The Artist

Within the first five minutes, I was sitting there with a giant grin on my face thinking, "THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER."

My only complaint is that I got a little tired of the main fella being depressed by the end of the film, but they redeemed themselves with a tap dance number. Good job, movie!

The Hunger Games

Unlike my fellow blogger, I actually liked this movie--I'd probably even pay to see it again, and it intrigued me into wanting to read the books (which I haven't read yet), so already its doing better than most things Hollywood is shelling out these days. I was entertained and not angry about editing or dialogue, and I quite enjoyed the performances from Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Woody Harrelson (who doesn't love Woody Harrelson?). However, I have to say that by far my favorite character was Seneca Crane/Wes Bentley's beard. That thing was fucking amazing.

The only part that I didn't like was the damn shaky camera, especially in the very beginning (pretty much everything that happens in District 12 before they get sent to The Capitol). Seriously, I had to look away from the screen several times because I felt dizzy. I don't know if it chilled out after that, or I just got used to it, but the remainder of the movie I was okay. Also, I want Jennifer Lawrence to be my new best friend, because she is freaking HILARIOUS in interviews.

21 Jump Street

This movie is surprisingly funny. It's too long by half, and the last chase scene is completely unnecessary, and neither of its leads is pleasant to look at, and it's way too bro-y/"bitches be stupid", but it has lots of genuinely hilarious moments and is fully aware of how absurd it is that it was ever made. Recommended!

The Anger Games

Yes, I read the book, and yes, I liked it, and yes, I was disappointed by the movie, and yes, I'm 38 years old and The Hunger Games was clearly not made for me. I get it. But I'm still mad, because in their slavering pursuit of idiot Twilight fans, whoever made this piece of junk really missed the opportunity to make a movie that appeals to everybody. Why wouldn't you do that? Even George Lucas managed to do that.

But Lady Blogpants, you're asking, if you are not in junior high school, why did you enjoy the book, which was written for kids in junior high school? Because it had a compelling story idea and was well-written. The movie had the same compelling idea, but failed because the story fell by the wayside. And also because of bad casting (Gale and Cinna--GIRL PLEASE), exposition of only the most obvious and least-needing-of-exposition plot points, shitty CGI (seriously, the "girl on fire" scene" looked like I did it in my computer animation class at ICDC College), failure to ground the story in any kind of dystopian reality, and goddamn SHAKY CAMERAS.

The horrible handheld camera work really got in the way of telling the story, to the point where you couldn't even see what was going on. That last fight scene was basically a Renoir painting. Why would you spend however many hundreds of millions of dollars costuming extras and creating complex sets if all you're going to show is a blurry half-second flash of it?

GET OFF MY GODDAMN LAWN, THE HUNGER GAMES!

Casa de mi Padre

I didn't see a single TV ad for Casa de mi Padre and had almost forgotten it was coming out. Then I read an article that said it was only being marketed to Latino audiences, which is pretty much the raddest thing I've ever heard, and also about the billionth reminder that I really need to be watching more Telemundo.

This movie is weird and awesome and you should probably go see it.

Dream House

Despite the fact that I don't get sick, I've been sick for two weeks. The only thing I want to do is lie on the couch and watch Alaska State Troopers, which has replaced old-timey Cops as the Best Show Ever. It's like Cops with moose. Every day I drag my tired, pathetic, croaky-voiced self to work and then just count down the minutes until I can be back home, lying on my peculiarly long couch watching Alaska State Troopers.

Today I was promised that a movie would be rented that was better than Alaska State Troopers, so I agreed to watch it. The movie was Dream House starring "I Guess I Should Have Read The Script Before I Agreed To This Shit" Daniel Craig. The movie was not better than Alaska State Troopers. It wasn't even better than Cops. I wish I could punch this movie in its weak-dialogued gimmicky-plot face.

John Carter

When I first saw the previews for this, I was like, "Meh." But then I got to talking to my Dad about it (who is to blame for my Sci-Fi love) and he started explaining the story to me and I got really interested--so we went to see it.

I actually quite liked it! The story was pretty solid; it had funny moments, the romantic parts weren't too gooey, it had a half naked hot guy doing cool things, and the most important part: THEY DIDN'T OVER DO THE SPECIAL EFFECTS OR FIGHT SCENES.

So often these days, filmmakers go way overboard with this 3D stuff and computer generated crap. It goes on for forever for absolutely no reason (I'm looking at you, pod race in Star Wars Episode 1, and also at you Davy Jones fight sequence over a swirling vortex of oceany death in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End). This movie didn't do that. The action/war bits weren't boring and drawn out, and they even cut to the fucking chase at one point by having the hero kill someone within seconds (when you thought you'd get stuck watching a fight scene). Well played, movie! Obviously there were special effects, and most of them were super great (especially the aliens). There were a couple of action moments where I could tell it was green-screen, but overall the special effects weren't crazy and ridiculous, which I appreciated.

The only bit I wasn't sure about was Taylor Kitsch's voice-over--it was pretty monotone. His actual on-screen performance wasn't as bad (though it may have been helped by the aforementioned half-nakedness.)