My Favorite Entries of 2012

Favorite Entries

I felt that it would be fun to go back and highlight my personal favorite entries of 2012. I thought most were pretty good, some not so much, but a few I found myself exceptionally proud of. In no particular order, here they are!

Snow White & The Huntsman
I really liked how concise I was in getting to the root of why this film bugged me. I felt my analysis of why Snow White as a character does nothing worth calling her a savior figure, let alone the title character was well done, and I always enjoy whenever I can really deconstruct a film from an intellectual standpoint. And to be honest I can't recall hearing anyone else bringing a lot of these points up.

Overall I think this is objectively my best written "review" of the year as it were, and I had fun writing it. It's just a lot more fun to talk about the inner workings of the plot and character motivations than simply trashing Kristen Stewart over and over again. Although that is therapeutic, I'm not going to lie.

Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies
This was a pretty solid entry by itself, as it had a reasonable review of the film which focused more on how well it accomplished what it set out to do rather than saying "It was a cheap knockoff so it sucked" like most people would. But the big thing that made this entry memorable was the fact that Bill Oberst Jr. himself, the actor who played Lincoln in the film, left a very nice comment on it and even linked it on his Twitter, which got me a good number of views. Not too long after that David Harland Rousseau, the 2nd AD also left a comment in which he even gave a little behind-the-scenes info that was really cool to hear. This blew my damn mind.

I can't tell you have exciting it was to have the star of the movie you just wrote about in your tiny, insignificant blog not only read it, but was so nice as to leave a comment on it. I'm still stunned when I think about it. Bill Oberst Jr. is a class act, not only from that but also from interviews I've listened to. He's not only a very good actor, but he seems like a really cool dude, and I can only assume that he stumbles across my blog every once in a while, since he left another very nice comment on "Lincoln." I can't tell you how big of a smile that puts on my face. That's freaking awesome. I can't wait to see Bill show up on my TV screen again.

The Room
I love how dramatic I made the lead in to this one. It was so over-the-top and epic over something that is just this silly movie that manages to be so pathetic that it's hilarious. That's all it is. It's just an exceptionally bad movie. But I led into that like it was a summoning of Yog-Sothoth or something. It's also one of my funnier entries, I think. It cracked me up anyway, and I had a lot of fun with the pictures. Any time I can use the "You are tearing me apart, Lisa!" picture twice is a good time. And even I must admit that was a pretty good "Silence of The Lambs" reference in there.

Hugo
One of my favorite things that I've done in any entry this year was to take the dozen most significant characters in this film and one by one explain what, if anything, they had to do with the plot. All but three of them were shown to be absolutely unnecessary to the story. I defy anyone to explain to me why this film deserved 5 Oscars. I mean, besides the fact that now they're terrified not to give Scorsese every one they can possibly give him since they feel bad that he went so long without them. Enjoy your pity Oscars, Martin. You sure earned it.

American Warships
I love running gags, and the "How Many Carl Weathers References Can I Make" game I thought was a stroke of near genius. I love Carl, and it was so much fun (and surprisingly easy) to make joke after joke about other movies he's been in. But then again, I can fit a "Predator" line into any conversation given enough time. It's a talent. But I was also very pleased with the "Arrested Development" joke I got in there. This was a fun entry. Good times.

ATM
This was a great example of what happens when I'm unleashed on a crap movie. Tearing this one apart was actually somewhat difficult and annoying to do, not because it was a good movie but because "ATM" had made me so mad so often that I didn't even know what to say half the time besides I HATE THIS MOVIE, and I was resistant to even think back on it to remember what had happened. I think I made it into a pretty entertaining read, though.

Man On A Ledge
Like "ATM," this is a good example of what goes through my mind when watching a movie. Read all those rambling questions that I had for it at the end. That's just a small percentage of what goes on inside this stupid, nitpicky brain of mine all the time. I can't help it. And yes, it does ruin many a film you could label as "brainless entertainment" for me, unless it stars Bruce Campbell or something. And yes, it can be annoying but I actually find it fun to tear apart garbage like "Man On A Ledge." And hey, I thought the entry was pretty funny, too. Terrible film, however.

Lockout
Another fun entry I cracked myself up with fairly consistently. My favorite part is the section where I dissect the prisoner escape scene step by step to show why everything about it and the film is absolutely ludicrous. Also, the phrase "Odin's Mighty Butthole" is glorious. That's all me. That's a Pat Jackson original. I'm quite proud.

You know, I just thought of something. Why do they call it "Lockout?" What does that even mean in context to the film?

Poltergeist
Just a really good entry throwing down a pretty solid case as to the problems I have with a film considered by most to be a stone-cold classic. Also, I fit in a fantastic "Predator" reference, and the most obscure nod to MST3K ever. Seriously, I don't know how anyone could catch the MST3K joke. (And it's not the picture I have down below, either.)

Kung Pow! Enter The Fist
This was one of the easiest entries to write, and I love when that happens. "Kung Pow!" Is one of my favorite comedies, and writing a love letter to it was so natural I barely had to think about it. This one puts a smile on my face. I also love the whole introduction where I'm writing like I am completely ashamed for loving it, and my credibility is going to shoot completely to hell, but I just can't bring myself to lie. A good bit of writing, I thought.

Dressing Women In Armor
The first in what I'm hoping to turn into a series of rants about various things that I find worth talking about in film. This one was unsurprisingly inspired by "Snow White & The Huntsman." I took a long time with writing this one, as I felt I needed to be very careful with the language I chose out of fear of being misinterpreted, and I think it paid off because I think it's a well reasoned point. I've got a few more ideas for rants on the back-burner already, and I hope to turn it into a semi-regular thing.

Favorite Captions

One of my favorite aspects of writing this blog are the picture captions. I initially got the idea from Cracked.com and Spoony's written reviews, and I think it really does a lot for the flow of the entry and the humor I try to inject. Sometimes it works better than others, and sometimes I crack myself the hell up. Again in no particular order, these are my favorite picture caption jokes of 2012!

Abduction - Poor George Lazenby

Relationships in spy movies ALWAYS end well.

Possibly the most obscure reference I made this year. What? You don't remember the end of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service?"

Anonymous - Nicolas Cage does Shakespeare

"To be or NOT THE BEES! AAAAAAHHHH!!!"

I am SO proud of this one, you guys. I can't believe I've never heard anyone else make this joke because it's freaking golden.

Session 9 - CSI: Danvers

"Looks like I'm fighting...the institution."

This is a twofer, since the real punchline is the YEEEEAH! at the bottom. I do love a good "CSI: Miami" stinger. By the way, that is the actual hospital the movie was filmed at. And yes, I'd watch the hell out of "CSI: Danvers."

Immortals - Stephen Doriff's war face

If you stuck a ferret in a bag of garbage and swung it over your head for 20 minutes, then opened up the bag, this is what you would see looking out at you.

Of all the captions that I've cracked myself up with, this is hands down my favorite. I giggle like an idiot every damn time.

The Adventures of Tin Tin - Taking one for the team

"Please, Captain. I know your liver is the size of a boogie board and the consistency of a used grease rag, but for the good of the plot and sake of the world, we need you to shotgun that last sixer of Pabst..."

The runner-up for making myself laugh. I love how it quickly turns from heroic to the lowest of brows. The look of terror on his face is also great. I also just love the phrase "sixer of Pabst." Classy.

Casablanca - Bogey smokes with science

"You know, Paul, I'm actually smoking 3 cigarettes right now. I've discovered Quantum Smoking."

I have no idea if I used the term "quantum" in anything close to an applicable way here, but it's still funny. I'm just imagining Bogey using science to smoke every cigarette in the world at once.

Poltergeist - Kevin Bacon's tour de force

Kevin Bacon IS JoBeth Williams as Sally Field in "Sybil 2: The Reckoning"

This is a reference to my undying love for "Mystery Science Theater 3000." And she does look like Kevin Bacon in drag.

Lockout - Guy likes apples

"Uh...something witty...um...how do ya like THEM apples...supplements...damn it, CUT! Gimme a minute...damn it...apples...come on, Guy, THINK!"

Ever wonder what would happen if a smarmy, annoying, overly sarcastic action hero ever stumbled over one of his endless one-liners? I do. This is probably what would happen to me if I tried it.

ATM - Ice fishin' wid' da guys

"Jerry, I don't see nothin'!"

"No, jus' kip lookin' dare. Does'r'sum noice crappies right in dare."

"Oh yah, Jerry, now I sees 'em. Oh yah, dem's good eatin's."

You see, the joke is that it looks like a photo of a Yooper sticking his head in an ice fishing hole to look for fish while his buddy, Jerry, points them out to him. But it's really a photo of a guy about to bash another person's head in with a tire iron. That's just good comedy.

Black Death - Sean Bean holds the record

He is the only man to have been shot in the face by Batman through a book of Yeats poetry. So far.

It's true, you know.

Dredd - Possibly the nerdiest reference I've ever made

"I'm Queen Cersei! I'M QUEEN CERSEI!!!!!"

I merged "Game of Thrones," "Dredd," and the original series of "Star Trek." I win at nerd. The scary part is that were Cersei to actually split into two people like in the episode "The Enemy Within" where that happens to Kirk, Ma-Ma would be a pretty accurate portrayal of her evil side.

Skyfall - Adele is bad at pronouncing things

 Pro-tip for Adele: It's pronounced "Sky Fall." Not "Sky Fwallrrr"

Figuring out how to phonetically convey the irritating way that Adele pronounces certain words was quite difficult, but I think I did pretty good. I really can't stand her, though. Seriously, anybody else doing the song and it would have been awesome.

Dr. No - The doctor is needed in ICU

"Paging Dr. Crotchpound...you have an outside call on line 3. Dr. Crotchpound...line 3."

Thinking up horrendously over-the-top sexual metaphors for Bond girl names is actually pretty difficult. I settled on "Dr. Crotchpound" after "Dr. Quicklube" seemed too subtle.


So there you go. My favorite things in my blog of 2012. May 2013 be even more productive and hopefully funnier! I'll try my best! On the menu for this year will be more rants, more bad jokes, possibly a new series I'm thinking about where I stick up for movies everyone hates but I love, and more trilogies including the entire Bond filmography. And of course, as many movies as I can get my hands on. It's going to be a good year! EXCELSIOR!

Man On A Ledge (2012)

It must be hard to be Sam Worthington. He's at the mercy of an insane person.

Think about it. His career has to wait for James Cameron, that anal-retentive, off-his-rocker-crazy perfectionist who takes 20 years between each movie in order for technology to catch up with his fever dream visions of making stuff that isn't real look still-not-real-but-boy-is-it-pretty-and-shiny. And Sam ain't doing jack in the meantime. The only time anyone cared about Sam Worthington was when he was in "Avatar," and it would appear that the only time anyone will care about him again is whenever Cameron makes the sequel. That's rough.

That may be a bit harsh, but come on. The biggest thing the dude's done in the 4 years since "Avatar" are the "Clash of The Titans" reboots. That is not exactly prestigious. And now we have "Man On A Ledge," which doesn't thrill and entertain so much as confirm my suspicion that Sam Worthington is trying guilt-trip James Cameron into making "Avatar 2" faster so that he can have a career.

 "Do it, Cameron! Do it or I'll jump! I swear I'll jump!"

Whatever. "Avatar 2" is still probably going to be crap, just like the first one was. Maybe this time it'll be a 4 hour long rip-off of "The Postman." Which would actually make that movie shorter, come to think of it.

I'm going to tell you straight out, for "Man On A Ledge," I'm going to spoil the crap out of this movie. I'm doing it because I don't care, and honestly, neither do you. You just don't know it yet. It's a dumb film that is under the impression that it's clever. Even with Ed Harris as the villain, which under any other circumstance would be awesome, it manages to also be boring. And the reason it's boring is because, going back to the first point, it's dumb. Although there might be something to be said about the entertainment factor of watching a train wreck.

The only way for me to try and make sense of any of this mess is to break it down into steps.

1) Businessman (Ed Harris) loses a lot of money during the economic collapse.
2) He sells his gigantic diamond to make some money to survive.
3) In an effort not to be humiliated, he frames a seemingly random cop (Sam Worthington) and says that he stole the diamond, cut it up into many pieces, and sold them.
4) Cop is convicted of this and goes to jail.
5) Cop and his brother set up this elaborate heist to break the cop out of jail and steal the diamond from the businessman, in order to prove that he didn't steal it the first time. Among other things, this plan involves the cop creating a huge distraction by standing on a ledge, and their father faking his own death and becoming a bellhop at the hotel across the street from the businessman's building. (Oddly enough, the father bit makes more sense since the only reason the ledge thing is necessary was to make a crowd cheer in order to make enough noise to cover up an explosion. If that's your plan, try harder.)
6) Absurdly, the plan actually works, up to the point where the brother and his girlfriend (two people who are not career criminals yet are pulling of "Ocean's 11" style heist-aerobics) find out that the diamond is not in the safe they thought it was in. At this point their plan is officially tits-up. Everything past this point couldn't have been planned by them.
7) The businessman, seeing that his security measures performed admirably and exactly as intended despite being penetrated, decides to take the diamond out of his super high tech safe that the thieves couldn't possibly break into and instead puts it in his pocket because...um...because...well...he's dumb.
8) The brother and his girlfriend break into the businessman's office and wait for him, since there is apparently no security leading to his office (what?), and steal the diamond off of him. Keep in mind, they did not know that he a) had another safe or b) had the diamond on him. And even if they did know that (which they couldn't) their entire plan hinges on him removing the diamond from the safe after the break-in. Which, even as flimsy plans go, is a stretch and relies on the businessman being galactically stupid.
9) In a beautify orchestrated series of hand-offs and tag team switcharoos involving their dad undercover as a bellhop, the brother manages to get the diamond into the hands of the cop.
10) Using crooked cops and a gun, the businessman gets the diamond back, making the whole switcharoo stuff pointless.
11) Using dumb luck and convenience, the cop manages to punch the businessman in the face and shows the diamond to everyone in a big crowd including the media, which apparently clears him from wrongdoing, exonerates him, and makes him a free man. They all have a drink.

And if there was any kind of sense or logic in this movie, step 12 would be that he goes to jail for stealing the diamond. Because here's the special thing about that little plan. Yes, it's true that it may clear you from that first charge when you hadn't done it. That's true. But there's still that second charge. You know, that time when you actually did do it? Yeah, you're going to jail for that. You are so sued. That would be some kind of record, wouldn't it? Going to jail for doing a crime you did to prove you hadn't done the exact same crime before?

He should write a book called "If I Stole The Diamond."

I mean, look at all the things he could be arrested for, which he absolutely 100% did do. There's escaping from jail, assaulting two police officers, creating a public disturbance, being an accessory to a robbery, assaulting a SWAT team member, assaulting the businessman, and destruction of public and private property which would probably factor in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, if not millions of dollars. And let's not forget that he and his brother made, planted and detonated explosives on the roof of a building in New York City, which I'm sure would get him prosecuted under some kind of anti-terrorism act. This dude is going up the creek for sure.

But no, it's a movie, so proving that you were the victim once automatically clears you from any wrong-doing you do later. I like to call that the "Lisbeth Salander Defense." And it bugs the crap out of me every time it happens. Even when it's emotionally moving and what we'd probably like to see happen, like in "A Time To Kill."

But that just doesn't fly with me. As strong and sexy of a defense as Matty McC can give, Samuel L. Jackson totally shot Keifer Sutherland to hell, Noomi Rapace gladly tried to kill her father with an axe, and Sam Worthington did enough here to put him away for a few decades. Or at least as long as they put away weed dealers. Which is about the same, since justice is awesome like that.

"Come on, honey. Let's commit some crimes to prove our innocence."

But more to the point, there's some other utterly perplexing stuff going on here. Go back and look at #2. The businessman sold the diamond. That's how he got the money to keep him afloat during hard times. I don't think I'm misremembering anything with that, because they even say during one of the conspiratorial exposition scenes something like "Out of nowhere he gets $40 million. He's back on top." So that would imply that he sold it. Besides, if he didn't, why would he hide it? And what was the $40 million from if not the diamond? So that brings up a very important question that I don't remember the movie ever answering: How does he have the diamond in his safe if he sold it?

Perhaps he bought it back from whoever he sold it to, but I can't recall that ever being mentioned. And yes, it's true that I was kind of bored by "Man On A Ledge," but I wasn't bored to the point of missing out on a plot point like that. My lone vodka and tonic isn't going to make me miss it. I just think they either didn't think it was important enough to mention, or they just plain screwed up. I'll let you speculate, but you can go ahead and guess which scenario I find more likely.

"I have money. Don't ask questions."

There are two ways to go about looking at a movie like "Man On A Ledge." The first way of looking at it, and I think this is the manner in which both the filmmakers want you to watch it and the way the average movie goer actually does watch it, is that it's just a movie and we should all just let it roll over us and not worry about silly things like plot and making sense and all those trivial things that I get called pretentious for pointing out.

The second way to look at a movie is that yes, it does matter if a movie makes sense in its own universe. I'm not saying that every movie needs to have both feet firmly planted on the ground. I loved "Machete" for crap's sake, and that movie had its feet so far off the ground it could be hired to do repairs on low-orbiting satellites. I'm not saying a movie can't be fun or ridiculous or not worry about trivial stuff in the plot.

But a movie like "Man On A Ledge," which is obviously proud of its caper and working really hard to make a lot of pieces fit together throughout several *GOTCHA* moments can't really excuse itself by throwing its chips in with the outlandish absurdity of movies that were never meant to be taken seriously in the first place. I really believe "Man On A Ledge" wants to be totally serious.

Alright then, "Man On A Ledge." You want to be taken seriously? Then get ready to be looked at as such. You're proud of your caper? Fine. Explain to me how in the hell these seemingly average people with no mentioned training besides "breaking into nice houses back in high school" are able to pull of these heists like Ethan Freaking Hunt in "Mission: Impossible." Where did they get the gadgets? How did they get the intel on Ed Harris' high-tech vault? How are they able to even remotely pull off this insane job when Genesis Rodriguez's character, in fact all of them, are too stupid to have the foresight to realize that when you have a red-tinted flashlight, everything you're looking at is going to be tinted red, including wires you have to cut? Why did she apparently not even study the wiring diagram to know exactly which wire to cut? Instead she has to rely on Sam Worthington to coach her through it via radio, but she just ends up having to guess in the end anyway? Are you for real? Seriously, her jackass boyfriend just advices her to "Cut the reddest looking one." What a pro. Glad you planned that out. Why does the heat sensor in the vault room not pick them up when they've entered despite having taken no measures to counter it? Why does the floor sensor not set off the alarm since they're just walking around casually? Why is there a conveniently located human-sized ventilation shaft located on the ceiling precisely above the safe, leading to an easily accessible opening in the room next to it which is located ON THE GROUND?

Do I even need to bring up the question as to why she needs a flashlight when it's clearly lit in there?

This could actually be a pretty good parody of a heist movie if it weren't taking itself so seriously.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Man On A Ledge," while not necessarily the worst made or produced film I've seen this year, is probably one of the more irritating in terms of how much more credit it gives itself than what it actually deserves. This is a dumb, dumb movie that makes no logical sense in even the simplest terms, and for a heist movie, which as a genre is one that depends on rigorous attention to detail in order to properly work, that's a big problem.