Thursday, February 28, 2013

The 2013 I'm Right Awards

Welcome, welcome, to the third annual I’m Right awards, we’re are positively ecstatic to have you with us.

Like I did last year, I'm going to, category by category, go through my personal picks for what should have been nominated for and won the Oscars--and on account of how my name isn't Oscar, we'll call these the Pauls.

I've ditched a number of categories from the real thing, either because I just haven't seen enough to judge (Best Documentary), or I think the category is dumb (Best Original Song). I've replaced them with a few categories of my own, which are similar to last year, though two have been eliminated, one expanded, one tweaked, and one new one added. Well, sort of two added...you'll see when you get there.

So without much further ado...

Saturday, January 12, 2013

2012 in Tweet Reviews



This was number 1...
As anyone who follows my twitter feed (@teddroe y’all!) will confirm with a grimace, I have an annoying habit of tweeting movie reviews. I started doing it in spring  of 2010 on a lark—at the time I didn’t know what to tweet, and felt like I should do something—but quickly realized that I quite enjoyed it. To be clear, at no point have I thought that anyone cared what I thought, but it became a great way to organize my thoughts about a film, and to be able to go back later and see a brief record of what I saw, when, and what I thought of it. There might possibly be a movie or two that I haven’t tweeted since then (perhaps one or two that I was embarrassed to be on record as having see…or liked), but I’ve gotten into a pretty solid habit of it over the last three years and I ain’t stopping anytime soon.

The 3rd annual I’m Right Awards are about six weeks away, and that’s when I’ll write about and celebrate the great films (and Silver Linings Playbook) that came out in 2012. But first, we’re going to quickly go over not what came out in 2012, but what I watched in 2012—though obviously there’ll be a wee bit of overlap.

So without further ado, a list of everything movie review I tweeted during 2012. I started giving number grades about a quarter of the way through, and I haven’t altered any of these. I stand by most…but not all, not completely. I’m 98% sure this is everything I saw, but even if it isn’t, per above, I ain’t telling.

(Okay, so that was a little further ado…)

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The Year in Paul: 2004



What I’ve Seen

50 First Dates
Anchroman:The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Cellular
Crash
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
EuroTrip
Fahrenheit 9/11
Friday Night Lights
Garfield
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Hellboy
Home on the Range
Hoodwinked
Howl’d Moving Castle
I, Robot
King Arthur
Lemony Snicket’s a Series of Unfortunate Events
Mean Girls
Miracle
Napoleon Dyamite
Ocean’s Twelve
Saved
Shark Tale
Shaun of the Dead
Shrek 2
Spider-Man 2
Super Size Me
Team America: World Police
The Aviator
The Bourne Supremacy
The Chronicles of Riddick
The Day After Tomorrow
The Forgotten
The Girl Next Door
The Incredibles
The Ladykillers
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Machinist
The Phantom of the Opera
The Polar Express
The Stepford Wives
The Terminal
Troy
Van Helsing
Wimbledon
47 Total

The Best of What I’ve Seen

Sunday, September 2, 2012

The Year in Paul: 2003


What I’ve Seen
 
A Mighty Wind
American Wedding
Brother Bear
Bruce Almighty
Cheaper By the Dozen
Daredevil
Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat
Elf
Finding Nemo
Freaky Firday
Goodbye Lenin!
Gothika
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Hulk
Intolerable Cruelty
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Mystic River
Old School
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
The School of Rock
Shortcut to Happiness
The Animatrix
The Corporation
The Fog of War
The Haunted Mansion
The Italian Job
The Jungle Book 2
The Last Samurai
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Revolutions
Timeline
Touching the Void
Underworld
X2
36 Total

A mild improvement over 2002, if only because there are more good movies. The amount of crap remains pretty high, and will for a few years after this, I’d imagine. I feel much better about my top five though, and don’t feel the need to name any runners up.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Film Reviews: Prometheus and Cross of Iron


Prometheus

While I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the Alien franchise, I was still thoroughly intrigued by Ridely Scott’s return. The first movie, the original Alien, is a little too high on the old Spook-o-meter for me, but I still liked it and respect what Scott did in the film. The second, James Cameron’s Aliens, is much more to my taste, and I mostly really enjoy it. Mostly. I haven’t seen movies three or four, and don’t plan to, but the first two contain plenty of good material worth revisiting*. So how does Scott do in his long-awaited return to sci-fi?

*However, I actually have seen the Aliens vs. Predators movie (the first one, anyway), which no one seems to dispute is essentially a big-budget fan fiction.

A prequel in the way that X-Men: First Class is a prequel, Prometheus tells the story of two scientists, Shaw and Holloway (Noomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green) who are able to demonstrate a recurring star pattern among ancient cave paintings that are otherwise unconnected. Funded by the gigantic Weyland Corporation, the two proceed to a star system that matches the pattern on the titular starship, looking for an alien civilization that may have influenced the creation (or at least development) of mankind. Also on the ship are a frosty Weyland representative named Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), the amusingly laconic captain (Idris Elba), and an android named David (Michael Fassbender), whose motives remain murky. The ship finds the target planet without incident, but (unsurprisingly) things start to go awry once they disembark and find a large facility of some sort, stocked with containers of a mysterious black ooze.


Friday, June 22, 2012

The Year in Paul: 2002


What I’ve Seen

40 Days and 40 Nights
Austin Powers in Goldmember
Big Fat Liar
Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary
Catch Me If You Can
Clockstoppers
Gangs of New York
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Hero
Ice Age
In America
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
Like Mike
Lilo and Stitch
Men in Black II
Minority Report
Mr. Deeds
Orange County
Pinocchio
Pokemon 4
Punch-Drunk Love
Red Dragon
Reign of Fire
Return to Never Land
Scooby-Doo
Snow Dogs
Spider-Man
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams
Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones
The Bourne Identity
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Emperor’s Club
The Lord of Rings: The Two Towers
The Master of Disguise
The Powerpuff Girls
The Rookie
The Santa Clause 2
The Time Machine
The Tuxedo
Treasure Planet
Tuck Everlasting
Two Weeks Notice
Van Wilder
XXX
44 Total

2002 is the first year in a unfortunate time that will last for another few after this, during which I was finally old enough (12, for most of the year) to start seeing a lot of movies but not old enough to recognize when a movie is going to be, y’know, good. Consequently, I’ve seen a ton of terrible movies from 2002, and not a whole lot of good ones. I mean, look at that list above again. Yikes.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Film Reviews: 21 Jump Street and Vicky Cristina Barcelona


21 Jump Street


As time goes on, story ideas that were once relatively serious can seem increasingly comical. This is a trend that Hollywood has increasingly noticed; starting with 2004’s adaptation of Starsky and Hutch, it has become increasingly common to repurpose old properties into the new millennium with a fresh coat of irony. Just this year we’ve seen two, Dark Shadows and new Jonah Hill comedy, 21 Jump Street. The new film takes place in the same universe as the 80s TV show, and indeed several of the original cast members have brief cameos. Unlike the original show, however, this installment does not hesitate even slightly going for laughs above all else.

We begin with a brief prologue showing out two main characters, Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum), in high school. Schmidt is the smart dweeb who gets picked on by dumb jock Jenko, but when the two later attend the police academy together, both realize it is in their best interest to work together and they quickly become friends. However, neither is particularly good at the job—Schmidt is not assertive or confidant enough to be much of an intimidating presence to criminals, and Jenko too dumb to master the finer delicacies of the job*. The police chief (played in one hilarious scene by Ron Swanson himself, Nick Offerman) decides that the two nitwits would be better used in the newly restarted Jumpstreat program to infiltrate a local high school undercover and find the source of potent new drug that has found its way to the market. Unsurprisingly, things do not go smoothly.