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Movies I Want to See in 2012

January 25, 2012
Movies
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These are movies I’m going to try to see in theater this year, since last year I sadly only saw 5 movies. In order by planned release date.

The Adventures of Tintin

Red Tails

The Secret World of Arrietty

Wanderlust

John Carter

21 Jump Street (maybe)

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Safe (maybe)

Avengers (definitely)

The Dictator (maybe)

Men in Black III (definitely)

Prometheus

GI Joe: Retaliation

Ted

The Dark Knight Rises (definitely)

Total Recall

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (maybe)

World War Z

The Great Gatsby

That’s three movies I will definitely see this year, I’m not likely going to see any movies that come out in July and August other than The Dark Knight Rises, so I’m really glad that The Avengers has a May release.

If there are any movies you’re excited for that you think I should add to the list, let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading!

Movies I Saw in 2011

January 24, 2012
Movies
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The following are movies I saw in the theater in 2011 (that also came out in 2011, so no Black Swan which I’m sure I saw for the third time in early January) in order of release date. I didn’t really

Limitless
I really enjoyed this movie, the premise is really interesting and Bradley Cooper on screen with Robert De Niro was pretty great. It is one of those movies that does that annoying movie about a writer thing, but at least he’s only a writer for the first act and the very beginning of the second act, so I don’t think it completely counts. Solid sci-fi thriller. I give this one a “need to buy on blu-ray.”

Hanna
As you may know from yesterday’s JKIRE Awards, this was my favorite movie of the year. It’s basically everything great about Kill Bill (the action with a strong female lead) and Tron (amazing music) with a fairytale theme (possibly in a Lost sort of way). Saoirse Ronan is amazing. I’ve never been an Eric Bana or Cate Blanchett fan, but they were great too. I give this one a “preordered the blu-ray on amazon.”

Thor
Lots of action, cool mythology stuff, great special effects, really funny, and Natalie Portman. What more can you ask for? I never really read the Thor comics, so diehard fans may have had problems with it, but hey, look at all the Avengers movies as their own separate continuity and bask in it’s awesomeness. I give this one a “bought the blu-ray on release day but regretted not getting the 3D edition despite not having a 3D TV.”

Captain America: The First Avenger
Almost as good as Thor. I didn’t see it in 3D so I don’t know how that aspect of it holds up to Thor… but the action was great, it was also very funny, and the final steps are taken that lead us to the Avengers movie. I can’t wait. We also got plenty of Hugo Weaving and Tommy Lee Jones. Can’t complain about that, two great actors. I give this one a “bought the blu-ray on release day.”

The Muppets
Hilarious. I was in tears laughing through most of the movie. Amazing songs by Bret Mackenzie of Flight of the Conchords, this movie basically felt like an extension of the HBO series due to that and the director of both, James Bobin. Jason Segel and the barrage of great comic actors mostly from television made a television addict like me go nuts. This and Hanna are the only movies I saw twice in the theater. I give this one a “will definitely buy the blu-ray on release day, and even bought all three seasons of the muppet show on dvd just to get free tickets to see it again.”

And now I realize I only saw 5 movies in the theater last year… Wow. I’m sure I missed out on some great films (I know I would have loved Planet of the Apes in the theater, for example) so I’ll make an effort to see at least 6 movies in 2012.

Thanks for reading, and keep watching the skies!

84th Academy Award Predictions

January 24, 2012
Movies
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Here are my guesses for this year’s winners. Keep in mind I’ve seen maybe a couple of the movies involved, so everything is is basically a pure guess.

Best Picture – The Help

Actor in a Leading Role – George Clooney

Actor in a Supporting Role – Christopher Plummer

Actress in a Leading Role – Rooney Mara

Actress in a Supporting Role – Octavia Spencer

Animated Feature Film – A Cat In Paris (at this point, the only movie I’ve seen that’s nominated is Bridesmaids, and I don’t think that’s going to happen)

Art Direction – Hugo

Cinematography – Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – Jeff Cronenweth

Costume Design – Hugo

Directing – Martin Scorsese – Hugo

Documentary Feature – Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

Documentary Short Subject – God is Bigger than Elvis

Film Editing – Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Foreign Language Film – In Darkness

Makeup – Harry Potter 7.2 (at this point I have only seen two movies nominated, including HP)

Music – The Adventures of Tintin

Music (Original Song) – Man or Muppet by Bret MacKenzie (the third movie I’ve seen that is nominated) Seriously… only two songs nominated? Lame. Hopefully this song still wins, best part of the movie.

Short Film (Animated) – La Luna

Short Film (Live Action) – Time Freak

And those are my almost entirely unimformed guesses for this year’s winners! Who do you think will win?

 

The 1st Annual JKIRE Awards!

January 23, 2012
Movies, Television
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Welcome to the 1st Annual JKIRE Awards! They’re just like the Golden Globes except the winners are only chosen by one person. And there isn’t a statuette for the winners. This is for television, movies and other media that came out in 2011.

Best New TV Series – Shameless
I didn’t even see this one coming, and it blew me away.

Best Movie – Hanna
The movie itself is amazing, and the music puts it over the top. Note, I only saw maybe 10 movies in the theater this year, so there’s a good chance if you comment “But what about ____?” I didn’t even see it.

Best Podcast – How Did This Get Made?
I didn’t start listening to Improv4Humans until after the new year, so I have to give this one to Paul Scheer and friends. I pretty much listened to every episode back to back on my trip to Chicago, and it’s the primary reason I saw the Crank movies, which are so awesome.

Best TV Show Based Around Something I’m Not at All Interested In – The League
I don’t care about football outside of its widespread popularity means the existence of nice stadiums all over the country for drum corps to rehearse and perform on. I care even less about fantasy football. And yet, I love The League. Maybe I have the earwolf network to blame, as my addiction to that ‘family’ of comedians has conditioned me perfectly to enjoy The League.

Best Sci-Fi TV Show – Fringe
Of course.

Best non-Sci-Fi TV Show – Breaking Bad
Hands down. Faces off.

Best non-Sci-Fi TV Show that isn’t on AMC – Justified
This only loses to Breaking Bad because last year was only the second season, so I don’t have as big of an attachment to the characters yet… Then again I’ve been watching since premiere night, and came late to Breaking Bad. Hmm…

Best Animated Film – …
I didn’t see any animated films this year. I really want to see Tintin though.

Best Sci-Fi Film – Thor
I love ancient alien stuff, and Thor is all about that. Captain American was about another favorite topic, Nazi Pseudoscience Research, so that was pretty great too.

Best Documentary TV Show – Ancient Aliens
See Best Sci-Fi Film. I love this stuff!

Best Reality Competition Show – Top Shot
Shooting challenges, and throwing rocks. Doesn’t get better than that, show that actually tests people’s real skills! Not just balancing on things while holding other things, and stuff like that. It helps that they use exploding targets a large percentage of the time.

Best Actor – Bryan Cranston
Crazy good. Crazy, crazy good.

Best Actress – Kaitlyn Dever
Awesome on Justified, very funny in Last Man Standing, and she was probably the best thing about Bad Teacher. I would give this to Saoirse Ronan, but she was only in one movie. They’re both amazing for how young they are, I am really looking forward to seeing more of their work over the years, and I am 100% sure that neither of them will end up being out of control divas.

Best New TV Comedy – Wilfred
I heard about this show from my friend Ben when we were chatting at the Stanford DCI show this summer. He made it sound great (from what he knew about it from commercials) so I got a hold of a copy for us to watch as soon as possible. We were hooked. Perfect companion for…

Best TV Comedy – Louie
So. Damn. Hilarious. I can’t get enough. It’s easy to forget since it was on during the summer, and there were only a handful of episode (I was about to give this award to Community, which really is equally as deserving). This show and Community are the only sitcoms I plan on owning every season on DVD/Bluray. And so far, so good.

Best Animated TV Show – Archer
FX is solid all around, basically. The bonus three pirate episodes at the end of the summer were fantastic. I’m really glad it’s back as of last Thursday, and is as strong as ever. Regular Show and Adventure Time are tied for a somewhat close second place.

Best Comedy Actors – Jon Benjamin and Patrick Warburton
Archer, Bob’s Burgers, Jon Benjamin Has A Van. Archer, Family Guy, Rules of Engagement, Skylanders. The sheer amount of awesome these two guys put out is astounding and I can’t get enough. Now that I think of it… Throw in Nick Kroll and Paul Scheer. Four way tie!

And that concludes the 1st Annual JKIRE Awards! If you have any suggestions for other categories, please leave a comment and I’ll add it to the list!

 


All About Steve

January 18, 2012
Movies
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This episode of How Did This Get Made? on Earwolf (with Paul Scheer, Jason Mantzoukas and June Diane Raphael) made me want to see it just to experience the craziness.

Unfortunately it wasn’t until months later (today) that I was able to get a hold of a copy. Thank you Lone Tree Library!

I already knew most of the plot, and all the best jokes, from the HDTGM episode, so I didn’t feel like I needed to give it my full attention. I think that’s the main reason I kind of enjoyed it. Some of their criticisms had to do with Sandra Bullock’s physicality, which I didn’t see since I only looked up at the screen for about 5 minutes of the whole time. But yeah, I should probably handicap the movie for only listening, and say that it was half as enjoyable as I enjoyed it.

I actually thought the “I found the deaf girl and she’s okay, aside from being deaf” line was really funny. Also there was one, and only one, scene where it was pretty obvious that the director was like “Okay Ken, you can improvise a couple of lines here!” he was funny, but it didn’t really fit with the rest of the movie. The whole movie didn’t really fit with the rest of the movie…

The movie came out a few months after the Hangover came out, and since it stars Bradley Cooper as the titular Steve (I think I just like the word titular) I’m sure they tried to bank on that as much as possible as evident by Ken Jeong’s presence on the DVD cover. However, I thought it was fitting that the DVD itself says “rental exclusive.” Was this movie ever actually for sale on DVD? I’m not sure I’m curious enough to actually find out. (I gave in, it did come out on DVD and is only like 7 bucks on Amazon. You may as well buy it on Amazon instant video for the same price though, because the DVD’s special features are a couple of movie trailers. If you absolutely must watch this movie, you should check your local library first)

Other Sandra Bullock movies that came out that year? The Proposal and The Blind Side. I haven’t seen the Blind Side, but the Proposal is much better. The Blind Side is probably better too, because of that Oscar thing. Kind of similar to how Natalie Portman starred in No Strings Attached and Black Swan within a few months. However, she was also in Hesher and Thor within a few months of that. Portman wins.

Anyway, the plot is ridiculous every step of the way, but it’s a good bit of fun to have playing in the background while you do more important things. Check out the HDTGM episode linked at the start of this article, and you will enjoy it even more.

Thanks for reading!

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