“Hey 2011 called. They want their reviews back!” my excel workbook shouted at me as I hit the save icon. “No one cares that you just watched all those movies all from last year!”
I really must learn to ease off these mid-morning Mai Tais, I thought to myself before finally closing out the document and opening an incognito browsing tab to type up my thesis into WordPress.
But it looks so lonely there with no one to drink it and admire its little umbrella…
You know what? I don’t care if I am a year too late. I–for no reason other than that I could–watched TWENTY of 2011’s most popular films to see what I’d been missing. You see, for the past 8 or so years I had worked in video retail, which absolutely prevented me from enjoying on a regular basis all the new movies to come out, as I was so saturated with film that I consciously chose to avoid any new foray into the medium with the distinctly rational fear that I’d overdose on the exposure to movies itself.
But, you know, now I don’t work in video retail, so I decided I was going to watch no less than twenty movies that came out last year. My findings are as follows, ranked from worst to best:
20. The Green Hornet: D
19. Paul: C
18. Thor: C
17. Paranormal Activity 3: C+
16. The Thing: C+
15. Captain America: C+
14. Cowboys & Aliens: B-
13. Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows: B-
12. The Muppets: B-
11. Being Elmo: B
10. Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol: B
09. Melancholia: B
08. J. Edgar: B
07. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Fincher): B
06. Super 8: B
05. Midnight in Paris: B
04. Moneyball: B+
03. The Artist: B+
02. The Secret World of Arrietty: B+
01. Hugo: A-
Yeah, Green Hornet really is that bad, and Hugo really is that good. On average though? All the movies I saw were pretty, well, average. When 2/3 of all the 2011 movies I saw fell between a B- and a B+, well, it’s rather indicative of what the studios were trying to accomplish last year: we’ll try just hard enough to make it til next year, when all the blockbusters actually come out.
This… this was a bad idea.
I was a bit surprised that The Artist ended up being just charming enough to win me over; to overlook all of the gimmickry associated with it. I was also caught a bit off guard by how good Midnight in Paris was, merely for the fact that it was more or less a Woody Allen comedy, and that sort of thing hasn’t been good for over 10yrs. It actually felt a lot like one of his 80’s works, something like a Purple Rose of Cairo.
So yeah, check ’em out. Or don’t. Most of them are only slightly better than average, but that’s not to say 2011 as a whole was a wash. Nor does it mean that all movies are bad and you should stop watching them. I don’t think I’ve ever advised this.
Also, though, I’ve been reading and playing video games a bit now too, in a push to get myself out of the entertainmentless rut I’ve been in for a few months now. I finally read Ender’s Game, which was hailed as a revolution in sci-fi for many reasons, and indeed after reading it you can see how it laid the groundwork for many a sci-fi venture post 1990 (I guess it took ’em a decade to catch on) in both film and anime. Actually the book reads a lot like a late 90’s anime, which is fun, and not bad. Way to go, Card. You don’t totally suck (but your book is overrated). I’ve also started reading Christopher Golden’s The Fourth Labyrinth, and this will be followed by The Straw Men, Domino Men, and probably some other stuff all by other authors. It’s exhausting, really: trying to do things.
Fun trivia! Asa Butterfield (who played Hugo in Hugo) and Ben Kingsley (who was also in Hugo) are both going to be in the new Ender’s Game movie. Coincidence?
In other news, I’ve appropriated my wife’s laptop to my cause since my good ol’ buddy has decided to take an extended sabbatical. This meant having to move over my files, customize its set up, install all sorts of programs, and generally put it on the same road to destruction that my laptop walked for so many years.
Wish me luck! (and good day)
The Glass City 