August Movie Datams!

So…August data. Barely tepid off the presses, I guess. I have already covered what I’ll now refer to as the season of my discomblogulation or “the epoch of slacking off.”  After some careful examination I decided to scapegoat my poor blogging habits on Judas Kiss, the film set ZRose and I worked on at the beginning of last month. In my defense, August wasn’t so bad for posting, but trip prep took over the last week of the month (aka the movie data compiling week), the trip was the week after, and then it took a while to get back into the swing of things…obviously.

Anywho, we didn’t see that many movies in August compared to other months, but the bonus of trip-taking is that we get to engage in our ritual last minute laundry/packing-a-thon. This entails ZRose and me in a mad dash to clean, fold, and cram as much as possible into our luggage whilst watching the best of our DVD collection. “Best” is very subjective here. Don’t go thinking that we had a rich and introspective Criterion collection weekend. I think we went with the best that we wouldn’t mind missing massive chunks of because we were folding clothes or making lists of travel minis to pick up at ye olde Target. As always, you can see exactly what we watched at the end of the post (after the jump). Keep in mind that August’s Pop Culture Club theme was about embracing your inner geek, so we tried to stick to fanboy/genre films as much as possible.

On with the show…

Movies, Genres, and Ratings

With the exception of five movies, I’d say we did a pretty good job sticking to our monthly theme of geekification. For some odd reason, ZRose was super geeked out about Percy Jackson, so it’s arrival on Blu Ray was a celebrated day at our household. I was all about Scott Pilgrim in August–reading the books, listening to the soundtrack, reading interviews, playing on the film’s website, and ultimately seeing the movie…twice. We also got to see RED, yes the Bruce Willis/DC Comics adaptation that is officially coming out on October 15. I love me a good test screening, and this was a pretty fun time (despite the scenes that weren’t quite finsihed–effects-wise). I should disclose my love for John Malcovich’s crazy-crazy ways, though. I’m excited to see it again to see what’s changed if anything, but in my eyes all the performances were well done. I also want to hit up some message boards to see how fans of the original comic feel about the movie. Have any of you read it?

Here are our picks for the best and worst theatrical releases of August, of the few we saw:

Junkie1: Scott Pilgrim & Piranha 3D, respectively.
ZRose25: RED & Piranha 3D.

Sorry, Piranha 3D, I just didn’t need to see about 90% of your visuals, and you weren’t funny enough to justify them or the 3D surcharge. But, Junkie1, it’s a throwback to classic campy creature/horror films! Yeah…I think it’s a throwback to covering up lazy writing with boobs, but to each his own. I’ll be sticking to Lake Placid-speed movies.

Guns don’t kill people…

Oh, The Other Guys. I am a total sucker for Will Ferrell’s humor so I was sold on this from the word go. Well, that my friends and I all like Mark Wahlberg despite his inability to be a good kisser (seriously watch some of his movies when kissing is involved–it’s almost Vin Diesel bad). Plus, Michael Keaton was fantastic in it–I officially need more Keaton in my life. The whisper fight and night of partying sequence were my two favorite scenes. Fun fact: To create the super slow-mo party scene the actors had to hold their positions for up to twenty minutes. So, go appreciate that Will Ferrell had to bite that old dude for at least a quarter of an hour.

I owe this movie so much more than a ho-hum, non-descript review. Not only was it the first in the pair of Eva Mendes movies we watched in August (though I’m not a huge fan of hers), but it also inspired ZRose to give me my favorite film-related gift to date: a wooden pistol affectionately named Pinocchio (because sometimes I wish it was a real gun). That said, it is painted a nice shiny black, so I think ZRose is just trying to get me arrested or shot.

August Movies (in order)

2010 Movie Project: July Data

July has come and gone, and another set of numbers for the 2010 Movie Project have been crunched. As per usual, I have taken my own sweet time pulling all the data together. July was also are second highest movie month of the year. I’m not sure how to explain it–we did go on a little Netflix kick, though the thought of clearing out our Netflix queue is laughable. Perhaps I smell the promise of a new movie project for 2011. Check out the list of all the movies we saw in July at the end of the post (after the jump). Let’s do this!

Movies, Genres, and Ratings

July started off with a couple of repeats. We saw Eclipse again, and ZRose’s renewed love for Tom Cruise could not be denied. Cue our second screening of Knight and Day. Despicable Me delivered on the super duper cute and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice delivered on the classic cagey Cage. The Girl Who Played With Fire was good–though I was off put by how much was shot during the day. Did you read the book? Is it just me; didn’t most of the action happen at night? I am going to go on record saying I found the first movie better than the second, but the second book was far superior to the first.

Here are our picks for the best and worst theatrical releases of July:

Junkie1: Inception & The Last Airbender, respectively.
ZRose25: Predators & I Am Love

Ha! We saw SO many naughty rated R movies, but we also babysat our sweet little little junkie, Avery, and watched a ton of family friendly fare.

Double Takes

We often have random actors that crop up a few times in different movies. This one was a bit of a shock, though. Tom Hardy, yes, super super super hot Eames from Inception. Normally, I wouldn’t mind seeing Mr. You Musn’t Be Afraid to Dream Big, Darling a few times a month. Then again I didn’t expect the Tom Hardy I found in Bronson, either. I should have known, the story of the UK’s “most violent prisoner” is most often heralded as the “new A Clockwork Orange” (you know, that Kubrick flick I lasted about twenty minutes in). Not knowing much about Hardy meant I didn’t know that he has a character actor fast approaching the ranks of Daniel Day Lewis, Christian Bale, and Johnny Depp. Bronson is a maniac, looking for fame via the persona of a savage criminal–a persona that scored him 28 of 34 years behind bars in solitary confinement. Hardy was utterly transformed, positively bulky, bald, and sporting a wicked mustache. I’ve got to admit, the hyper-stylized, brutal biopic, was visually appealing and…hilarious (oh, and sick and violent).

And how about that Kristen Stewart look-a-like from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice?

July Movies (in order)

2010 Movie Project: June Trailers

Finally the trailer data has been tabulated and now is the time to share it with all you eager little junkies. .. well I’ll be completely honest it actually has been ready and waiting to be published for a week or so. That just gave it extra time to marinate in its own awesomeness… right?

This month I had a huge pool of trailers to sort through, in fact at 64 trailers seen it is the largest number of trailers viewed so far this year. Of the 64 trailers there were 44 different trailers, so that means we had quite a few repeat offenders.  I don’t think anyone will be surprised that the top three repeaters this month were:  Despicable Me, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Twilight Saga: Eclipse, with four viewings each. There was close second with the three way tie between: Dinner for Schmucks, Inception and The Last Airbender with three viewings each. I provided a link to each of the repeaters for those of you living on mars that may have missed the ten billion combined commercials on TV for these movies.  I for one will be glad to see these trailers retired for the rest of the year. Bring on the new stuff!

So here is the rundown for June:

Full list broken down by the categories listed above:

2010 Movie Project: June Data

The June numbers are for the 2010 Movie Project are in! We saw a ton of movies in the theater last month. Mostly due to having withdrawal on our Great South Dakota Adventure. I had a fun time, but I did learn that pop culture is a harsh mistress. I missed my movies and cable…and internet…and magazines. We saw twelve movies in the theater in June, and EIGHT of them were after we got back from our trip (basically all in a 1.5 week period at the end of the month). I say it all the time, but the average American sees eight movies in the theater a year—we did that in a little over a week. It’s like a delightful, crazy sickness. I did finish reading The Girl Who Played With Fire on the trip, and I’m so (SO!) excited to see the movie.

As always, the listing of all the movies we saw in June is at the end of the post (after the jump). Onwards!

Movies, Genres, and Ratings

June was all good times. The best theater experience was Twilight: Eclipse, hands down. I sat next to a young dude and his ladyfriend. He was both a hoot as well as a yoot. During the Bella/Jacob kiss scene, right in the middle of the whole agnsty silence, he repeatedly exclaimed the following:

Passionate Yoot: Dont do it. You bitch. You bitch. You bitch. You bitch. No. No. No!!
His girlfriend: Shhhhhhhh! Shut up, you’re embarrassing me!!!!
Passionate Yoot: I don’t care. I’m really pissed about that. WHAT ABOUT EDWARD! That is bullshit.

T’was hilarious.

Here are our picks for the best and worst theatrical releases of June:

Junkie1: Toy Story 3 & Jonah Hex, respectively. Ondine was fantastic, too.
ZRose25: Knight and Day & Splice

June Movies (in order)

2010 Movie Project: May Data!

The numbers for the May edition of the 2010 Movie Project have been tabulated! 70 hours on my rear?! To play on a quip from Bridget Jones, I’m surprised my bum is not the size of Brazil. The best movie-related thing that happened last month? The unofficial first official meeting of the Little Junkies Pop Culture Club! It’s a magical club where I invite peeps to karma-karma-karma..on over to my house or to tune in on the bloggie, here, to bask in the glory of a special line-up of movies, television, magazines, etc. It’s a meeting of the junkie minds! It all started when ZRose and I wanted to have pizza…and watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Wait! Pizza, movies, turtles, turtles who love pizza…in movies! The only solution was to throw a TMNT Pizza Party (complete with homemade ninja masks, turtle brownies, green “ooze” jello, fave treats from the 90s, and booze. Oh, what a night. I even managed to freak out our pizza delivery boy as only a true mutant ninja turtle could. We watched the original TMNT trilogy, and sidenote: I love that IMDB refers to Raph, Mikey, Donny, and Leo as “a quartet of humanoid turtles.” Our next Pop Culture Club event will be better represented on the blog, as it will be official official and featuring a tricked out screening of 1966′s Batman: The Movie. Stay tuned for more info (same bat channel, of course).

As always, the listing of all the movies we saw in May is at the end of the post (after the jump). Onwards!

Movies, Genres, and Ratings

May was pretty fun for me, as a movie-goer. ZRose and I took part in our first official double feature–seeing both Iron Man and Iron Man 2 on the bigscreen courtesy of AMC Theaters.  It was pretty awesome, even though we had seen Iron Man 2 the previous night (a free sneak preview). It was worth it–I love franchises, Robert Downey Jr., and superhero movies so win-win. We also started taking up retro movies playing at a local theater (Friday/Saturday at midnight, and Sunday mornings) and creds to J-Ho for the invitation. It’s really awesome to see movies in the theater that came out while you were still mastering your fine motor skills (The Goonies and The Breakfast Club), and the best part is they include old trailer packs before each film (Purple Rain!). Check out ZRose’s trailer hoedown for a full listing.

Despite the fact that we only saw 10 movies in the theater last month, here are my picks for the best and worst theatrical releases of May: Iron Man 2 and The Jailhouse, respectively. Lucky break, MacGruber, though Val Kilmer was actually pretty funny in it, it was by no means “the funniest SNL movie since Wayne’s World” (come on, Cinematical.com). Honorable mention for goodness goes to Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, which I really enjoyed even though it looked like it had a high probability for suckitude. Oh yeah, and a month free from the shackles of 3D! Woohoo! FYI: Jailhouse is an indie mystery-”thriller” starring C. Thomas Howell, that fulfilled it’s probability for suckitude:

“Small town, the American dream. A blue-collar family living the idyllic rural lifestyle. Nothing is out of place save for the lacking white picket fence – and the old JAIL that occupies the 2nd floor of their century-old home…For Seth (Howell) the worst wasn’t the criminals locked like animals in the soiled cages above his living room. It was the mortal fear in his children’s eyes, it was the piercing cold looks from his wife. It was that deep, dark creeping recognition that something had happened there, something terrible, something that would grip his soul with hundred year old hands squeezing hate from unknown depths.”

Dun-dun-duuuuuuuun! Um, not really. Ponyboy, what happened to you?!

Apparently, summuah summah summahtime means bye-bye drama and bring on the action/comedy/adventure films. Could it be–am I a tool to the mass blockbuster media? …not that there was ever any doubt.

That’s it. Short and sweet.

May Movies (in order)