Article: Palooz Presents: 2013 in Film

[Palooza]

Seriously though Larry, if there is any of my reviews to be taken with a grain of salt, it's the one where I had drunken diarrhea during.

 

[Youk]

I watched Olympus Has Fallen twice within 3 days. Larry hit the nail on the head with his post. Outside of the beginning, there are no "emotional" scenes, just pure bad ass scenes.

:beersalute:

 

[Pitty]

He didn't even make it to the 30s this year. :rockclap:

 

[Palooza]

My GoT obession has taken precedent. There shall be more this evening.

 

[Palooza]

82. 47 Ronin
Hiroyuki Sanada, Keanu Reeves, Kou Shibaskai, Yadanobu Asano, Rinko Kikuchi, Min Tanaka, Jin Akanishi, Masayoshi Haneda, Hiroshi Sogabe, Nei Fingleton, Takato Yonemoto, Horshi Yamada, Shu Nakajima, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Yorick van Wageningen, Gedde Watanabe, Rick Genest​

Director(s): Carl Rinsch
Writer(s): Chris Morgan, Hossein Amini
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: December 25th
RT Score: 13% (9 fresh, 62 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: The legendary Japanese tale of the 47 Ronin is turned into a big budget 3D epic starring Keanu Reeves
Comments:
This movie suffers from the same problem as John Carter from last year. A tale as old as time that has been adapted millions of times, creating the genre rules that seem cliche and predictable as a 2013 adaptation. Also, Keanu is absolutely fucking terrible, Neo with even less emotions, even less to do and some asian in him. The ACTUAL main character, Hiroyuki Sanada is pretty great as the leader of the 47 Ronin, but he isn't really given much to work with as the plot, the motivations and the characters in general are mostly straight forward. There is a really anti-climactic scene with Keanu and the people who taught him the tricks of his trade somewhere close to the climax that completely ruins the potential for a solid mythical, otherworldly adventure, but we get instead a messy, disappointing and flat action movie. Also one of the cooler characters who is prominent in the advertisements only has a few minutes of screen time and does zero badass things.

Spoiler Alert: Vengeance. Suicide.
Grade: C-

 

[Palooza]

81. Somebody Up There Likes Me
Nick Offerman, Keith Poulson, Jess Weixler, Stephanie Hunt, Marshall Bell, Kate Lyn Sheil, Kevin Corrigan, Jonathan Togo, Anna Margaret Hollyman, Megan Mullaly​

Director(s): Bob Byington
Writer(s): Bob Byington
MPAA Rating: UR
Release Date: March 8th
RT Score: 68% (17 fresh, 8 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: Bunch of segments in the life of Max (Keith Poulson), his friend Sal (Nick Offerman) and their relationships.
Comments:
The only reason I saw this movie is because Nick Offerman, Megan Mullaly and Alison Brie smoked some weed on youtube to promote the film. The movie is really, really, really, really, really, really dry. The main kid is horribly unlikable so who cares when girls treat him like shit. Interesting story structure where they jump like 10 years at a time without a moment's notice. Not for me.

Spoiler Alert: n/a
Grade: C-

 

[dell71]

Is Keanu Reeves ever not terrible in a film?

 

[Palooza]

Is Keanu Reeves ever not terrible in a film?

Matrix. Point Break. Bill and Ted. Speed. Constantine. A Scanner Darkly. Thumbsucker. The Replacements.

 

[Bane]

Point Break is a fucking amazing movie

 

[Buzzman]

 

 

[CCBrink]

 

G-Baby :misogi:

 

[dell71]

Matrix. Point Break. Bill and Ted. Speed. Constantine. A Scanner Darkly. Thumbsucker. The Replacements.

Meh. The movies might be great, but he always sucks...except maybe in Bill and Ted...


well, I didn't see Thumbsucker, but I can't imagine he did anything different in that movie like show a believable emotion or something.

 

This coming from a huge fan of The Matrix, no less.

 

[Palooza]

80. Welcome to the Punch
James McAvoy, Mark Strong, Andrea Riseborough, Peter Mullan, David Morrissey, Johnny Haris, Jason Flemyng​

Director(s): Eran Creevy
Writer(s): Eran Creevy
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: March 27th
RT Score: 50% (24 fresh, 24 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: Former criminal (Mark Strong) must come out of hiding to help save his son and the cop (James McAvoy) who has been after him for years uses this as a chance to finally catch his man. Or is there something bigger than both of them that will bring them together?
Comments:
Drenched in blues, this film is a bit over stylized and thinks it is smarter than it actually is. It puts the tiniest twist on an overdone genre and truly adds nothing to the table besides good acting from McAvoy, Strong, Riseborough and the always fantastic Peter Mullan. Very forgettable.

Spoiler Alert:
Grade: C-

 

[Palooza]

79. Saving Mr Banks
Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, B.J. Novak, Annie Rose Buckley, Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, Kathy Baker, Melanie Paxson, Rachel Griffiths​

Director(s): John Lee Hancock
Writer(s): Kelly Marcel, Sue Smith
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: December 20th
RT Score: 80% (179 fresh, 44 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: PL Travers (Emma Thompson) is the cunt who wrote Mary Poppins. The always lovable Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) wants to make it into a movie. Mayhem ensues.
Comments:
I can't believe some people were playing this up as a serious Oscar contender. Besides Tom Hanks as Walt Disney and a few enjoyable side characters, this movie has very few redeeming qualities. The first problem lies in its "protagonist" a pain in the ass bitch who has absolutely no character arc throughout the movie, she is simply backed in to a corner and accepts the Disney proposal rather than actually changing. P.L. Travers is portrayed as a fucking wicked cunt who we learn about through flashbacks to her childhood and as to why Mary Poppins is so important to her. This is where we dive down a lonely road of cliche and melodrama. Colin Farrell is back to his overacting ways as her father, an alcoholic bank manager who is a great guy but can't lay off the bottle. He has a downward spiral that leads to the loss of his job and eventually his life and Travers is all like waaahh and turns into a stone cold bitch writer who uses the woman who came in to "help" them and her obnoxious emotions as a template for her book. Some singing and dancing from Bradley Whitford, BJ Novak and Jason Scwartzmann to convince her it is going to be a great adaptation is about 1/3 of the movie and the only entertaining part, but she just says no no no no to all their suggestions and shit until ONE DAY they connect with her. She still says piss off though and they need WALT DISNEY HIMSELF to convince her to OK the movie. OH and she's broke and that's the only reason why she says it's fine, not some bonding session with Walt MFn Disney.

Spoiler Alert: They make a movie.
Grade: C-

 

[Palooza]

78. Delivery Man
Vince Vaughn, Chris Pratt, Cobie Smulders, Andrzej Blumenfeld, Simon Delaney, Bobby Moynihan, Dave Patten, Adam Chanler-Berat, Britt Robertson, Jack Reynor, Madison McGrew, Jessica Williams​

Director(s): Ken Scott
Writer(s): Ken Scott (written by & based on his Canadian film ‘Starbuck’)
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: November 22nd
RT Score: 38% (51 fresh, 82 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: Regular old guy who sucks at money (Vince Vaughn) finds out the sperm bank he used to frequent has accidentally used his sperm 500+ times and the kids are suing the bank to find out his identity. ‘Random’ acts of kindness ensue
Comments:
Well, this wasn't the worst movie ever, like I had imagined. It is still pretty bad, though. Vince Vaughn plays Vince Vaughn as a sperm donor who, thanks to a mixup, is now the papa of a fuckton of kids. This forces him on a ridiculous quest from being a man-child to a MAN! He randomly stumbles on these kids and starts helping them event though his best friend and absolutely terrible lawyer (Chris Pratt) tells him not to. The movie takes an awkward shift into the serious about halfway through and never really recovers. One ridiculous plot point after another and lookey here, he's the leader of these kids and they love him! He'd be a great dad. Meanwhile, his girlfriend (Colbie Smulders) is a girl cop who has an irrational hate for sperm donation, especially when it is done by a deadbeat guy with money problems. Tonal shifts, obnoxious premise, poor character motivations - major problems with :glen:'s favorite movie of the year. Speaking of which, The Hunt has earned its own slot on this list, so at least there is some cause for celebration.

Spoiler Alert: Everything works out!
Grade: C-

 

[Palooza]

77. The Last Stand
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Forrest Whitaker, Johnny Knoxville, Jaimie Alexander, Luis Guzman, Eduardo Noriega, Rodridgo Santoro, Peter Stormare, Zach Gilford, Genesis Rodriguez, Harry Dean Stanton​

Director(s): Kim Jee-Woon
Writer(s): Andrew Knauer
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: January 18th
RT Score: 60% (91 fresh, 61 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: A ruthless murdering drug kingpin or sumshit races away from the cops to the Mexican border in a spiffed up whip. Former LAPD officer and now Sheriff at a border town in Texas (Arnie) must band his rag-tag group of police officers together to stop him and his crew.
Comments:
Lots of dumb fun in this one, pretty ridiculous and stupid but it's entertaining and never takes itself seriously. Arnie is Arnie, you know what you're getting with this. Nothing special but lots of fun. Bang bang pew pew.

Spoiler Alert:
Grade: C-

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Too low.

Watched that shit at 1am and dug every minute of mindless ridiculousness. I usually hate 'I'm too old for this shit' premises...but Arnie hit the notes here. One of the few 'I'm too old for this shit' type performances I can say I genuinely enjoyed.

I gave it a 6/10...which was good for Top 50 from me.

 

[Palooza]

76. Snitch
Dwayne Johnson, Barry Pepper, Benjamin Bratt, Susan Sarandon, Jon Bernthal, Michael Kenneth Williams, Melina Kanakaredes, Nadine Velazquez​

Director(s): Ric Roman Waugh
Writer(s): Ric Roman Waugh, Justin Haythe
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: February 22nd
RT Score: 56% (79 fresh, 61 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: After his son goes to prison for accepting a shipment of pills from his friend, a regular joe (Dwayne Johnson) takes the law into his own hands in order to save him.
Comments:
Supposedly the movie is based on a true story, but they Hollywood the shit out of it, erasing any sense of realism or believability almost instantly. Snitch is also incredibly uneven and poorly directed, trying its hardest to keep the movie from exploding into an action movie. Dwayne Johnson is fine, I guess and I don't particularly understand casting him if you're not going to turn this into a fun action movie. It takes itself way too seriously. It reminds me of Walking Tall in that it wants to be so much more than it really is. Unfortunately with Walking Tall, it falls on the opposite end of the bad spectrum in that it lets the action consume it, getting extremely sloppy. Snitch lets the drama consume it and Johnson isn't especially qualified to carry the movie. If the movie turns into Johnson's plight to get answers using violence and badass action, this could have worked. The director holding back on the fun almost completely drains the movie of any sort of entertainment, moving at a snails pace then jumping into quick thrills then back to the boredom. A thriller with little to no thrills. It needed something else. Anything else. Buzzman is famous for applauding this film and the METHOD ACTING BEARD of Barry Pepper and while I was quick to make fun of him, he's partially correct. Pepper is great in this and the film could have used somebody like him as the main character as opposed to the extremely likable, but rangeless Dwayne Johnson. Also, Benjamin Bratt as a villain, lol.

Spoiler Alert: Good guys win.
Grade: C-

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Snitch was terrible.

Was a bottom 10 film of the year for yours truly.

 

[Palooza]

75. The Company You Keep
Robert Redford, Shia LeBeouf, Julie Christie, Susan Sarandon, Jackie Evancho, Brendan Gleeson, Brit Marling, Anna Kendrick, Terence Howard, Richard Jenkins, Nick Nolte, Chris Cooper, Sam Elliot, Stephen Root, Stanley Tucci​

Director(s): Robert Redford
Writer(s): Lem Dobbs
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: April 5th
RT Score: 55% (61 fresh, 50 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: After a former Weather Underground member (Susan Sarandon) is arrested on charges of a 1980 bank robbery that ended in the death of a security guard, young reporter (Shia LeBeouf) investigates the story and looks for other members of the group.
Comments:
I realized Redford was the director sometime after I watched the movie and I thought to myself, "makes sense." This is a very typical Redford directed movie, in the same vein as Lions for Lambs and The Conspirator - a movie that revolves around a political message that finds itself getting way too mixed up in said message, sacrificing the story at hand. This is actually done in quite possibly every Redford movie. The only one that pulls it off is Quiz Show, but the rest are all mostly The Legend of Bagger Vance. The big problem (outside of every 'turn' being telegraphed) is the major casting. The supporting players are great even working with the thin characters that have been created. Redford and LeBeouf are mostly terrible. LeBeouf is the straight man working for the Albany Times (it's the Times Union, bitch.) who is just an absolute bore. Don't care about him in the least bit. Redford plays an equally as boring character giving life advice and exposition at every turn, adding very little as a character even though he is essential and central to the "plot." Also, anything that takes place in or around New York's Capital Region automatically gets points off from me, too, so there is some bias here. Brit Marling, along with the rest of the cast that I haven't mentioned are completely wasted.

Spoiler Alert: do the right thing.
Grade: C