It has been a bumper year of cinema, DVD and Blu Ray for me. Overall 234 films with 51 on one of the home formats and 183 visits to the cinema, which of course includes the Frightfest festival and 150 visits to a Cineworld complex with my unlimited card. My current unlimited year has 3 months left to go, but I have already passed last year’s total by 5 films!
So having set myself some serious numbers to try and beat this year, what about the quality of films I saw last year. Have to say for me they were extremely good, I hardly left a screening feeling disappointed. On the other hand I can’t really say I’ve wasted my money due to my card, so I tend to be more tolerant of the films I see, it has to be really bad for me to dislike it!
So while I am talking about bad films, which films for did disappoint me?
1) Shark night 3D, I really knew this was going to be bad, I was hoping it would have enough in it to make it a guilty pleasure film. It didn’t, they held back on the gore, the T&A and what could have been last year’s Piranha, ended up being my worst film of the year!
2) Dream House, another I could sense was going to be poor, and it was! From the bad script and acting to the setup and execution of the film, just plain horrible.
3) The Wicker Tree, a Frightfest feature, wasn’t very good, it wasn’t scary it was just dull. I never liked the first film either!
4) The Roommate, standard American obsession film this time with college roommates, good cast let down by an average script and a below average story!
5) Abduction, Taylor Lautner’s action flick, aimed at the Twilight market, poor acting, poor script, but it did have a couple of good action sequences. Again I didn’t really expect anything else!
Now for a film which is down at the bottom of my list, Tree of Life! I know it’s in most people’s top 10 and I have no problem with that, it’s a visually treat at times, but I just didn’t like it as a film. The story of the boys life is the best part of it, but even that gets bogged down in long meaningful shots. And the ending was just way over my head! But by that time I’d lost the film and just wanted to go home! (I had also watched the last part of Harry Potter just before this, no wonder I was flagging!!)
Now this is where I am in trouble, I do have a favourite film of the year, but then there are so many excellent films I just don’t know where to start after that!
So my film of the year is Super 8. I just loved it, the kids, the look of the film, the music. The plot (even though that’s the weakest point), the script and the direction, just brilliant! I don’t know where it stands in my overall top 10, I need to ponder that list!
Now, I can’t really name a 2nd or 3rd film because I have so many I thought were fantastic, True Grit, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Captain America, Tinker Tailor, Kings Speech, Ides of March, Warrior, Tyrannosaur, We need to talk about Kevin.
Then we have Fast Five, Tangled, Harry Potter, The Help, 50/50, Kill List, The Guard, Tintin, Hugo, Moneyball, My week with Marilyn. Also the Skin I live in, The Conspirator, The Innkeepers, Midnight Son, The Woman, The Divide, Take Shelter, 127 Hours, Immortals, Snowtown, Stake Land, Limitless, Source Code and Trollhunter!
And that’s not even half of it! The list of films is just too long!
As my daughter says it’s been Epic!
The cinema experience of the year was Mission Impossible 4 at the Imax with the Dark Knight intro. Just amazing, both of them and worth the money!
So what will 2012 bring, hopefully another feast of films, looking at the release schedule and reading Empires preview this could be a great year! The films I’m looking forward too are the Dark Knight, Spiderman, Avengers, the hunger games and Bond and so many more! Again another list which could go on and on and on!
I also want to watch more DVD’s and Blu Rays, I have a large number of “never” seen films in my collection which is growing and I’m not doing anything about it! This year I will!
