cast made it
just as memorable, if not more. Stellar turns from Tommy Lee Jones to Lee Pace
as the “aptly named” Senator Woods (I agree with those who said he should’ve
been nominated for an Oscar) made my
day. Lest we forget other standout performances like James Spader playing a
character who was likely Alan Shore’s ancestor to Boardwalk Empire villain turned timid U.S house member Michael
Stuhlbarg.
21.
OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN
Its unfair portrayal of North Koreans
and sympathy card for the America public (which works… momentarily) aside, Olympus has some great CGI action
scenes, some cool one-liners and Gerard Butler who hasn’t looked this heroic
since 300. With Hollywood’s insistence
of playing off the American public’s fear of the others, in this case the North Koreans, in they come as the bad
guys taking over the White House. It could’ve been the Iranians for all we care
(but I’m sure they already pissed them off with Argo) or any member of the former axis of evil and it would’ve done
the job.
WORST
OF THE WORST:
1.
PACIFIC RIM
Just the idea alone should qualify this
as one of the best movies of all time; HOWEVER, the script wasn’t as great as
the idea.
2.
MACHETE KILLS
Whose idea was this? Why are they still
working in Hollywood? WHY?! This was an unwelcomed sequel. The first movie was
an okay lampoon of 70s B-Movies, this was just horrible. If you make it pass 20
minutes, let me know if you’re still breathing!
MOVIES I DIDN’T
WATCH BUT MY HOMIES SWEAR BY:
I
was rolling my eyes writing the title above.
·
The
Great Gatsby
·
The
Purge
·
World
War Z
·
Elysium
·
White
House Down
·
About
Time
IN MEMORIAM
I
initially wasn’t going to do this, but then again:
PAUL
WALKER
In
a May GQ edition this year, there was
a filler about why The Fast Franchise
should be taken seriously. Among the reasons was that the franchise was
charitable, mostly to Walker, because according to the article, it kept him
“fed, clothed, and stocked with Sun-in for over a decade”. It was a joke and
admittedly I laughed. But Walker’s relevancy to the movie industry in all
honesty might not have been noticed were it not for his death. For starters he
wasn’t your regular tabloid feature and he didn’t take up valuable network time
because he caught malaria in South Sudan for 10 days (Clooney, I see you!). That
alone made him the rare type of star. He could be Paul Walker the actor as well
as Paul Walker the person. But perhaps where one realize Walker was more than a
pretty face was when you look back at all the people he came up with in the
late 90s/early 00s (Think Freddie Prinze Jr, Matthew Lillard, Sean Thomas and
to a lesser extent Sarah Michelle Gellar) you realize he’s the ONLY ONE (with
the exception of perhaps Ashton Kutcher) who made any worthy films in the last
decade. The only other person to survive that group was his Skulls co-star Joshua Jackson who made
it back over to TV on Fringe. Ashton
Kutcher & Wilmer Valderama for the most part became TV producers &
hosts in the last decade. Part of the reason why Walker outlasted his peers especially
when it came to movies is because unlike most of his peers he wasn’t eager to
cash in on his good likes and youthfulness and once admitted he pretty much
started doing movies just to get money to surf and do other things he probably
enjoyed more. It was on the set of Skulls
with Joshua Jackson that he told director Rob Cohen, if he ever made a movie
about street racing or undercover cops, he’d be interested. A year later Cohen
got the script to a movie called The Fast
& The Furious about a street racer who was an undercover cop! Walker
may have been pretty much the heart of the Fast
franchise!
PETER
O’TOOLE
Anyone
who grew up in Saudi Arabia had Lawrence
of Arabia as one of their childhood heroes, it wasn’t an option! It wasn’t
like teaching children about Lawrence was part of the school curriculum; it’s
just that people made it so. Now, today’s children may not know who Lawrence is
and let’s face it, history (as it is wont to do) may not want to acknowledge
him as much (I mean the guy is half responsible for Saudi Arabia being in the
first place), but there is one person people might be more familiar with and
that’s the actor who played Lawrence, Peter O’Toole. If you ever saw Lawrence of Arabia, you already fell in
love with O’Toole. His piercing blue eyes and his ability to show so much
emotion with just his facial expression (a talent done so well on TV’s The Wire), O’Toole captured hearts.
Nominated 8 times for an Oscar, he’s the most nominated actor to have never
won. He did get an honorary Oscar though, years later (that sort of
we-feel-sorry-for-snobbing-you-all-these-years-type of Oscar). For you to
understand him getting nominated and not winning in today’s generation, think
Leonardo DiCaprio and you go, “WAIT… he doesn’t have an Oscar yet?!” Although
no one today has gotten half as nominated as O’Toole and still not won!
THE BEST TV SHOWS OF THE YEAR
It’s kind of hard to put this in any
order (excluding the last two), but number one is definitely number one!
1
HOUSE OF CARDS
Picture Game of Thrones set in our time:
lies, sex, deceit, beheadings… okay, not the last one, but there’s murder
nonetheless.
2
BREAKING BAD
This is how you end a good show. BB’s biggest achievement in its final
season was moving the series central focus from being all about Walter White to
being about everybody around him as well.
3
RAY DONOVAN
This show is MAAAAADDDDD! Live Schreiber
definitely shines as the title character, so does the rest of the cast.
4
GAME OF THRONES
The Red Wedding aside; GoT delivered its usual mix of intrigue
and killer dialogue. Personally, it doesn’t measure up t last season, but still
good.
5
GRACELAND
Undercover cops, feds, customs & DEA
agents living under one roof means guns are going to get pulled out sooner than
later.
6
DEVIOUS MAIDS (Surprised I liked this)
This may come off as a Desperate Housewives knock-off,
especially since it’s coming from the creator of that show and one of its
stars, but it’s actually more edgy and darker… as far as these types of soaps
go. You can pretty much tell what’s going to happen in the next three or four
episodes and the pilot is admittedly boring, but it gets better. If you’re
looking for something light and more in the soap type mood, you’ll enjoy this.
FAIL
OF THE YEAR:
The
final season of Dexter was a cop-out;
they tried to turn him into Spiderman (i.e a franchise) and not in a good way!
