Palooza's Top 125 Films of 2012

[Len B]

48 hours without an update is unacceptable.

[Palooza]

Oh piss off, Len. It's not like I'm just posting stats, I gotta dig deep to write these reviews. Some of them have been half-assed and I'm not proud of them, I don't want anymore like that. I gotta go into the depths of my film and television soaked brain to remember what justified this list and each films placement. Sometimes I gotta rewatch them, which needs to be done with the top 20-25. I'm going nuts with those and will be writing the review while I re-watch. I'll be LIVE REVIEWING.

I planned on getting some up today, ANYWAY, but I'll do it for you, Len. And because this weekend is St. Patty's Day so who knows what shape I'll be in.

[cf24]

I realize I'm a page late on this, but this was my favorite part from Goon.

We're playing divorced guys.

When I was growing up in North Carolina, we would go to Carolina Monarchs hockey games (AHL team), and they had a guy that would just fight every game and fuck people up. Watching this definitely brought back some memories.

[Len B]

Oh piss off, Len. It's not like I'm just posting stats, I gotta dig deep to write these reviews.

[wingsfan77]

I texted my girlfriend that I found out about a movie that starred Alison Brie and Lizzy Caplan (two of my biggest celebrity crushes) and all she texted back was "fap" haha

[Warner2BruceTD]

This is an awesome review man. Much appreciated... You, Buzzman and Dell have enhanced my movie watching.

[dell71]

^^^

[Palooza]

bump.

coming soon

groan this post for taking so long, will be catching up FOR REAL tonight seeing as how I spent all my money this weekend and have tomorrow off.

cheers

[Palooza]

I texted my girlfriend that I found out about a movie that starred Alison Brie and Lizzy Caplan (two of my biggest celebrity crushes) and all she texted back was "fap" haha

so did you have sex with your girlfriend because of me?

[Youk]

so did you have sex with your girlfriend because of me?

Mazel tov!

[Palooza]

37 . The Queen of Versailles

Director(s) - Lauren Greenfield
Writer(s) - n/a
Source Material/Connections - n/a
MPAA Rating - PG
Release Date - July 20 (limited)
Runtime - 1 hour, 40 minutes
RT Score - 95%
Metacritic - 80/100
Views - 1
Viewed - netflix
Quote - "If you loved me, why did you leave the lights on?"
Review - You can blame my recent lack of updates on this movie. Twice I typed up a solid review and twice I lost all my progress. Yes I should have saved, yes I'm a fool, but usually when I get rollin on these bad boys there is no time for saving. My brain just keeps diarrheaing these thoughts out through my fingers and before you know it, I've said all I really wanted to say. Soooooo on to the movie. The Queen of Versailles is a portrait of the American dream through the eyes of one Spoiled Housewives of Major City family. Except then 2008 happened. The Siegel family is led by patriarch David Siegel who is the owner, founder, CEO of one of the most successful time share businesses on the planet, Westgate Resorts, but the story mostly follows his rags-to-(marriedinto)riches wife, Jackie Siegel and their ridiculous amount of kids. This is a portrait of everything that people hate about America, but once you watch it all crumble you feel a bit of sympathy for Jackie and her kids and none for Papa Siegs. Rich people being rich isn't the appeal, what makes this fascinating is that this was supposed to be a reflection of a rags to riches story, but the timing is so perfect that it turns into the opposite. You love to see these people fall on their face after the financial collapse, but then you start to feel compassion for them. This movie is equal parts trainwreck that makes you feel better about your life because you see a family who has literally anything they could ever dream of and then the rug is pulled out from under them and as you watch them collapse the schadenfreude turns to sympathy and compassion because once the money runs out, the family falls apart. Papa Siegs becomes obsessed with saving his company to a point where Jackie tries to boost him up from the dumps by bringing his kids in to tell them they love him and he just spouts off ways for them to save money. Everything that happens to David Siegel and his company is completely brought upon by his own stubbornness and I have zero compassion for him. At one point, a son from another marriage who is pretty much his right hand man tells the documenters about how growing up his father was never around but he would come by once a year. The family lived in poverty and he didn't pay child support but once a year before school started he would come by and take his kids shopping so they had the flashiest clothes in school. The moral here? He wanted his kids to have a look of success so a poor image of them wasn't portrayed on to him. This is the kind of awful human being David Siegel is, but he is also the type of man who spouts off about illegally helping W. to beat Al Gore, or who marries a blonde trophy wife that keeps having kids because why the hell not?, and he is certainly the type of man who has had to deal with his fair share of sexual harassment cases from former female employees that is never mentioned once in the movie. It's funny because any normal rich family would tell the documentary crew to GTFO if their empire started to collapse, but NOOOOO! This is AMERICA! And we want to be on TV NO MATTER WHAT!

Highly, highly recommended.
Rating - B

[Glenbino]

37 . The Queen of Versailles

Director(s) - Lauren Greenfield
Writer(s) - n/a
Source Material/Connections - n/a
MPAA Rating - PG
Release Date - July 20 (limited)
Runtime - 1 hour, 40 minutes
RT Score - 95%
Metacritic - 80/100
Views - 1
Viewed - netflix
Quote - "If you loved me, why did you leave the lights on?"
Review - You can blame my recent lack of updates on this movie. Twice I typed up a solid review and twice I lost all my progress. Yes I should have saved, yes I'm a fool, but usually when I get rollin on these bad boys there is no time for saving. My brain just keeps diarrheaing these thoughts out through my fingers and before you know it, I've said all I really wanted to say. Soooooo on to the movie. The Queen of Versailles is a portrait of the American dream through the eyes of one Spoiled Housewives of Major City family. Except then 2008 happened. The Siegel family is led by patriarch David Siegel who is the owner, founder, CEO of one of the most successful time share businesses on the planet, Westgate Resorts, but the story mostly follows his rags-to-(marriedinto)riches wife, Jackie Siegel and their ridiculous amount of kids. This is a portrait of everything that people hate about America, but once you watch it all crumble you feel a bit of sympathy for Jackie and her kids and none for Papa Siegs. Rich people being rich isn't the appeal, what makes this fascinating is that this was supposed to be a reflection of a rags to riches story, but the timing is so perfect that it turns into the opposite. You love to see these people fall on their face after the financial collapse, but then you start to feel compassion for them. This movie is equal parts trainwreck that makes you feel better about your life because you see a family who has literally anything they could ever dream of and then the rug is pulled out from under them and as you watch them collapse the schadenfreude turns to sympathy and compassion because once the money runs out, the family falls apart. Papa Siegs becomes obsessed with saving his company to a point where Jackie tries to boost him up from the dumps by bringing his kids in to tell them they love him and he just spouts off ways for them to save money. Everything that happens to David Siegel and his company is completely brought upon by his own stubbornness and I have zero compassion for him. At one point, a son from another marriage who is pretty much his right hand man tells the documenters about how growing up his father was never around but he would come by once a year. The family lived in poverty and he didn't pay child support but once a year before school started he would come by and take his kids shopping so they had the flashiest clothes in school. The moral here? He wanted his kids to have a look of success so a poor image of them wasn't portrayed on to him. This is the kind of awful human being David Siegel is, but he is also the type of man who spouts off about illegally helping W. to beat Al Gore, or who marries a blonde trophy wife that keeps having kids because why the hell not?, and he is certainly the type of man who has had to deal with his fair share of sexual harassment cases from former female employees that is never mentioned once in the movie. It's funny because any normal rich family would tell the documentary crew to GTFO if their empire started to collapse, but NOOOOO! This is AMERICA! And we want to be on TV NO MATTER WHAT!

Highly, highly recommended.
Rating - B

Ahhh now we're getting into some real quality.

[Palooza]

There's one movie coming up that I'm sure most people are gunna disagree with, but for the most part everything left is pretty fucking good.

[Palooza]

36 . Take This Waltz

Michelle Williams, Luke Kirby, Seth Rogen, Sarah Silverman, Aaron Abrams, Jennifer Podemski, Raoul Bhaneja, Albert Howell, Diane Flacks, Diane D'Aquila, Danielle Miller

Director(s) - Sarah Polley
Writer(s) - Sarah Polley
Source Material/Connections - n/a
MPAA Rating - R
Release Date - June 29 (limited)
Runtime - 1 hour, 56 minutes
RT Score - 78%
Metacritic - 68/100
Views - 2
Viewed - netflix
Quote - "Life has a gap in it, it just does. You don’t go crazy trying to fill it."
Review - Take This Waltz is a movie about romance. It has comedic elements. It is not a romantic comedy. More than that this film is a very serious and soul crushing look at constant need for the new and different and how we get bored so easily with comfort. Take This Waltz is really well made in all facets with Sarah Polley (Dawn of the Dead, Go actor / Away From Her, writer*/dir. *nominated for Oscar) bringing her A-game to both sides - writing and directing and Michelle Williams perfectly carrying the film on her back as Margot, the quirky housewife/writer. The writing element of her character isn't a crutch like it is in most indie drama's, it's simply her jerb. So Margot is happy with Lou, but there's something missing. She doesn't need to say it, you can just tell. Michelle Williams is such an amazing actress that she pulls off the weird and fun, yet unfulfilled woman-child who loves to goof off with Lou but wants more. She is always so rebellious and terrified of routine she is constantly searching for something to fill the gap in her life. She thinks she has found this gap with Daniel (Luke Kirby), a man she meets on the flight home from a writing assignment in the beginning of the film. They have an instant connection and she loves that he is interested in her and flirting with her. It's giving her that rich and new experience she's desperate for, but she also relishes in the briefness of it. It was just a moment, but it turns out that he lives across the street and that moment turns into constant temptation. You can see Margot slowly wear down and become less and less interested in her boring routine of a life and longs more and more for Daniel. Watching Margot slowly crumble as Lou lives in ignorance is such a tough pill to swallow because you know it's only a matter of time before the inevitable happens.

Like I said, Michelle Williams could pull off any adorable, damaged girl who crushes the hopes and dreams of everyone who actually believes in love by showing the reality of relationships and human beings in general any god damn day of the week. She is amazing here. Everything about her is Margot. Beyond that, Seth Rogen pulls off a very good performance outside of his horrible fake crying. Luke Kirby is decent as the man who complicates things, but my loathing of him was more to do with the character than the actor (and he wasn't a bad dude, he just wanted someone who was married). Sarah Silverman does her best as Lou's recovering alcoholic sister, who I talk about in the spoilers below...

The rest of the review lies in spoiler territory. Beware.

 

So, she leaves Lou for Daniel. Lou being the perfect guy that he is, is completely understanding yet totally heartbroken. He's a great guy, not a bad bone in his body and this is why nice guys finish last. Margot's longing for something new will never be satisfied because nothing stays new. Everything becomes routine. Everything becomes boring. In a montage of her relationship with Daniel, it's all of them having sex and we see their relationship progress through that. The bed is in the middle of where ever they live because sex is what is most important to their relationship. We see them up the ante more and more with all the living space being arranged except the bed in the middle of the room. As we progress we see the two of them get more and more bored with everything, going too far to fill a void that cannot be filled. Speaking of which, Silverman's character falls off the wagon sometime after Margot leaves Lou and Margot is called to help after she goes off on a reckless drive. Silverman shows up, drunk as shit after Lou and Margot spend a friendly afternoon concerned about Silverman and she lays a quote that sums up the movie perfectly, which you see above but I shall repeat, "Life has a gap in it, it just does. You don’t go crazy trying to fill it." Lou makes sure to mention that everything between them is over with they can be friends maybe, but he's done with her. We end the film where Margot sits on the ground in front of the oven, leaning on it while Daniel stares out the window. Margot presses her body up against the oven hoping that the heat will help her feel again. Daniel stares out the window, beyond their crumbling relationship.

The final shot of the scene I am going to have to back track a little bit because I forgot how important and awesome it is. It represents te film just as well as that quote. So in the middle of the movie, when Daniel and Margot are hanging out, she takes him to this cool little carnival thing and this scene happens -

Around the 1:15 mark is when Margot shows you that she has realized she has put herself in an awfully fucked up position. "We can't rewind we've gone too far." This music is absolutely on point with what Sarah Polly is trying to say. The new shit always kicks the old shit's ass.. until the newer shit comes out. It's an endless process and we still get caught up in it. Margot has gotten herself into possibly worst case scenario, but she still follows through because, in the moment she realized she wants Daniel more and there's no going back. "We can't rewind we've gone too far." And then the lights turn on and the music stops and things are back in reality and she's gotta deal with this issue, she can't sneak off with Daniel all the time. She needs it all, even though she's wind up unsatisfied once again.
The final shot of the film is the same thing except Margot is alone and for a brief moment, during those 2 or however minutes the ride lasts, she is exactly where she wants to be. She's doing something amazing for a shot period of time and moving on to something new. Once the ride stops, however, her gigantic smile drops to a huge frown. She'll never be satisfied more than a moment at a time. Credits roll.

edit - oh, I forgot to mention. You see Michelle Williams full frontal, sporting bush, nothing new. The real gem here is you get Sarah Silverman, full frontal, serious bush. Would pipe just so she could make fun of my dick.
Rating - B

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Bernie was super fantastic

Perhaps Jack Black's performance of his life thus far. Very good.

Matty McConaughey was that nigga in 2012.