Not counting reviews of new releases, I wrote 131 movie-related features for five websites (besides this one) in 2012. Of those, 96 were ongoing columns like Eric’s Bad Movies, What’s the Big Deal? (R.I.P.), and Re-Views (R.I.P.), to which you’ll find a thorough list of links elsewhere. The remaining 36 features varied in subject and tone, and some were better than others, and some I don’t remember writing. But here are the ones that I think are the least bad.

March 5: What Household Items Will Become Movies After the Board Games Are Used Up? [Film.com]

April 4: Things the Avengers Theoretically Would Not Assemble For [Film.com]

May 4: Every Girl’s Guide to ‘The Avengers,’ by Internet Princess Quartney Vagington [Film School Rejects]

June 22: The Apocalypse Is All the Rage [Film.com]

Aug. 1: The Aurora Tragedy: Have We Found Every Way to Exploit It? [Pajiba]

Aug. 3: Happy Anniversary to 1987, the Worst Year in Film History [Film.com]

Aug. 28: Pitch Meeting: ‘Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure’ [Film.com]

Aug. 29: ‘Beached’ and Other Animals-Raising-Kids Movies We Want to See [Movies.com]

Nov. 7: Quiz: Female Character in a James Bond Film, or Drag Queen We Made Up? [Pajiba]

Nov. 7: 007 By the Numbers: Every James Bond Statistic You Never Knew You Needed to Know [Movies.com]

Nov. 9: 007 By the Numbers: Part 2 [Movies.com]

Nov. 16: Dear ‘Twilight’: Thank You for Ending [Film.com]

Nov. 28: Movies That Should Be Remade by Name-Appropriate Directors [Twitch]

Dec. 6: Pitch Meeting: ‘Playing for Keeps’ [Film.com]

Dec. 7: Don’t Listen to Critics Who Say Negative Things About ‘The Hobbit,’ by Someone Who Has Not Seen ‘The Hobbit’ [Pajiba]

Dec. 13: 2012 Film Titles: A Dramatic Reading [Film.com]

Do you go to the movies a lot but have a hard time remembering what you saw? Then here is a convenient list to refresh your memory! It is a list of the 139 movies that 1) opened in the United States in 2012 and 2) played on at least 600 screens. Movies that opened smaller but eventually got to 600 screens are included, as long as their first release was in 2012. Re-releases of older movies don’t count, even if they were converted to 3D, because who cares?

I saw 104 of the 139 movies. The ones I missed have asterisks. Links are to my reviews. Sometimes I saw a movie but didn’t write a review, but did review it on the Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider podcast, in which case there’s a Movie B.S. link. And sometimes I watched a movie and didn’t write about it or talk about it or even tell my diary. Those have no links. Dates are when the films opened, not necessarily when they went wide.

How many did you see? Write down your answer on a piece of paper and put it in a mailbox.

1/6 The Devil Inside
1/13 Joyful Noise
*1/13 Contraband
*1/20 Underworld Awakening
1/20 Haywire
1/20 Red Tails
1/27 The Grey
1/27 Man on a Ledge
*1/27 One for the Money
2/3 Chronicle
2/3 The Woman in Black
*2/3 Big Miracle
2/10 Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
2/10 Safe House
2/10 The Vow
2/17 Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
2/17 This Means War
*2/17 The Secret World of Arrietty
2/24 Act of Valor
2/24 Wanderlust
2/24 Gone
*2/24 Good Deeds
3/2 The Lorax
3/2 Project X
3/9 John Carter
3/9 Silent House
*3/9 A Thousand Words
3/9 Friends with Kids
3/16 21 Jump Street
3/23 The Hunger Games
3/23 The Raid: Redemption
3/30 Wrath of the Titans
3/30 Mirror Mirror
4/6 American Reunion
4/13 The Three Stooges
4/13 The Cabin in the Woods
4/13 Lockout
4/20 Think Like a Man
4/20 The Lucky One
*4/20 Chimpanzee
*4/27 The Pirates! Band of Misfits
4/27 The Five-Year Engagement
4/27 The Raven
*4/27 Safe
5/4 The Avengers
*5/4 The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
5/11 Dark Shadows
5/16 The Dictator
*5/18 Battleship
*5/18 What to Expect When You’re Expecting
5/25 Men in Black 3
*5/25 Chernobyl Diaries
5/25 Moonrise Kingdom
6/1 Snow White and the Huntsman
*6/1 For Greater Glory
*6/8 Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted
6/8 Prometheus
6/15 Rock of Ages
6/15 That’s My Boy
6/22 Brave
6/22 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
6/22 Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
6/22 To Rome with Love
6/29 Ted
6/29 Magic Mike
*6/29 Madea’s Witness Protection
*6/29 People Like Us
7/3 The Amazing Spider-Man
7/6 Savages
*7/6 Katy Perry: Part of Me
*7/13 Ice Age: Continental Drift
*7/13 2016 Obama’s America
7/20 The Dark Knight Rises
7/27 The Watch
7/27 Step Up Revolution
8/3 Total Recall
*8/3 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
8/8 Hope Springs
*8/8 Nitro Circus the Movie 3D
8/10 The Bourne Legacy
8/10 The Campaign
8/15 The Odd Life of Timothy Green
8/17 Sparkle
8/17 The Expendables 2 (Movie B.S.)
8/17 ParaNorman
8/22 Hit and Run (Movie B.S.)
8/24 Premium Rush
8/24 The Apparition
8/29 Lawless
*8/29 Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure
*8/31 The Possession
9/7 The Words
9/7 The Cold Light of Day
9/14 Resident Evil: Retribution
*9/14 Last Ounce of Courage
9/14 The Master (Movie B.S.)
9/21 End of Watch
*9/21 House at the End of the Street
9/21 Trouble with the Curve
*9/21 Dredd
9/21 The Perks of Being a Wallflower
9/28 Hotel Transylvania
9/28 Looper
9/28 Pitch Perfect
*9/28 Won’t Back Down
10/5 Taken 2
10/5 Frankenweenie
10/12 Argo
10/12 Here Comes the Boom
10/12 Sinister
10/12 Seven Psychopaths
*10/12 Atlas Shrugged: Part II
10/19 Paranormal Activity 4
10/19 Alex Cross
10/26 Fun Size
*10/26 Silent Hill: Revelation
10/26 Cloud Atlas
10/26 Chasing Mavericks (Movie B.S.)
11/2 Wreck-It Ralph
11/2 Flight
*11/2 The Man with the Iron Fists
11/9 Skyfall
11/9 Lincoln
11/16 Breaking Dawn — Part 2
11/21 Silver Linings Playbook
11/21 Rise of the Guardians
11/21 Life of Pi
11/21 Red Dawn
11/30 Killing Them Softly
11/30 The Collection
12/7 Playing for Keeps
12/14 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
*12/19 The Guilt Trip
12/21 Jack Reacher
12/21 This Is 40
*12/21 Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away
*12/25 Parental Guidance
12/25 Django Unchained
12/25 Les Miserables

Since “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is a very serious and harrowing movie, I thought it would be funny if it had a jaunty, shufflin’, New Orleans-y theme song by Randy Newman.

This is what I came up with. Being a huge fan of Randy Newman, his older stuff even more than his movie songs, came in handy. The music and structure are basically a combination of “I Love to See You Smile” (from “Parenthood”) and “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” (from “Toy Story”), though I guess part of the joke is that they also resemble many of Newman’s other movie songs.

Please note that the song has SPOILERS for “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” I don’t think it’s anything that would totally ruin the movie for you — the Very Bad Thing that Kevin did is alluded to pretty early in the film — but there’s your warning nonetheless. (The movie will be released in more theaters later this month.)

(Note: I should mention that the “Randy Newman sings inappropriately merry song for serious movie” idea is not original to me. The comedy duo of Paul & Storm did one for “The Passion of the Christ” several years ago. I don’t think I actually heard the song at the time, but I did hear about it and can definitely trace the concept back to them. And of course the idea of “catchy tune for un-catchy movie” goes at least as far back as Tom Lehrer’s proposed theme song for the movie version of “Oedipus Rex,” a song that I think about at least once a week.)

Here is a pile of links to some of my one-off movie columns from this year that you might find “funny” or “interesting” or “not very long.” Except as noted, all of these were for Film.com, where my editor, Laremy, is nearly always responsible for coming up with the great topic.

Jan. 10: Predicting the Marketing Slogans of 2011.
Feb. 9: Logical Problems Presented by “Just Go with It.”
March 2: The 10 Commandments for Getting a Film into Sundance.
April 17: Why the “Don’t Think About It!” Argument Is Dumb.
June 22: Unsettling Questions Raised by the Alternate Reality in “Cars.”
July 13: A Long Column About the Length of Movies.
July 27: The Pitch Meeting for “The Smurfs.”
Aug. 30: A Fake Report from Our Fake Set Visit.
Sept. 7: The Pitch Meeting for “I Don’t Know How She Does It.”
Oct. 7: A Proper Gentleman from 19th Century England Reacts to Seeing “Human Centipede 2.” [Movies.com]
Oct. 10: Things Nicolas Cage Could Do That Would Theoretically Still Shock Us.
Oct. 18: The Timeline for Winning Best Picture.
Nov. 1: The Pitch Meeting for “New Year’s Eve.”
Nov. 9: Logical Problems with a Horse That Goes to War.
Dec. 20: The Next 35 “Alvin and the Chipmunks” Sequel Titles.

And now, a playlet in which the dialogue is composed entirely of 2011 movie titles.

[Outside a bar at closing time. People are waiting in line for taxis. A MAN sidles up to a WOMAN.]

MAN: What’s your number?
WOMAN: I am number four.
MAN: Arthur.
WOMAN: Hanna.

[They shake hands.]

MAN: [gesturing to his car] Monte Carlo. Real steel!
WOMAN: [unimpressed] Something borrowed?

[Despite the WOMAN's lack of interest, the MAN plunges ahead.]

MAN: Cold weather! [pause] Everything must go… [he gestures to his car again]
WOMAN: Abduction?!
MAN: No strings attached!
WOMAN: One day. The future. Another earth.
MAN: Don’t be afraid of the dark!
WOMAN: [considering] The dilemma: Contagion? Unknown.
MAN: Just go with it!

[She considers his offer. She does find him attractive, and it is getting late...]

MAN: 30 minutes or less.

[She still isn't sold.]

MAN: Fast five.
WOMAN: [sighing reluctantly] Take me home tonight.
MAN: Win win!
WOMAN: [to herself] The art of getting by…

[He opens the passenger door for her.]

MAN: Your highness.

[They get in.]

WOMAN: Drive.
MAN: In time. [seeing pedestrians in the crosswalk] Madea’s big happy family!
WOMAN: Drive angry! Like crazy!
MAN: A dangerous method!

[She puts her hand on his thigh.]

MAN: [shrugging] Crazy, stupid love…

[He runs over the pedestrians. The WOMAN is impressed.]

WOMAN: Courageous! Footloose! Limitless!
MAN: [regretful] Beastly. Shame.
WOMAN: [seeing an acquaintance on the sidewalk] Martha Marcy May Marlene!
MAN: The girl with the dragon tattoo? Young adult? Zookeeper? I don’t know how she does it!
WOMAN: We bought a zoo.
MAN: Super!

[They arrive at her home, a charming two-story.]

MAN: Dream house! [he sees a silhouette in the window] The help?
WOMAN: We need to talk about Kevin.
MAN: The roommate?
WOMAN: Friends with benefits.
MAN: Sucker punch.

[Suddenly a bright light fills the sky. Loud ALIEN VOICES boom in the night air.]

ALIEN VOICE 1: Attack the block!
ALIEN VOICE 2: Mars needs moms!
MAN: Take shelter!
WOMAN: I am!

[They run inside the house.]

MAN: Sanctum!
WOMAN: I saw the devil! Extremely loud and incredibly close!
MAN: Insidious immortals!

[The ALIENS attack and kill everybody. The end.]

Do you like lists of things? Then here is one! It is a list of the 141 movies that 1) opened in the United States in 2011 and 2) played on at least 600 screens. Movies that opened smaller but eventually got to 600 screens are included, as long as their first release was in 2011. Re-releases of older movies don’t count, even if they were converted to 3D and called “The Lion King.”

I saw 113 of the 141 movies. The ones I missed have asterisks. Links are to my reviews. Sometimes I saw a movie but didn’t review it. That’s how life is sometimes. Dates are when the film opened, not necessarily when it went wide.

How many did you see? It is a contest.

1/7 Season of the Witch
1/14 The Dilemma
1/14 The Green Hornet
*1/21 No Strings Attached
*1/28 The Rite
1/28 The Mechanic
2/4 Sanctum
2/4 The Roommate
2/11 Just Go with It
*2/11 Justin Bieber: Never Say Never
*2/11 Gnomeo and Juliet
2/11 The Eagle
2/18 Unknown
2/18 I Am Number Four
2/18 Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
2/25 Hall Pass
2/25 Drive Angry
3/4 Rango
3/4 The Adjustment Bureau
3/4 Beastly
3/4 Take Me Home Tonight
3/11 Battle Los Angeles
3/11 Red Riding Hood
3/11 Mars Needs Moms
3/18 Limitless
*3/18 The Lincoln Lawyer
3/18 Paul
3/25 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
3/25 Sucker Punch

Continue reading…

Last week I wrote something for Film.com about “Duck Soup,” the loony Marx Brothers movie from 1933. In discussing the influence the Marxes had on modern comedy, I mentioned the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker team that made “Airplane!,” “Naked Gun,” and “Top Secret,” among other fine spoofs. To my great delight, David Zucker read the column and sent me an e-mail. With his permission, I reprint it here. Fans of comedy may find it instructive.

Eric,

I enjoyed reading your article on the Marx Bros.’ “Duck Soup.” I was particularly intrigued by the reasons you listed for the movie’s failure at the box office.  But I can tell you from personal experience the most important reason:

I first saw “Duck Soup” in 1967 in a packed lecture hall at the University of Wisconsin where I was majoring in film. I loved it, the audience howled, but the Marxes and their writers made a critical mistake when they assumed a movie packed with great jokes would automatically gain box office success.  What the movie lacked was a story grounded in reality, with real characters for the audience to root for.

After it flopped, Irving Thalberg told Chico Marx during a card game one night that he and his brothers could have twice the success with half the jokes. Bringing the brothers to MGM, Thalberg suggested a real ballet setting, and added Allen Jones and Kitty Carlisle to the mix — main characters that the audience could care about. “A Night at the Opera” opened to the Marxes biggest grosses ever.  The ZAZ team went through the same process, (although in reverse) basing our “Airplane!” script on an Arthur Haley B movie, “Zero Hour.”  Audiences actually cared about Bob Hays and Julie Haggerty, so the movie was quite satisfying in the last five minutes when Ted Striker actually lands the plane and wins the love of Elaine Dickinson.

Taking the wrong lessons from the success of “Airplane!” we then created “Top Secret!”, on the assumption that, like Duck soup, if we just filled 85 minutes with great jokes, we would have another big hit.  We were wrong.  Many people consider “Top Secret!” to be as good or better a movie than “Airplane!” but I know different. It was 85 minutes of jokes without a real plot, character, or situations.  After it flopped at the box office, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg took us in (without the card game) to Disney to direct “Ruthless People,” a movie ABOUT plot and character.  We learned the lesson, had another big hit, and subsequently applied it to all of our films after that.

While following the rule never guaranteed success, ignoring it certainly guaranteed failure.

David Zucker

Here is a transcript of everything Ricky Gervais said at the 2011 Golden Globes on Sunday night. This hardly does it justice, of course, since timing and delivery are so important. (You can see a video of the first four minutes — up through the Hugh Hefner bit — over here.) But you get the idea, and at least now it’s entered into the record. Also, except where it’s otherwise noted, everything that was supposed to get a laugh got one. You can watch the tape and see for yourself.

Everything Ricky Gervais said:

Hello, welcome to the 68th annual Golden Globe awards, live from the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. It’s gonna be a night of partying and heavy drinking. Or as Charlie Sheen calls it, breakfast.

Wow. Woo. So, let’s get this straight. What he did was, he picked up a porn star, paid her to have dinner with him, introduced her to his ex-wife — as you do — went to a hotel, got drunk, got naked, trashed the place while she was locked in a cupboard. And, uh, that was a Monday! What did he do New Year’s Eve?

Anyway, welcome. The Golden Globes is a celebration of the best in TV and movies over the last year, voted for by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. It was a big year for 3D movies. “Toy Story,” “Despicable Me,” “Tron.” Seems like everything this year was three-dimensional. Except the characters in “The Tourist.”

[There is no immediate reaction from the crowd. It takes a second for it to sink in.]

Um…

[Now there are some groans.]

I feel bad about that joke. No, I’ll tell you why. I’m jumping on the bandwagon, ’cause I haven’t even SEEN “The Tourist.” Who has?

Continue reading…

For people who like lists of things, here is a list of the 137 movies that opened in wide release in the United States in 2010. “Wide release” means it played in at least 1,000 theaters. Some movies started much smaller than that and expanded; this list includes those, as long as they eventually made it to 1,000. Missing are the 300+ movies that opened this year but didn’t go into wide release. That isn’t a judgment against those movies, just a way of sorting them. Information is according to Box Office Mojo. Links are to my reviews.

I saw 117 of them. How many did you see?

1/8 Daybreakers
1/8 Leap Year
1/8 Youth in Revolt
1/15 The Book of Eli
1/15 The Spy Next Door
1/22 Tooth Fairy
1/22 Extraordinary Measures
1/22 Legion
1/29 Edge of Darkness
1/29 When in Rome

2/5 From Paris with Love
2/5 Dear John
2/12 Valentine’s Day
2/12 Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
2/12 The Wolfman
2/19 Shutter Island
2/26 Cop Out
2/26 The Crazies

Continue reading…

My friend Jeff Bayer’s site, The Scorecard Review, is hosting its 8th annual TSR Movie Awards, in which the films of 2009 are judged not by snooty, knowledgeable, well-informed members of the Academy, but by YOU, whoever you are. They’re arranged by categories: Funniest, Saddest, Scariest, etc. And it doesn’t matter how many movies you’ve seen, because you’re simply giving each nominee a score of 1 to 10, and you skip the ones you haven’t seen. So go vote here.

Funny story about the TSR Movie Awards. Jeff put up the nominees a couple weeks ago, and the “Twilight” sequel, “New Moon,” was mentioned a few times. This caught the attention of the Twilighters, who vigilantly scour the Internet for all references to their sparkle-monster franchise, and hundreds of them showed up to vote in the TSR Movie Awards. In one day, Jeff said he got twice as many votes as he’d gotten in last year’s entire contest. But the way these people “voted” was to give everything “Twilight”-related a 10 and everything else in the category a 1. In the Best Supporting Actress category, they gave Anna Kendrick high scores for her work in “Up in the Air” while giving her fellow nominees low scores. Why? Because Kendrick is also in “New Moon.”

That’s the mentality we’re talking about. “It’s a movie we love! We need to go stuff the ballot box so that it will win awards so that we can love it more!!” As punishment, Jeff deleted all those frivolous votes and removed most “New Moon” mentions from the ballot. You want to vote for “New Moon”? Too bad. Your loser friends ruined it for everyone.

The rest of you, go ahead and vote.