Month: June 2022

Released: June 2022

Directors: Li Xi Jie, Zhang Zhu Lin

Run Time: 87 Minutes

Not Rated

Distributor: Well Go USA

Genre: Action

Cast:
Tse Miu: Ip Man
Chen Guanying: Hu Bufeng
Sergio Deieso

As an avowed fan of the martial arts and martial arts movies in general, I have a real affinity for Kung-Fu movies in particular.  Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and Donnie Yen are among the most well-known martial artists in the world.  I love the different eras of Kung-Fu movies.  You have the legendary Shaw Brothers era from the 60s until the 80s, then it moves to Golden Harvest which also produced some of the greatest action movies this world has ever seen.  Hong Kong was the undisputed location for martial arts movies.  At least until the early 2000s.  Sadly, it seems that over the last 15 years, the quality of Kung-Fu movies has deteriorated unless Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Cory Yuen, or Yuen Woo Ping are involved.  Maybe it’s because of China’s direct involvement with the making of these movies, but I get the uneasy feeling that some of the more recent Kung-Fu movies like Unity of Heroes or Kung Fu League have been influenced by some of the worst action movie tropes that have plagued a large number of western productions.  Shaky-cam, hyper-fast editing, and poor camera-work have been a huge problem in some of Hong Kong’s more recent productions, and I don’t know why.  Hong Kong set the standard for action, but now they’re falling in line with everybody else.  Ip Man: Kung Fu Master was one of the more recent…casualties of this style of film-making, and the latest entry, Ip Man: The Awakening is no different.  It’s better, but that’s not saying much.

The movie follows a younger Ip Man when he inadvertently interrupts a gang of human traffickers, resulting in a retaliation from the gang’s leader.  This is NOT a Ip Man movie despite the title.  It doesn’t feel like one.  Neither did the last movie.  It’s like the film-makers are making up crazy stories to throw Ip Man into the mix.  I don’t think the film-makers really understand who Ip Man was.  While the Donnie Yen movies certainly weren’t realistic, there were elements in those movies that were tied to reality, because some of those elements were a part of the grandmaster’s life.  Donnie Yen once said that he would no longer play Ip Man after the second movie, because he feared that the market would become oversaturated with Ip Man movies.  Well, he did come back for the third and fourth movies, which were awesome in their own way.  But those stories, while not realistic, were really compelling, because the film-makers understood Ip Man as a person.  Grandmaster Ip Man was one of the most respected martial artists in Southern China, with his unique style of Wing Chun.  He taught Bruce Lee, for crying out loud.  The story presented in this movie is incredibly rote, generic, and uninspired.  Human trafficking is a real serious issue, and while I don’t have issues with action movies using that issue as the thrust for a plot, The Awakening doesn’t take it seriously enough for the audience to care.

The acting in this movie is bad.  Real bad.  Chen Guanying, who plays Bufeng, Ip Man’s friend, is saddled with a terrible script as his character is one of the most annoying characters I’ve ever seen.  Bufeng is a coward, weak-willed, and easily manipulated.  Sergio Deieso plays the main villain…and this guy is a real joke.  He’s incredibly soft-spoken, which can be terrifying with better writing, but he’s clearly a cardboard cutout villain that doesn’t come across as any sort of threat.  His henchmen are more intimidating, but not by a whole lot.  The only actor here that really pulls his weight is Tse Miu as Ip Man.  Not only can he handle himself physically, as his fight scenes are decent enough, but he can act.  But as good as Tse Miu is, he doesn’t hold a candle to how Donnie Yen played the character.  Even Anthony Wong, Tony Leung, Tony Leung, and Dennis To were better.  Tse did his best, but what he was given was not very good.

I can absolutely say that the action in this movie is a hell of a lot better than Ip Man: Kung Fu Master.  While it does suffer from too many close-up shots and hyper-fast editing, the choreography isn’t that bad.  Tse Miu’s command of Wing Chun is surprisingly impressive.  But…he uses moves that are NOT a part of Wing Chun’s arsenal.  I know that because I’ve studied Wing Chun for a while.  BUT, it still pretty cool to see it in action.  What really surprises me about this movie is how it shines a light on a particular martial arts style that isn’t really well-known: Bartitsu.  It was developed in England at the turn of the century from 1898-1902.  It combines elements of jiujitsu, French kickboxing, cane fighting, and boxing.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mentioned it in one of his Sherlock Holmes stories.  It was also featured prominently in Guy Ritchie’s film adaptation of the character starring Robert Downey, Jr.  It’s a real thing, but most people don’t really know about it.  It’s actually pretty cool to see.  If there’s one bright spot in this movie, it’s that the movie’s villain use bartitsu.  I wasn’t expecting that, so that was awesome.  Yet, despite the addition of bartitsu, the final confrontation between Ip Man and the lead trafficker is less than impressive.  I don’t know if they ran out of time or didn’t have the budget, but the action in this movie is simply…ok.  And that’s an issue in a movie that’s supposed to be about Ip Man.

Ip Man: The Awakening is yet another example of a Hong Kong industry that doesn’t seem to care about the kind of movies that put it on the map.  Kung-Fu movies have been a very steady decline over the past decade, and it saddens me, because there’s still a lot that this kind of film-making can still offer.  There’s so many stories to be told with Kung-Fu, but Hong Kong and China’s over-reliance on certain characters keeps the genre from moving forward.  Now, we’ve got movies from Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, even India that are now taking Hong Kong’s place as the top of the martial arts film.  Even though The Awakening is only 87 minutes long, I can’t really recommend it.  It’s just another middle-of-the-road Kung-Fu movie that adds almost NOTHING to the genre, except for the aforementioned bartitsu style.  Don’t waste your time or money on this one.  Stick with Donnie Yen’s Ip Man movies, even at their worst, they are leagues ahead of this.

So, the finale of Disney Plus’ Obi-Wan Kenobi has dropped.  Here’s the quick and dirty:  It’s a good show, but it’s not great and it should’ve been.  How do you take one of the most beloved characters in Star Wars lore and not hit it out of the park?  By being Disney, that’s how.  Look, there’s a lot to like about Obi-Wan.  There really is.  But as a life-long Star Wars fan, there are expectations that I have that Disney has not been meeting.  Even though I loved The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and Rogue One, everything about Disney’s take on Star Wars feels very…corporate.  It feels like a blatant cash-grab that was designed to play on people’s nostalgia.  Obi-Wan is no different.  Normally, I wouldn’t have an issue with them playing on my nostalgia, if these things were done well, but they’re not.  It’s like Disney doesn’t actually care about the property.

Obi Wan Kenobi picks up ten years after Order 66, when the Clone Army turned against their Jedi leaders and slaughtered most of them, obliterating the entire Jedi Order.  That made way for the rise of Darth Sidious/Palpatine as the Emperor of the newly formed Galactic Empire.  After losing so much in the Clone Wars and seeing his own apprentice, Anakin Skywalker fall to the Dark Side, we see Obi-Wan Kenobi as a broken man on Tatooine, trying to look after Anakin’s son, Luke.  At the same time, Darth Vader’s Imperial Inquisitors show up hunting surviving Jedi.  One of the Inquisitors, Reva eventually hatches a plan to draw Kenobi out by kidnapping Leia, the adopted daughter of Senator Bail Organa.  This leads to Bail asking Obi-Wan for help.  Reluctantly, Kenobi agrees and sets out to find Leia.  The first episode was fantastic, setting up a world where the Empire is becoming more powerful and deadly, and where Obi-Wan has lost everything.  He lost his apprentice to the Dark Side, the Jedi Order is gone, and the Sith are in complete control of the galaxy.  Dark times.  As the show progresses, however, I get the distinct impression that everything that happened in this show was simply to get Obi-Wan to point where he was going to fight Darth Vader…which he does.  The first time the two fight was in Episode 3 and it was a very one-sided battle.  Kenobi had been out of practice as a Jedi for ten years, so he’s going to be a little…rusty.  While episode 2 had a Taken-vibe about it, where Obi-Wan was trying to rescue Leia, it didn’t quite work, because the villains in the show were mostly a joke.  Reva is an interesting character, considering her background, but the way she was written didn’t do her any favors, and she didn’t really have a lot to do outside of being angry all the time.  That comes to a head in Episode 5 where her true motivations are revealed.

Episode 3 is where we really saw Vader being Vader, and it was terrifying.  This character is a monster.  What he does to the townspeople is brutal, and what he does to Kenobi is horrific.  I’m surprised that this show goes to some really dark places, especially in Episode 5.  But the problem is that the focus is all over the place.  This should’ve been Obi-Wans journey to redemption as a Jedi Knight, and while that does happen, certain events and characters don’t feel right.  Now, I’m not against Disney breaking Star Wars canon, if it’s done well, but there needs to be a good reason for it.   The writing feels very pedestrian, and I think that because this was a 6-episode show, there was no room to let any of these characters or events breathe and play out.  It all feels very rushed.  From a visual standpoint, this is not a good-looking Star Wars show.  A lot of the CGI and effects are incredibly under-cooked and underdeveloped.  They feel like PlayStation 2-era effects, and that’s not a good thing.  There are different locations including the Fortress Inquisitorius, which was awesome, but again, not well-made.

As far as acting goes, we’ve got some really good performances here.  Obviously, the star of the show is Ewan McGregor as Kenobi, and he knocks it out of the park.  He should, he loves the character, so of course he was going to give a 110 percent.  Seeing Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader was outstanding.  The way he moves just makes that character even more intimidating.  James Earl Jones returns as the voice of Darth Vader, and it sounds like he didn’t age at all.  That’s because of some AI thing that helped with his voice, but still:  This IS Darth Vader as he should be: Powerful, hateful, and terrifying.  We do get to see Hayden as Anakin in a flashback before the Clone Wars when he was training with Obi-Wan, and that was pretty cool.  But you could definitely tell that Hayden wasn’t as young as he used to be.  That said, he can still carry himself in an action sequence.  A lot of hate was thrown at Moses Ingram.  Most of that was racist garbage.  I thought that Moses did the best she could with what she was given, which wasn’t a whole lot, unfortunately.  I think the character is interesting for a different show, and I hope we get to explore that character later on.  The other real standout of the show is Vivian Lyra Blair as young Leia.  I’m not a huge fan of child actors.  It’s through no fault of their own, they generally just don’t work for me.  Vivian was amazing.  Honestly, I think that Carrie Fisher would’ve loved this little girl.  Vivian channels Carrie’s performance as Leia.  She’s great.

I’ve always believed that Star Wars was meant for the big screen.  Obi-Wan Kenobi just proved that.  This needed to be a two and a half hour movie with a real budget.  The action in this show is very mixed.  There’s some good stuff in Episode 3, but episode 4 was ridiculously bad.  Not only did we have the worst-aiming stormtroopers in Star Wars history here, but they could be knocked with a slap to the helmet.  It was bad…and Leia needed to be rescued AGAIN.  The way episode 4 plays out is…just plain bad.  I’ve seen fanfiction that was better.  Episode 5 was better in terms of action.  It was a lot of fun to watch and seeing Reva take on Vader was actually really cool, but that’s not what people wanted to see.  People wanted to see Obi-Wan against Vader.  Well, with the final episode, that is EXACTLY what we get…and it’s glorious.  It was one of the best Star Wars moments put on screen.  In fact, I would say the final duel between Kenobi and Vader is my personal favorite lightsaber duel alongside Luke and Vader from Return of the Jedi.  From a choreography standpoint, it hearkens back to Revenge of the Sith in terms of epic-ness, but as far as emotional pay-off is concerned, it’s the second best duel in Star Wars.  They delivered.  Reva’s arc has been pretty predictable from the get-go, but I actually liked how it turned out.  But again, that character needed more time to breathe and develop.  6 half-hour episodes are not enough to tell stories like this.  I don’t care what Disney says, Obi-Wan should’ve been a theatrically released movie.  People would have flocked in droves to see it.  It would’ve made ALL the money.

Now, is Obi-Wan Kenobi a bad show?  No, not in the slightest.  There’s more here that I actually like than dislike, but the stuff that doesn’t work really sticks out like a sore thumb.  I would argue that this is definitely better than The Book of Boba Fett.  But the show does suffer from being a prequel series.  We know where these characters eventually end up, so the tension isn’t there as much.  I’ve always thought that it was always about the journey, not the destination, but in this case, the journey had a few missteps along the way.  I love Obi-Wan Kenobi as a character.  He’s been one of the cornerstones of the franchise for 45 years, as was Darth Vader, Luke, Leia, and Han.  Ultimately, I really do like the show, but it could’ve been so much more.  It needed to be longer than 6 episodes, and those episodes needed to be about 1 hour to an hour and a half each.  As it stands, I’ll probably watch through it again.  I’ll definitely be watching the finale again, that’s for sure.  That is how you stick a landing.  While the show isn’t perfect, it’s definitely worth taking a look at.  But I would be just fine if they don’t do another season.

Normally, I wouldn’t really bother with TMZ-style shenanigans on this blog.  But if it affects movies that I want to see or how movies are getting made, I might mention it in passing.  However, this situation with actor Ezra Miller warrants a discussion.  I’m not going to get into the grimy details of what they’ve been up to.  What I will talk about is the impact that they are having on the upcoming Flash movie and Warner Bros. in general.  When Ezra first got into trouble, Warner’s response was to not say anything and hope it went away.  It did, until Miller got into trouble again in Hawaii.  Multiple times.  Again, WB stayed silent.  But that was BEFORE David Zaslav and Discovery bought out Warner Bros.  It seems that Miller is on the run from the law with an 18-year old teenage girl that they “groomed.”  Reports have now come out that Warner Bros has parted ways with Ezra Miller.  Those are not true.  What was reported from Deadline was that Warner Bros is in a lose/lose situation here.  There’s no winning for them on any front.  How do you release a 200 million dollar movie whose main lead is on the run and taunting the law?  You can’t just release it to theaters and expect people to show up if they know what’s going on.  The stigma of what Ezra’s done has forever tarnished the Flash movie, which also stars Michael Keaton returning as Batman.  Ezra has completely disrespected the people that they’ve worked with, for, and the audience.   You can’t engage any form of marketing with Miller.  So, what do you do with a 200 million dollar project that’s burning holes in the wallets of everybody at WB.  The answer to this is not going to be an easy one, and Mr. Zaslav has some very difficult choices to make.  He could release the film in 2023, in theaters as expected, but with no marketing or fanfare.  You could released it straight to HBO Max, or just not release it at all.  That last one is likely not going to happen.  Considering how many people that have worked on this project, it would do them a serious disservice to not have their work shown in any capacity.  What seems to be going around is that Warner Bros. will no longer work with Miller on ANY project.  That much is almost certain.

As for Ezra Miller, their career is finished.  I’ve never seen anybody deliberately trash their own promising career the way that Ezra has.  I really liked them as The Flash in Justice League.  They were great.  They’ve also had great roles in The Perks of Being A Wallflower and We Need To Talk About Kevin.  No movie studio now will ever look at Ezra Miller and think that they are a safe bet.  Ezra has become a toxic liability.  I would imagine Ezra’s management and representatives have already jumped ship and will no longer represent them.  While Amber Heard may have a way to bounce back from her defeat in the Johnny Depp lawsuit, there’s no coming back from what Ezra’s being accused of doing.  If they had the career of someone like say, Mel Gibson…then possibly, but I doubt it.  Gibson had the benefit of having a 30+ year career before his public meltdown, and he get hammered for it.  He lost the status that he enjoyed for so long.  Yet, he was still able to come back and still have a career, despite no longer being on top.  Ezra Miller doesn’t have that cushion.  While Miller hasn’t been CONVICTED of any crime the way that Roman Polanski or Victor Salva has, once the law catches up to Miller, and they will, Miller’s not going to be able to get out of it.  Maybe the fame/infamy got to their head, I don’t know.  Nobody wins here.  Not Warner Bros.  Not Miller, not the people that worked on Flashpoint, and certainly not the audience.  In fact, it might be hard for some people to go back and some of Miller’s earlier performances because of this.  I honestly hope that Ezra Miller gets the help that they need, but they have no real future in this industry anymore.

It’s the middle of June, so that means we are half-way through the year.  Already?  Where does the time go?  Starting last year, I decided I was going to two Best/Worst of the year lists per year.  One in June/July and the other in November/December.  The reason for me doing this is to keep track of the movies that I’ve seen, but also to let you folks know what I liked and didn’t like, obviously.  Like last year, some of the worst movies on this list I still enjoyed, but in a “so bad, it’s good” kind of way.  Just a side-note, these are the movies that I’ve seen.  I simply don’t have enough time to check out everything that’s been released, indie or mainstream.  So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the best and worst movies that I’ve seen so far.

The Worst: Morbius

It’s rare that I go into a movie with very few expectations and still come away angry.  Morbius proved that not every comic book character needs their own movie.  Morbius is not what I would call a top-tier Marvel character.  He doesn’t even come close to Venom.  Jerod Leto and Matt Smith were the only real bright spots of the movie.  But, oh my god.  This movie SUCKS.  Between the BLATANT false advertising that featured Michael Keaton as Vulture and the god-awful editing and visual effects, there’s nothing really redeeming about this movie.  Michael Keaton does NOT show up in the main movie, but instead is relegated to shitty post-credits scenes.  It’s a toothless, bloodless affair that insults its audience.  I’ve never left a movie theater that angry before.  Now that it’s available on home video, I’ll be sure to avoid this monstrosity.  I would urge everybody to do the same.  Consider this a public service announcement.

The Best: The Batman

The Batman was one of my most anticipated movies ever since it was announced a couple of years ago.  First of all, the casting of Robert Pattinson was actually an inspired one.  In fact, the casting of the entire movie is perfect, as far as I’m concerned.  Paul Dano is terrifying as The Riddler and Colin Farrell is completely unrecognizable as the Penguin.  You also have Zoe Kravitz as Selena Kyle and Andy Serkis as Alfred.  Now, this movie isn’t going to be for everyone, because it’s a slow-burn kind of movie.  It IS a Batman movie, but the emphasis is on him being a detective here, and it’s fantastic.  For a three-hour movie, it’s well-paced and has enough room for it’s characters to breathe.  Also: The Batmobile is amazing.  I want one.  This movie was definitely worth the wait.  It exceeded all my expectations.  So, yeah, it comes at a very high recommendation from me.

The Worst: Moonfall

You know, I’m a huge fan of Roland Emmerich’s disaster movies.  I thought that this movie would another awesome one for him.  Ultimately, this one’s going on the guilty-pleasure list.  First of all, the concept is ridiculously awesome.  Our moon falling out of orbit threatening the complete annihilation of…EVERYTHING on Earth?  Sign me up!  Here’s the problem, though.  While Moonfall delivers on some of its batshit crazy premise, it doesn’t go nearly far enough.  This needed to be COMPLETELY over-the-top bonkers with massive destruction on a planetary scale.  It just couldn’t do it.  I don’t know if it was the limitations of its budget or shoddy writing, but this movie should’ve been more fun than it was.

The Best: Catch The Fair One

I’ve been paying attention to this movie since it made the rounds at several film festivals last year, including Tribeca and Warsaw International.  The film finally saw a release to the general public earlier this year in a very limited theatrical run.  It hit VOD in May and finally DVD/Blu-Ray about two weeks ago.  While the premise is very similar to a lot of other films that deal with human trafficking, the difference here is that this movie focuses on a Native American played by Kali “K.O.” Reis, a real-life Native American boxer.  It’s a simple revenge-thriller, but it’s well-written, and the pace is great.  But this is Reis’ show through and through.  This is a powerful performance from someone who is more known for their actual fighting.  It’s a fantastic film that deserves more attention than what its getting.  It’s a brutal movie, though, but absolutely worth checking out.

The Worst: Firestarter

How do you fuck up a Stephen King adaptation?  Like this.  I knew something was wrong when Universal Studios announced that Firestarter was going to have a day-and-date release.  That means it was getting a theatrical release while being put on Peacock at the some time.  They clearly didn’t have faith in this movie and there’s a reason why: It’s bad.  Real bad.  While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the 1984 film with Drew Barrymore was a classic, it’s positively Shakespearean compared to this dreck.  Honestly, the only real saving grace this movie’s got is the girl that played Charlie, the girl that can start fires with her mind.  She’s fantastic.  For a movie called Firestarter, there’s not a lot of fire-starting.  It’s just boring and contrived.  Stick with the original movie or even better, stick with the book.

The Best: The Northman

If there’s a name that you should pay attention to in terms of film-making, it’s Robert Eggers.  This guy directed The Witch and The Lighthouse, two outstanding indie movies that prove that Eggers is a force to be reckoned with.  With The Northman, Eggers is three-for-three.  Based on an old Scandinavian legend that inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet, The Northman follows a Viking warrior named Amleth as he sets out to kill his uncle, who murdered his father and captured his mother.  I should warn you, that the trailers show you a Viking story that is grand and epic in scale and scope.  It’s nothing of the sort.  This is a very intimate look at revenge.  Alexander Skarsgard is amazing.  He delivers a vicious and animalistic performance that I’ve never seen from him before.  Anya Taylor-Joy is equally amazing as Olga, a witch, making this her second movie with Eggers.  Ethan Hawke, Nicole Kidman, and Willem Defoe are all excellent here.  It wasn’t exactly the movie that I was expecting, but I’m incredibly happy that it was the movie that I ended up with.

The Worst: Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Boy, the bad movies this are REALLY bad, aren’t they?  I’m a huge fan of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  The original 1974 chiller is one of the all-time great horror movies.  It had a very distinct, grind-house, almost documentary-style feel to it.  There wasn’t much of a story beyond a group of youngsters that get lost on a back road in Texas.  They eventually run into a bizarre clan of hillbilly cannibals, one of whom is the infamous Leatherface.  I like the second movie and I liked the 2003 remake.  But everything else about that franchise was not great.  Netflix’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre may be the worst of the bunch.  Sure, it delivers on the gore and carnage, and for some people that might be enough, but that’s not what the original film was about.  Gore doesn’t make a movie scary.  TENSION makes a movie scary, especially if the characters are relatable enough.  The characters in this latest movie?  They’re awful.  I couldn’t wait to see them die.  Not only that, they brought back the character Sally Hardesty, who was the survivor from the original film, only to kill her in this movie.  It is incredibly disrespectful to Tobe Hooper’s original vision.  Marylin Burns would be spinning in her grave if she knew how her ended up.

The Best: Top Gun: Maverick

When it comes to legacy sequels, it’s a crap-shoot on how they turn out.  Sure, you’ve got Blade Runner 2049 which was an amazing sequel, but on the end of the spectrum, you’ve got movies like Independence Day Resurgence which wasn’t that great.  Top Gun: Maverick may very well be the single best legacy sequel out there.  THIS is how you kick off the summer movie season.  The original Top Gun came out back in 1986, so that’s a LONG time without a sequel.  Tom Cruise wouldn’t have done this movie if it wasn’t going to be relevant in some way or if it had a lack-luster script.  Well, I can tell you: Top Gun: Maverick is amazing.  It’s not only a great sequel, it’s better than the original film in nearly every way.  If you want aerial action sequences, you’re going to get them, and they are amazing, because they’re done for real.  They used real jets and pilots to do some really out-of-this-world stuff.  It’s spectacular.  But where this movie really shines, is it’s characters.  These are phenomenal characters.  Even Cruise’s Maverick has a really good arc in this film.  Also, how they handled Val Kilmer’s character was wonderful and respectful.  This is a movie that could’ve easily gone the wrong way, but Tom Cruise’s dedication to his craft as a film-maker allowed Top Gun: Maverick to be one of the best action movies of the year.  It had the best opening of Cruise’s career.  I was amazed at how much I was emotionally invested in this movie.  There were tears.  Yes.  Tears.  It’s that good.

The Worst: Jurassic World Dominion

Ignoring the fact that the first thirty minutes of the movie were some of the most literally painful moments I’ve ever sat through, this movie is a disaster.  It does NOT deliver on the promise that the title suggests.  Yeah, it brings back legacy characters like Ian Malcolm, Alan Grant, and Ellie Sattler, but the movie has the least amount of dinosaur action I’ve ever seen in this franchise.  Nope, the movie wants you to focus on the dumbass story-line that involves mutated locusts.  This should’ve been a knock-out movie of apocalyptic proportions, but that’s not what we get.  What we get is the same goddamn thing that these movies have been doing since the original Jurassic Park.  Except that Jurassic Park did it better.  Nearly 30 years later, that movie looks better than what we got with Dominion.  I don’t know if it was somebody at Universal or Colin Trevorrow, but somebody really dropped the ball with this movie.  But it IS clear that Colin Trevorrow should NOT be given the keys to a major film franchise ever again.

The Best: Jackass Forever

I never thought that I would ever put a Jackass movie on this list.  I’ve always found that kind of humor to be really juvenile and stupid.  Yet, I guess Jackass was the kind of movie that we needed this year, because this was some of the funniest shit I’ve seen in a long time.  There’s no story here.  Nope, it’s just Johnny Knoxville and his buddies getting together and doing stupid stunts for our amusement.  I can’t believe some of the stuff that they did in this movie.  It’s often very painful, but yay schadenfreude?  Seeing Knoxville take on a bull was almost too much, but it was spectacular.  I haven’t laughed that hard in so long.  Bravo, Jackass team.  Bravo.

Well, that’s going to cover the first half of the year.  We’ve still got a lot more ground to cover in the next 6 months, so I’m looking forward to seeing what’s coming.  I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I had writing it.  As always, leave your comments below and let me know what you think.