Another year.
Another couple kilos on a frame that doesn’t need them.
Another dent in the couch.
Another 287 films reviewed.
Welcome to the third annual oneguyrambling.com Ratings Summary for the 2011/2012 year.
Using my average of 95 minutes per flick let’s go through the raw numbers.
287 X ~95 = 27,265 minutes = ~450 hours… = 19 full days watching movies.
So again let’s look at the quality versus trash ratio to ascertain how many of those 19 days were worth the expansion in my waistline. As always I consider:
- Anything less than a 6 / 10 is wasted time.
- A 6 / 10 or 6.5 / 10 needs at least one redeeming feature to justify the time, but such a score will rarely warrant rewatching the film.
- A score of 7 / 10 + will generally make the film worthwhile and often worth watching again down the track, or buying the DVD depending on the actual score.
This was 2011/2012…
Wasted time
Either I am getting harder in my scoring methodology or I am selecting my films less carefully. Last year I blew time watching 60 shitty flicks, this year I watched less film overall but a startling 75 of them were god-awful.
This year 5 days from the 365 allotted were blown watching dross like Iron Sky, Shark Night and the immortal Don’t be a Menace to South Central while drinking your Juice in the Hood!
The worst time thieves in the past 12 months were at opposing ends of the spectrum. I don’t think anyone anticipated the 80s T&A pioneer Hardbodies to hold up well to scrutiny three decades on, especially now that the nudity bar is set so low that every reality show and TV ad relies on anything up to actual insertion. But The Woman somehow thinks it is better than it is, and for some reason that I will remain blissfully ignorant of critics kinda seemed to like it.
I didn’t. The Woman was atrocious, Hardbodies might have been an inferior product but I hated The Woman more than anything else over the year this side of Real Steel. More on that later.
In other news I checked out some so called classics and was greatly underwhelmed. Wild, Wild West, Pluto Nash, Children of the Corn and Judge Dredd all blew goats, and in more recent releases Bad Teacher, Sleeping Beauty and Ghost Rider 2 all sucked arse. You can decide for yourself which category you’d rather be in.
The Fincher helmed remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo riled me not because of its ineptness, just due to the sheer unnecessariness of it all. It smacks of arrogance and I can’t help but think we’ll get two more sequels we don’t need.
So it was between Bad teacher and Real Steel as to which was the big budget disappointment for the year. Real Steel won thanks to its abysmal character arc that had neglectful and abusive dad Hugh Jackman doing a 180 degree turn in the span of about four minutes after his sons gambling robot made him rich.
Feel good hit of the year how?
And the only reason I haven’t mentioned Red State here is that Kevin Smith is now expected to make crap.
Last year I couldn’t retract my “Don’t Bother Watching” recommendations for any of the 60 sub-par titles, ditto this year – though the Jim Carrey misfire Number 23 is an adorably confusing mess.
Killing time
During the past few months I have redubbed films that garnered a 6 or 6.5 from 10 as ‘The Grey Area’, not because they feature Liam Neeson fleeing snarling wolves, but because I can see how on a different day in different circumstances someone might well derive an element of viewing pleasure from them – even justifying them as Worthwhile instead of merely ‘meh’.
Whether it was the day that I had, the mood I was in or just the fact that the film wasn’t that good, in 2011/2012 I watched 98 films that managed to amuse me momentarily without leaving an impression. Another worrying sign of my misspent leisure time is that the sum of the Wasted Time and Killing Time is over 60% of my movie watching expenditure.
That has to be poor time management.
Last year I named 5 films I might revisit: Inglourious Basterds, Ninja Assassin, Year One, Frontier(s) and From Hell. The only one that I checked out again was Basterds, and I didn’t alter my opinion one bit.
So separating into four broad categories:
Skin: Colombiana, Middle Men, Notorious Bettie Page, So Close, Rise: Blood Hunter, Bikini Summer
Dumb action: Assassins, Cobra, Contraband, Drop Zone, The Transporter, Underworld, Haywire
Harmless entertainment: The Mummy, Priest, Harold and Kumar, Eight Legged Freaks
So-so horror: Attack the Block, Audition, Creepshow, Apollo 18, Don’t be afraid of the Dark
So-so blockbusters: Green Lantern, Green Hornet, Journey 2 the Mysterious Island, The Adjustment Bureau, Cowboys and Aliens, Wrath of the Titans, Chronicle, John Carter
I will inevitably check out Attack the Block – I bought the DVD online – Balls of Fury and Eight Legged Freaks are both silly but kinda fun, my 5 year old will mean I see Cars 2 again, and John Carter, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Thing remake might warrant another look at some point.
And I stand by my assertion that Underworld 4 is the best of the Underworld series (still not that good though).
Time well spent
With a disturbing 60% wastage rate, my 40% – or just on a week of actual time – came and went, with no 10 out of 10s to cap them off.
Last year I wrote that while I am happy to buy DVD/Blu-Rays of films I will rewatch, I generally don’t buy dramas. I cited Winter’s Bone, The Constant Gardener and Gone Baby, Gone as examples. Funnily enough all three now sit cosily in my collection thanks to JB Hi-Fi sales.
I stated my intent to buy Let the Right One In, Machete, Piranha 3, Scott Pilgrim Vs the World and the old classic Big Trouble in Little China and I am pleased to say that I have been 100% successful. I also put Rango and Unstoppable as ‘maybe’s’ and grabbed them both too…
It’s a little more iffy this year. I have purchased Tintin and The Muppets already, but it’s thin on the ground from there. I will probably end up with The Avengers and can’t wait for The Raid: Redemption, but after that it starts looking maybe-ish. As in ‘maybe’ I’ll get Sherlock Holmes, ‘maybe’ Warrior, ‘maybe’ The Grey will be on sale and catch me feeling indulgent.
But that’s about it. Thin on the ground this year.
Time very well spent
Last year I watched 41 GREAT flicks, granted many were from my own collection, but that doesn’t excuse an entire year in which I only saw 14 GREAT films, I mean who can’t manage to find time for a little over one awesome film a month?
In any case only two were actually released in the last 12 months, The Adventures of Tintin and The Raid: Redemption. One a classic rollicking romp to please all ages and the other a callback to the golden era of Jackie Chan a martial arts masterpieces.
With The Dark Knight Rises a’coming and Adam Sandler in ‘That’s my Boy’ hopefully we won’t have too long to wait until the next GREAT film…
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Last year I decided to be more severe with my ratings on mediocre films, a decision I have since maintained in my reviews.
In my view being merely average isn’t good enough, I demand more, so a 7 is the magic divider between worthwhile and… not.
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Greater than 0/10 less than 6/10 –
“Dear Film-maker, whatever you were trying to achieve, you fucked up.”
3 / 10
Hardbodies
The Woman
X-Tro
3.5 / 10
The Adventures of Pluto Nash
Crossworlds
Mask of the Ninja
Ninjas Vs Vampires
Wild Wild West
4 / 10
Bad Teacher
Changing Lanes
Clive Barker’s The Plague
Fled
Hobo with a Shotgun
London
Punisher: War Zone
Red Canyon
Shark Night
Sleeping Beauty
Undead or Alive
4.5 / 10
Backtrack / Catchfire
Beverly Hills Cop 3
Children of the Corn
Disclosure
The Divide
End of Days
The Grudge 2
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
Little Deaths
Outbreak
Real Steel
Red Riding Hood
Romeo Must Die
The Ward
5 / 10
Black Mask
Bridesmaids
Cradle 2 the Grave
DOA: Dead or Alive
Escape from L.A.
Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US)
The Grudge 3
Iron Sky
The Man with the Screaming Brain
Number 23
Osmosis Jones
The Specialist
Tekken
30 Minutes or Less
A Vampire in Brooklyn
V for Vendetta
Village of the Damned
5.5 / 10
Aeon Flux
The Amityville Horror (2005)
Babylon A.D.
Boogie
Broken Arrow
Bubba Ho-Tep
The Cave
Collateral Damage
The Devil Inside
Devil’s Playground
Don’t be a Menace to South Central while drinking your Juice in the Hood
Fear City
Howling Reborn
John Carpenter’s Vampires
Judge Dredd
The Killer Inside Me
Mars Attacks
The One
Our Idiot Brother
Poison Ivy
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead
Red State
The Signal
Streets of Fire
War of the Dead
6.0/10 – “OK, so you made a movie, do you want a medal?”
6 / 10
The Adjustment Bureau
Anaconda
Apollo 18
The Assassin
Assassins
Audition
Bachelor Party
Bolt
The Burrowers
Cobra
Colombiana
Contraband
Cowboys & Aliens
CreepShow
The Distinguished Gentleman
Don’t be Afraid of the Dark
Drop Zone
Give ‘Em Hell Malone
Green Hornet
Green Lantern
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Hell comes to Frogtown
Idiot Box
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
Keeping the Faith
The King of Comedy
Max Payne
Metro
Middle Men
Mo’ Better Blues
The Money Pit
Monsters
The Mummy
Munich
My Name is Bruce
Needful Things
The Notorious Bettie Page
The Quick and the Dead
Puss in Boots
Rise: Blood Hunter
So Close
Takers
Tango and Cash
Tower Heist
The Transporter
Transporter 3
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
Young Adult
6.3/10 – “For some reason I thought Wrath of the Titans was better than the first, but still not worth a 6.5.”
6.3 / 10
Wrath of the Titans
6.5/10 – “Not that crash hot but with one memorable or cool scene. EG: ‘At least it had boobies’.”
6.5 / 10
Attack the Block
Balls of Fury
Bikini Summer
Bunraku
Cars 2
Chronicle
Clerks 2
Death Sentence
Deep Blue Sea
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
Eight Legged Freaks
Eraser
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Grosse Pointe Blank
The Grudge
Hanna
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Haywire
A History of Violence
Hitman
Horrible Bosses
House Party
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Ichi the Killer
Immortals
The Island
I-Spy
The Italian Job
John Carter
Julia’s Eyes
Killer Elite
Mimic
The Mummy Returns
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
The Muppets take Manhattan
Once upon a time in China
The People Under the Stairs
The Planet of the Apes
Priest
Rambo 3
Red Planet
Ricochet
The Siege
The Thing
The Tournament
Transporter 2
Underworld: Awakening
Victory
Wedlock
7.0/10 – “Worth watching, let’s see what you do next.”
7 / 10
Action Jackson
Alien: Resurrection
American Movie
Beowulf
The Big Hit
Captain America: The First Avenger
Closer
Conan the Barbarian
Disorganised Crime
The Eagle
Fast Five
Fright Night 2011
The Grey
The Guard
Halloween
House
The Inbetweeners Movie
The Innkeepers
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Kill List
Ladyhawke
The Mist
The Muppet Movie
Nighthawks
A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984
Payback
Paranormal Activity 3
Pump up the Volume
Rambo: First Blood Part 2
Rambo 4
Ravenous
Red Riding: In the Year of our Lord 1980
The Revenant
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Rock ‘N’ Rolla
Role Models
Running Scared
Safe
Split Second
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Traitor
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
The Wraith
7.5/10 – “It was OK, definitely worth a look.”
7.5 / 10
48 Hours
Another 48 Hours
Appaloosa
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Bedevilled
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Clerks
Contagion
Daylight
The Dead
The Devil’s Backbone
Dog Soldiers
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Fallen
A Fish called Wanda
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Gremlins
Hugo
Inside Man
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Malcolm
Margin Call
The Matador
The Muppets (2011)
Naked
New Jack City
Parenthood
Perfume
The Pirates: Band of Misfits
Prometheus
Red Riding: In the Year of our Lord 1974
Red Riding: In the Year of our Lord 1983
Rush
Shoot ‘Em Up
The Skeleton Key
8.0/10 “This is better.”
8 / 10
Alien 3
Beverly Hills Cop 2
Blind Fury
Dark City
First Blood
Ghost Town
The Great Muppet Caper
Hard Candy
Heat
In Bruges
JSA
Jurassic Park
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Marvel’s The Avengers
Moneyball
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Sin City
Swingers
True Romance
Unbreakable
Warrior
8.5/10 – “Now this is what I’m talking about.”
8.5 / 10
The Adventures of Tintin
Being John Malkovich
Beverly Hills Cop
Bowfinger
Do the Right Thing
Good Will Hunting
The Killer
The Raid: Redemption
Sleepy Hollow
Spartan
9.0/10 – “It’ll be hard for you to top this one.”
9 / 10
Blood Diamond
The Exorcist
The Professional
Reservoir Dogs
The Silence of the Lambs
9.5/10 “Absolutely lurrrrrve your work Sir (or Madam).”
Unbelievably enough none this year.
10/10 “Undeniable awesomeness. Perfection.”
Pulp Fiction
And there we have another year in OGR. Until 12 months time…