My blog: Some thoughts on films

It’s not the end of the year just yet but it may be the end of the world this week so what the hell, here are my top ten films of the year so far.

The Dark Knight Rises was a perfect end to an excellent trilogy. I loved it. Simple as.

Goon is genuinely the only funny film I have seen this year. It was a massive surprise and I’m glad I took the time to see it, Sean William Scott did something totally different and it paid off big time.

Killer Joe is intense, funny, chilling and utterly brutal. I never thought the performance of the year would go to Matthew McConaughey but dang it did, and it’s all in this film. 

A Fantastic Fear of Everything is pretty much everything I love in one film, weirdness, dark humour and serial killers. This gets the most underrated movie of the year award. 

Moonrise Kingdom showed Wes Anderson can still make amazingly tender movies that have real heart, this is one I will be able to watch over and over. 

Nothing about Safety Not Guaranteed was a let down, it had a great story that held up right to an amazing/surprising ending. 

Cabin In The Woods is one of those great films you can use to judge people on. I don’t want to get hispter on all yo asses but simply; if you didn’t like this film, you didn’t get it. And your opinion is invalid. 

I’ve never had an overwhelming to go and live in a film before, but that’s all I could think of when I watched ParaNorman. It’s is adorable beyond words but the horror nods and references are a horror geek’s dream, if you have kids and you still want to watch something cool this was made for you. 

As funny as it is brutal, Ben Wheatley’s latest, Sightseers, cemented the fact he is Britain’s hottest director of the moment. 

Lastly, Chronicle came out at the beginning of the year and I nearly forgot about it, but this a truly super badass, dark superhero tale that was brilliantly done. 

So these are mine…what are yours?

Last night I went to see all three Batman films back to back. A lot of people think that’s weird/lame/nerdy/excessive…I’d agree with the nerdy part but that’s all. In fact, this isn’t even close to the longest I’ve spent in a cinema (Grimm Up North last year saw me in a theatre for about 12 hours a day…for three days…good times).

Anyway, I’d always said they should do a triple feature leading up to the new release of The Dark Knight Rises and I am really glad that’s how I got to see it, because this really is the best trilogy of films…ever.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Batman Begins and I’d forgotten what such an excellent film it is, obviously it’s rather overshadowed by its predecessor now but it shouldn’t take anything away from this one because it’s utterly brilliant. What I’d forgotten is how good Katie Holmes actually is, oh pipe down…she is. In fact…I’d go as far as saying better than Maggie Gyllenhaal. Yup, I’m saying that right now. Also, the Scarecrow is fabulous and Cillian Murphy is outstanding, I always forget how much I love him until he comes on screen. It’s this moment that always gives me chills:

The Dark Knight is a film I’ve now seen four times at the cinema, that’s not much compared to some people I know, but it’s still a fair few times. No matter how many times I see it though, I am still blown away by the opening scene and Heath Ledger’s electrifying performance, it never gets old. 

So that brings me to The Dark Knight Rises, I’m not going to do a massive in-depth review, just some brief thoughts.

After watching those first two films and getting all excited, it was a definite worry that this new one would not live up to the fantastical expectations I had for it. And it was about 25 minutes into the film and I started to get…not worried, but a little disheartened…see, if you look back onto TDK, I was instantly enthralled and thrust into this menacingly badass film with the opening heist scene and I didn’t feel that happening in TDKR. That is…until everything changed and I didn’t unclench for another two hours. I could have got up and done a little happy dance had I not been so rigid in my seat I was that excited.

I am not going to mention ANY of the story lines in the movie. What is great about these films is how you can have an idea of what’s going to happen, and then it just does something that blows you away…maybe it’s the visuals of how it’s done…maybe it happens in a way you don’t expect or maybe it just wasn’t what you thought was going to happen at all. I think it was a mixture of all three for me. 

When Anne Hathaway was cast as Selina Kyle I was super dubious but I remember being very unsupportive of the casting choice of Heath Ledger before I saw the initial images of him as The Joker, so I decided to not judge before I saw the film. Yet again Nolan proves another spot on casting choice, Hathaway was excellent and made the character her own, she was the surprise performance for me. Also Bane, who although sounds like Sean Connery for most of the film, is menacing and brutal as he needed to be…Tom Hardy isn’t recognisable in the slightest. 

I actually don’t want to say more than that about it, go watch it for yourselves and stay away from spoilers!

For me The Dark Knight Rises is the perfect way to finish Nolan’s trilogy. It is an unbelievable, emotional, ridiculous adventure and I can not wait to see it again. 

There is a crap ton of films I’m looking forward to next year, on paper it looks like it’s going to be a lot better than this year. There are a few obvious ones which are all probably on your list too, the biggest of the big The Dark Knight Rises is easily my top film for next year, followed by The Avengers and then The Amazing Spiderman which rounds off a rather lovely selection of comic book movies. All ones I think the trailers make look very exciting.

A couple films I am really excited about are Django Unchained and This Is 40, but as these probably won’t be around until December 2012, there is pretty much nothing to show for them yet. Django is the next Tarantino film though, so that should be all kinds of awesome (hopefully) and This Is 40 is the unofficial spinoff/sequel (not sure on the details) of Knocked Up. Though no Katherine Heigl or Seth Rogen so time will tell on that one…oh and speaking of Knocked Up, another film I look forward to some more information on is Jeff Who Lives At Home, starring Jason Segal as a stoner (yes, again) who finally moves out of his mother’s basement to help his brother track down his adulterous wife. I also read somewhere he is inspired in his everyday life by M Night Shyamalan’s Signs which made me chuckle. It premièred at this year’s Toronto Film Festival and got some decent reviews.

2012 will also see the return of one of my favourite film-makers in the world ever, Wes Anderson. His new film Moonrise Kingdom is about a young couple in love who run away and send the small town they live in into a frenzied panic. It sounds like just the right story to have that Anderson charm about it. I have been very interested in all the set photos that have been posted so far, it has a release date of May 25th so it is still a bit early for a trailer, but soon hopefully. 

Young Adult is a mixed bag, I’m looking forward to it because it’s Jason Reitman and I enjoy his films, but then it is written by Diablo Cody and one thing about a Cody film, by the end of it you’ll want to rip off your ears from the annoying, “quirky” dialogue. But, I must say, the trailer looks decent so it is on the list for next year.

I really like the look of Take This Waltz which stars Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams. Williams who I now have a LOT of respect for after Blue Valentine, and I have always been a fan of Rogen, that name might turn a few people off watching this but it look like he’s doing some different styles of films and this one looks really rather charming. Williams plays a woman  struggling to choose between two very different types of love. A common story, but it’s never about the ending, it’s about how you get there and what you create along the way, and this one from director Sarah Polley, looks like it could create something really lovely.

That’s all for now but keep your peepers on:

Nero Fiddled- New Woody Allen starring Jesse Eisenberg and Ellen Page

Dark Shadows- New Tim Burton starring Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer and Chloe Mortez.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter- A fantasy horror starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Alan Tudyk.

World War Z- Zombies and Brad Pitt. 

Much Ado About Nothing- Joss Whedon directs this new take on Shakespeare starring Nathan Fillion, Alexis Denisof and Amy Aker. Firefly/Buffy fans rejoice!

The other day I posted a few photos from my night at the opening of Batman Live, if you want to know what I really thought of it click here for my review for HorrorTalk!

Someone recorded this (as we knew they would) so if you need to see it ASAP watch it here! Fucking chills!!

The Dark Knight Rises - Teaser Bootleg (2011) by CineHeroes