Top 10… 2013 Movies I Still Haven’t Seen

Posted on January 9, 2014 by jaycluitt

2013 may have been a bumper year for me in terms of seeing new films, but I still only went to the cinema 16 times (bloody hell, I thought it was much more than that), and saw only 55 films in total from last year. Well, it’s 57 now, as I’ve watched The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Cloud Atlas since posting my review of the year. The great bastion of truth that is Wikipedia says that around 285 movies came out last year, so there’s 230 films that prove I’m doing a pretty crappy job as a movie reviewer, which makes Robert Redford look like this:
So, in recompense, here’s the films I feel most guilty for missing last year: Continue reading →

Top 10… New-To-Me Movies in 2013

Posted on January 7, 2014 by jaycluitt

I may not have seen many films in 2013, but I did see some new ones that weren’t released last year. This post is dedicated to those films, and here’s the top 10 new-to-me non-2013-released movies:

Honourable mention: Pitch Perfect

Pitch Perfect gets the honourable mention slot mainly because I didn’t expect much from it, but it really surprised me. The premise comes off as Glee: The Movie; Beca (Anna Kendrick) starts at university and joins The Bellas, an all-girl acapella group, who enter a singing competition against their all-male rivals, The Treblemakers, but she finds The Bellas’ more traditional stylings need some serious updating if they have any chance of winning, but all thoughts of the TV show (which I admit I don’t hate, mainly because of their affinity for Journey) are soon disspelled after the first bout of projectile vomitting, and once we meet Rebel Wilson’s Fat Amy. Some of the characters are basic stereotypes – the bitchy one, the slutty one, the crazy one – but the musical performances are all great – particularly Beca’s cup song, and the riff-off – and damn if this film wasn’t funny, especially the world-ending gravitas given to the line “I’ve got nodes.”. Continue reading →

2013: A Movie Odyssey (Year in Review Part 3)

Posted on January 4, 2014 by jaycluitt

This is the final instalment of my three-part review of 2013. Part 1 can be read here, in which I complain about the fifteen worst new films I saw last year, and part 2 can be read here, where I talk about the twenty films in the middle of the pack. Today it’s on to the big guns – the best of the year. So sit back (but not so far back that you can’t read the screen) and enjoy what I believe are the best new films I saw from the past 12 months. Continue reading →

2013: A Movie Odyssey (Year in Review Part 2)

Posted on January 2, 2014 by jaycluitt

This is part 2 of my 2013 Year in Review, in which I’ve ranked and briefly reviewed every new film I saw in 2013. Part 1 can be read here. Part 3 will be released tomorrow. Yesterday saw me dissing the 15 worst films I watched last year. Today I get to be a little more positive, discussing the middle 20, until we pull out the superlative guns for tomorrow’s Top 20. This is by no means a filler post though, as every film on today’s list comes with a recommendation to watch it. Continue reading →

2013: A Movie Odyssey (Year in Review Part 1)

Posted on January 2, 2014 by jaycluitt

Happy New Year everybody! 2013 has been and gone, long live 2014. I think it’s safe to say that, for Life Vs Film (or LVF, as I’ve pretentiously begun referring to it), 2013 kind of sucked. I had so much going on elsewhere – moving house, beng stuck at my parents for 4 months, podcasts, other writing – that my own site got a bit neglected. In fact, in the last 6 months I’ve only written 22 posts for this site, which even for me is a massive disappointment. I can only apologise for this lack of content, and also for my lack of networking on other sites, and I pledge, as part of a new year’s resolution, to up my game considerably for 2014. I have plans, but they’re to be discussed on another day.

On the bright side, I did watch far more new movies last year than in recent times. In 2012, my end-of-year review consisted of a selection of 14 films released that year. This year, that number has almost been multiplied by four, so hurrah for both me and my LoveFilm subscription. Now, many of these haven’t had reviews written for them, so instead of doing a standard Top 10 of the year I’ve ranked every film I’ve seen from this year and written a little bit about them all. To break it up from being one ginormous post this is just part one, and parts two and three will be dispatched tomorrow and Friday. Saturday will see my Top 10 new-to-me films from the year that weren’t released in 2013. Also, I’m fully aware that there’s some pretty huge films from this year I’ve not seen yet. There’s nothing I can do about that now, but I’m planning to retro-actively add them in at a later date. Oh, and one last caveat, as I live in the UK, and we don’t necessarily receive films at the same time as the rest of the world, I’m listing here all the films that were released in the UK in 2013. I’ll pick them out when I get to them. So, without further ado here is my 2013, in movies: Continue reading →

Cat People (1982) for the Cinematic Katzenjammer’s Not-So-Secret Santa Review Swap

Posted on December 31, 2013 by jaycluitt

This review was written, as you may guess from the post’s heading, for the Not-So-Secret Santa Review Swap over at the Cinematic Katzenjammer, or CineKatz, as run by Nick Powell. It’s a fairly simple yet great idea – you submit a film for some random person to review, and in return you receive one back. I signed up (and gifted Andrew from Go See Talk with Starter for 10, a movie I adore but which is criminally underseen even in the UK), thinking that I’d receive something outside of my wheelhouse, that would potentially expand my movie viewing experience, or even better, get something already on one of my lists that would provide a little extra motivation to cross it off a bit sooner. Instead, I received a schlocky 80s remake of a 40s horror that I didn’t much care for in the first place. So yes, it technically was an off-my-radar selection, but maybe it wasn’t on my radar for a few good reasons. Continue reading →

Top 10… Movie Houses

Posted on December 7, 2013 by jaycluitt

Homes. We all have them. Well, homeless people don’t, but I’ve found my readership is made up with less and less of these people every day, so I can safely assume that if you’re reading this then you probably have a home. As I mentioned on a recent Lambcast (with Justin and Dylan, both from Man, I Love Films), I’ve just moved house (or “moved,” as they refer to it). Regular readers will know this has been a long and drawn out process, so I thought it deserving of a Top 10 list devoted to it. Plus, it’s my first actual house (I used to live in a flat, or apartment), so it’s something of a milestone in my life.
Movie houses come in all shapes and sizes. Many films deal with a certain amount of wish fulfillment, and therefore tend to feature exceedingly wealthy characters that can afford lavish palaces in picturesque locations, and these are definitely represented on this list. However, this isn’t a list of the biggest movie houses, these are the ones that I’d most like to live in, kind of, or one’s that represent a certain kind of life. You’ll see what I mean.As always, I’ve set myself some requirements. Firstly, whilst it doesn’t necessarily have to be a house, it cannot be an apartment, as that could be a whole other list, presumably when I eventually can’t make my mortgage repayments and have to downsize. And that’s about it. No other rules. Nice and simple. Continue reading →

Top 10… Movie Monsters

Posted on November 22, 2013 by jaycluitt

OK, so this week the scope is a little, um, monstrous? Sorry. I mean it’s quite wide. The term ‘monster’ could be applied to a lot of things (like some recent Top 10s, for instance), but I’m thinking more along the lines of actual creatures, so no real-world animals (be they normal or giant versions, so no King Kong), no humans, and also no other generic monsters that have been used enough to become worthy of their own list. This means no zombies, witches, vampires, werewolves, aliens, dinosaurs, dragons, ghosts or robots. Also nothing that was a person, but has become something else, like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. This puts Frankenstein’s monster in a difficult category, as technically it used to be several different people, so I left that one off. Sorry guys, but your times will all come. Next October, maybe. Also, I’m limiting this to just one ‘monster’ per film (or franchise), just to prevent this being a Top 10 Monsters Inc. characters list. Oh, and cards-on-the-table time – despite having a deep appreciation for both creature features and stop-motion animation, I’ve never seen a Ray Harryhausen film. I’m fully aware that this is horrific (I’ve even got a book written by the guy about the history of animation) but as far as I know they aren’t shown quite as often in the UK as they are in the rest of the world. Yes, I’m ashamed. No, I don’t plan to do anything about it soon, but yes I’d like to. Some day.Another big omission may be Godzilla, but as I’ve only seen the Roland Emmerich version (which I admit is a guilty pleasure) then it really didn’t deserve a place here. The same can therefore be said of all the monsters Godzilla fights amongst his extensive catalogue, as I’ve not seen any of them either. Sorry, Mothra. So, creatures, critters, freaky beings from other dimensions. Let’s see what we’ve got.

Continue reading →

Top 10… Danny Trejo Movies

Posted on November 15, 2013 by jaycluitt

Danny Trejo. Actor. Convicted felon. Rehabilitated drug addict. All-round badass. Look at him. I swear the man was born with a 70-year old face:
How has he not been in The Expendables yet? This guy has had one hell of a career. He started out in 1985 as a boxing prisoner in Runaway Train, during which he coached Eric Roberts for their boxing scene. From there, Trejo went on to play variations on the theme of Prisoner or Gang Member until he was cast by Robert Rodriguez, his second cousin (though they didn’t know it at the time) in Desperado. Trejo and Rodriguez have since had a fairly profitable partnership, working on at least 10 films together, though it’s only recently that Trejo has graduated to the starring role in Machete and Machete Kills. Speaking of which, I recently hosted an episode of the Lambcast devoted to Machete Kills, alongside Robert, Fredo, Will and Pat. The episode can be listened to here. Continue reading →

Vote for me on the Lamb Character Actor Draft!

Posted on October 22, 2013 by jaycluitt

I recently appeared on another episode of the Lambcast, this time discussing character actors along with Dan Heaton of Public Transportation Snob, Nick Powell of The Cinematic Katzenjammer and Dylan Fields of Man I Love Films. We each picked a dream roster of North American character actors to populate a mythical film, selecting from various age groups, and with an In Memoriam round, and you can go vote on who selected the best lineup here:

VOTE FOR ME!

Obviously the choice is easy, as my list is comprised of such greats as Ernest Borgnine, Gene Hackman, Sam Elliott, James Woods, Yaphet Kotto, Stanley Tucci, John Hawkes, Christopher McDonald and Giovanni Ribisi. There isn’t a weak link amongst them, and if you look at the films these guys have made between them you get some terrific performances. Here’s a quick five from each actor, to really showcase the power of this cast: Continue reading →