Under the Radar Summer Movies

While the usual, heavily publicized films make their way into theaters this summer I’d like to point out a few lesser known films coming out.

The Iceman (May 3) – Michael Shannon is great in everything. He should become a household name after Man of Steel.

The East (May 31) – The trailer looks interesting. Could be really good or incredibly bad. I’m a sucker for corporate espionage.

Much Ado About Nothing (June 7) – This is a movie Whedonites. The cast is filled with actors from Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse. Don’t really care for Shakespeare, but I care a great deal for Whedon.

The Bling Ring (June 14) – I haven’t liked a single movie Sofia Coppola has made, but I loved Emma Watson in Perks of Being a Wallflower. Seems to be in the same vein as Spring Breakers. Lets hope for a better outcome.

The Way, Way Back (July 5) – I loved The Descendants. (Written by the directors Faxon and Rash.) This looks just as good, and might make a nice double feature with Adventureland.

R.I.P.D. (July 19) – This is a bigger release than the rest of these, but I hadn’t even heard about it until a week ago. Seems similar to MIB, and that’s not a bad thing. Funny that director Robert Schwentke is opening against the sequel to his last movie, RED.

Elysium (August 9) – I think we’ll start hearing more about this one as we get closer. I’ve been recommending District 9 since the first trailer came out, and Elysium looks just as good. I was really hoping Neill Blomkamp was going to direct Episode 7, but I didn’t have my hopes up too high.

May the Force be with you,

CHUD

The Next Best of 2012

Sorry for not posting sooner. I've had this ready for over a month, but never got around to sharing it.

11. Argo - Won best picture, but that had more to do with Hollywood politics than how good it was.

12. Anna Karenina - Really cool set designs, and I love me some Joe Wright (Atonement, Hanna)

13. The Five Year Engagement - The creative team behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall does another great rom-com. Chris Pratt is great in this.

14. Zero Dark Thirty - The final 30 minutes make the first couple hours worth it.

15. Chronicle - Thought this would be in my top ten for sure after I saw it. Can't wait to see what Trank does with Fantastic Four.

16. Skyfall - Not as good as Casino Royale, but third best Bond movie ever is still pretty good.

17. Les Miserables - Russell Crowe kept this lower on the list all by himself.

18. John Carter - Biggest bomb in years. If you like Star Wars I think you'll like this, too.

19. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Good, but not great like LOTR.

20. The Dark Knight Rises - Missing a great villain that made The Dark Knight so good.

21. The Imposter - An interesting documentary with lots of twists and turns.

22. Cloud Atlas - You love it or hate it. But you have to give the Wachowski's credit for making the attempt.

23. ParaNorman - My favorite animated movie of the year.

24. Silver Linings Playbook

25. The Hunger Games - The Year of Jennifer Lawrence

26. Goon - Best sports movie in years.

27. Brave - Can't really go wrong with Pixar. Oops, Cars 2.

28. Lawless - It sucks when the only bad part of a movie is the lead actor.

29. Django Unchained - I expect better from Tarantino, but still an excellent movie.

30. Magic Mike - Never thought I'd put 2 Channing Tatum movies in my best of the year list.

And now for some movies I enjoyed in no particular order.

Life of Pi

Killing Them Softly

Flight

The Master

End of Watch

Ruby Sparks

Ted

The Amazing Spiderman

Prometheus

Bernie

The Grey

Haywire

Jack Reacher

The Impossible

The Secret World of Arrietty

Hope you enjoyed reading my list.

May the Force be with you,

CHUD

PS - Make sure to check out my podcast.

www.pgpfilmcast.com

Top Ten of 2012

Howdy folks! Time to reminisce on the year that was 2012. This has been the best year for movies in my lifetime. So many good movies came out, and I'm still finding some that I missed. I started going through all the movies I saw last year and had a list of over 50 movies to consider putting in my top ten list. Zoinks! So, without further adieu, here is my top ten movies for 2012. Enjoy.

10. Dredd

Forget the Sly version and go into this with an open mind and you'll be impressed. Karl Urban and Lena Headey stand out in this adaptation. You may want to skip if you don't enjoy science fiction or extreme violence.

9. The Invisible War

I knew about this before I saw the documentary, but didn't realize how bad it really is. It's also pretty cool to see a movie make real changes.

8. 21 Jump Street

One of the biggest surprises of the year, and the best comedy of the year.

7. Moonrise Kingdom

A return to form for Wes Anderson. Best since Royal Tenenbaums.

6. Headhunters

This came out in 2011 in Europe, but not until 2012 in the US. One of the best crime thrillers in years. It's on Netflix streaming right now, so there's no reason not to check it out.

5. Looper

Time travel and Bruce Willis. How is this not #1?

4. Cabin in the Woods

The best horror satire since Scream.

3. Perks of Being a Wallflower

A great throwback to 80's John Hughes high school movies. A bit melodramatic though.

2. The Raid: Redemption

Best martial arts movie in recent memory. Really this could be the best martial arts movie ever made.

1. The Avengers

I was skeptical when this was first announced after this was first announced. How can you bring together this many characters and make a good movie? That was the downfall for the Spiderman and Batman series. I still don't know how they pulled it off, but they did with flying colors. Not only a great conclusion to Phase 1 of the Marvel movie universe, but the best comic book movie ever made.


I hope you liked my list. One interesting note on the list is how many of the films came out in the first half (6 movies), and not one that was released in November or December. Of course, nobody really gives a shit what I think. :-)

May the Force be with you,
CHUD

PS - I'll be posting my top 30 in a few days, as well as some runners up. Seriously, my 11-20 would feel like a good year at the movies for me. That's what a great year it was.

2012 > 2011

Hi, it's been a while since my last blog post, and I stopped posting pretty abruptly. Sorry for that, but I'm guessing everyone was able to go on living their lives without my full review of This Means War. (Just to let you know, it was mediocre at best.) I probably won't start posting on a regular basis like I did in 2011 again, but I'll try to put something up a bit more frequently.

Well, it's a new year and it's time to look back on the year that was. I made it out to 107 movies this past year, and I have to say it was a much less arduous task then last year. It's going to be nearly impossible to whittle down to a top ten and the amount of terrible movies dropped considerably. I was looking back at my top ten from last year, and only could find maybe 3 movies that would sneak into my top twenty from the last two years.

It didn't matter which genre you were looking for you got something great. For sci-fi fans there was Looper, Prometheus, and Chronicle. Some great comedies were 21 Jump Street, Ted, and The Five Year Engagement. A couple of great blockbusters with The Avengers and Skyfall. ParaNorman, Frankenweenie, and Pirates! Band of Misfits were excellent claymation features. Even period dramas got in on the act with Lincoln, Anna Karenina, and Les Miserables. Everything from huge blockbusters(The Hobbit) to small indies(The Raid: Redemption) were spot on. (It might actually be difficult to find 5 movies that I hated enough to put on my worst list.) Some movies didn't live up to expectations(The Dark Knight Rises), but were not bad. And some did poorly at the box office even though they were good(John Carter.)

If I had to make a top ten out of the movies I listed in the last paragraph, it would be an incredible top ten for one year at the movies. But there's still a couple dozen that are worth mentioning and will definitely make an appearance in my top ten.

Anyhoo, just thought I'd write something up to show that I'm still alive, and to let you 8 followers know that I'll be posting my top ten later this month after I get a chance to see Zero Dark Thirty, The Impossible, and Promised Land.

May the Force be with you,
CHUD

PS - Forgot to mention the Star Wars news. Can't wait for episode 7 in 2015. Yahooooo!