Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Movie – Z (1969)

Question: what film holds the record for the shortest titled movie to ever be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar?  If you answered “Z” then, well, you probably read the title of this post.  While it didn’t win the big prize, it did win Best Foreign Language Film, as well as Best Editing.  Z is based on the Vasilis Vasilikos novel of the same name.  (There is a 2012 film from India also based on the same novel.  Its title is Shanghai.)  The film Z is a political thriller based on real events in Greece in the 1960s.  In fact, the opening of the film has the following statement: “Any resemblance to actual events, to persons living or dead, is not the result of chance. It is DELIBERATE.”

Monday, July 30, 2012

Movie – X (2011)

The 2011 film X seems to be labeled as an “erotic thriller” in almost every description I’ve read of it.  My guess is that the marketing folks figured sex sells and this would be the best way to attract attention to it.  The fact that some reviewers have re-used this term makes me wonder if they watched more than the first ten minutes of it, or if they have gotten so jaded about violence that the only thing that stood out for them was the opening sex scene.  In my opinion, anyone watching this film hoping for titillation will be mostly disappointed.  It’s a dark, violent look at the underworld in an Australian city.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Movie – W. (2008)

I didn’t see the movie W. when it came out in 2008.  By that time I had had enough of George W. Bush and the last thing I wanted to do was watch a movie about him.  When I was planning this One Letter Titles category, though, it was an obvious movie to watch to see if I found it good enough to recommend.  It was probably a good thing that a few years had passed because it allowed me to be able to watch this film with a little bit of detachment.  It’s also a good thing that Director Oliver Stone decided that this wasn’t his chance to take two hours of potshots at Bush, but instead decided to craft a movie that is a relatively even handed look at George W. Bush and his relationship with his father George H.W. Bush.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Movie – O (2001)

The movie O tells the story of O – wait, let me rephrase that – O tells Shakespeare’s Othello story in a modern day high school setting.  This film has nothing to do with the novel by Pauline Reage.  O was the third such film for Julia Stiles in a three year span.  She had first done The Taming of the Shrew (as 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You) then Hamlet in 2000.  After O came out she became known as the “Shakespeare girl” for a while.  Perhaps this bothered her because she has not done a Shakespeare adaptation since.  This film was easily the most controversial of the three.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Movie – M (1931)

Fritz Lang’s 1931 film M is a landmark in movie history.  While he directed other films that are classics (most notably 1927’s Metropolis) this is the film that I consider to be his very best.  It also features the greatest career role for lead actor Peter Lorre – and this is a man who was in almost 100 films, including The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.  M isn’t just some dusty, dated film that is only watched now because of its place in history, though.  It is every bit as relevant and chilling today as it was back when it first came out more than eighty years ago.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

One Letter Movies

“A, B, C, D, E, F, G/ H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P/ Q, R, S/ T, U, V/ W, X/ Y and Z/ Now I know my ABCs/ Now what do you think of me?” – Traditional Children’s Song

Doing “V” movies last time got me thinking about all the movies whose titles are a single letter.  When I did a little research I found that pretty much every letter had been used for a title at least once, and some of them had been used several times.

I will be recommending five of these films. I’ve seen two others – 1982’s Q (aka The Winged Serpent) and 1998’s S. – but they were not good enough for me to recommend.  The first is an attempt to do a 1950s style monster movie in the 1980s and the second is sort of a cross between The Doom Generation and the Aileen Wuornos story that is just trying too obviously to be controversial.

As I post the reviews, I will come back and post the links to them here:

Book – Maine Mountain Guide, 10th Edition

Way back at the beginning of this site I did a post describing the best references for hiking in Maine, in Acadia National Park, and in the White Mountain National Forest.  (You can read that post here.)  The books for Acadia and the White Mountains are still the most current guides, but the AMC just published the Tenth Edition of their Maine Mountain Guide, so this post will update you on what has changed in it.

All of the changes in this latest edition make it much more consistent with the AMC’s White Mountain guide.  Most of these changes make it much better, while one makes for a minor inconvenience.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Movie – The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

I might as well address the elephant in the room right away.  There was no special security at the movie theater this afternoon when I went to see The Dark Knight Rises.  It was pouring outside, so I had to use an umbrella to get from my car to the building.  I was wondering if I would be asked to open it just to show nothing was concealed in it, but no one did.  I’m not proud of this, but I do admit that when a lone man walked into the theater about 10 minutes after the film started I watched him all the way to his seat before I turned my attention back to the movie.  I’m not sure if this says more about me or the times we live in.  I suspect it’s a bit of both.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Hike – Schoodic Peninsula Park Loop Road and All Trails on Schoodic Head (Anvil Trail, East Trail, Alder Trail, Schoodic Head Trail)

Plaque describing how Schoodic Peninsula became public
Many people who visit Acadia National Park in Maine never leave Mount Desert Island where the largest part of the park is located.  These people are missing out.  There are also sections of the park on Schoodic Peninsula and on Isle au Haut.  Schoodic Peninsula is the land you can see across Frenchman Bay from Bar Harbor.  It is easy to get to and I will be describing all four hiking trails located there, as well as the drive on the one-way park loop road that is located there.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Hike – Mount Battie, Megunticook Mountain, and Maiden Cliff

Cross overlooking Megunticook Lake at Maiden Cliff
Mount Battie and Megunticook Mountain are located in Camden Hills State Park in Camden, Maine.  They represent the finest coastal mountain hiking outside of Acadia National Park.  Maiden Cliff is just outside of the park and overlooks Megunticook Lake.  This post is a supplement to my original Mt. Battie and Megunticook Mountain post.  It covers the same start, but also includes a complete traverse of Megunticook Mountain all the way to Maiden Cliff.

Friday, July 20, 2012

I Received a Liebster Award…Again

(Hopefully you read that title in your mind with Bill Murray’s voice from Groundhog Day.)

Alex Jowski at Alex Jowski Movie Reviews gave me the Liebster Award.  I’d like to thank him for that.  Now here’s the most interesting part of it – I received the Liebster Blog Award in February of this year (you can read my post on it here), but that award appears to be different from this one.  Between February and today it got bitten by a radioactive spider, got a high dose of gamma radiation, or fell into a vat of chemicals and emerged wholly changed by the experience.

How is it different?  The original one was designed to recognize blogs with fewer than 200 Followers.  The recipient would go on to nominate five other blogs that he or she felt were deserving of more recognition.  The current one includes a set of 11 things you should tell about yourself, 11 questions from the awarder to answer, then it should be passed on to 11 other blogs with 11 new questions.  No restriction on the number of Followers is set.

My apologies to everyone, especially Alex, but I have chosen not to pass this on to others.  While some bloggers love to participate in these, others prefer not to receive them because they are the blogging equivalent of a chain letter.  I don’t have a problem participating in things of this nature (see below for my part of the requirements), but I don’t want to make other people think they have to participate when they don’t want to.

By the way, anyone know who this Liebster is?

11 Things About Chip Lary

  1. I was born a poor black child.  No, wait.  That was Steve Martin.  I get us confused sometimes.  (He’s the one that’s funnier.)  I was born before Man set foot on the Moon and I wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut when I grew up.
  2. The first movie I have a memory of seeing in a movie theater is Charlotte’s Web (1973).
  3. I saw almost no movies, other than ones broadcast on the major channels, until I graduated from college.  I was living on the edge, paying off student loans, so about my only entertainment after graduating was watching movies on cable channels.  The vast majority of the movies I have seen have been since that time.
  4. I have no idea how many movies I have now seen, but I know it’s somewhere north of 5,000 because I have rated almost that many movies on Netflix and I’ve seen a lot of other movies that they don’t even list.
  5. If forced to choose one, single film as my favorite, I would not pick the usual greats like Citizen Kane or The Godfather.  I would pick The Princess Bride (1987).  I wrote about that here.
  6. When I was 12 years old that answer would have been The Parent Trap (1961).  I saw this on the Disney Movie of the Week and literally thought about the film every day for the next month.  My parents were divorced, I was the only boy, and the idea of having a brother to play with and get my parents back together was very appealing.
  7. The first actress I ever saw in a movie and felt the stirrings of “hey, she’s kind of interesting and not at all covered with cooties” was Diane Lane in A Little Romance.
  8. The movie that men will tend to admit to crying at when they saw it is Field of Dreams.  I am no exception.  I lost my father a few years before this movie came out and he and I used to play catch when I was younger.  After this film ended I so badly wanted to play catch with my dad again and I couldn’t.
  9. The first subtitled film I ever saw was Jean de Florette (1986) and its follow-up Manon of the Spring (1986).  They were fantastic and I never shied away from foreign films after that.
  10. I saw them on Cinemax in the late 80s, which was often derided as “Skinemax” because Friday nights they would show some European soft core film like Emmanuelle.  They actually showed a ton of other movies, including new foreign, independent, and documentary films each month.  It’s because of Cinemax that I saw the first films from Kevin Smith (Clerks), Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi), Spike Lee (She’s Gotta Have It), Robert Townsend (Hollywood Shuffle), Michael Moore (Roger and Me), and many others.
  11. I researched, compiled, edited, and published a 900 page genealogy on one branch of my family (the Parkmans).  Hey, I had to have one non-movie related thing here.

11 Questions from Alex for Me to Answer

1. What do you enjoy most about blogging?

When someone lets me know they watched a movie because of my recommendation and that they really enjoyed it.

2. What movie do you end up recommending to people more than any other movie?

I often push Whale Rider (2002) because it’s not as well known as other movies that I also love.  You can read my recommendation for it here.

3. What celebrity or artist have you have met who has inspired you the most in your life?

I haven’t ever met anybody famous in the entertainment world.  I ran into former basketball pro Dave Cowens on a golf course once.  I’ve met Senators and Representatives, but I wouldn’t say any of them have inspired me.  I can’t really give an answer to this question.  Sorry.

4. What is your favorite "bad" movie?

This is probably harder than naming my favorite good movie.  If I like a movie I don’t consider it bad.  I’ll pick a somewhat recent film just because I liked it a lot more than most everyone else who saw it and that is Sucker Punch (2011).  I wrote about that here.

5. What is a movie that offends you - a movie you hate for moral reasons.

I don’t think an entire movie has ever offended me.  Scenes within them have (i.e. Salo).  The most prevalent trend across movies that bothers me is films that present men as nothing more than rapists who just haven’t had the right trigger yet that will cause them to mindlessly force themselves on a woman.

6. What are two of your favorite books that have NEVER been adapted into a movie?

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.  I hear the latter may finally show up as a film some time next year.

7. Whose opinion do you trust more in deciding if a movie is good or not? Critics in magazines/newspapers, fellow bloggers, or the general public (like imdb scores, etc.)?

Professional critics would definitely come last.  There was a time when I would literally use them as a negative guide to movies (if they hated it, I would watch it).  I suppose I treat recommendations from bloggers and people I know about the same.  You get a feeling for who has similar tastes to you and you pay more attention to them when they recommend something.

8. Which game from your childhood do you wish you could play again? (Could be a video game or a playground game like Tag).

Well, I could still play baseball today by joining a league somewhere, but what I miss about playing baseball as a kid is tossing the bat, choosing sides, sharing gloves and the single bat, the beat up baseball, the ratty field, the random objects for bases, etc.  In other words, I miss the things that made it something for kids, not something for adults.

9. Do you have a nickname?  How did you get that name?

Actually, Chip is my nickname.  I was named after my father and instead of calling me “Junior” or something similar, my family called me Chip.  No one remembers why, or who started it, but their best guess is it was short for “chip off the old block”.

10. What was the first thing you posted on your blog and why?  (Initial "Welcome to my Blog" posts don't count).

I did a set of related posts on the three films that won all five major Oscars, a book review, and a hike.  My original intent was to do a set like this each week and I would post them all at the same time once per week.  I also had a post where I asked people to pick the next movie category I should write about (among the three choices I offered), but despite several hundred views I got not one single reply.  Since then I’ve just picked the movie categories myself.  And after joining the LAMB I started concentrating more on movies, and I started spreading the posts out instead of doing them all at once. 

11. What is your favorite beverage?

About all I drink is milk with breakfast, water when I’m thirsty, Coke when I pick up a pizza, and Sprite as a general drink with other meals.  I’ve never been much of a coffee drinker, and with a history of alcoholism in my ancestry I’ve chosen not to be an alcohol drinker.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Movie – Rock of Ages (2012)

Rock of Ages is a musical comedy based on the original Broadway show.  It is directed by Adam Shankman, who knows a thing or two about musical comedy – he did the musical version of Hairspray.  While Rock of Ages is no Hairspray it still is entertaining for both the music and the humor.  I would say that Rock of Ages is more closely related to movies like Across the Universe or Moulin Rouge in that the plot is constructed to use existing popular songs at appropriate times.  Where Across the Universe used Beatles songs, Rock of Ages uses songs from the 1980s.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Whistling While I Work Part 2

I’ve spent the last couple of days adding a few features here. 

If you look over to the right in the “Pages” section you will now find some additional ones designed to help folks find specific movies, books, and TV shows that I have reviewed.  I did this because I’ve found that the Google search box in the upper right has gotten less reliable for the older posts.  When I can’t even find my own year old review without some searching, how can I expect someone else to find it at all?  Because of this I felt it would be best if I build and maintain these indexes going forward. 

In the Movies Index page I have also included the Movie Categories that I have used.  These link directly to the parent post for each Category, which then has links to the individual movies in those categories.  If you prefer, you can continue to use the Labels which appear a little lower on the right.  I will not be discontinuing those.

If you find a bad link, please let me know and I will correct it.  If you have suggestions on how to improve these index pages, please let me know.

In other news, I haven’t forgotten about reviewing the Big Summer movies.  I will have a review of Rock of Ages up soon.  I have already added some comments on The Amazing Spider-Man to the 2012 Big Summer Movies post.  You can read them here.  In short, the movie is poorly written and it is not good enough for me to recommend, despite Emma Stone’s presence.  I have not seen Brave yet, but hope to soon.  I will probably see The Dark Knight Rises after the crowds dissipate some – so this probably means some time next week.

Most of my highest viewed posts right now are my hiking ones.  This makes sense since there are a lot of tourists here in Maine for the summer and they are looking for information on some good hikes.  I plan to post some of the backlog I have here.  I’ll continue that at least through my review of The Dark Knight Rises.  I will start my next Movie Category after that.  I also have posts I want to do at some point on Game of Thrones Season 2, as well as updating my Castle TV show review to bring it up through the end of Season 4.

Finally, last Friday night this site passed 50,000 views.  I’d like to thank everyone who takes the time to visit, to comment, and maybe even pass a post on to someone they think will like it.  My apologies for not visiting your sites for the last week or so.  It’s been too damn hot where I am to be on the computer any longer than it takes to write and post a review, plus the time I spent on building the new Pages.  I’ll try to catch up when the weather breaks in a couple of days.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Movie – Victory (1981)

The college I went to was a small, Division III school in sports.  At that level there are no sports scholarships allowed and most of the athletic teams were hardly more than clubs.  The one sport where the college was very talented and competitive, however, was soccer.  (We went to the 12-team national tournament two of the four years I was there, representing the New England region, but never advanced out of the round robin opening section.)  Even though I was not on the team, I got caught up in all things soccer, and that included joining the college’s showing of the occasional soccer movie.  I remember we started watching one named Victory and all of a sudden the crowd is reacting – “Wait a minute.  That’s Sylvester Stallone!  He made a soccer movie?”  The answer is “sort of”.  A more accurate description is that he is in a WWII escape film that revolves around a soccer match.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Movie – The Visitor (2007)

The Visitor is the movie that Richard Jenkins had been waiting 25 years for.  After having been a supporting actor in any number of well-respected films (starting with 1985’s Silverado and 1986’s Hannah and Her Sisters, through stints with both the Coen Brothers and the Farrelly Brothers, right up to 2005’s North Country), he finally got the chance to carry his own film.  Instead of being “that guy” that you recognize, but maybe can’t remember his name, he finally became “the guy” and boy did he deliver.  He received a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar nomination for his work in this film.  He is the biggest reason to see it.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Movie – V for Vendetta (2005)

The movie V for Vendetta is based on the 1980s graphic novel of the same name.  It was written by Alan Moore (Watchmen), but he refused to allow his name to be used in connection with the film because, well, he’s kind of a grump.  In this case he didn’t like the fact that the movie character of V was a rebel instead of an anarchist like in the graphic novel – a distinction that few movie viewers would have been able to make anyway.  The movie had far larger challenges than the lack of approval by the original author: it had to convince people to like, or at least understand the viewpoint of, a character that was essentially a terrorist.  This was especially challenging with 9/11 having just happened four years earlier.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Movie – Valkyrie (2008)

Valkyrie details the actual events surrounding a plot by some officers in the German military to assassinate Hitler.  Unless you slept through every single history class, or believe Tarantino’s version of what happened to Hitler, you know that this plot did not succeed.  You may be wondering why you should watch a movie when you already know how it’s going to turn out.  If you are like me, you know the basics of what happened, but as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.  There is far more going on than just trying to bump off Hitler.  There has to be an entire plan in place to stage a coup afterwards to ensure that Himmler or Goebbels doesn’t just take power.  Where do you get the manpower to do that?  How do you control them?  Why did the plot fail?  What happens to the participants of the failed coup?  More important, what happens to their loved ones?

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Movie – The Verdict (1982)

The Verdict is a courtroom drama starring Paul Newman.  It received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, but lost to Gandhi (1982).  AFI named it the fourth best American courtroom drama of all time in 2008.  This genre of movies is a lot like the romantic comedy genre – you don’t watch them to find out what’s going to happen at the end; you watch them to see what happens on the way.  This movie provides a good journey by making it all about the damaged man who’s desperately trying to win a case for his client.  Newman does an excellent job in this role.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Movie – Vanishing Point (1971)

Vanishing Point is pretty much the definition of a 1970s cult movie.  It features counter-culture and racial subplots in dealing with the people in power (i.e. the cops and the media).  It also features a white 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T with a 440 cubic inch V-8 engine that becomes the true star of the film as the driver of it evades the police across multiple states.  (For those folks who don’t speak “car” that’s a really fast and powerful machine.)  The result is an interesting movie that is as much about the times as it is the car.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Movie – A Very Long Engagement (2004)

A Very Long Engagement re-teams director Jean-Pierre Jeunet with his Amelie leading lady Audrey Tautou.  While there are a few similar touches in both films, Amelie is more on the happy-fantasy side while A Very Long Engagement deals more with the realities of war and its aftermath.  That’s not to say that it is a dreary drama.  There are some touches of humor, such as the repeated arrival of a bike messenger.  If you don’t watch the film expecting “Amelie 2” then you should find it to be a very good movie.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Movie – Volver (2006)

Anyone who has seen one of writer/director Pedro Almodovar’s films (i.e. The Skin I Live In, All About My Mother) knows that pretty much anything can happen in them…except a completely “normal” story.  Of all of his movies that I have seen Volver may be the most mainstream.  It still has the Almodovar touch, though.  It’s a heartwarming tale of the bonds among mothers, daughters, and sisters…and how easy it is to kill someone and get away with it.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Attack of the “V” Movies

“Voilà!  In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished.  However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.  The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. [laughs] Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.” – V, V for Vendetta

(And if you are thinking that I am doing this category just so I can use this quote….then you’d be right.)

As usual I am going to pick a variety of movies, some very well known and some veering outside the usual.  The only thing they will always have in common is that their titles start with the letter “V” (not counting the articles "a" and "the").

As I post the reviews, I will come back and post the links to them here:
On to the reviews…

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Book – Joss Whedon: The Complete Companion – The TV Series, The Movies, The Comic Books and More

About a month ago I was browsing through a bookstore when I came across a new book on Joss Whedon’s works.  For those people who do not recognize his name, he is the creator behind many influential works, most recently the very popular Avengers movie.  This book is not a biography, but instead is a series of essays and articles on his works across all the various kinds of media.  This is probably not a book for people who have seen nothing else he has done.  It is more for people who are at least familiar with one of his works, and especially for those that are fans of his.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Movie – Bill Cunningham New York (2011)

Note: When I put together my Top 10 Movies of 2011 list, I included the film Bill Cunningham New York.  I did not have a review of it posted, though, so I only wrote a few comments in that post and said I would get a full review up someday.  At the time I had planned to include it in a movie category in the next couple months, but that didn’t happen.  I’ve decided to put the review up now.  If/when I do a category that this belongs in I will come back and add that label to this post.  If you are interested, you can see my Top 10 Movies of 2011 list by clicking here.

Unless you read the New York Times and/or are in the fashion world, you’ve probably never heard of Bill Cunningham.  I never had.  Who he is is possibly the most influential person in the world in regards to documenting trends in fashion as they are just starting.  For decades he has had a weekly page in the New York Times where he publishes photos he has taken on the streets of New York – not of famous people, but of anybody who catches his eye.  You may now have a picture in your head of some snobby guy who is way too full of himself.  Nothing could be further from the truth, and therein lies the delight in this movie.  We get to see the real Bill Cunningham and he may be one of the most interesting people you will ever meet.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Movie – Another Earth (2011)

Note: When I put together my Top 10 Movies of 2011 list, I included the film Another Earth.  I did not have a review of it posted, though, so I only wrote a few comments in that post and said I would get a full review up someday.  At the time I had planned to include it in a movie category in the next couple months, but that didn’t happen.  I’ve decided to put the review up now.  If/when I do a category that this belongs in I will come back and add that label to this post.  If you are interested, you can see my Top 10 Movies of 2011 list by clicking here.

First things first – the most important thing you should know about the film Another Earth is that even though its premise involves a mirror Earth appearing in the sky, it is not primarily a science fiction movie.  It is really a character study of two people brought together by a single, tragic event.  The mirror Earth functions as the biggest metaphor for second chances ever put on the silver screen.  The reason it is important to know this is that those people who went into the film expecting to see sci-fi were hugely disappointed.  I had no expectations and I ended up liking this movie more and more as it went along.  I loved the final scene in the film.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

June and Half Year Movie Status

Several of the blogs I read do monthly statuses on what movies they have seen.  I haven’t done any posts like this so far, but I figured I’d give it a try.  Prior to this year I never even tracked what movies I watched, so I wouldn’t have been able to do a post like this prior to February 2012 anyway.  The halfway point of the year seemed like a good time to start these posts, since I could also give a half year status.  I will probably do monthly posts going forward.

The two main lists that I am taking movie suggestions from right now are the 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list and a list I put together of every Oscar Best Picture nominee.  You can see those lists by clicking on these links:  1,001 Movies; Oscar Nominees.  I started actively pursuing the movies on them in February 2012.  I had seen roughly half of the movies on each list prior to starting.

So far in 2012 I have seen 197 movies that were new to me, 16 movies that I re-watched, 5 TV series I watched on DVD, and Game of Thrones Season 2 on HBO.  Among those 197 films, 68 were from the 1,001 Movies list and 31 were Best Picture nominees.  (Some movies were in both lists.)

The best movie I saw in January was The Artist.  The worst was It’s a Boy Girl Thing.  In February the best was Hugo and the worst was Amor Delor Y Viceversa.  In March the best was Up in the Air and the worst was Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I.  In April the best was The Wedding Banquet and the worst was a three way tie among the experimental films Flaming Creatures, Blond Cobra, and Wavelength.  In May the best was The Avengers (2012) and the worst was Four Lions.