My favorites, in no particular order, are "Moonrise Kingdom", "Marvel's The Avengers", "The Hunger Games", "The Cabin in the Woods", "Your Sister's Sister", "Safety Not Guaranteed", and "Beasts of the Southern Wild".

The worst movies of the year so far are, without a doubt, "That's My Boy", "Piranha 3DD", "The Three Stooges", "Hick", "A Thousand Words", "One for the Money", "Beneath the Darkness", "The Vow", "Battleship", "Gone", "Act of Valor", and "This Means War".

My most anticipated movies now are "The Dark Knight Rises", "The Amazing Spider-Man", "The Master", "Lincoln", "Bourne Legacy", "Skyfall", "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey", and, surprisingly enough, "Ice Age: Continental Drift" and "The Campaign".

What about you guys? What are your best, worst, and most anticipated films of the year so far?

You mean 2012?

Yes. It has been fixed.

I personally enjoyed Act Of Valor, One For The Money, This Means War, Battleship and Piranha 3DD, didn't care much for "Gone" though I wouldn't call it horrible, just incredibly mediocre and forgettable. Avengers was good but not THAT good IMO, it could've used a bit of trimming in a few places.

My most anticapted films are: Hit And Run, Savages, Amazing Spider-Man, Premium Rush, Red Dawn remake, Cold Light Of Day, Bourne Legacy, Total Recall, End Of Watch, Neighborhood Watch(I refuse to call it The Watch), Dark Knight Rises, Expendables 2, Dredd, Looper, Skyfall, Taken 2, Cloud Atlas, Jack Reacher and Zero Dark Thiry.

Oh, and "Django Unchained". Completely forgot about that one.

I saw one great movie this year, Chronicle, one abysmal movie, The Avengers, and I skipped pretty much everything else. Haven't seen Hunger Games or Prometheus. I want to see Moonrise Kingdom, and plan to very soon. I also saw That's My Boy, which is indeed shit. Jack and Jill was much better. So That's My Boy is the 2nd worst movie I've seen this year, next to Avengers.

My most anticipated: Resident Evil, Taken 2, Skyfall....and is Lincoln coming out this year?

I can't even begin to comprehend how an Adam Sandler movie is superior to a superhero film directed by Joss Whedon. Loved "Chronicle", though.

According to IMDb, "Lincoln" is slated for release this December. Unless the world ends by then.

You literally have the strangest moral principles of anyone I've ever met.

I haven't seen anything this year worth mentioning. Sad.

But I'm incredibly excited for The Master & Django... more than I've anticipated anything the past several years.

It has nothing to do with morality, I just think The Watch sounds too generic.

By that measure, shouldn't you refuse to call Hit And Run, Savages, Amazing Spider-Man, Bourne Legacy, Dark Knight Rises, Expendables 2, Taken 2, etc, by their given titles? Those are all pretty generic, no?

I was joking.

Top 5:

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. Chico & Rita
3. Kill List
4. The Secret World Of Arrietty
5. The Cabin In The Woods

I don't make a habit out of seeing too many "bad" films. So far, the "worst" film I've seen this year is John Carter.

I think I've only seen five new things this year, so I'll order them by how much I liked them.

Louis CK: Live at the Beacon Theater (he's amazing; makes me wish stand-up specials still showed theatrically)
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (impeccable journalism as usual, and noteworthy for obvious reasons, but not as shattering as the first)
John Carter (overstuffed, but a lot of fun)
Prometheus (solid action/horror, mediocre sci-fi)
The Cabin in the Woods (a turd)

As for what's coming soon, I suppose I'm most looking forward to The Amazing Spider-Man. Further down the line, Django Unchained.

I've only seen ten 2012 movies. I guess I put The Secret World of Arrietty at the top, although it's not outstanding. Nothing really stands out enough to be singled out as worst, but The Lorax was too message-heavy and, Brave and Snow White and the Huntsman were disappointments. Four of the ten films I've seen were animated, The Pirates! being the other one. I've also seen The Avengers, Cowgirls 'n' Angels, The Hunger Games, The Woman in Black and Mirror Mirror.

Well best movies that I've seen in the cinema this year (keep in mind that a lot of 2011 films didn't get released in Australia until 2012): A Separation, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Shame, A Dangerous Method, The Avengers, Margin Call, My Week With Marilyn and Headhunters.

Thought The Pirates was alright, though rather insubstantial, and hated Prometheus.

Most anticipating Django Unchained, The Master, Argo, Killing Them Softly, The Hobbit, The Dark Knight Rises, Amour, Moonrise Kingdom, and Cabin In The Woods if it ever comes out here...

Of theatrically released movies and not counting a few 2011 holdovers like The Artist, Ghost Protocol and The Descendants:

Haywire: Entertains while on yet evaporates the minute you leave the theater.

Thin Ice: Entertaining first hour and 15 minutes. Contrived ending. Not too bad for a Fargo rip.

21 Jump Street: Enjoyable in an over the top way. Channing Tatum still can't act. But here's proof that he can be funny when the writers make him that way. Lightweight but fun.

The Hunger Games: Interesting. Not rooting for a franchise yet I have more faith in this one succeeding than I do with most others. Good overall.

The Avengers: One of two 2012 movies I've seen so far that I would consider buying on DVD/Blu-Ray. This may very well represent a peak for superhero movies that thay may not be able to reach again.

Bernie: Another one I would consider getting on DVD, this one is almost diametrically opposite The Avengers. A character driven dark comedy (the kind we don't see too much of nowadays) this one has a fantastic performance from Jack Black and some great direction from Richard Linklater.

Dark Shadows: Worth your time.

Prometheus: Closer to traditional sci-fi than sci-fi horror. Worth viewing.

Rock Of Ages: Enjoyed it despite how dumb it really is. If one looks at it as a satire of 80s rock it might be easier to enjoy.

Looking forward to: Dark Knight Rises, Savages, Amazing Spider-man, Red Hook Summer and of course Django Unchained.

Can't believe I left The Master off the list of movies I'm looking forward to.

In terms of what? Opening weekend gross? I agree, it'll be tough for them to match a 4-year hype again, might not happen for at least another 4 years.

Do you have a problem with movies earning A LOT of money, or movies with a large (over $100 million) budget? It seems as though you complain about those two things often. Why should those matter to you at all? Why is it bad if a movie looks the best that money can buy, while making over $1 billion? Films are a visual medium first and foremost. I certainly don't agree that budget or gross equals quality, but it doesn't bother me in the least if a movie cost $300 million to make and grossed over $2 billion, or a movie cost $10k to make and grossed $100k.

The Transformer films sucked and Avatar was fun to watch in IMAX, but quickly lost it's luster becoming quite forgettable with further viewings. Terminator 2 and The Abyss were also some of the most expensive movies of their day, however, and those rank among my favorite science fiction films.

The best movie that I've seen about time travel (negating the iconic Back to the Future which will always be my favorite) had a hairline budget and most people that I know have never even heard of it: Primer.

I'm just asking, if you enjoy the characters, screenplay, effects, direction, acting, etc....why should the budget or gross of a movie factor in to one's decision about the film?

Neither, as long as both are secondary to good story, characters, and craftsmanship. That is not the case with The Avengers, in which all three of those things sucked pretty badly.



It's not bad...but Avengers doesn't fit that bill. In fact of all the mega-budget spectacles I've seen, Avengers is one of the worst looking. The scene in which Loki arrives looks like it was shot in some cheap, giant warehouse somewhere. Whedon follows it up by introducing Scarlet Johansen in another cheap, giant warehouse. Then she retrieves Hulk in a cheap, giant tent somewhere. The hover craft looks like something out of one the lesser Pokemon movies, only much less detailed than in Pokemon. The inside of it looks like a Hollywood set. Not a cool, colorful Hollywood set, but one so boring that even tourists wouldn't want to visit it when traveling to LA. It's just big, grey and empty; please explain how that passes for imaginative set design. The three-way fight in the woods looks like something out of The Blair Witch Project; poorly lit. And the climax in New York doesn't just feel like a theme park; it looks like a theme park; much moreso than anything in Transformers. It may have been expensive to produce, but in directorial terms, and visual terms, it's cheap shit. That's not saying anything of the opening shots, which look like a cutscene from an N64 game, or the outdoor shots outside the opening complex, which are borderline too dark to see. Arguably the guiltiest "pleasure" the cultural mass has ever endured.

All that doesn't even cover Whedon's framing and shot composition, which is some of the worst I've seen in any movie. It's like a 12-year old fanboy pointing a camera for the first time. Sometimes, there's so much empty space in the frame that you could crop two more movies into it and still leave room for the gist of what Whedon captures. Some of the cuts are blatantly bad, if you actually take the time to notice them. And the way the thing was paced, I just didn't know what was going on half the time. Whenever Eric Selvig popped up, for instance, I had no idea why.

Then there's the script, which is Die Another Day bad. I don't just mean as bad...I mean bad in almost the same way. The dialogue never sounds like anything the characters would really say...just winky-wink stuff for the benefit of fans. Loki is the only character who seems to really care about what he is saying and feeling. It's too bad for Tom Hiddleston, since Whedon's dialogue doesn't give him much to work with. And finally, I've spent my life watching cartoons and cheap action movies, but I've never seen a character as thin as Renner's Hawkeye. Watching him was like staring into a void.

Finally, everyone says "leave it to Whedon to give every character his spotlight," but he didn't do a good job of that at all. It was basically Iron Man 3, Captain America 2, and Black Widow 1. Thor and Nick Fury felt like set decoration. Hulk wasn't a character; he was two characters. Angry monster on the ship, badass warrior Shrek in the city, with no development or transition in between.

Overall, it's one of the ugliest and laziest movies I've ever seen, and I'd imagine the Blu-ray will be ugliness in high definition. I guess I can't say whether over-budgeting had anything to do with that, or if Whedon just sucks. All I know is that it was the most unpleasant 2.5 hours I spent at the movies this year, including home viewings.