JANUARY: From stammering royalty to gangsters in love

9. The King's Speech: Wonderful film. Cast are uniformly excellent and yet Colin Firth still stands out. It's such a great story and practically defines 'heartwarming'. I was smiling all over my face by the end, despite a few tears in my eyes. Highly recommended. **** new

 

10. A Perfect Getaway: This is the third time I've seen this - the first two times in the cinema because I wanted to rewatch with the knowledge of the twisteriffic perspective shift. It still stands up for me, even when I know the ending. Great script, funny, scary, actiony, romantic! Good performances from all. Particulary enjoy watching Timothy Olyphant and his Perfect Posture. And Thor/Papa Kirk has a small but significant role. A minor gem. ****

JANUARY: From manly tomb raiding to Nic Cage disappointingly failing to lose his shit

January was a busy month for movies - largely because I spent most of the new year's portion of my holidays lying on a couch absorbing movies rather than going outside. Outside was icy, snowy and did not have movies. No feckin' contest.

1. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life: Yes, I saw it before. Yes, I knew it was going to suck. Yes, I watched it purely for His Manliness, Gerard Butler. Yes, I am a girl. Shut up. **

2. The Horse Whisperer: Enjoyable in a sort of forgettable way. I didn't emotionally connect to it much. I'm possibly the wrong age group. *** new

"You don't want to be in love! You want to be in love in a movie!"

I love movies. LOVE. I'm using the word 'love' here, about movies.

So this year, one of my New Year's Resolutions was to watch more movies. I'm watching them, listing them and rating them. And broadening my horizons as I go, not just reaching for my confortable old favourites all the time. So far, it's been great!

I've watched something like 85 movies this year already and maybe 35 of them were films I had never seen before. Many of the films I've watched have been mediocre - only two have received five starred perfection (The Dark Knight, which I'd obviously seen in the cinema when it first came out and The Killing Fields which I'd managed to avoid for years because it's sounded like such a downer. It is, but God, it's incredible) but three received one star (The Covenant, Season of the Witch and Your Highness. Your Highness was the worst; at least I enjoyed the crappiness of the other two.) But there are plenty of enjoyable, great or awesome movies in there too, from a broad range of genres and eras.

The rules for this resolution/challenge/thing are pretty simple: Watch movies. It doesn't count if you miss more than 15 minutes of a film, even if you've seen it before. Add them to the list and give it a rating as soon as possible after seeing the film. Note if film is 'new' i.e. you haven't seen it before. 

The star ratings pretty much speak for themselves. I'm really more concerned about how I felt about a film rather than trying to break it down too much. I also bear in mind the film's own intentions - I don't think that you can judge all films on the same criteria. The vague descriptors for each star rating are as follows:-

***** Perfection

****  Awesome

***    Enjoyable

**      Not very good

*        Utter shite

This movie experiment was made possible by Cineworld Unlimited Card, Screenclick and the awesome power of the internet.

APRIL (34 watched in total)

1. Post Grad new **
2. Pitch Black ****
3. The Lincoln Lawyer *** new
4. The Killing Fields ***** new
5. The Third Man ****
6. Wedding Crashers ***
7. Sin City ***
8. Friday Night Lights **** new
9. The Eagle *** new
10. The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935) ****
11. Red Riding Hood *** new
12. Source Code **** new
13. Scream 4 *** new
14. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ****
15. Your Highness * new
16. Sucker Punch *** new
17. Where Angels Fear To Tread *** new
18. Carrie ****
19. Some Kind of Wonderful *** new
20. The Notebook ****
21. The Long Hot Summer ****
22. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ***
23. The Other Guys ***
24. Ten Inch Hero *** new
25. The Crazies *** new
26. Back to the Future ****
27. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ***
28. Fight Club ****
29. Ask Any Girl ***
30. Ghostbusters ****
31. The Patriot ***
32. The Fast and the Furious ****
33. The Devil Wears Prada ***
34. Amélie ****

MARCH (15 watched in total)

1. Watchmen ****
2. The Adjustment Bureau ****new
3. No Strings Attached ** new
4. Drive Angry in 3D *** new
5. Wolverine ***
6. Unknown ***new
7. I am Number Four ***
8. Old School ****
9. The Iron Giant ****
10. Tropic Thunder ***
11. Ten Things I Hate About You ****
12. The Covenant * new
13. Street Kings *** new
14. Catch & Release ** new
15. The Village ****

FEBRUARY (total of 11 movies watched)

1. The Matrix ****
2. The Fighter **** new
3. Black Swan **** new
4. Tangled **** new
5. 127 Hours **** new
6. True Grit **** new
7. Toy Story 2 ****
8. Paul *** new
9. Stop-Loss *** new
10. I am Number Four *** new
11. The Rite *** new