I LOVE MOVIES: My Picks for Favorites (and Stinkers) So Far This Year

Every month in my journal, I keep track of all the movies I watched during the month, and I pick my two favorites and usually my two least favorites (unless there weren't two movies I hated) and name them as "Movie of the Month" and "Runner Up", and "Stinker of the Month" and "Little Stinker".  I've been doing this since the year 2000.  The only rule is that I can choose any movie I saw that month, regardless of when it was made, as long as I didn't already choose it before.  That means I might name movies from as far back as the 1930's, or even silent films if I happen to see one and decide I loved it or hated it.  So far, for the first week of the month of September, I've already seen World War Z, Mr. Popper's Penguins, Hotel Transylvania (for the second time), Fanboys, I'm Reed Fish (both starring Jay Baruchel), and most of the funniest clips for the raunchy satire A Haunted House.

To catch up so far, this year I've liked and hated the following movies:

January:
Some months, I don't get to see a whole lot.  Perhaps that's why the otherwise pedestrian Trouble with the Curve wound up as my favorite of the month, and (surprisingly) Pitch Perfect, a comedy film about college a capella groups, and I didn't care for The Words with Bradley Cooper.

February:
I loved the Zeffirelli version of Romeo and Juliet from 1968, and also The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and re-watched Baz Luhrmann's version Romeo + Juliet with DiCaprio & Danes and remembered why I didn't like it in the first place.

March:
I surprisingly found the Kevin James comedy Here Comes the Boom to be my favorite, followed by Seven Days in Utopia, and with St. Patrick's Day upon us, I re-watched The Commitments and realized why I always loved the soundtrack much more than the raunchy movie itself.

April:
My favorites were the visually stunning Oz the Great and Powerful and Life of Pi, and I was very disappointed by Beasts of the Southern Wild and Unstoppable.

May:
In a month where I saw the new Star Trek movie, Star Trek: Into Darkness, as well as Baz Luhrmann's flashy The Great Gatsby, any other movie I saw that month just didn't stand a chance!  Case in point are the two films I stuck at the bottom of the list:  The 1933 version of Alice in Wonderland I caught on cable one weekend morning, and the remake of the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still.

June:
The old gangster flick True Romance and the classic comedy Airplane wound up as my favorites this time, even over the new Superman movie Man of Steel, which was a major disappointment, the 2008 Best Picture winner at the Oscars, The Hurt Locker, and the rom zom com Warm Bodies, and though these films didn't wind up on my stinkers list, Rumor Has It and G-Force weren't so lucky.

July:
Despicable Me 2 was the best, followed by the made-for-TV movie Amish Grace, about the power of forgiveness, while the comedy potential for both Yogi Bear and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone fell flat.

Tomorrow, I'll post my picks for best and worst movies of all the films I saw in August, which includes, in alphabetical order, Dr. No, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Kick-Ass, Law Abiding Citizen, Les Misérables, Now You See Me, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Scream 3, Scre4m, Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall, Straight from the Heart, and Teen Beach Movie.  Now, I really liked at least 6 of these movies, and found at least three to be disappointing  but as usual, limited myself to the two best and two worst, in my humble opinion.  I already know certain members of my family and my co-workers wouldn't quite agree.  If you're curious, check tomorrow's post for reviews of my favorites and least favorites from August.  HINT:  On this alphabetical list, all my choices just so happen to be listed right by each other, with my choice for stinkers followed by my picks for favorites.