Clue & Bobby

Alright, so this is the first post of my "Movies of 2012" series. I'm not going to post about every single movie I see, but I'll post about the ones I especially like, and maybe just list the other ones I see at the end of each post. We'll see how it works out.

Disclaimer: For some reason I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. I didn't feel stressed, or excited, or anything. I just felt a complete absence of anything resembling sleepiness. Therefore, I've been up since 3am, and am currently running on about 2-3 hours of sleep, and a free Red Bull that was given to me at the SUB today (FYI: Red Bull at 9 in the morning is neither pleasant nor recommended). Anyways, my apologies if this post lacks coherency. My heads a bit foggy right now.

#1. Clue

  Yeah, you know that board game, clue? I always hated that game, but I never knew they had made a movie in 1985 based off of it, the first movie ever to be based off of a board game (and now, they're making movies based off of the game Battleship. Battleship.). Once I heard about it, I was curious. Isn't the whole point of the game that it's a mystery every time? YES. This movie actually has three different endings. While the version I watched shows all three, when this movie came out in theaters, only one ending would be played, and it varied from theater to theater. Pretty cool, right?
I actually quite enjoyed this movie. It's a lot more interesting than the game, and probably about the same length. (Is Clue a long game? I haven't played it in ages, but for some reason I picture it being akin to Monopoly, in that it never fucking ended). Tim Curry is awesome as Wadsworth the butler, and each of the other characters are as unique and different from each other as they are in the game. It's also set during the 50's, so there's some anti-Communism/McCarthyism slipped in there, which I found interesting, and beefed up the plot a little. Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. It had the simplicity that old movies tend to have, yet pulled off the murder mystery nicely. If you have time, this is a fun one to check out.

#2. Bobby

 Again, Netflix suggested this one to me. I don't know how I hadn't heard about this movie, because it has, easily, at least a dozen big name actors in it. Like, of the first 15 listen on the IMDb page, there were only 2 I didn't recognize (You can check out the full cast list here).
I was  blown away by this movie. Not only was the cast great, but I really enjoyed the structure of the plot, and the fact that it was based around a real-life event (the assassination of Robert F Kennedy). It follows the stories of about 20 different people in the day leading up to the assassination at the Ambassador Hotel. The actually assassination doesn't happen until the last ten or fifteen minutes, and by that point I was strangely anxious, what with all the expectation leading up to it. This film also uses real clips of Kennedy to portray him almost entirely throughout, which gives it a bit more authenticity. I'm sure some people wouldn't enjoy it being done this way, but I liked it. Also, Emilio Estevez both directed and acted in this movie. It's weird; he's actually getting a bit old, but I always picture him as looking the exact same as he did in The Breakfast Club. Really, he doesn't look too different.
I really like this movie. I was pleasantly impressed with my first two movies of 2012.

Other movies I saw: I re-watched Your Highness with my friend. It's still funny, in a I-don't-know-if-this-is-stupid-or-hilarious kind of way.