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zwolanerd

I guess I just like liking things

I’ve seen a lot of movies already this year, and more than half of them have been new to me. On top of that, there’s only been a couple that were meh and I haven’t outright hated any of them. We’re off to a good start, 2015. Keep it up!

fatkidrulestheworldHere’s my 10 favorite new-to-me movies so far this year, and I really had to work at not putting Ghostbusters on the list. Sure, I’ve seen it a bunch of times before, but I got to see it in 4K a couple of weeks ago, and that was pretty sweet.

10. Chinatown – I finally got around to seeing this and it was pretty good! Should I watch The Two Jakes next?

9. A Walk Among the Tombstones – Liam Neeson, but he’s not doing the Taken thing. I mean, there’s shooting, but there’s not a lot fancy beatdowns  and shaky camera.

8. This Is Where I Leave You – I mostly got this one for Tina Fey, by which I mean she’s in it, not that I got it so she could watch it. I’m not generally one for “family drama” movies, but I ended up liking this one, mostly because it has a (mostly) great cast.

7. Fat Kid Rules the World – I’m not into punk music, either, but I think it’s largely (no pun intended) intended as a backdrop here rather than the point. A much sweeter movie than I expected.

6. The Raid 2 – A lot of great fights in this one, and a really cool scene during a car chase that I didn’t know was as cool as it was until I read about how they did it. I won’t try to explain it other than to say it involved at least three cameramen, one of whom was disguised as a car seat.

5. Charade – Hey, I just wrote about this one yesterday!

4. American Sniper – I know this one’s got all kinds of debate swirling around it, and I don’t much care. It’s a well-done portrait of an American soldier and Bradley Cooper’s Texas accent is pretty much amazing.

3. The Four – I don’t completely understand the word wuxia just yet, but I’ve seen enough to recognize good examples. I really enjoyed this one.

2. The One I Love – The poster for this one weirds me out a little, but it really suits the movie, I found. I don’t want to spoil anything about this one, so I’ll just mention that Ted Danson has a small role as a marriage counselor.

1. Bad Words – This sort of surprises me, because this movie was way more foul than I expected – the title should have tipped me off, right? – but here it is. I’m inclined to like Jason Bateman in things, and a story about a 40-year-old guy entering a kids’ spelling bee on a technicality was right up my alley. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this movie “sweet” or “heartwarming,” but I will say it has a weird kind of heart, and that turned out to be the right kind.

We’ll see what the rest of the year has in store, eh?

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