Count Down 100 Movies from 2013 (Multiple users) Tele page 20

[SchumacherFTW]

Nicely done Gopher, cracking read!

[baumer]

95) Room 237: As conspiracy documentaries go, this one isn't really that interesting but there are elements to it that, to quote Arsenio Hall, make you go HMMM. While they have radically different interpretations of the movie, they all agree on one thing: The Shining is not what it seems.  This is a film about what I consider to be outlandish conspiracies.  For those of you who don't know me well enough, I'm the guy who thinks that 9/11 is an inside job and that Osama Bin Laden died in 2005 of kidney failure so I am all for a good conspiracy.  Sadly, this film didn't really give me anything worth believing.  

The most outlandish theory belongs to Jay Weidner, who believes that Stanley Kubrick was recruited by NASA to fake the Apollo moon landing footage. According to Weidner, The Shining is Kubrick's coded confession. He builds his case on details like Danny's sweater, which depicts an Apollo rocket, and the fact that Kubrick changed the number of the haunted hotel room from the novel's 217 to the film's 237. (The moon is roughly 237,000 miles from Earth.) In Weidner's eyes, the iconic scene in which Wendy discovers Jack's unhinged manuscript ("All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy") reflects an actual event—Christiane Kubrick's discovery of her husband's secret deal with the U.S. government. 

 

There are too many theories in the film but not enough evidence to really make me believe one of them.  It's an interesting effort but a ultimately a prosaic one.

 

94) Admission:  Straight-laced Princeton admissions officer Portia Nathan (Tina Fey) is caught off-guard when a school administrator of an alternative school (Paul Rudd) pesters her for a visit. Then he drops a bomb on her. He knew her in their college days and has since figured out that one of his students is her son long given up for adoption.

 

The film was off in many ways as its attempts at comedy for the most part fall flat.  The story also falls flat and part of the problem is that I had trouble caring about any of the characters.  Paul Rudd plays his sweet likable self like he does in all his movies and Tina Fey just seems to have one emotion, anger or bitterness.  In fact, most of the film, she's kind of a bitch.  This makes it hard to root for the supposed romance that they are trying to develop here.  While it's not a bad film, it could have used perhaps another two or three rewrites.

 

93) Jobs:  I haven't added it up officially but I'm pretty sure Josh Gad makes the most appearances in my top 100 this year with four.  Roger Ebert had a rule that stated any film that had Harry Dean Stanton in it, no matter what, could not be a bad movie.  And true to his word, he never gave any film he was in anything less than a passing grade.  Josh Gad is my Harry Dean Stanton. 

 

Jobs is the story of Apple founder Steve Jobs and it has a good performance from Ashton Kutcher.  It has an excellent performance by Josh Gad who should be nominated for an Oscar for his role as Steve Wozniak.  Gad has that special ability to completely get lost in a role.  You forget it's him and even though he looks the same in many of his films and obviously sounds the same, he brings something unique to each role.  

 

The film itself has a meandering script that never really knows what to focus on.  I think there is a good story to tell about Jobs and Wozniak, but this film, as ambitious as it is, doesn't quite do it right.

 

92) Parker: Apparently Jason Statham's films aren't for everyone.  I happen to like everything he has done since I first saw him in Snatch.  He has a screen presence and that is something you can't teach.  Parker is the first of two entries in the top 100 for Statham.  In it he plays the proverbial good criminal.  He robs from those who can afford it and has rules about violence.  In a well done scene at the beginning, he and his cronies are robbing a county fair and one of the security guards starts to have a panic attack.  The other morons he's with instinctively want to shoot him, but Parker talks the guard into a dead calm and no one gets hurt.  It's a very well done scene and the film does have other scenes that mirror this kind of quality.  Unfortunately there are enough not so great scenes that prevent this from being any higher than it is.  

 

 

91) Tyler Perry Presents Peeple's I'm a pretty big fan of Tyler Perry films.  His Madea ones especially.  But he has a few misfires, generally when he puts his name behind something it's not as good as when he directs and writes.  In this one, he does neither and is basically an executive producer, which means that for all we know, this is a script he got from his friend's dentist's son in laws uncle.  And as a favour Perry said he would put his name behind it.  It's not very clever and if it weren't for Craig Robinson, the film might not have made my top 100.  Robinson is a gifted comedic actor and he really helps this film be more than it should.  But ultimately what you have is a black version of Meet The Parents except not as funny, witty or charming.

 

90) Movie 43: I realize I'm going to take a lot of criticism for having this film anywhere near a top 100 list but I actually enjoyed it enough to have it on here.  Granted there are some absolutely horrendous skits but there are two or three decent ones and one that had be hurting from laughing so hard.  That would be the Terrence Howard basketball skit.  I grew up liking a lot of black humour and black comedians.  At the age of 12, I saw Eddie Murphy's Delirious.  It's the most raunchy and vulgar film you can watch as a 12 year old.  But it was hilarious.  The Howard basketball skit is the sole reason this is ranked in the 6/10 range.  Sue me, I didn't hate this film.

 

Edited January 6, 2014 by Christmas baumer

[SchumacherFTW]

Good list so far, can always count on you to have a unique perspective on most things Baumer

[Gopher]

I love how your 99th is my 9th.

[baumer]

Yea, well, when you have 100 films to choose from, there will be some differing opinions.  

 

Spring Breakers is a film that I can completely understand why people love it so much.  But it just didn't quite appeal to me.  Maybe I need to see it again.  But it just felt repetitive to me and it didn't quite intrigue me enough.  BUT, you know we have very similar opinions on some of the top films this year, Gopher.  

[Gopher]

No TWILIGHT or TRANSFORMERS made 2013 a good year for the both of us. 

[Cmasterclay]

Can't wait to read more. This has the potential to be the Aliens to Gopher's Alien.

 

This is the toughest year to pick my number one in a while. Last year was certainly Django, and the year before was certainly 50/50, and 2009 was certainly Inglorious Basterds, but this year......really tough. I'm leaning towards Llewyn Davis or Wolf.

[baumer]

We're into the 80's now.

 

89) The Bling Ring:   I think we just wanted to be part of the lifestyle.  The lifestyle that everyone wants.

 

This is a film that could have been so much more.  Based on a true story, here we have a bunch of fairly wealthy LA kids who rob from the rich and famous and then post the aftermath on Facebook.  I'm no criminal but I've watched enough movies about crime and one thing I have learned is that if you want even a modicum of a chance of getting away with what you did, the first rule of crime is that you shut the fuck up.  The second rule of crime is....well, you shut the fuck up.  These kids not only posted their parties on Facebook, not only brought more friends in to share with their score, they took the stolen items and sold them publicly.  Now I realize teens aren't supposed to be the brightest people in the world, but this is just arrogant and arrogance leads to laziness and that leads to getting sloppy and getting caught.  

 

Somewhere in here, Sophia Coppola dropped the ball.  She had an intriguing story and seeing as she is a decent writer (who can forget Lost In Translation?), she had plenty to work with here.  But all we really got was little snippets, kind of like the skits in movie 43.  It's one robbery after the other and then the party.  Coke, booze, shopping and then thinking they are kings and queens of the world.  But the movie didn't really say anything.  It had all the ingredients but not the right cook.

***Sidenote: Paris Hilton, who was the main victim in real life regarding these crimes, makes a cameo.  She appears in one of the clubs as the Blingn Ring crew is partying with money made from her belongings.  

 

 

88) The Heat:  You want something to eat?  I didn't finish my submarine sandwich from the other day.      

 

This is the kind of humour you have to sit through in The Heat.  It's the classic mismatched buddy cop movie but this time with two female officers. I like Melissa McCarthy and who doesn't like Sandra Bullock?  But the problem with this film is that it goes way over the top.  You can actually picture writer Katie Dippold watching 48 Hours, Stakeout and Lethal Weapon just to get some ideas at how this film should play out.  But the problem with this is that the way she makes McCarthy's character, it loses credibility about 5 minutes into the film.  This officer would have been fired, fined and jailed if she treated her colleagues and captain the way she does.  There is one particularly embarrassing scene where she yells out to the entire office that her captain has no balls.  I realize this is all done for laughs, unfortunately I didn't find anything funny with the script.  I realize I'm in the minority on this one as The Heat had some of the best legs of the year but for my taste, this was just too over the top to be funny.

**Sidenote:  Thomas F. Wilson plays the captain.  He was Biff in the Back to the Future movies.  He now looks like he ate the Delorean.

 

 87) Identity Thief:     These aren't your friends.  They like you because you're buying them drinks.  People like you don't have friends.

 

Two of the highest grossing comedies of the year go to Melissa McCarthy.  People seem to respond to her.  I enjoyed her a lot in Bridesmaids.  I haven't since.  Identity Thief came close to not even making my top 100 this year but the last 15 minutes of the movie is well written, well acted and feels like a completely different film than the first 90 minutes.  

 

Most of the  good stuff in Identity Thief is all from Jason Bateman.  He has great timing and like many of the films he's in, you like him.  He has a good aura about him.  He helps you understand him and feel for him.  But McCarthy once again plays a character where there isn't much to like about her and therein lies the problem for me.  I have to spend 111 minutes with someone I really don't like and then I'm asked to sympathize with her at the end of the film.  McCarthy is a funny woman and she is talented.  She'll hit one out of the park eventually.  But her two comedies this year were strikeouts in my eyes.

**Sidenote:  Jason Bateman also produced the film

 

 

86) G.I. Joe: Retaliation:  Making more things go boom before 9AM than most people do all day.

 

There are films that require you to think.  There are films that are made for Oscar consideration.  Then there's G.I. Joe Retaliation.  This is perhaps the most far fetched, ludicrous, unbelievable, most ridiculous film of 2013 but in some ways, it works just enough for us to have fun.  I think you could watch this film without any dialogue and you'd still have an idea of what's going on.  There's a scene on a side of a mountain where Ninjas fight other chop socki people and as much as it looks like a ballet, it also looks completely ridiculous.  Every one of those guys on the side of the mountain should have fallen to their death and on the way down, you should have heard them all cursing themselves for being so stupid for wanting to run horizontally across a mountain.  

**Sidenote: The release of this film was delayed almost a year so they could add 3D into it.  The result was that it made 100 million dollars more internationally than the last one did.  

Edited January 6, 2014 by Christmas baumer

[CoolioD1]

That was Biff? Ah, I knew I fucking recognised him.

[baumer]

I'm going to cut you a break, Coolio.  Now why don't you make like a tree and get outta here.

[CoolioD1]

Baumer, that's about as funny as a screen door on a battleship.

[4815162342]

I'm going to cut you a break, Coolio.  Now why don't you make like a tree and get outta here.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rze0XkDUqQ

[baumer]

85) 2 Guns: I have no recollection of this movie at all whatsoever.  But I gave it a 6/10 so by that basis alone, it makes the list at number 85.

*** Side note....nope, got nothing.

 

 

84) Mama   Daddy, look!  There's a woman outside the window.  And she's not touching the floor.     

 

The film centers around two sisters, Victoria and Lilly. After their father shoots and kills his business partner and their mother, he flees the scene of the crime with the two siblings in tow. High speeds and icy roads lead to an auto accident in the middle of nowhere. This motley crew is able to find shelter in an abandon house in the middle of the woods; however, with no food or water, Jeffrey decides to shoot the siblings. Before Jeffrey can pull the trigger of his gun, an entity (Mama) sweeps into the house and whisks Jeffrey away to oblivion.  From here it is discovered the two kids are raised by a vengeful ghost.  Vengeful of what you might ask?  Who knows.  

 

The problem with this film is that first of all it's not scary enough and second, the story is preposterous.  I love a good horror movie but this one really tries to test the boundaries of what is realistic and what is just plain silly.  

***Side note:  This is Jessica Chastain's first film after her Oscar nominated performance in Zero Dark Thirty

 

83) Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D:  You did it now boy! You let that bitch-meat get away.

 

Tobe Hooper made one of the greatest horror films of all time.  It was the ultimate display of innovation and passion.  It was neither constrained by the burden of studio interference nor did it have to worry about guilds or unions. It was one of the true paradigms of guerrilla film making.  39 years later, the complete antithesis of that film was made.  That's not to say there weren't some good things about the film but ultimately it failed on quite a few levels.  

 

Over the years there have been a total of 7 Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, this is the first one that started right after the events of the first one took place.  So I do give it high marks for that, it at least tried to do something different.  But ultimately it's a failed attempt at making a quality film.  There are some genuine scares and the cast of young actors is very attractive (always a staple of horror films), highlighted by Alexandra Daddario of Percy Jackson fame.  But the film goes off into Never Never land at about the halfway point when it tries to do too much to make it different.  It's unfortunate because there was a good idea here and there was a good movie in parts of it, but ultimately, it's just another poor attempt at a remake.  Platinum Dunes this ain't.

***Sidenote:  Gunnar Hansen and Marilyn Burns both have cameo's in this film.  They played the original Leatherface and Sally.  Neither actor has been very eager to return to the Texas Chainsaw family too often, and this is the first film they have been in together since the 1974 release.

 

[Michael Gary Scott]

I agree about two guns. I know I saw it but I have no recollection of it.

[The Stingray]

83) Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D:  You did it now boy! You let that bitch-meat get away.

 

Platinum Dunes this ain't.

lol.

Edited January 7, 2014 by The Stingray

[baumer]

At least the 2003 remake was a good film with a good homage to the first.

[RobinHood26]

You gave out 41 A's!!?? damn. excited to see your list though.

[Sam]

Great work so far, B.

 

How is this year compare to last year, or some other years?That high a number of As gotta be a record for you.

[Empire]

Great job so far Baumer. Can't wait to see the rest of the list.

[baumer]

I'll have some more up tonight.