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2021年8月14日 星期六

Some Other Movies From 2013 (2)


For further background on the year in film, please refer to the Some Other Movies From 2013 entry.

The following things happened in 2013:
  • It was the International Year of Quinoa, and no, I have no idea what that means.
  • Over 200 people died in a nightclub fire in Brazil.
  • American scientists printed an ear using a 3D printer, collagen and animal cultures.
  • Two bombs were detonated at the Boston Marathon.
  • The El Reno Tornado, the largest tornado ever recorded, killed several people in Oklahoma.
  • Edward Snowden was granted asylum in Russia after disclosing details of a U.S. program of mass surveillance.
  • Croatia joined the European Union.
  • India launched its unmanned Mars Orbiter Mission.
  • Noted movie critic Roger Ebert died.
Linked entries can be viewed in their entirety on YouTube.


Some Good Ones

1. The Croods

I doubt many of those reading this blog have seen 1981's Quest for Fire, but The Croods is like a better version of that.  Where Quest for Fire was a serious (if implausible) exploration of man's origins, in The Croods they just took the idea of cavemen and ran with it.  It'll remind you a lot of Ice Age, another Dreamworks property, but that's not a bad thing.

2. The Fault in Our Stars

I want to say this movie is excellent, but it's a little too predictable.  Two teenagers diagnosed with different types of cancer fall in love, and despite impeccable acting the story devolves into melodrama at times.  I would have liked to see their masks slip more.  They seem too self-possessed throughout the film.

3. Begin Again

Kiera Knightley stars as an aspiring songwriter, with Mark Ruffalo as a record producer down on his luck.  It's not bad, though I'm not sure why Knightley's character would have talked to Ruffalo's character in the first place.  I did, however, like the ending.

Fun Fact: Knightley and director John Carney, whose career was largely predicated on the success of the earlier Once, did not get along during filming.  During subsequent interviews he was very critical of her performance.

4. Red 2

In case you forgot what the first one was about, the Red franchise involves retired spies brought back into the fold after some world-shattering event. Willis and Malkovich are an engaging duo, and it's a solid action film similar to the first installment.


A North Korean spy is caught between two groups vying for dominance in the South.  I've gotten a bellyful of North/South politics from the Korean dramas my wife and younger daughter are addicted to, yet even so I enjoyed this more serious take on the subject. 


Speaking of Koreans, director Kim Jee-woon also hails from South Korea.  Aside from this movie he also directed I Saw the Devil, which enjoys a substantial cult following.

In The Last Stand Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as the sheriff of a small border town.  At the time of release Johnny Knoxville's presence was heavily promoted, but he's not in that much of the movie.  It's formulaic, it's extremely corny, but it works.


Christian, kid-friendly movie about an artifact that grants wishes.  It's not The Goonies or anything, but I can't fault it for what it is.  According to Wikipedia it was heavily altered after going through the film festival circuit.  Several church groups purchased the film, and the "God-centric" framing narrative is a later addition.

Fun Fact: Mark Dacascos plays the villain.


Some Bad Ones

1. Warm Bodies

I know I wasn't supposed to take this movie 100% seriously, but they lost me somewhere.  How is the young woman supposed to fall in love with the zombie?  Wouldn't he smell bad?  Wouldn't she smell bad?  Wouldn't the fact that he ate her ex-boyfriend's brains be an obstacle to their relationship?  Young women falling in love with hot vampires or werewolves I can get, but zombies seems like a bridge too far.

2. After Earth

The second I saw M. Night Shyamalan's name in the end credits this movie made a lot more sense.  "General Cypher Raige," huh?  Aliens that can smell fear?  I can only hope that if we're ever invaded by a hostile extraterrestrial species they resemble the aliens in an M. Night Shyamalan movie.  All we'd have to do is either not be afraid or stock up on bottled water.

This aside, three questions:

a. Why don't the suits insulate against the cold?  I mean, wouldn't that be their primary purpose?

b. Why are the weapons so lame?  Why don't they have guns in the future?  Or projectile weapons of any kind?

c. How many actually good movies has Will Smith been in, exactly?  I can think of a couple, but by and large?  Out of all the films he's made I can't remember a lot of genuinely good ones.

Fun Fact: This movie was supposed to be the first in a trilogy that, of course, will never happen.  Will Smith later referred to this movie as his "most painful failure."

3. Jack the Giant Slayer

Hey, it's Nicolas Hoult, last seen in Warm Bodies (above).  In this one he teams up with director Bryan Singer for a retelling of the fairy tale.  Honestly, who asked for this movie?  Why did someone think it was a good idea?  It's too scary for kids, and most adults will shake their heads over it.

Fun Fact: Warwick Davis appears briefly in the beginning.

4. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters

Jack the Giant Slayer, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White and the Huntsman - in the early 2010s many fairy tale adaptations were foisted upon us.  Thing is, I can't remember a single one of them being good.  Hansel and Gretel enters the new genre with a wink and a nod, but it's not so much funny as embarrassing.  I suppose if you enjoyed Army of Darkness you might give it a try, and actress Gemma Arterton sure is beautiful, but this movie wasn't doing anything for me.

Fun Fact 1: Tommy Wirkola, the director of this movie, also helmed Dead Snow.  In 2014 he'd go on to direct Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead.

Fun Fact 2: This movie has a serious cult following.  If you ask me, I'd say the director was overwhelmed by both the budget and the scale of a big studio picture, though other people find this movie's sense of humor appealing.  Again, if you liked Army of Darkness you might give it a look.

5. The Call

Ah, Halle Berry.  She's been in some good movies, but her record with thrillers like this is not awesome. In The Call Berry plays a 911 operator trying to foil the stupidest serial killer in the entire history of serial killers.  "Female empowerment?"  Only if the antagonist is a credible threat.


Kid-friendly Spider-man knockoff from... Sweden?  Norway?  Somewhere Scandinavian?  Wherever it's from, there's nothing for adults in it.

7. Run

Parkour.  This movie is pretty much just parkour and nothing else.  Eric Roberts is in it for a bit, but he probably just needed rent money that month.  Eric Roberts is in many, many movies, and many of these many movies are not good.


Bad Enough to be Good


God-fearing Christians in Boise, Idaho (!) get on the wrong side of a global satanic conspiracy.  No one in this movie is a good actor, a couple of them look like they've found Jesus after years in the porn industry, and the Christian beliefs espoused in this apocalyptic diatribe are never contradicted, not even by the satanists.

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2018年11月14日 星期三

Some Other Movies From 2013

The top 5 highest-grossing movies of 2013 were Frozen, Iron Man 3, Despicable Me 2, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (yawn), and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (double yawn, but Jennifer Lawrence is FINE).

As far as the award-winners go, it was an excellent year.  12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, The Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club and Her all came out that year.  I liked Gravity too, but I thought it was a bit overrated.

My favorite movies of that year are probably Gangster Squad, Upstream Color, The Iceman, Fruitvale Station, The Conjuring, August: Osage County, Prisoners, Inside Llewyn Davis and all of the award-winners mentioned in the paragraph above this one.

I doubt few would champion The Lone Ranger, which I consider the worst movie of that year.  You would think that after this movie studios would have stopped giving piles of money to Johnny Depp, but somehow studios never quite learn their lesson.



Some Good Ones

1. Dark Skies

"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not."  ...but see the part of that quote the filmmakers failed to include was "Both are equally terrifying."  I guess it sounded scarier without the second sentence.

In Dark Skies an American family endures a Poltergeist-style alien invasion.  Aside from wondering if and when someone was going to end up in the living room TV, I enjoyed it.  It's by no means classic, but it builds up a fair amount of suspense over its 1.5 hour runtime.

2. Welcome to the Punch

James McAvoy and Mark Strong face off in this stylish British crime thriller.  The script was declared "one of the best unproduced British screenplays" prior to its entering production, and I'd have to say that yes, it made for a very good film.  After the success of Get Out it's slightly jarring to hear supporting cast member Daniel Kaluuya speak in his native British accent, but Welcome to the Punch is a solid action film along the lines of Michael Mann's Heat.

3. Trance

Hey there's James McAvoy again.  In this one he appears with Vincent Cassel (yay, Vincent Cassel!) and Rosario Dawson.  Danny Boyle directed.   The title refers more to the hypnotic state and less to the type of music.  One could make a convincing argument that this movie is a case of style over substance, but even so it's very stylish, and very entertaining.

Fun Fact: McAvoy's fellow X-Men alumnus Michael Fassbender was originally cast in the lead role.

4. The Internship

It's not hilarious or anything - and that strip club sequence exists only for the sake of tits and ass - but The Internship is... ok.  Vince Vaughn is about 50/50 for me, and Owen Wilson is about 25/75, but they're both relatively engaging in this movie about two older guys who want to work at Google.

5. Java Heat

Are all Indonesian police stations and prisons really so shitty?  Or is this some kind of movie trope, to make their characters seem tougher?

I'm guessing the fact that someone greenlit this movie had something to do with the success of The Raid.  But I could be wrong.  An American gets caught up in a bombing, and the plot ventures into Lethal Weapon territory from there.  Oh, and Mickey Rourke of all people shows up as a Malaysian (?) Muslim (?) terrorist (?).  There's some out-of-the-box casting for you!

The action scenes are stricly B movie fare, but the setting makes it more interesting than would otherwise be the case.

6. Lone Survivor

A team of Navy SEALS waste thousands of our taxpayer dollars in Afghanistan.  Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster and Taylor Kitsch are excellent in this movie, and the characters are very engaging throughout.  My only complaint is the movie's title, which gives the ending away.  I think Peter Berg, who directed this one, is very underrated as directors go.

This movie also gets extra points for Eric Bana.

7. Out of the Furnace

Braddock, Pennsylvania.  Maybe it has some nicer parts, but in this movie it looks like a real shithole.

Christian Bale and Casey Affleck star as two brothers who cross paths with a gangster played by Woody Harrelson.  It's a good movie, but more of a cat and mouse game between Bale and Harrelson would have made it better.  As it is it just kind of... ends, and all the great buildup prior to that point is wasted.

8. The Counselor

Michael Fassbender leads a star-studded cast as a lawyer mixed up with Mexican drug cartels.  Director Ridley Scott took Cormac McCarthy's script and ran with it, so you know this one's going to get DARK.  Depending on your love (or lack thereof) for McCarthy, the result is either a harrowing portrait of greed and human frailty OR a pretentious movie full of awkward dialogue.  For my part I loved it, and I'll probably watch it again soon.



So Bad It's Good?  So Good It's Bad?

1. Himmatwala

You've heard the Donna Summer version of "Thank God It's Friday," but have you heard the Telugu version?  A local badass returns to his hometown to confront an evil land baron.  In between the opening credits and his inevitable victory the (very beautiful) love interest sings songs, and the guys try to out-macho each other.  My favorite part is when HE GETS INTO A FISTFIGHT WITH A TIGER.

Fun Fact #1: This movie is a remake of a remake.

Fun Fact #2: This movie was a huge bomb.

2. Riddick

Now that we've all contacted our personal trainers, let's bulk up and put on our tough guy clothes!

Vin Diesel says predictably manly things and does cool stuff in slow motion.  The assholes who try to kill him die predictably violent deaths.  Aliens show up - predictably.  Where have I see all this before?  Oh, that's right.  Pitch Black!

Fun Fact: Vin Diesel only appeared in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift so that he could get the rights to the character Riddick.



Not Bad or Good, It Just Was

1. Texas Chainsaw 3D

Alexandra Daddario and Scott "I'm not the actor my dad is" Eastwood work their way up the ol' Hollywood ladder with Texas Chainsaw 3D.  The results are mixed.  On the one hand it's WAY better than 2017's Leatherface, and on the other it's still not very good.  This particular sequel ignores the 2003 remake and pretends to be the successor to the 1974 version of Texas' first family.  There's some good gore on offer, and Gunnar Hanson appears in it, but aside from these two facts there's not much else to be said for this movie.



Some Bad Ones

1. Dead Man Down

It's taken Hollywood a while to learn that you don't cast Colin Farrell as the lead in your movie.  Supporting cast member maybe, but definitely not the lead.  Farrell (unfortunately) stars in this movie as a man out for revenge - essentially The Punisher - and it's hard to say whether its Farrell's acting skills or just bad writing that makes his character come across as entirely too self-possessed to do what he is doing

Terrence Howard is, moreover, completely wasted on this movie.  He plays pretty much the same character he plays on the TV series Empire, though without the frightening ex-wife and the hip hop.  To make matters worse Noomi Rapace's accent is all over the place.

But I think the biggest problem with this movie is the pacing.  The whole thing seems like it's moving at the wrong speed.  There's a good scene between Farrell and Howard halfway through the movie, but aside from that everything about Dead Man Down seems to be happening either too slowly or too quickly.

2. The Grandmaster

By turns boring and pretentious, this Hong Kong movie is part action film, part love film, and part historical drama.  It's a movie suffering an identity crisis, and despite a strong beginning it quickly degenerates into long, thoughtful glances from Zhang Ziyi and the kind of self-important dialogue that sounds ridiculous in real life.

Perhaps worst of all, this movie made me miss the kind of Kung-fu movies I grew up with.  Back before everyone was suspended from wires.  Back when there was real, perceptible, physical danger involved.  Countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, and even India are still making visceral martial arts-themed movies like that, but this?  It's like watching a pale shadow of all the better movies that came before it.

3. The Fifth Estate

Doctor Strange and Baron Zemo - ahem, excuse me - Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel Bruhl - star as Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, and his German friend.  It wears out its welcome quickly, and many of the graphics used detract rather than add to the story.

Fun Fact: This wasn't the only time Cumberbatch played a socially-challenged mathematician.  He would do so again in The Imitation Game.

4. Mama

This movie seemed overrated when it came out in 2013, and having seen it in 2018 I can confidently assert that yes, it's overrated.  Two girls are abandoned in a spooky old house and are looked after by a ghost.  I never found the ghost scary, and the plot is fairly predictable.

5. Race 2

Bollywood movie about a con man seeking revenge.  What I'm going to remember about this movie is the shots of dudes walking down sets of stairs into hotel lobbies.  Endless.  Shots.  Of stairs.  Of dudes.  Walking.  Into hotel lobbies.  Oh, and designer sunglasses.  Lots and lots of designer sunglasses.  The rest of the movie is sheer nonsense, and only the presence of the stunning Deepika Padukone makes it halfway bearable.

I'm tempted to put this one in the "so bad it's good" category, but I think in terms of "bad goodness" (good badness?) it's overshadowed by Himmatwala above.  You just can't beat a fistfight with a tiger.

Fun Fact #1: Padukone was a nationally ranked badminton player prior to becoming a fashion model.

Fun Fact #2: Anil Kapoor, who also appears in this movie, was the star of Race, its prequel.  He might be more familiar to Western moviegoers as the Indian millionaire in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.  He was also host of the game show in Slumdog Millionaire.  He's been appearing in Bollywood movies since 1971.

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Some Other Movies From 2015
Superhero Movies From October 2018 Onward
Some Other Movies From 2017
Some Other Movies From 2018

2014年2月9日 星期日

Movies I Watched During the 2014 Winter Break, Organized into Almost Completely Arbitrary Categories


I. Movies About Elderly People Looking for Something

1. August: Osage County (2013)

Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts star in this film about The Most Dysfunctional Family in the World.  By turns depressing and funny, it's certainly one of the best films listed here.  It's not nearly as flashy as many other 2013 films, but the story is rock solid and the acting is amazing.  Streep has received her share of accolades, but she deserves even more for her performance in this movie.

2. Nebraska (2013)

Bruce Dern plays a senile father of two sons, desperate to secure a fortune in Nebraska.  This was another movie that was by turns depressing and funny, but it's a lot lighter than "August: Osage County."  The actress that plays Dern's wife has all the best lines.

3. Philomena (2013)

Judi Dench plays an Irish mother searching for her lost son, and Steve Coogan plays the reporter trying to help her.  This is a BBC film, and it probably received a lot less press than either "August" or "Nebraska."  It is more of a meditation on religion, and the lengths to which people go to cover up past indiscretions.

II. Movies About Racial Inequality

1. 12 Years a Slave (2013)

Also one of the best movies on this list, and based on the true story of Solomon Northrup's time as a slave in the South.  The acting is great, the direction is inspired, and Michael Fassbender turns in one of his best performances as the violent, lecherous master of Northrup's plantation.

2. The Butler (2013)

Forrest Whitaker stars as a butler in the White House.  During his time in the White House, his son goes to the south and takes part in the struggle for civil rights.  The film opens in the 1920s and concludes with the election of President Obama in 2008.  A good movie, but less than subtle.



3. Machete Kills (2013)

Yes, when you think about it, Machete does say a lot about racial inequality (or the lack thereof) in the US.  Even so, "Machete Kills" is a terrible movie.  I liked the first "Machete," but this one seemed lazily done.

III. Movies About Scams or Heists

1. American Hustle (2013)

I didn't like this movie nearly as much as I thought I would.  The director and many of the cast members from "Silver Linings Playbook" were in this film, but this movie lacked the sense of humor that made "Silver Linings" so good.  It's worth seeing, but it seemed a bit labored to me.

2. Dallas Buyers' Club (2013)

A rodeo rider stricken with AIDS develops a scheme to sell medicine to AIDS patients.  It sounds really depressing - and sometimes it is - but it's also a great movie.  Made me think about how often bureaucracy stands in the way of people helping other people.

3. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

I've seen "The Departed" about one million times, so I knew I'd like this one the minute I saw the poster.  Leonardo Dicaprio stars as a stock broker out to conquer the world.  It's full of memorable dialogue, and is also really funny.  One of the best movies here.

IV. Movies That are Stories of Survival

1. Captain Philips (2013)

Tom Hanks stars as the title character, the captain of a freighter captured by Somali pirates.  Hanks delivers another great performance, and the story is unusual enough to be interesting.  My only problem with Tom Hanks is that he's in too many damn movies.

2. Gravity (2013)

Two astronauts survive a space disaster, and must find their way back to safety.  I thought I would love this movie, but for whatever reason it just wasn't working for me.  It was good, but a little too simplistic.


V. Movies About Being a Raging Homosexual

1. Behind the Candelabra (2013)

Michael Douglas stars as Liberace, and Matt Damon stars as his lover.  I'm not sure if this movie was ever released in theaters.  Michael Douglas all but vanishes into his character, and there are some delightfully absurd moments in this film.

VI. Movies That are Difficult to Categorize

1. Her (2013)

A man falls in love with his operating system.  A lot of friends RAVED about this movie, but I thought it was just OK.  It's definitely good, definitely very contemporary, but it dragged on a bit.  The part where they have "sex" for the first time made me squirm.

2. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

The latest movie from the Cohen Brothers.  A folk singer struggles to survive in New York.  It's a great movie, and the soundtrack is excellent.  John Goodman's cameo as an aging jazz musician almost steals the movie.

3. Only God Forgives (2013)

Ryan Gosling stars as an American living in Thailand.  His brother kills a 16 year-old prostitute, and it's all downhill from there.  Very dark, very arty, and it doesn't paint a flattering portrait of Thailand.  I liked it, but I can understand why a lot of people lost their patience.

4. Stoker (2013)

This movie bored me to tears.  A young girl's father dies, and her uncle moves in to take his place.  It's by turns creepy and erotic.  I felt like the screenplay might have worked better as a novel.


5. Don Jon (2013)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's first directorial effort, in which he also stars as a ladies' man who receives his comeuppance.  I couldn't quite figure out what the message of this movie was, and Julianne Moore was wasted on this movie.  So what if he watches porn?  Is it the end of the world?

VIII. Movies That are Based on Real People and Actual Events

1. Jobs (2013)

My first thought was: "Corporate bullshit," but to my surprise I really enjoyed this movie.  Steve Jobs goes from being a dirty hippy to being The Man (in both the positive and negative senses of that term).  One of my favorite movies here.

2. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Wow this movie was tedious.  I'm sure it's very realistic and very well researched, but realism and authenticity don't necessarily make for compelling drama.  The protagonist could have been fleshed out a bit better, and the plot was too convoluted for my liking.  I found myself rooting for bin Laden by the end.

IX. Movies Adapted from Comic Books That Were Written After the Screenplay

1. Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

Nothing great, but it wasn't all that bad either.  I wasn't a huge fan of the first one, though I am a huge fan of Mark Millar.  It was funny, but it could have been a lot funnier.

X. Movies That Gave Me Nightmares

1. Martyrs (2008)

A French horror film with a philosophical side.  This is one of the best horror films I've seen in a long, long time - so good that I watched it without subtitles.  Not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach.

XI. Movies So Hyperactive They Gave Me a Headache

1. The Lego Movie (2014)

Saw this last Saturday.  It has some funny bits, but watching it felt like being on the wrong kind of hallucinogen.  Without a doubt the most hyperactive movie I've ever seen.  I was very, very thankful that I didn't see it in 3D!


2013年11月26日 星期二

Disgusting, Disturbing, and Just Plain WRONG 2

We are nearing the end of 2013, and even though we still have a month to go, I thought it would be good to look into what most people consider "the best horror films of 2013."  There is a high degree of consensus regarding this list, which could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it.


1. Evil Dead (remake)

I would agree that this is a good film.  It's even more violent than the original, and that scene with the nail gun is classic.  As remakes go, I like it about as much as the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, but not as much as The Hills Have Eyes remake.

I don't think, however, that it's fair to compare this movie with the original.  The first Evil Dead was made with a ridiculously low budget, and the charm of that movie is not that it's scary or violent, but rather that it exhibits a quirkiness and slapstick humor that has become Sam Raimi's trademark.  The remake is simply a horse of a different color, and is more in line with what shocks people in 2013.

2. The Conjuring

This is a more Catholic version of director James Wan's Insidious.  The plot will be familiar to anyone who's seen The Amityville Horror, the Poltergeist movies, or any of the thousand other films that resemble those two franchises.  The acting in this movie is excellent (hey, isn't that the guy from Office Space?), but the derivative nature of the script left me feeling disappointed.

This movie is gore-free, and is instead applauded for its atmosphere.  I will agree that there are a couple of scary scenes in it, but that's not enough to save this movie.  If you want Catholic horror, I would suggest renting, buying, or downloading a copy of The Exorcist.


3. American Mary

I can't figure out why this film is called AMERICAN Mary.  The film was shot in Canada, and it has nothing to do with America.

A medical student enters the world of body modification, offering medical services to those who wish to modify their own anatomy.  It's not as gory as you'd think, and the actress that plays Mary is super hot.  It's not a bad movie, but I wish they'd done more with the material.  The ending is anticlimactic in the extreme.

4. Insidious

This movie was NOT filmed or released in 2013, but the sequel was.  I wasn't able to get my hands on the sequel, but I was able to track down this one.

This movie is pretty much all the ghosts from The Conjuring without the Catholic intervention.  Instead of Catholicism we have astral projection, and demons originating in some realm called "The Further."  It's slightly better than The Conjuring, but still not that great.  I kept waiting for the demon to bust out with a nail gun, or for the dad to pull out a chainsaw, but sadly this never happened.

5. Kill List

This is possibly the best movie discussed here (the Maniac remake was a close second), and its budget was probably less than half of the others.  Two special-ops types are hired to kill several strangers, and their mission gets stranger and stranger as they move up the list.  The twist at the end was easy to see coming, but it's a wonderfully bloody and eerie film. 


6. Whatever the Latest Entry in the Child's Play Series Is

I refuse to see this movie.  The others were stupid enough for me.  I fail to see how the latest entry could be any better.

7. Maniac (remake)

This movie stars Elijah Wood (Frodo!), and is definitely one of the artier horror movies.  Most people probably aren't putting it in their "best of" lists because it was too far outside their expectations.

I thought this was a fantastic movie, and it is the only movie reviewed here that I had to see twice.

Not sure if this one really qualifies as a remake.  It is VERY different from the original film.

8. The Battery

This film was first released in 2012, but it didn't make the festival circuit until this year, and the video release was also in 2013.  It's an extremely low budget zombie film, but it still makes World War Z seem boring and juvenile by comparison.  I'm sure the writer/director of this film will be heard from again.

And a Parting Note...

I guess they've finally finished filming the third Human Centipede movie, this one featuring a 500-person centipede, completed in a prison.  If you have a strong stomach, that would be the one to look for.  As for myself, I think I'd rather watch something less gimmicky.