Sunday, August 15, 2010

A Time for Reflection


After the Creativity Workshop, I've found myself struggling to come up with blogs to write about. I'm not entirely sure what it is that's made me get the blogging yips, but I've always found that whenever I've had trouble coming up with things to talk about, I go back to one of the old wells...

In this case: Movies!

We're nearing the end of the Summer movie season and are about to dive (or maybe plummet) head-long into one of the 2 great darknesses of the year of movies... The dreaded Pre-Thanksgiving drought. It's not that great movies don't open then, but we're going to start seeing a ton of shitty rom-coms. A ton of sci-fi movies without the juice to justify a holiday release. That kind of thing. Mostly what we're facing are a bunch of movies only people like me will remember five years from now.

Considering the pit of blah we're about to be mired in, it seems like a good time to reflect on the movies I've already seen this year.. To talk about the good ones and the bad ones. To discuss the performances that stand out (for good or bad). To maybe even re-evaluate my rankings.

Let me talk about the rankings for just a sec. As you all know by now, I'm kind of obsessed with arranging things into orders. I love to rank things. I've always been curious how movies would rank if I kept a running tally throughout my viewings. So far, I'm pleased with the process.

Top Tier (aka: the best of the best. )
Up in the Air, Toy Story 3, Kick-Ass, Inception, and the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Up in the Air and Toy Story 3 are the clear numbers 1 and 2. Kick-Ass and Sorcerer's Apprentice were the 2 most unabashedly fun movies I've seen, and Inception was the most... something. I think. It's hard to tell. In any case, it takes some thinking, and that's a good thing.

2nd Tier (Aka: Good..not great, but good)
Iron Man 2, Despicable Me, The Crazies, Get Him to the Greek.

Iron Man 2 was solid and enjoyable. It had a couple of dead spots, but I did see it twice, so that does count for something. Despicable Me was fun and I liked Steve Carell's V.O. work. The Crazies was not at all what I expected it to be, but in a good way. It would have likely ranked even higher, but there were a couple of holes that I just couldn't get around. Get Him to the Greek ranked WAY higher than I would have guessed before I saw it. Maybe I was of the mood to enjoy a good movie, being all alone in Minneapolis, but I thought it had a lot of heart, actually.

3rd Tier (aka: Wait.. Did I see that movie?)
Knight and Day, Predators, Prince of Persia, Alice in Wonderland, The Wolfman, The Lovely Bones

The title pretty much says it all... I basically have no feelings about any of these.. They all had good parts and dumb parts and in 5 years I'll have to struggle to recall any details or even if I've seen it all. Every time I look at this list I remember that I saw The Lovely Bones. I also remember that I think I'd like to read the book.

4th Tier (aka: I Fucking HATE this movie, even if it's not the objectively worst thing I've seen).
Twilight: Eclipse, and Hot Tub Time Machine

I wrote a whole blog about what was wrong with Twilight and I tried 3 times to write about what was wrong with Hot Tub Time Machine. I can't rank them at the bottom, because I don't think any movie that makes me have the kind of virulent hatred for it has to be doing SOMETHING.

5th Tier (aka: I honestly don't recall this movie.)
Cop Out, and Percy Jackson... Lightning Thief

I believe this was a Kevin Smith movie. There are some people in it that we've seen. I think. I dunno.

6th Tier (aka: Um... Not good at all)
When in Rome, Leap Year, Daybreakers

2 Rom-Coms and the most disappointing movie about actual vampires to come out this year (as opposed to Twilight, which isn't about actual vampires). The Rom Coms aren't bad simply because they are rom-coms. I like good Rom-Coms. In fact, I didn't actually hate either of these movies, but to say they were enjoyable or... good... in any way would be a lie. Daybreakers is... I remember being really annoyed by the whole business. And finding it implausible. When you find a vampire movie to be "too implausible". You know that's a problem.

7th Tier (aka: The Worst Movie I've Seen All Year)
The Bounty Hunter

I mean... It's the only movie I wish I'd not seen at all. It just makes me so sad that The Tofu Muchacha and I spent actual money to watch this. It's so fucking bad. Gerard Butler has ruined at least 2 movies that I've seen. Jennifer Aniston's fame remains completely baffling to me. The whole business just sucked.

After looking at the tiers, I think I can live with the list as it is. Seems pretty solid.

What do you think? You guys seen any of these?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What happened to P90X and vegetarianism?

Beefy Muchacho said...

Vegetarianism came and went without much incident. I "cheated" a couple of times both of which made me sick. Not as a result of volume, but more a result of substance. As of now, I'm kind of going with "non-strict" vegetarian. I'm not actively avoiding meat, but it does seem like vegetarian options agree with me more. I haven't written about it because it doesn't seem that interesting.

As for P90X... My knee problems haven't really subsided, so I've started and stopped a couple of times. I plan on starting again soon, but I likely will not publicize it, because I already am kinda mad at myself for not finishing it, knee problems or no.

Anonymous said...

Did you see What About Steve? Worse than The Bounty Hunter...I actually left the theater because I couldn't take any more