200 Items Or Less: The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

A few thoughts: I wasn't a huge fan of Roger Moore's first outing as James Bond, but with that movie there was a distinct tone and atmosphere that felt totally separate from the Connery films. But with this one, in spite of some trippy visuals, we're back to the basics but slightly cornier and slightly worse. There is one distinct up-side with this movie, however, in Christopher Lee as the titular man with the golden gun, Francisco Scaramanga. An ultra-wealthy assassin brought in to kill Bond, Scaramanga has a different sort of motivation from the usual Bond villain bent on some form of world domination, as he pretty much just wants to do his job -- but with a little flair. There's some genuine creativity to the set design in the funhouse action sequences, and pretty much everything involving Christopher Lee is top notch, with the island setting offering up the exact thing any Bond fan could hope for and expect. But the rest is mostly pretty mediocre.

200 Items Or Less: Live And Let Die (1973)

A few thoughts: I've always been more of a Connery fan when it comes to Bond movies, but that's probably because I was raised on those. But had I been raised on Moore, this would have still probably not been one of my favorites. While I enjoy the villains here in particular (Kananga, Baron Samedi, and that guy with the hook make for a pretty awesome trio of bad guys), the rest of the movie is somewhat lacking. Between the meh humor, absence of Q, overlong running time, and frankly bizarre story, this movie definitely has a unique feel that's totally independent from the Connery films, but I'm not sure if that's a very good thing. But at least they realized how important it was to define Moore in his own way. Moore is a pretty solid Bond, and he definitely has his own set of charms that work for the character, but he isn't given a ton to work with here -- the setting and supporting cast are the highlight. It's an odd movie with some cool aspects, but it's not one of my favorites.

Top 10 Movies of 2012

Definitely not as strong of a year as the previous two, but here are my favorite movies of 2012 anyway. A decent variety of stuff here, so hopefully anyone reading this might find something new and/or interesting to watch here. List time.



Honorable mentions (A - Z):

Top 10 UGH Movies of 2019

Wow, I totally forgot to release my annual UGH movies of the year list last year. And the previous year, for that matter... Starting a new job and being constantly tired and being as whiny and lazy as I am definitely contributed, but I don't seem to remember there being too many terribly obnoxious movies that I saw over that period of time, but I'll have to go back and see what I can find to fill that up and make my list. Because I do love taking hot steamy dumps all over bad movies. But that's not the focus of this post, because I'm going straight into movies of 2019, as that seems a lot more relevant, and these movies are all a lot fresher in my mind.

Now, to anyone unfamiliar with my UGH lists, there are a few things to keep in mind. One, I don't go out of my way to watch too many bad movies each year, because I don't get paid to do this, so it's a waste of my time and money to watch things I know I'll hate. Two, these lists aren't just my least favorite movies I've seen all year, because most of the movies I would include that way would just be boring and bland, which means I really wouldn't have much to talk about at all. And third, I can even include movies that I enjoyed on this list, as I weigh the overall value I feel the movie has to offer (subjectively, of course) against my hopes and expectations going in, so if I genuinely expected a 8-9/10 and wound up with a 6, I call that a pretty huge disappointment, and it will probably find its way onto this list. Is that fair? Probably not, but I don't care. If you want fair and balanced movie coverage, I'm sure you'll enjoy pouring through hundreds of totally unbiased amateur critics on Letterboxd (lol good luck), or hack professionals like Peter Travers who have zero personality whatsoever but feel like inserting horrible puns into their reviews makes them seem noteworthy. Still here? Good, let's move on.

Oscar Predictions 2020: Best Actress

Not as full of a category as Best Actor, but there's still some strong competition here. Let's go down the list and see how wrong I'll be.

Oscar Predictions 2020: Best Actor

Wow, Best Actor is a stacked category this year. I normally wouldn't see there being a possibility of this many different nominees, but here we are. So let's go down the list and see how wrong I'm going to be.

Oscar Predictions 2020: Best Picture

A recently released somewhat unofficial shortlist has named these 42 movies the ones currently fighting for the coveted Best Picture Oscar. So I'm gonna go down the list, from A to Z and try to determine which of these are the most likely to be in the 5-10 total movies that will be up for the award here in the next couple weeks.

So I'm going to put each of the 42 movies into one of 5 categories of likelihood:

1. Practically guaranteed
2. Fairly likely
3. Possible, not probable
4. Highly unlikely
5. Not a chance

Best Picture Contenders: A - Z

Top 10 Movies of 2011

The second list I'm making in preparation for the end of the decade. You can view my Top 10 Movies of 2010 countdown by clicking on one of the words I just typed. 2011 was a great year for movies, and I had to make several cuts (even to adhere to my 5-10 honorable mentions rule), so don't be surprised if some really good movies didn't make the cut here. Now to the list.



Honorable mentions (A - Z):