Category Archive

The best thing about Hancock may be the Bond trailer which precedes it.  Granted, I may be just a wee bit pumped up for Quantum of Solace.

Will Smith seems just about incapable of making bad movies.  Probably because he’s ridiculously awesome.  No, seriously.  Go back and watch some episodes of Fresh Prince.  The man is a genius.  In Hancock, we get to see a different sort of Will Smith character, trading drunken misanthropy for the usual wisecracks and winning smiles.  It is fascinating to see his darker side, and I, for one, am rooting for him to play the heavy at some point.

The movie was well-publicized as a sort of anti-(super) hero story.  Really, though, Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan’s script plays just like a superhero movie, only the reluctant hero is a little more blitzed than usual.  So I guess I didn’t find it particularly unique, in that regard.  Which is disappointing, because I think given the premise and the actors, it really could have better broken away from the superhero norms.

Is it just me, or does Jason Bateman seem destined to go down the career path of Greg Kinnear or Dennis Quaid?  Maybe it is just me.  He gets to be married to Charlize Theron in this movie.  He got to be married to Jennifer Garner in Juno.  Jason Bateman is a lucky man.  Both his and Theron’s characters needed a bit more to them.  I don’t want to ruin the few twists in the movie, but there are a few key moments when the movie could have done more to explore these non-Hancock characters.

Speaking of not ruining things, look out for the Friday Night Lights characters.  I won’t say who they are, but one is likely one of your favorite, and the other may well be one of your least favorite.

The film is enjoyable, it just doesn’t always seem to hit the marks it should.  There are several potentially poignant moments, but the film fails to deliver.  Instead, we are left with a relatively average superhero movie.  Which, hey, isn’t a bad thing.

Last year, I thought that the AFI finally realized that they ran out of ideas for their “100 Films” series of lists when they reprised the 100 Best Films on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of lists. That being the case, I foolishly forgot about the annual TV special that Jared and I have used for argumentative and gambling purposes in the past.

But last Tuesday, the AFI once again drew from their well of unoriginality and scrounged up 10 new lists of the best “genre” movies. Pigeonholing some of the great classics of the past century into just one of these categories is mystifying…how Field of Dreams gets thrown in with “Fantasy” and not “Sports”, as if they are mutually exclusive,  is just silly. Not to mention that the movie deserves a Top 5 All-Time Sports Movie designation and if you asked anyone who had seen Field of Dreams, I don’t know anyone who would call it a “fantasy.”

I’m getting distracted, however, onto the lists, in alphabetical order. One disclaimer: I will not claim to have seen all 100 selected films…but I’ll be passing judgment nonetheless.

Read the rest of this entry »

I believe I speak for all of us when I say that the Golden Grouches heart Laura Linney.  Last year, they all really liked The Savages, we all enjoyed Breach, and maybe I’m the only one brave enough to see The Nanny Diaries (the things I do for you, Scarlett).  But what’s she up to now?

The City of Your Final Destination: A grad student (Omar Metwally, from Munich and Rendition) wants to write a biography of a semi-obscure Latin American writer, and visits those (Laura Linney, Anthony Hopkins, Charlotte Gainsbourgh) who knew the man.  The film is directed by James Ivory, the first since the passing of Ismail Merchant.  It was written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who has written many Merchant Ivory films, and based off a Peter Cameron novel.  It seems to be in the can, and Wikipedia said it was geared for an April wide release (not a good sign), but there appears to be some litigation surrounding the movie.  First Anthony Hopkins sued, claiming he hadn’t been paid, and then someone sued claiming she’d invested money in the film without receiving a credit or her money back.  So, I’m not quite sure what to think.  Other than Laura Linney will undoubtedly be great in it.

The Other Man: A husband thinks his wife is cheating on him and starts looking for, um, the other man.  Not a particularly novel plot, but when the movie stars Laura Linney, Antonia Banderas, and Liam Neeson, well, that’s something.  Based on a short story by Bernhard Schlink the movie was directed by Richard Eyre (Notes on a Scandal, Iris) and written by Eyre and Charles Wood.  Charles Wood will be 78 this year.  Charles Wood co-wrote Help!.  Charles Wood is awesome.  The movie is currently slated to be released December 25, 2008.  So I’ve got some pretty high hopes.

Spread: Something about a womanizer and one of the girls he dumps.  The movie stars Ashton Kutcher (I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess he plays the womanizer) and Anne Heche.  Maria Conchita Alonso is in it, along with Linney.  The movie is apparently very raunchy.  The world definitely does not need a Kutcher-Linney sex scene.  Imdb says the movie is in post-production and due out in 2009.  I would not be terribly surprised if this went straight to DVD.

Kevin Approaches: This one may not actually be happening, as all the cast is listed as “rumored”.  But, the rumored cast includes: Robert Carlyle, Minnie Driver, Laura Linney, Guy Pearce, and Christopher Walken.  The New York Times summarizes thusly: “A loner ventures out to seek love in New York only to wind up with success in the art world.”  Weird.  In any case, I’m rooting for it to happen, because that’s a pretty awesome cast.

Ok, maybe this’ll be a regular feature, maybe not. I’m writing up my Forgetting Sarah Marshall review now, and I started writing about how excited I am for Kristen Bell’s upcoming movies, as listed on imdb. Writing and writing. So I decided to make it a separate post. The normal caveats apply about imdb’s often spotty description of movies in production, though I’ve tried to verify info as best I can.

Fanboys: (Official MySpace site) You may have read about how this movie has gone through Weinstein developmental hell. Script rewrites, major plot points edited out, release dates announced, pushed back, and removed, the director replaced and then brought back. Obviously, all of these things do not bode well for the movie. But when you have a movie about devoted Star Wars fans going to Skywalker Ranch to grab an advance copy of Phantom Menace, and a cast of not only Ms. Bell, but Jay Baruchel (Undeclared, Knocked Up, starring role in I’m Reed Fish (OK, maybe that one is just for me)), Chris Marquette (Eli from The Girl Next Door), Dan Fogler (Good Luck Chuck and Balls of Fury…um…he might be the exception here), Seth Rogen, Carrie Fisher, William Shatner, Danny Trejo, Christopher McDonald, and Billy Dee Williams, well, that’s a movie we deserve to get a chance to see.

Serious Moonlight: No, not the David Bowie tour. Serious Moonlight was written by Adrienne Shelly, and tragically, it likely is the last we’ll have from her. The Grouches weren’t too keen on Waitress, but that won’t dampen my enthusiasm for this movie, which doesn’t appear to have a release date, but is listed as in post-production. Cheryl Hines is making her feature film directorial debut. The movie is apparently about a woman (Meg Ryan) who ties her cheating husband (I assume Timothy Hutton here) to the toilet. Unfortunately, their house is then burglarized. I assume hilarity ensures. It is unclear what role Kristen Bell plays (the mistress, maybe?). And Justin Long is also in it (one of the burglars?). As a fan of each of these actors (Sue me.) I’ve got pretty high hopes for some sort of wacky comedy.

When in Rome: No, not the Olsen twins movie, and not the group who sang “The Promise” (second time I reference that song on this blog!). When in Rome, listed as filming, is a romcom about a girl (Kristen Bell), who goes to Rome for her sister’s wedding, grabs some coins out of a fountain, and apparently along with finding the male lead (Josh Duhamel), the coins also make several suitors relentlessly pursue Ms. Bell. Also in the cast, possibly as suitors, are: Will Arnett, Jon Heder, Danny DeVito, and Dax Shepard. Um, wow. I mean, yeah, I’d argue Josh Duhamel is the right choice there, but geez. Angelica Huston is in it as well. The film was written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson, who has a mixed resume. He wrote and directed Simon Birch, Daredevil, and Ghost Rider. He also wrote Grumpy Old Men and Jack Frost. David Diamond (The Family Man, Evolution), and David Weissman (same) co-wrote.

Finally, Antique. The movie is listed as in pre-production, and Bell is listed as rumored (here’s a site which confirms). Antique seems to be your standard indie ensemble film, to broadly generalize. Kristen Bell somehow befriends a homeless man who changes her life. Also in the movie: Anne Archer, Lolita Davidovich, Rachael Leigh Cook (wow, it has been almost a decade since She’s All That), and someone named Kevin Zegers, who was in Air Bud AND MVP: Most Valuable Primate. Oh, and that homeless man? William H. Macy! Sign me up. The movie was written and directed by Renji Philip, this appears to be his first full-length movie. The link given on imdb says that filming was supposed to happen in April 2007. In that article, the director compares the film to Magnolia and Crash (presumably without the sucking part).

In an article on Portfolio.com, Felix Salmon writes:

McKenzie did a fair amount of real-world research on the popcorn front, and his most important finding (as far as I’m concerned) is that if you’re in a cinema which gives you a choice between buying a medium bag of popcorn and a large tub of popcorn, there’s a greater-than-50% chance that the medium bag will actually contain more popcorn than the large tub.

He’s talking about Richard McKenzie’s book Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies, And Other Pricing Puzzles. Part of the reason for the disparity, apparently, is that many places allow free refills for the large popcorn. (Tip o’ the hat to Marginal Revolution).

Well, we’re five months into 2008 and no top ten lists for 2007 have appeared on Golden Grouches. I could say I was making sure to catch up on all the films I missed but, while that was indeed my intention, that would be a lie. I’ve had the same three DVD’s from Blockbuster for over a month now. I think we were all sort of done with movies after seeing so many in such a short period and then we entered the dead zone of spring where there was very little of quality released (though I have seen several excellent 2008 films, some of which may appear in my top 10 of 2008 due to be released sometime in 2012). Jared’s been doing his thing but the Oscar part of this Oscar blog has been dormant, understandably.

But not writing a damn thing for this column has meant that it’s been brewing in my ol’ mind grapes for many months. 2007 was a pretty terrific year for film. For our little Oscar project I really only saw a couple movies that I truly disliked; even the underwhelming ones like Atonement were still fairly good. It was a bad year for blockbusters, but the movies that were meant to be good were indeed usually very, very good. That said, it was a year heavy on the “very good” but light on the “brilliant.” Top-heavy but not tip-top-heavy. I can’t help but compare to 2006, the era of this site’s genesis and the start of the lunchroom and barstool conversations between the four of us. Overall quality was much higher in 2007 than 2006, but I don’t think anything came close to touching the best of 2006. I’m going to note some really great films but none beat out my fave five from 2006 of The Departed, United 93, Children of Men, Pan’s Labyrinth, and The Prestige. Several of those films I could even attach the M-word to: I recently re-watched Children of Men and realized I was watching a masterpiece.

2006 found its stride with some weighty films, such as the string of anti-fascist successes (Pan’s Labyrinth, Children of Men, Catch a Fire, V For Vendetta) but 2007’s Iraq/terrorism dramas tended to flop and instead it was a year with great light-hearted fare.

As of this writing I have seen 91 movies released in 2007. The top 11%:

1. Knocked Up. I’m a little surprised that my favorite movie as of June was still my favorite movie 6 months later, but I choose to view that as a testament to Knocked Up’s quality. It’s hilarious, it’s touching, it’s gross, it’s heart-warming. You can read my tome of a post to see my full thoughts, but suffice it to say I found a lot of truth amongst the pot jokes and some sharp points on maturity, commitment, and marriage. I truly cared about the characters and their relationships and I really dug Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd as Katherine Heigl’s sister and brother-in-law. It made me laugh and it made me smile. (Also, the pot jokes are funny.) Read the rest of this entry »

Click here to check out the 2008 Movie Awards Liveblog.

As I’ll mention over and over again (like I’m Nelly and Tim McGraw!), I think Philip K. Dick writes near-perfect stories. Really, M. Night Shyamalan writes like a poor man’s Philip K. Dick. Their stories have a similar structure, and tend to have a similar portrayal of reality. It is just that Philip K. tends to have sharper twists, and warmer stories. It also interesting to note the range of directors who have tried their hand at Philip K. Dick movies. Ridley Scott, Paul Verhoeven, Steven Spielberg, John Woo, and Richard Linklater have all directed adaptations. Their movies, along by those done by perhaps lesser lights, have achieved varying levels of success. Where “success” is naturally defined as how much I like a movie. Here’s how I’d rank them:

8. Next

I don’t what anyone says, Nic Cage is great. And Jessica Biel is quite lovely, if a tad overrated. But they have negative chemistry in this clunker of a movie. Uninteresting throughout the movie, the climax is totally unsatisfying. It does get some points for that cool scene with lots of Nicholas Cages. We’ll ignore the fact this was directed by a Bond director.

7. Blade Runner

I fell asleep five different times when attempting to watch this movie on three different occasions. And I tend to have trouble sleeping. There are certainly intriguing idea in the movie/story, but the film is horribly boring.

6. Screamers

It stars Peter Weller, so that’s a plus. If you squint really hard, you can kinda see some very vague outlines of the plot of Battlestar Galactica. But you’ll also see why Battlestar Galactica works as a series and wouldn’t as a movie. The plot is thin, and the twists are sadly telegraphed, due to lack of other options presented. To wit, the trailer gives away basically the entire movie. It does get marks for having an incredibly creepy kid.

5. A Scanner Darkly

I recently proffered my thoughts on this one. Again, the rotoscoping is rather amazing, but the story just isn’t as interesting as it should be. And The Twist doesn’t have the impact of a good Philip K. Dick twist.

4. Impostor

Released the first week of 2002, Impostor and Screamers may be the two little known movies on this list. It has a rather stellar cast which includes Gary Sinise, Madeleine Stowe, Mekhi Phifer, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Tony Shalhoub. And if you think a movie with the latter two isn’t worth watching, you haven’t been paying attention. While Impostor does have some of the flaws found in movies adapted from short stories, I think it does a good job capturing the feel of Philip K. Dick’s world. The alienation, the eternal question of what it means to be human. And the ending is pretty solid.

3. Minority Report

Minority Report is a really good movie. It has the best special effects of any Philip K. Dick film, but they are used to support an interesting story. The standard Philip K. Dick tropes of “What is reality?” and “Is there such a thing as too much technology” really shine through. The only knocks might be that it gets a bit saggy during its long run time, and it is maybe a little bit too glossy.

2. Paycheck

Ben Affleck gets a bum rap as an actor. There, I said it. And Paycheck is underappreciated. I might even argue it improved upon the short story. And, come on, Aaron Eckhart and Paul Giamatti! The plot is really interesting. Future you tells you to take these twelve tchotchkes and use them to save the world. We again see Dick’s warning of the danger of technology, but also his genius, as it applies to what would happen if we could know the future. And we get to puzzle out the riddle of each object.

1. Total Recall

Well, obviously. This competition was over before it started. Total Recall has a basically perfect blend of action, humor, campiness, commentary, sexiness, Philip K. Dickosity, and Schwarzenegger. I can’t hope to top I-Mockery’s post about it, though. Total Recall is just an amazing movie. And the ending will blow your mind.

I’m aiming to get a list of some sort up on Mondays. Since I’ve finally watched ten movies released this year, here’s my first top ten movies of the year list. I could see the argument that The Counterfeiters should count as last year because of the Oscars, but let’s face it, it shouldn’t. Also, I really loved Rambo. I can’t help but think that those who didn’t don’t understand the core of what an action movie should be. Or, at the very least, have wildly different expectations about actions movies than I do.

Broadly speaking, the first four belong in a tier, then the next four, then then last two.

1. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
2. Rambo
3. In Bruges
4. Iron Man
5. Run Fatboy Run
6. The Promotion
7. The Counterfeiters
8. How She Move
9. The Bank Job
10. 21

Presented without comment (to give the others their fair cracks at it), here are the summer blockbusters to which each of us is most looking forward:

Adam

• Dark Knight
• Indiana Jones 4
• Iron Man

Brian

• Indiana Jones 4
• Dark Knight
• Tropic Thunder

Jared

• Dark Knight
• Mamma Mia!
• Pineapple Express

John

• Wall-E
• Indiana Jones 4
• Tropic Thunder

It is little late and I really hope no one will make a decision whether or not to see Iron Man based on my thoughts. But on the off chance, since I just came back from a 11 pm showing (and learned walking up 14th street at 1:30 in the morning is pretty safe) thanks to free tickets Gavin won on the radio (thanks Gavin!): it is a really solid movie. I’ll think about posting more later, but Robert Downey, Jr. and Jeff Bridges are pretty fantastic, and the movie is just all-around rock solid. Great special effects, and a decent story. I do recommend it.

AND PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD STAY FOR THE END OF THE CREDITS!!!

Movie: The Dogs of War

Released: 1981

Stars: Christopher Walken, Tom Berenger

Reason for Watching: Um, it is entirely possible a former co-worker recommended it.

I Can Name This Movie In One Note: Standard mercenary/paramilitary flick.

You Should See This Movie Because: Christopher Walken as the leader of a paramilitary group. ‘Nuff said. Also, check out Ed O’Neill (aka Al Bundy) in one of his first roles. There is one incredibly badass gun. Possibly top ten movie gun.

You Shouldn’t See This Movie Because: It is kinda boring. Sparse, linear plot (save for like two barely there subplots) that’s rarely rewarding or intriguing. And not enough action scenes.

Bottom Line: If you need a Walken movie you haven’t seen, then sure, otherwise you could probably pass.

Oh Adam.  I’ll give you that your response was lucid and well-written.  Perhaps there’s some sixth-grader somewhere that you’d be able to convince with those arguments.

Let’s skip past the first three points, I think we both agree that Michael Bay movies have made money and aren’t critically reviled.  Anything else is nothing more than a supporting cog in either of our arguments.

Actors and actresses do pass up big budget movies all the time.  Like anyone else, they jump at the chance to make money, but I’m sure they have options other than Michael Bay movies in which to do so.  I still think there is compelling evidence that something other than money is driving them to his movies.  Also, yes, it isn’t hard to cast a hot actress in a movie.   So why doesn’t it happen more often?  How often do you wish the female lead were just a little more attractive?  And how often has that happened in a Michael Bay movie?

But let’s get back to my “semi-valid” points.  I’m glad you were big enough to concede them.  Perhaps the best way to frame my argument is: Imagine someone else directing a Michael Bay movie.  Do you think that would make for a better movie?

We both agree that directors’ roles are often overrated, that scriptwriters and producers generally play pretty important roles in movies.   But can you really think of people you’d rather have helming the type of movies Michael Bay does?  I grant that he specializes in a subgenre of action.  But not so specific that there aren’t plenty of movies aspiring to be Michael Bay movies.  If you were a producer looking to make a movie from an action script you have the rights to, are you honestly telling me Michael Bay wouldn’t be one of the first directors you’d try to get?  To me, Michael Bay excels at directing action movies.  Sure, you might not like all of his movies.  I’d disagree with that sentiment, but you have a right to be wrong.  But I’d wager you don’t really think the problem with the movies was Michael Bay.  You probably didn’t like the script.  I don’t care how great the director is, if they are working from a poor script, the movie is going to be bad.

I could go on, but let’s start there.  Would you really have picked other people to direct the movies Michael Bay has?

Jared. Jared. Jared. How are you wrong? Let me count the ways.

First, since we’re talking about how “great” Michael Bay is, I think it would be prudent to actually define the word great. Dictonary.com defines great (as it relates to people) as “of extraordinary powers; having unusual merit; very admirable.” Let’s see if Mr. Bay can measure up.

Read the rest of this entry »

I do not hide the fact that I heart Michael Bay. Adam, though incredibly rational when it comes to just about everything else, is terribly misguided in his dislike of Mr. Bay. Naturally, I suggested we take this to the blog.

Adam,

Michael Bay is great. The sooner I can convince you of that, the sooner we can move on to more important things. Since for some reason you won’t take my word, it is my duty as an American to change your mind. There are many reasons why Michael Bay is so great, I’ll paint some broad strokes to describe them. If for some reason you aren’t sold, I’d be happy to clarify.

Michael Bay connect with the people. Here’s a list of the takes of his movies. His movies have universally raked in money. Bad Boys (his first) is the under $100 million domestically, but that one was obviously profitable, plus it took it another $75 million overseas. The Island tanked hard (yes, I was there in theaters), but it grabbed over $125 million in foreign lands. Which is what imdb estimates was the budget for the movie, so it is hard to call it a flop, per se, though clearly it wasn’t a moneymaker like the rest of his movies. Still, 6 for 7 ain’t bad. In fact, he ranks 11th all time among directors in combined domestic total gross, (his movies have grossed over a billion dollars!) with most of the directors ahead of him directing more movies and helming heavy-hitting franchises.

Read the rest of this entry »

And that’s a strong current considering the crap filling the multiplexes this spring.

The Oscars may be over but Golden Grouches will keep going strong! Well, maybe not as strong as before, but sort of strong. Like a guy who doesn’t really work out but does enough physical activity that his muscles are still kind of toned, y’know?

We’ll continue to add reviews for the films we didn’t get a chance to write about before the Oscars. I know I find it much harder to write about movies I admire so there are some biggies that I never got around to posting about. Also look out for our year-end wrap ups (in March, natch) which will probably take the form of top ten lists.

Depending on our industriousness, we may start to look at some of the films that got passed over last year, from the indie darlings (Control, Margot at the Wedding), to the critically-acclaimed box office bombs (Things We Lost in the Fire), to the early buzz films that turned out to be stinkers (Reservation Road). As last year’s films pass on to DVD, we’re sure to get some readers looking for an understanding of the No Country for Old Men ending or an explanation of what the hell those horses meant in Michael Clayton. And perhaps some wondering if Edith Piaf has a rice dish named after her.

We’ll continue to share with you any great films we see throughout the year. Remember, 2007 major category nominees Ratatouille, Away From Her, and La Vie en Rose were all released in the first half of the year. And we have a couple neat ideas for occasional features that may pop up here and there. Also look out for a reorganization of the site and tags so that Starting Out in the Evening link isn’t cluttering up the front page for years to come.

And come October we’ll be back into it full-swing. We thank you all for reading. This site’s traffic, modest as it may be, is much more than we ever expected. We hope you’ll continue to check in even as multiplexes are full of comic book heroes and sex comedies.

Watching all the movies nominated for the big eight Oscar categories was…well…fun.  That’s why we did it, right?  Either that, or I’ve just said that so many times I’ve managed to convince myself.  While the highlight of the experience may have been watching There Will Be Blood with Dick Cheney (yes, really), lots of fun stuff happening along the way.  Here’s a few (and apologies to anything I missed):

•  Finally getting this thing off the ground.  The early movies (e.g. American Gangster, Eastern Promises) didn’t quite live up to all their Oscar buzz.  They were also the only movies we saw with Adam…heck, they were the last time we saw Adam until the Oscars.
• Showing up like two hours early for the free Juno screening.  Where we got a free bright orange shirt reading “Paulie Bleeker is Totally Boss”.  And I still don’t understand why that was on the shirt.  We saw a high school math teacher there.  I had a conversation with another theater patron about Fracture (I didn’t like it, she loved it), which was a movie I never expected to discuss with anyone.  Brian, John, Gavin, and I all saw a poster for, and discussed how little we wanted to see…
• The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.  It could be argued that, for me, this movie validated the whole enterprise.  Because I otherwise never would have seen a movie I so thoroughly enjoyed (to a lesser extent the same goes for A Mighty Heart).  While sitting in the front row because the movie sold out (forcing John and Dorothy to go see The Bucket List).
• Bearing witness to perhaps the most perfect group of karaokers ever in some dive bar near the Arlington Drafthouse.  Only to find that they weren’t going to show the movie due to…the manager wanting to go home.
• Finally seeing that movie, Lars and the Real Girl, and realizing (through the billowing smoke of the person in front of me who was apparently so happy to smoke in a theater he was going through an entire pack at a time) that it would be My Movie for the year.
• Seeing I’m Not There at the Avalon, which I had passed by over 300 times without ever seeing a movie.  Granted, it wasn’t always open for business the whole time.
• Seeing The Counterfeiters at the National Geographic Society with free beer, fruit, cheese and crackers, brownies, and cookies.
• That moment after The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford when I realized, “Wow.  It is over.”
• Watching the Oscars and being able to talk intelligently (well, ok, I won’t make the joke) about the movies nominated.
• Doing this all with my fellow Grouches.  Believe me, a huge reason this all was so much fun was being able to see and talk about these movies with you guys.  And the all-too-rare occasions where I could make fun of you for liking stupid movies.  Many thanks, and here’s to another great year.  We’re hoping we can keep things going until next Oscar season starts heating up.

80th Oscars liveblog

Red Carpet Liveblog

Our penultimate lists find a little change from last time around. It cracks me up a little bit that the three other Grouches all have The Savages, yet Adam has savagely ridiculed John for having Hairspray on there, Brian for having A Mighty Heart. That’s why I pick movies Adam hasn’t seen. Other than that, I think the Grouches have still tended to find the relatively less weighty movies more appealing, at least in terms of the best of the crop. There’s a decent amount of overlap, with Superbad being in all four of lists, The Savages in three, Juno in three, Knocked Up in two, and No Country for Old Men in two. We’ll have a final roundup in a few weeks.

John:

Knocked Up
Juno
Superbad
Hairspray
The Savages

Adam:

Juno
Mr. Brooks
Superbad
The Savages
No Country for Old Men

Brian:

Superbad
The Savages
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
A Mighty Heart

Jared:

Juno
Knocked Up
Superbad
Lars and the Real Girl
Starter for Ten

(NOTE: Adam wishes to designate Sweeney Todd and Michael Clayton as Honorable Mentions. For me, Knocked Up was the last to make the list, I’ve graded it the same as Charlie Wilson’s War and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, so on a different night, after a different 20 minutes of deliberation, my list could have been slightly different.)

Below are the Grouches’ picks for the Golden Globes. I’ll be updating this in real time. I’m having trouble getting the embedding code to work, so in the meantime, here’s a link: Golden Globes Picks

Once again, here are our favorite movies of 2007, so far.  Since we all have such busy social lives, our goal has always been to see the year’s top movies (or at least those perceived as such by the critical community) by the time the Oscars roll around.  Meaning the lists below aren’t necessarily complete.  And we also haven’t seen all the same movies yet.  Meaning that too much analysis on our lists probably isn’t helpful.  It is interesting to note, though, that our tastes aren’t as different as we might like to think.  And that we seem to hold this year’s comedies (especially if you throw in dramedies)  in particularly high regard. Read the rest of this entry »

Every so often we’ll post our top five favorite movies of the year, so far.  We all still have a bunch of Oscar-type movies left to see, so we expect these lists to change a number of times in the weeks leading up to the Academy Awards.  We also all have Netflix or Blockbuster queues, so we’ve seen or will be seeing a goodly number of movies from earlier in the year.

It is a bit early in the process to offer much in the way of commentary, I think.  It is worth noting that Superbad found its way into all of our top five lists, though.  If we can all agree on the movie, it must have done something right.

(in reverse alphabetical order, because that’s how I roll)

John:

Superbad
Mr. Brooks
Knocked Up
Juno
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Jared:

Superbad
Starter for Ten
Knocked Up
Juno
Hot Fuzz

Brian:

Superbad
No End in Sight
No Country for Old Men
Hairspray
The Bourne Ultimatum

Adam:

Superbad
No Country for Old Men
Mr. Brooks
Michael Clayton
Knocked Up

We’ll be putting up our thoughts on some more movies shortly, but since we’re in a bit of a lull, a quick factoid. I heart Jessica Alba more than the next person (meaning not only is Idle Hands one of my favorite movies (what, doesn’t everyone own it on VHS with Spanish subtitles?) but I’ve seen Paranoid and The Sleeping Dictionary). But she’s been in four movies released this year (not counting Bill, which was only in a couple of film festivals), and their Rotten Tomatoes ratings combine to….91%! Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (36%), The Ten (39%), Good Luck Chuck (4%), and Awake (12%)