Film Journal 2012 - December

Well, well I made it a whole year.  That's right I began this here film journal in January and well it's January so what do you know?  Sure I've done the film journal thing four years, but not since 2009.  Insert generic apology for not posting the month of December earlier, but many of you were probably on vacation and well blah, here it is.

This is the first blog entry I'm typing on Microsoft word, so if this gets delayed even further because I punched a whole in the laptop I'm using that's the reason.  It's already pissing me off as we speak, but I guess I have to get with the times?  

Trying to get used to that whole automatically double spacing after I hit the enter key even though I thought I turned all that crap off, oh well.

How about the movies?

Well the point of December is usually to catch up on the end of the year best picture contenders, wrap up a top ten list and spend most of January watching all those movies you put off from year's past.  Well priority number one is still my top 100 so this December I revisited a lot of films.  In fact there were only three films I saw all month that were first time viewings, all of which happened to be 2012 releases.

I should probably explain why the fuck I watched Wrong Turn 5.  I meant to do a companion blog to Django Unchained essentially entitled the worst film I saw in 2012.  You see years ago my girlfriend's grandmother rented Black Christmas on accident thinking it was a regular Christmas movie, not a slasher film.  So the whole family sat down and watched it sparking a new holiday tradition.  So every Christmas Eve their family watches some god awful horror movie, with the emphasis on awful.

Somewhere between leaving my cousin's house and arriving at my girlfriend's parents house I got really, really, really sick.  I spent the majority of the next 48-72 shaking while wrapped in blanket alternating between being freezing and sweating.  No idea what my fever was, and I called in sick to work for the first time ever, so long story short it was bad.  Now with this wonderful holiday cheer running through me I watched Wrong Turn 5.  It would make a decent drinking game for every time those weird creature things cackled, every time that old dude laughed like a creepy villain, and especially everytime you questioned the logic of the film.

This was easily the worst film I've seen in awhile, and more than makes up for last month's lack of a worst film of the month.  Mercifully it also spared Spielberg's Lincoln which might have been the overly sentimental snore fest of the year, but looks like The Godfather compared to Wrong Turn 5.

You may be wondering when the fuck they made Wrong Turn 2-4, and I can't tell you, look it up.  This straight to DVD shit bomb apparently features some deranged redneck backwoods creatures and a guy who repeatedly gets away with it because he "doesn't leave anything behind"?  For some reason this is one of those really bad horror movies like the worst of the Friday the 13th series where no one gives a shit about anyone in the film, and just waits for random horny teenagers (or in this case 20-somethings) to get killed.  The dialogue and every scene involving these tards is spent making us say "I can't wait to see what intricate and overly involved torture porn they're going to come up with for this character".  

Along the way the freaks or whatever the fuck they are get stabbed, and two of them get shot.  Their wounds are never bandaged, I mean the main guy gets shot in the chest with a fucking shot gun.  Let me repeat that he is shot in the chest with a shotgun.  Does he put a field dressing on it? Nope.  Does he bleed to death in the corner?  Nope.  Does the actor even bother to act hurt when devising the final bit of torture for the unrealistically hot sherrif of the town?  Nope.  He simply walks on out and acts like "oh this, shit that's just a shotgun wound, only pussies get hurt by that."  

Anyways I'm getting angry just remembering how horrible the film is, so do me a favor and thank yourself later, if you were thinking of watching Wrong Turn 5, don't read my blog.  Stop reading this right now, you don't deserve to read anything about good film.  In fact if you thought Wrong Turn 4 was good and you were curious to see where they'd take the franchise from there, drink some paint thinner, drink all of it, and if you can't find any, grab some bleach it'll do the job just as well.  Now when you're done drinking that bleach and you're not dead, find a shotgun and shoot yourself in the chest and see if it hurts enough to keep you from going about your daily tasks.  

If you've actually already seen Wrong Turn 5 and you liked it, then I have another set of instructions for you.  Go to your doctors office, or schedule an appointment with one if you don't have a regular physician and make an appointment to be sterilized.  You clearly have demonstrated that you are not responsible enough to reproduce and the world doesn't need any more offspring that support this type of utter shit.  If you don't want to do this put your genitals in the microwave while wrapped in foil and kill your baby making powers like that.  This may seem harsh but I'm doing the world a favor, and it's really for your own good.

The rest

All self mutilating aside the rest of the month was pretty damn solid.  I don't know if I've ever had such an impressive run of re-watches in a month.  So many great films which is making it harder and harder to narrow down the top 100.  Most of the films I watched were 10/10 which might make me seem like a super generous rater, but well considering all the films I watched this month were contenders for my top 100 it makes sense.

Not every film one me over as I was expecting.  I've now seen The Leopard three times and well I just don't think it's that fantastic of a film.  Basically very little seems to actually happen in the film and it comes off a little boring at parts.  

I have a new second favorite Alfred Hitchcock film.  For years that title belonged to Rebecca, which you'll notice is one of the first films I watched in December.  I still like it even if it's probably more Selznick than Hitchcock, but after revisiting Strangers on a Train again later in the month that is taking it's place.  It's as expertly crafted as any Hitchcock film, brilliantly shot, edited with plenty of his trademark dark humor and a legendary late performance by Robert Walker.  Nearly a perfect film by any definition it deserves to be as well known as Vertigo, Rear Window, and North by Northwest.

A familiar looking bass player from Strangers on a Train (1951)

Aside from that many things seemed status quo.  I wondered if I would like Star Wars as much after the pre-quels attempted to ruin everything that was good about them, but no fear.  It didn't take long to realize that Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back for sure are among the greatest films ever.  Empire might be the greatest sequel ever made, possibly better than a certain sequel by Francis Coppola.  I plan on watching Return of the Jedi this month, possibly even tonight, but there is no danger of the original trilogy dropping down on my list.

12/03
Contempt (1963) 10/10
Rebecca (1940) 10/10

12/04
Ikiru (1952) 10/10
Greed (1925) 10/10

12/05
The Crucified Lovers (1954) 10/10

12/06
Xala (1975) 10/10
A Woman Under the Influence (1974) 10/10

12/07
Great Expectations (1946) 10/10

12/9
Breaking the Waves (1996) 9/10
Morocco (1930) 9/10

12/10
The Shop on Main Street (1965) 10/10
Princess Mononoke (1997) 10/10

12/11
Persona (1966) 10/10

12/13
Star Wars (1977) 10/10

12/14
Fargo (1996) 10/10

12/17
Mean Streets (1973) 10/10
Spirited Away (2001) 10/10

12/18
Applause (1929) 10/10
Faust (1926) 10/10

12/19
Lincoln (2012) 4/10

12/20
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 10/10

12/21
Repulsion (1965) 9/10

12/24
Wrong Turn 5 (2012) 0/10

12/26
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) 10/10
The Leopard (1963) 8/10
Love Me Tonight (1932) 10/10

12/27
Django Unchained (2012) 10/10
Marat/Sade (1966) 10/10

12/28
Solaris (1972) 10/10
Strangers on a Train (1951) 10/10

12/29
The Blue Kite (1994) 10/10

12/30
The Wedding March (1928) 10/10
Black God White Devil (1964) 10/10 

Best Film of the Month - Star Wars/Empire Strikes Back (1977/1980)

Worst Film of the Month - Wrong Turn 5 (2012)

Best New Discovery - Django Unchained (2012)