Palooza's Top 125 Films of 2012

[Palooza]

I at work but I wanna say there are about 20 more Fs to go which I am
hopeful to getthem all up by today.

This looks like it was typed up by red33. There are 14 Fs to go. I have 8 days to post 93 reviews, awards, etc. Let the games begin.

[KINGOFOOTBALL]

You may have answered this before. But do you keep these things on paper ?
I have a buddy who has kept a journal of every movie hes seen since the mid 90s. He grades them and writes a little note on it. Seems like a nice addition to a hobby but a pain to keep up with.

[Palooza]

You may have answered this before. But do you keep these things on paper ?
I have a buddy who has kept a journal of every movie hes seen since the mid 90s. He grades them and writes a little note on it. Seems like a nice addition to a hobby but a pain to keep up with.

Not exactly that, but close enough. I have a Word document that I use as a journal, keeping track of everything I need to watch and have watched. No immediate grades outside of a quick phrase or two, but I rank them as I go.

[Palooza]

92 . For a Good Time, Call...

Ari Graynor, Lauren Miller, Justin Long, Mark Webber, Seth Rogen, Mimi Rogers, Nia Vardalos, James Wolk, Sugar Lyn Beard, Kevin Smith

Director(s) - Jamie Travis
Writer(s) - Lauren Miller, Katie Anne Naylon
Source Material/Connections - n/a
MPAA Rating - R
Release Date - August 31 (limited)
Runtime - 1 hour, 25 minutes
RT Score - 56%
Metacritic - 55/100
Views - 1
Viewed - torrent
Quote - "You ladies are living some fucked up version of the American Dream."
Review - Let me start off by saying I would do some naughty things to Ari Graynor. She seems like an absolute psychotic freak, the type of chick W2B would fuck and then come on here and tell us how fucking crazy she is, but he can't stop fucking her. Lauren Miller is pretty cute, I would love to fuck that Julia Roberts mouth of hers, mostly just to shut her annoying self up. Okay, so now that that is out of the way, let's get to this movie - Not only is the entire premise of a phone sex line booming in 2012 absolutely ridiculous, the humor comes off as trying too hard to be raunchy. The funniest part of the entire movie involves Seth Rogen as a pilot calling up looking for a threesome.. This film was written by his wife and star of the film, Lauren Miller, the stuck up of the two leads. She cannot jump out of her husband's shadow or the shadow cast by successful female-driven raunchy comedies like Bridesmaids (which was probably the most overrated comedy this side of The Hangover.) Like I said the movie follows two girls who start a phone sex line. One is a sex-driven virgin (Ari Graynor) [oh spoiler alert my bad] who takes a liking to the sweet and innocent guy she phone fucks every Tuesday(Mark Webber). The other is the stuck up former professional who can't seem to make it in today's hectic, corporate world. She gets laid off from her job and needs a place to stay so mutual over the top gay friend (Justin Long) introduces one another.. again. The first time was in college and they didn't like each other very much! Uh oh... drama! BUT WAIT. Once they take a liking to one another they're like omg besties. But stuck up girl has stuck up parents who won't approve of her new lifestyle and when they come for a visit and stuck up girl drops a bombshell of "haaaaay, I got a job I gotta quit the sexline", virgin whore tells stuck up parents all about their phone sex endeavors and shows them a commercial they made where they are in a bubble bath together. That's 95% of the movie. The other 5% is the classic "we'll never recover from this!" bullshit until they make up and become besties again and take over the phone sex world.

Not much else to say. The jokes are raunchy which is cool, but they're raunchy just for raunchy's sake. 2012 is becoming a bastardization of raunchy comedy. Also, no tits.
Spoiler Alert - Everyone loves phone sex, especially in 2012.
Rating - F

[Youk]

Not exactly that, but close enough. I have a Word document that I use as a journal, keeping track of everything I need to watch and have watched. No immediate grades outside of a quick phrase or two, but I rank them as I go.

Is that something you do with all movies or just ones for that year?

[KINGOFOOTBALL]

Not exactly that, but close enough. I have a Word document that I use as a journal, keeping track of everything I need to watch and have watched. No immediate grades outside of a quick phrase or two, but I rank them as I go.

Theres an IMDB that lets you check off from the top 500 movies ever (according to IMDB ratings). I used that for awhile. I may backlog one day if I find an easy way to mass print ones Ive already watched. I like the premise because I know just how differently I feel about a movie years after my first viewing. I tend to remember movies fondly if the crowd or person Im with was memorable. Years later Ill watch again and think wow wtf that movie sucked.

[Palooza]

Is that something you do with all movies or just ones for that year?

Everything.

[Palooza]

Theres an IMDB that lets you check off from the top 500 movies ever (according to IMDB ratings). I used that for awhile. I may backlog one day if I find an easy way to mass print ones Ive already watched. I like the premise because I know just how differently I feel about a movie years after my first viewing. I tend to remember movies fondly if the crowd or person Im with was memorable. Years later Ill watch again and think wow wtf that movie sucked.

Ain't this the god damn truth. You'll notice once we start getting into the top movies, that I made sure to watch those movies more than once to make sure they stand up. I have a tendency to overrate movies after first seeing them.

[Palooza]

91. Butter

Jennifer Garner, Yara Shahidi, Ty Burrell, Rob Corddry, Alicia Silverstone, Olivia Wilde, Hugh Jackman, Ashley Greene, Kristen Schall, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Phyllis Smith

Director(s) - Jim Field Smith
Writer(s) - Jason A. Micallef
Source Material/Connections - n/a
MPAA Rating - R
Release Date - October 5 (limited)
Runtime - 1 hour, 31 minutes
RT Score - 35%
Metacritic - 40/100
Views - 1
Viewed - torrent
Quote - "Are these crackers serious?"
Review - Butter is a pretty ridiculous movie. It's a political satirical comedy that was shelved for a while (obviously due to its quality) starring Jennifer Garner as a stuck up control freak of a wife to a Butter carving master (Ty Burrell). This year, he has decided to not participate in the competition (I think this is due to political reasons - the people who run it are sick of him winning and winning and winning), so considering this is all his wife has, she decides to join in anyhow. The thing here, though, is that we're not rooting for Garner's character, if you are anything close to a normal person you are repulsed by her pathetic nature and disgusted by how she goes about trying to win. And now, we bring in her competition - little adopted black girl (Yara Shahidi), one of the few people you can actually root for. She is adopted by Rob Corddry and Alicia Silverstone's characters, a couple who can't have kids. They have a hard time connecting with the girl, until all three become passionate about beating Garner's character in this butter competition. Oh and, the black girl is pretty fucking good at this. A side story has Ty Burrell fall in love with a stripper played by Olivia Wilde who keeps extorting him for money. So we start competing and the always intolerable Kristen Schall is also a contestant and Olivia Wilde joins just to piss off Garner's character which was a nice, if not predictable touch, but they lose. We have a tie after some serious controversy where Garner sabotages the black girl's shit by saying her ex-boyfriend (Hugh Jackman) helped her with her sculpture. An absolutely horrible thing to do by any human being, especially one who can't let a poor adopted black girl rightfully win something. So they decide to do some outdoor competition that stretches over a long period of time with the two pieces being revealed a bit after. Olivia Wilde uses money she manipulated from Burrell/Garner's daughter after they had sex to buy the little black girl the freshest knives in all the land, which is a really nice touch in a movie severely lacking in nice touches. Jackman helps Garner sabotage the black girl's sculpture again, but it turns out his sabotage actually made the piece better to the judges and the black girl wins all fair and square.

The problem with the movie is pretty much embodied by Garner's character. She is condescending, unlikeable and has an unjustified sense of importance. The film focuses too much on her character, especially considering you are rooting for all factors to come into play to help her lose. Garner's character is unbelievably pathetic with how she controls her husband and daughter (Ashley Greene) and cheats her way through a competition over a kid. Jackman is pretty useless and could have been replaced by any other human being on Earth with a cowboy hat. The only redeeming factors in this silly little movie are the little black girl's triumph, Rob Corddry's jokes and Olivia Wilde/Ashley Greene's good looks. Besides that, this is a complete waste of time. Remember when I said this is supposed to be a satirical comedy? It's lacking the smarts to be satirical and the humor to be a comedy, which can be a big problem as far as I'm concerned. The satire in this film isn't funny or smart it's blatant and mean, which I'd be okay with if it was actually smart and funny, but it's not. Jennfer Garner is an obvious Sarah Palin dumb villain and while it would work if the script was written with any competence instead of just making her be dumb and ruthless at the same time. You want to root for the black girl, but she's such a horrible, horrible I'm-smart-orphaned-black-girl-who-can-be-sadssy-even-though-I-just-want-to-be-loved stereotype. Overall, the movie is sloppy, condescending toward middle America and tries to make you think you are much stupider than those involved, but the audience only comes away as stupid because of the filth they had just seen on the screen. Four thumbs down.
Spoiler Alert - My butter champion is black, my lambo is blue.
Rating - F

[Palooza]

90. The Campaign

Will Ferrell, Zach Galifinakis, Jason Sudeikis, Dylan McDermott, Katherine LaNasa, Sarah Baker, John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd, Brian Cox, Jack McBrayer, John Goodman

Director(s) - Jay Roach
Writer(s) - Chris Henchy, Shawn Harwell
Source Material/Connections - n/a
MPAA Rating - R
Release Date - August 10
Runtime - 1 hour, 26 minutes
RT Score - 65%
Metacritic - 50/100
Views - 1
Viewed - DVD
Quote - "I'm here to make you not suck."
Review - This movie poses a very important question for Hollywood - Are the worst jokes from the funniest people in the biz still funnier than the shitty comedians best jokes? Jay Roach seems to be the go-to guy for answering this question. That and HBO political movies. Here, he combines the two, drops HBO for the theaters and creates one of the laziest films in recent memory. In the same vein as his previous attempt at this "genre" with Dinner for Schmucks, we swap Paul Rudd and Steve Carell for Will Ferrell (Zach Galifinakis sticks around) and transplant these two characters into a Senate race in one of the Carolinas. There's no reason to dissect such a plot because it's just a really lame attempt at one-upping each other in terms of stupidity with really shallow and obnoxious mockery of the American media and election process. That's all I've got to say about that.
Spoiler Alert - Who cares how it ends
Rating - F

[Youk]

After some good comedies back last decade, they're really fallen off hard. The fact that The Campaign is up there in the list of the better 2012 comedies is a joke. It can't touch the Will Ferrell movies of the 2000's.

[Palooza]

89. Wanderlust

Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux, Malin Akerman, Alan Alda, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, Kathryn Hahn, Kerri Kenney, Lauren Ambrose, Jordan Peele

Director(s) - David Wain
Writer(s) - David Wain, Ken Marino
Source Material/Connections - n/a
MPAA Rating - R
Release Date - February 24
Runtime - 1 hour, 20 minutes
RT Score - 59%
Metacritic - 53/100
Views - 1
Viewed - DVD
Quote - "You know you can really get trapped in that web of beepers and Zenith televisions and Walkmens and discmens and floppy discs and zip drives, laser discs, answering machines and Nintendo Power Glove..."
Review - Not sure what David Wain, the guy behind Wet Hot American Summer and Role Models (two movies I am a big fan of) was thinking with this one because it is an extremely piss poor effort at comedy. The first mistake was casting Jennifer Aniston as the lead. She has no comedic timing and while she is really fun to look at, she adds nothing to the film. Her real-life husband, Justin Theroux is also to blame here. He, too, lacks comedic chops and even though he wrote Tropic Thunder, he seems really out of place in comedy. The same was seen with him in the absolutely horrible Your Highness from last summer. Again, a comedy as ridiculous as our last entry doesn't really merit any plot abuse because you know how ridiculous it will be from the start. The plot can bring a movie down that is limited in laughs that deliver and therefore needs to overcompensate. Here we get a far too sappy story and lame characters you don't particularly care about. In Role Models, Rudd plays a sarcastic douche who you root for to get his girl back (Elizabeth Banks) because you cared about the two characters. Here you want him to GTFO of his situation and get away from his girl, even though he's a good dude and deserves whoever he wants. I blame Jennifer Aniston. Either way, this movie doesn't throw enough laughs at you to keep you from the boredom and frustration of the main characters. The side characters bring most of the laughs but you don't see enough of them to care enough to wait around.
Spoiler Alert - Happiness
Rating - F

[Palooza]

88. Cosmopolis

Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Jay Baruchel, Kevin Durand, Paul Giamatti, Samantha Morton, Sarah Gadon, Matthieu Amalric, K'naan, Emily Hampshire, Patricia McKenzie

Director(s) - David Cronenberg
Writer(s) - David Cronenberg
Source Material/Connections - based on the novel of the same name by Don DeLillo
MPAA Rating - R
Release Date - August 17 (limited)
Runtime - 1 hour, 48 minutes
RT Score - 65%
Metacritic - 58/100
Views - 1
Viewed - torrent
Quote - "Destroy the past, make the future."
Review - Cronenberg is a very hit or miss director. He followed up his two-ish decades of grotesque physical and psychological horror films with a string of Viggo Mortenson starring psychological and sometimes violent thrillers. Here, he sticks with psychological and moves into a futuristic sci-fi genre where Robert Pattinson acts like a robot, rats as protest tools and a cross-city trek to get a haircut is one of the most dangerous things you can do.

I haven't read the novel the film is based on, but I imagine it's not too easy to follow, considering how strange and unrelated every thing that happens throughout the movie is. The film's basic premise is a cross-city trek in a limo by a young bazillionaire (Robert Pattinson) as he encounters a random array of things and people and the dangers of the outside world. Seriously this movie is so fucking weird it could only be made by David Cronenberg. It has way too many "literary elements" going on that it takes away from a potentially clever movie. Too much represents too much with nothing really making sense. Pattinson's quickly escalating self destruction completely changes the movie from robotic to ridiculous. I can't even explain this movie, I'm having an extremely hard time writing this review up. Just, don't watch this movie. Trying to key in on all the weird shit that makes no sense is giving me a headache.

Maybe I just didn't get it. I don't know, but I fucking hated it.
Spoiler Alert - Ambiguity.
Rating - F

[Youk]

Don't replace Viggo with Twilight.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2172584/

wut

[Buzzman]

Wanderlust might be the worst movie I've seen this year.