Tuesday, October 02, 2012

30 Days 30 Films Wrap Up

As the writting exercise it was designed to be, 30 Days 30 Films was a massive disaster. As an excuse to shove as many movies as I could into my eyeholes, it was a rousing success! As you may recall, my pointless challenge set for myself, by myself was to watch 30 movies in the course of one month and write about the films and the challenges of fitting a movie a day into my schedule - on a daily basis. Only once, did I write about the evening's movie - but I did manage to watch a staggering 32 movies in the span of a month.
 
In order to achive this meaninless goal, I needed to watch a movie a day for the month of September. I started off the month with a bang getting ahead of myself in the first weekend, due to an unexpected child-free weekend. But most of the month I was only up or down by one movie. Of course whenever you turn pleasure into a chore, you start to lose the fun in it and by the end of the month I was just about good on needing a movie a night.
 
Anywho...here's a brief rundown of what I saw:
 
 
  1. The Campaign (2012) Started the month of at the movies with this pretty decent comedy about politics with Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis. The problem with the picture is both Will and Zach have been in much funnier movies so you can't help but feel let down by this comedy pairing.
  2. Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Movie (2011) Instead of film historians weighing in on the history of Kung Fu cinema, this documentary is basically some dude just telling you everything he knows about Kung Fu movies. Loaded with plenty of clips of the movies discussed, I've seen way better film history documentaries.
  3. Black Dynamite (2009) A dead-on spoof of Blacksploitation films of the 70's, this visually accurate and often hilarious comedy overstays it's welcome by about 20 minutes.
  4. Alien (1979) Obviously this sci-fi classic is a good film. This was my first time seeing it and not only have I seen so many knock-off's, one of my all-time favorite movies, SPACESHIP, is an almost scene for scene parody of Alien. I've seen SPACESHIP 1,000 times and I never once knew they were borrowing so heavy from ALIEN. Good fun, but distracting for me to watch.
  5. Disorderlies (1987) I used to love this movie as a kid. Rap group The Fat Boys play three stupid orderlies hired to accidentaly kill off their charge. Twentysome-odd years later I could barely sit though it. Awful!
  6. Violets Are Blue (1986) The only movie this month I actually wrote about the night I watched it. Scroll back a few posts and find my review.
  7. House Party (1990) I remember loving this high school party movie alot when I was actually in high school. Revisiting it after my years, it's ok...but not as great as I remembered it.
  8. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) Really fun family adventure film which might be completly implausable, but it's a heck of an enjoyable ride anyway. You gotta love any movie that puts The Rock to good use.
  9. The Wizard (1989) One of those movies that has just slipped by me all these years. I watched it with my video game obsessed kids and they enjoyed this extended commercial for Nintendo.
  10. Oh, God! Book II (1980) From the list of movies I used to watch a million times off HBO when I was a kid, George Burns as God still holds up!
  11. The Maltese Bippy (1969) A sillly horror spoof staring Rowan & Martin from Laugh-In.
  12. House Party 2 (1991) Because this one is dumber, it might hold up better than the original.
  13. Radio Rebel (2012) Pointless Disney Channel movie about a girl who runs a popular podcast from her bedroom. Not very good, but then again not made to be watched by 39 year old males.
  14. Chimpanzee (2012) My favorite of the Disneynature films so far, I loved it. My biggest gripe with the previous films in this series is the grandious narration which doesn't really add to the experience. Tim Allen does narration duty here with a cute and focused story on Oscar the chimpanzee whose mother is killed and then he is adopted by the alpha-male of their group. Good stuff!
  15. House Party 3 (1994) Whatever steam the House Party films had, it was all completely lost by #3 where you can tell everyone just showed up to collect a pay check. Horrible.
  16. Young Doctors in Love (1982) I love this movie. In the world of comedies, this might be a near perfect film.
  17. What To Expect When You're Expecting (2012) Don't expect a good movie if you see this scatter-shot comedy based on a non-fiction book about pregnancy. A handful of stories go nowhere fast in this pretty lame delivery.
  18. Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012) One of three movies I really wanted to see this summer and I missed it in theaters, Perry's 2001 concert tour looks amazing and is captured well in this fun documentary that bounces between on-stage energy, backstage hijinks and Behind The Music style biography.
  19. Finding Nemo 3D (2003) The very rare exception where 3D technology actually enhances a magnificent film experience.
  20. Cujo (1983) First time seeing this Stephen King classic. It's hard to take a movie seriously when the dog is named Cujo. The name has become synonamus with killer dogs so everybody in this movie just seems stupid hanging around a bloddy dog named Cujo.
  21. Who's That Girl (1987) I'm happy to report that this Madonna helmed screwball comedy still holds up as one of my all-time favorite movies after having not seen it in 15 years. I laughed from begining to end and even remembered most of the lines. Great movie!
  22. Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates (1962) A boy enters a skating race to earn money for a brain procedure his dad needs. In 1962, this was enough of a story to make a movie.
  23. Aladdin (1992) Pure Classic. However, I must be one of the few people for who this movie reminds me of every party in college.
  24. Mansome (2012) Pretty flat documentary about men and their obsession with appearance.
  25. Van Wilder: Freshman Year (2009) A compitently made crappy direct-to-DVD cash in on the Van Wilder franchise, it offers some half decent laughs and plenty of boobies.
  26. The Artist (2011) I was surprised at how much I adored the Best Picture Oscar winner of last year. Black & White, Silent and totally captivating and enjoyable. One of the best movies I've seen in a long time.
  27. Madonna: Innocence Lost (1994) A rare FOX made-for-TV movie about Madonna's rise to stardom. Not very good.
  28. The Hunger Games (2012) I hate to admit it, not only did I
  29. A Night in Casablanca (1946)
  30. Big Miracle (2012)
  31. Hotel Transylvania (2012)
  32. Mary Poppins (1964)

September Movie Count: 32
Best New Movies: The Hunger Games & The Artist
Worst New Movie:  House Party 3
Best Rewatch: Who's That Girl
2012 Movie Count: 191
     



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