Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Films That I Saw: May 2012



The summer film season definitely kicked things off with a bang thanks in part to a brilliant and entertaining film in The Avengers. Then came the Cannes Film Festival which turned out to be a bit underwhelming despite the line-up of films that were playing. There’s a lot of them that I am eager to see including the Palme d’Or-winning film Amour from Michael Haneke. I’ll just maintain lower expectations for these films.

The summer is now coming but there’s not a lot of films that I’m really excited to see other than The Dark Knight Rises, Brave, and Prometheus along with art house fare like Moonrise Kingdom and Beasts of the Southern Wild. To counter all of that, I’m going to be watching a lot of films at home for the summer since I don’t consider myself to be a very sociable person. I much prefer being at home as I’m also half-way finished with completing an outline for my next screenplay project.

Throughout the month of May, I did see a good number of films though not as much as April due to the Cannes Marathon I had been doing. In the month of May, I saw a total of 38 films. 22 first-times and 16 re-watches.

Here’s the list of the 10 Best First-Timers I saw for May:


 





4. Thirst












10. 3 Women


The Monthly Mini-Reviews

The Change-Up


This is the only new film I saw that was on TV and what a piece of shit it is. It tries so hard to be crassly funny that both Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds end up looking very silly. The script doesn’t do either actor any favors where even as they go against type, the material falls flat. There’s an air of sentimentality that is around that is really un-earned and just really makes the whole film very uneven. Then there’s the nudity and not only a lot of it is very fake but the fact that it was digitized nudity just makes it downright insulting. You expect someone to whack off to these women including Olivia Wilde and then realize, “those aren’t her tits?” From a guy standpoint, it’s a slap in the face. And then there’s the location itself which is set in Atlanta.

I may not be a social-active person but having lived in Smyrna for all of my life and coming to Atlanta so many times. The way its depicted is absolutely false. It’s not that pretty. Piedmont Park is often quite dirty. The photography just makes it too much of a postcard look including a climatic scene at the Phipps Plaza mall. It is just fucking awful. One of the worst films I had ever seen so far in my years as a cine-phile.

The Re-Watches











6. Terminator 2: Judgment Day




8. Dick Tracy


9. Reagan


10. Thirteen

Well, that is all for the month of May. June will be the start of the long-awaited James Bond Marathon which I will release the details tomorrow about the marathon in its entirety. Alongside the monthly Favorite Film essay series that will be on Morvern Callar, I will be watching the films of Nicolas Winding Refn for my upcoming Auteurs piece on him for June. Along with new releases of films like Prometheus, Brave, and Moonrise Kingdom, I will take some time to watch a few films by Werner Herzog and Akira Kurosawa. The latter of which I will hopefully unleash my old reviews of his work in re-edited form along with some old reviews of films by Stanley Kubrick. Other things I’ll check out will Kevin Reynolds’ Hatfield & McCoy mini-series as well as various films old and recent. Until then, sayonara.

© thevoid99 2012

5 comments:

Gregory Roy said...

I've watched the first Hatfield & McCoy episode so far and really enjoyed it. Definitely watching the next two and also definitely recommend it.

Anonymous said...

Silent Light is a film I need to catch up with. Been in my queue forever and it screams of my kind of film.

You also piqued my interest in those Sissy Spacek films. I always love seeing her in films and I should check out more of her work.

David said...

Nice round-up,Steven! T2 is my childhood fave and the one of the earliest films which blew my mind.

Bring in Bonds and more Kubrick reviews,love'em!

May has been a terrific month for me,my round-up is coming up very soon!

Diana said...

Great month for you, as usual, I shouldn't be surprised by the number or the quality of the movies you see! I hope June is even better, have a great month!

thevoid99 said...

@Gregory-I just watched the first episode earlier today. It's really good. I'm going to catch up with the other episodes in the next two days.

@James-See it now! It's really an incredible film. Also check out Missing and 3 Women, someone needs to put Sissy Spacek in better films.

@David-How can anyone not love Terminator 2? It's one of the great action films ever.

@Diana-I always try to watch quality films. I'll watch a bad movie just to see how bad it is.