21 Mar
So I feel the overwhelming need to post this new trailer for Despicable Me 2, which just debuted a matter of hours ago, because it has relevance.
In my anticipated 2013 movies list that went up only this week, I had only a teaser to link to. Now there is this. Suffice to say I am even more keen for this movie now!
Props for the use of a decade-old Eminem song.
“Bottom.”
19 Mar
Here are two more lists for you to disagree with at your leisure.
So just over a year ago year I got all excited about the pile of new movies and games that were coming out in 2012 and posted a pair of top ten lists to order my anticipation. As it turned out, I didn’t even end up watching some of the movies on the list and an embarrassing amount of the games I wrote about didn’t even come out in 2012. Here’s hoping I’ll be a little more accurate with this year’s equivalent.
For the sake of neatness, I’ll only count movies/games that are coming out after the month of March has run its course.
MOVIES
10. jOBS (Teaser)
I’m curious, OK? I don’t actually think Ashton Kutcher is the worst guy in the world and, even if his turn as the late great Steve Jobs sucks, this movie is still going to be talked about quite a bit and I want in on that conversation.
9. World War Z (Trailer)
Zombie movies can be great, they can be decent, or they can be so bad they’re good. In my lifetime I have never come across one that is just bad, and so I will happily watch the eerie World War Z when it hits.
8. The Great Gatsby (Trailer)
Baz Luhramann’s latest pulls out so many Moulin Rouge stops in its trailers that it kinda demands to be watched on style factor alone. Which I suppose is Luhrmann’s deal in the first place. Leo DiCaprio and Michelle Williams sweeten the deal.
7. Pacific Rim (Trailer)
On face value I can’t really believe that this movie is actually happening. It looks like Battleship meets Real Steel, and while the latter movie was surprisingly decent, the former, well, it kinda sucked. Everything changes, of course, when you realise that Guillermo del Toro is directing. Colour me hyped.
6. Despicable Me 2 (Teaser)
If there was ever a non-Disney, non-Dreamworks animated feature that surprised me enough for me to rate it among my favourite animated movies of all time, it’s the hilarious and heartfelt Despicable Me from Illumination Entertainment. Now a sequel is well on the way and while it will struggle to top the first one, you can bet I’ll be at the cinemas in week one to make that call for myself.
25 Feb
So I missed the live broadcast of the Oscars this morning on account of work, but I’ve been pretty successful in keeping a media blackout going, so I shall now watch the recorded version and write my thoughts on the big awards here as I see them, then post them tonight. How exciting!
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz
This one was arguably pretty open but I was still surprised that the favourite, Tommy Lee Jones, didn’t win. Very pleasantly surprised, that is, because Christoph Waltz was AWESOME in Diango Unchained and I had pretty much assumed that the Academy would ignore his turn because he had already won quite recently. Two wins from two nominations!
20 Feb
Credit to deviantart’s alicexz
A few days ago, after over a decade of sporadic chances to do so, I finally watched Disney’s “animated classic” Mulan for the first time. I watched it on the big screen no less, as part of Event Cinemas’ Disney Princess festival. It was all kinds of awesome, which wasn’t entirely unexpected, but watching it at my age, with my catalogue of film watching experience (*adjusts monacle*), made me notice some interesting stuff. Here I shall rant a little about them. There might be spoilers here, but come on, who in their right mind wouldn’t have seen this movie by now?
I did experience it in a cinematic atmosphere, so that is probably a factor here, but I flat out did not expect to be so floored by Mulan‘s visuals. I mean, this is a 14 year old movie we’re talking about. It reminded me of how good Disney’s hand-drawn craftsmanship can look and, perhaps more surprisingly, its liberal use of the kind of CGI seen in the famous Wildebeest scene in The Lion King didn’t actually look that dated (probably because it’s combined with said craftsmanship). The film’s city finale in particular really made an impression on me. Continue reading
7 Feb
Saw this two nights ago. The Oscars are closing in!
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Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert de Niro
Director: David O. Russell (Three Kings, The Fighter)
Rating: M
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I’ve gone into Oscar season a little darker than usual this year. Perhaps due to the Academy’s rather off-putting snub of Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises and even, where it matters, Django Unchained and Argo, I wasn’t in the mood to do the research. So I went into Silver Linings Playbook without the knowledge that it had a nominee in each of the major acting categories, with only half a trailer and the name of a rather skilled director to give me any idea what to expect. This happy combination set me up to be sucker punched by a film that may just have done to romantic comedy what the excellent The Cabin in the Woods did to horror: prove that daring to shake things up can really work as long as you have the talent to back up your bravado.
26 Jan
Time to kick off a new year of reviews. The latest from one of Hollywood’s most successfully quirky directors has finally been released in Australia – two days ago in fact.
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Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio
Director: Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds)
Rating: MA15+
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A new Quentin Tarantino movie is usually something of an event these days. The infamously subversive lover of genre film only has eight full directing credits to his name, and each one of those movies tackles a different pocket of cinematic history with an enjoyable brashness that only fleetingly conceals a deep reverence for the medium. His eighth, the recently released Django Unchained, is no different in this regard. While it may be flawed, the film ticks all the boxes that make a Tarantino flick so unique and so enjoyable. In my book, that makes it a winner.
29 Dec
Somehow we arrive at the end of ten days of top ten lists, one hundred “things” in all. This is the last one; the ten absolute best movies I have seen this year. It was a fantastic year for the big screen, as while there were plenty of indie efforts worth writing home about, many of the blockbusters really stepped up their game in a big way. The unexpected, record-smashing success of one film in particular may have altered the way big studios think about their intellectual properties and release schedules for good.
I don’t profess to having seen all the movies that came out in 2012; heck, I didn’t even see all the movies I wanted to see in 2012. But I did see more than enough of them to make this list a tough one to put together. One thing I noticed about the list after I had finally decided on an order is how weird it looks to see so many movies on it that came out in the first two months of the year; that was so long ago it almost feels like they didn’t release this year at all. The odd thing about living in Australia is that we usually only get movies released late in any given year Stateside early in the next one, which means the majority of movie websites on the internet would have already discussed some of these big screen gems 12 months ago. But I’ll take what I’m given and I was given a lot of good movies in 2012.
The golden world of Hugo won much attention during last year’s award season for its brilliantly understated use of 3D (look how far we’ve come in 12 months – where is the talk of 3D now?), but that isn’t what made it stand out. Hugo is a heartfelt story appropriate for all ages and its affection for Hollywood’s early history is palpable, particularly in the second half of the story. The sentiment never comes off as cheesy, which could easily have been the case, and the whole film is all the more remarkable given it was directed by gangster film veteran Martin Scorcese.
25 Dec
There’s nothing like a great film scene. When you’re sitting in the theatre and something happens onscreen to make you lean forward in your seat, or sit bolt upright, or cower into a fetal position, that’s what going to the movies is all about. In 2012, I experienced quite a few of those moments. Here they are, arranged in convenient order for your reading pleasure. Please note that while I won’t be going out of my way to include spoilers, the very fact that I am talking about impactful scenes within movies should suggest the kind of caution with which you might want to approach this list.
Chronicle is a film with some pretty dark interpretations of the age-old “What would it be like if normal teenagers actually got superpowers?” question. Yet the most memorable scene of the movie for me was the joyous initial expression of physical freedom in which the three main characters engage soon after recieving their new telekinetic abilities. Once they learn to levitate themselves, the wonders of flight are shown in all their shackle-less glory through a wonderfully shot sequence culminating in a sky-high game of catch. It really feels like you’re there, thanks to the film’s “found footage” gimmick.
21 Dec
The movies of 2012 brought with them an avalanche of memorable characters, whose exploits stuck in our minds for a range of reasons. Some made us laugh, some made us cringe, some made us quiver and some just made us want to stand up and applaud. For my second Vagrant Rant Best of 2012 list, I present my top ten favourite movie characters of the year.
The characters on this list need not be brand new creations; fresh interpretations of other material, recurring players in a series and even depictions of real-life people were all fair game when I was putting it together. Regardless of what other people may have been saying about them, I have not included any characters from movies I did not see in 2012. So, sadly, those amazing Boxing Day Australian releases (The Hobbit, Wreck-It Ralph, Les Miserables) are out of the picture.
The Descendants, released at the very beginning of 2012 here in Australia, is a truly heartfelt triumph on many levels, but its many facets would not come together quite so effectively without the comic relief provided by the female lead’s dimwitted boyfriend, Sid. Nick Krause’s performance lends the role just the right combination of idiocy and believability, with a hint of something poignant thrown in. This ensures that, despite the film’s many character interaction highlights, you just aren’t likely to forget his exchange with those two seniors. Not at all.
15 Dec
Vagrant Rant now supports video!
Yay!
To celebrate, here’s the latest and final trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Django Unchained, which we don’t get in Australia until next month.
SO keen.
