Here's what had me entertained during 2012
Every year, I attempt to watch 100 movies and read 50 books. Every year, I am unable to reach my goal. In short, I am a massive failure with unattainable goals.
Anyhow, here are the movies I've watched and my personal ratings for them:
Movies
January
1. Water for Elephants 2.5/5 One of the numerous movies I saw when I had flown to Asia last year. This wasn't that good, in my opinion.
2. Midnight in Paris 3/5 Interesting and classic Woody Allen. Another film that I had watched during my flight.
3. (500) Days of Summer 4/5 Yet another film that I had watched during my flight. I quite enjoyed this, though I thought Summer's character was pretty annoying.
4. Bridesmaids 2.5/5 Yep, another flight film. I didn't enjoy this as much as everybody else. This was still a chick flick with one rather disgusting scene inserted into it.
5. Horrible Bosses 3/5 Saw this on my way back to NY. I enjoyed this, though I thought the plot was kind of flawed. It had it's moments, though.
6. Green Lantern 1.5/5 At least Ryan Reynolds is a good-looking guy. This was just not good. Another flight film.
February
7. Rio 3.5/5 Cute and fairly interesting (though, it was pretty formulaic).
8. Incident in New Baghdad 3.5/5 Right before the Oscars, I went to see all of the short films that had been nominated for best short film. This was one of them. A bit of an eye-opener to something we are all aware of, but refuse to see.
9. Saving Face 4.5/5 Another of the short films. This ended up winning the Oscar, and I thought it was rightfully earned. A really depressing view on how women in countries where they are severely undervalued are treated.
10. The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom 3/5 Out of all the short films that were nominated, I thought this looked visually beautiful, but was pretentious and had no actual substance.
11. The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement 3.5/5 The last of the short films I had seen in this "series", if you will. Nostalgic, well done, and intriguing.
12. The Girl Who Played With Fire 2.5/5 Like the book, this wasn't that good. At least it was truthful to the original source material.
13. Beaches 2.5/5 Bette Midler plays Bette Midler in this Lifetime-esque movie. To be fair, it wasn't absolutely horrible, but it was no means a cinematic masterpiece.
14. Brick 2.5/5 I can understand and appreciate what this film was trying to accomplish, but I couldn't sympathize with any of the characters and I thought the dialogue was annoying.
15. Quills 4/5 Hah, this was so trashy and I LOVED it!
16. Senna 5/5 This was an amazing film that, despite using only stock/archived footage, did an amazing job portraying Mr. Senna's life. An amazing feat!
17. The Landlord 2.5/5 An odd movie that tried to be PC for it's day but would be viewed as being pretty racist and patronizing by today's standards.
18. Heavenly Creatures 4/5 Both actresses did an amazing job portraying their respective roles and it's really interesting to have a glimpse at pre-LOTR Peter Jackson's work (that was, ya know, not completely horrible and slap-stick).
19. The House of Yes 1.5/5 Good god, what the hell was this mess?
20. Exit Through the Gift Shop 4/5 Hoax or not, this was a pretty good documentary about the underground art, if you will, movement.
21. Love in the Time of Cholera 2.5/5 The book was better.
22. Hard Ticket to Hawaiia 1/5 Awful and hilariously so.
23. The Artist 4.5/5 Very well done, entertaining, and deserving of it's win for best picture from the Oscars.
March
24. Rachel Getting Married 2.5/5 Bleak subject matter, as Jonathan Demme is best known to deal with. Unrelatable main character, though.
25. The Counterfeiters 4/5 Really good movie about Jewish masters of their respective crafts and how they were forced to produce counterfeit bills to flood enemy banks with.
April
26. Hunger Games 3.5/5 Surprisingly not bad. I ended up reading the book shortly after I saw this, and I have to say that I thought the movie was better than the book itself for a change.
27. Irreversible 3/5 Good god, was this hard to watch. I did enjoy the way that the story unfolded, though.
28. The Cabin in the Woods 4/5 Well, I can certainly see now why Joss Whedon has the fan base that he has now. If you haven't seen this, please do so.
29. The Gods Must Be Crazy 2/5 A cult classic about 3 interwoven story lines. The only one that I really liked, though, was the one focusing on the !kung.
May
30. True Romance 4/5 A really action-packed film. I quite enjoyed this; blood, sex, and all.
31. Steel Magnolias 2.5/5 I know a lot of people quite enjoy this, but I thought it was just okay, once again.
32. The Avengers 4.5/5 (Surprisingly) very good. It had a lot of potential to be awful but it wasn't.
33. Y Tu Mama Tambien 3/5 Interesting is what I can say about this one.
34. Dark Shadows 2/5 Meh.
June
35. Hereafter 3/5 Not bad, though pretty depressing.
36. Prometheus 2.5/5 Noooo, I had such high hopes for this one :(
37. My Girl 2.5/5 Not as depressing as I thought it was going to be.
July
38. The Man Who Fell to Earth 2/5 Man, was this weird and long...
August
39. The Dark Knight Rises 4/5 There are other movies on this list that I had rated higher, but this movie was very entertaining and was arguably one of the best new movies that I had seen this year.
40. Never Let Me Go 3.5/5 Rather depressing with a slight sci-fi edge.
September
41. Kimjongilia 3.5/5 I really like watching films about North Korea and while this was pretty interesting, something was lacking, and I'm not sure what.
42. Crossing the Line 4/5 I really liked the fact that this documentary was about somebody who decided to defect to North Korea, as biased as his account was.
43. Sherlock Holmes 2.5/5 Not as good as I was hoping it to be. Truly, the books are better in this case.
October
44. Red 3/5 Pretty entertaining.
45. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter 2/5 Saw this on my flight back from Europe. Just...really not that good.
46. Moonrise Kingdom 4.5/5 Also saw this on my flight back from Europe. Along with DKR, I would say this was one of the best new films I saw this year.
47. North by Northwest 4/5 As Hitchcock films go, this wasn't as good as Vertigo, but I thought it was better than Psycho.
November
48. Machete2/5 Mindless entertainment.
49. Hellboy II: The Golden Army 2.5/5 Visually stunning but just not that good.
50. Jiro Dreams of Sushi 4/5 Beautiful.
51. The Man Who Cried 3/5 This was just okay, once again.
December
52. Anna Karenina 4/5 The beginning was a little confusing, but I quite like this take on Tolstoy's behemoth of a novel.
53. Fantastic Planet 3/5 Pretty psychedelic.
54. Les Miserables 3/5 I was a never a fan of this musical's music, though the visuals and acting were both quite good.
55. Life of Pi 4.5/5 I loved the book and this was pretty true to it's source material. Beautiful.
56. Samurai Cop 1/5 I ended this year with a really godawful movie. It was also hilariously bad, but yeesh.
And here are the books that I've read this year:
Books
February (I didn't finish reading anything in January)
1. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - 2.5/5 I can see and understand why this book would be highly esteemed, but it was so dry and boring to me. I read another book this year that was very similar to this story line and I enjoyed that much much more.
March
2. Imagining Argentina by Lawrence Thornton - 3/5 A pretty good book, though bleak and depressing.
April
3. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss - 4/5 I would say this was the best book I read this year. Not perfect, but a good read nevertheless.
4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - 2.5/5 Is it blasphemous of me to rate this the same as one of the classics of western lit?
June
5. Spycatcher by Matthew Dunn - 2/5 This is what happens when I read books outside of my narrow preference of literary genres. I didn't like this too much.
6. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison - 4/5 Sooo sad :(
September (no books in July or August, eek)
7. Weird Stories from Real Life by Marjorie Burns - 2/5 Mindless literature that I had read while in Cutchogue over the summer.
8. Hunger by Knut Hamsen - 4/5 A story similar to C&P but I found much more entertaining.
No more books for the rest of the year. Tsk tsk on me.