2010 Movie Wrap Up

Here are all the movies i have seen in theatres this year [did not include movies i have seen on DVD, tv, etc. JUST in theatres] - these are in order of when i saw them with the date i saw them:

Daybreakers 1/8/10
Avatar 1/12/10
Percy Jackson and the Olympians 2/15/2010
The Crazies 2/28/2010
How To Train Your Dragon *saw it in march, lost ticket stub*
The Losers 4/24/2010
Kick Ass 4/25/2010
Nightmare on Elm Street 4/30/2010
Iron Man 2 5/8/2010
Splice 6/5/2010
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time 6/5/2010
The Karate Kid 6/12/2010
Toy Story 3 6/22/2010
Eclipse 6/30/1010 *midnight showing*
Salt 7/23/2010
Inception 7/16/2010
Inception 7/18/2010
Scott Pilgrim vs The World 8/13/2010
The Expendables 8/14/2010
Takers 8/28/2010
Resident Evil 3D *saw in september. lost ticket stub*
Let Me In 10/16/2010
Red 10/16/2010
Saw 3D 10/29/2010
For Colored Girls 11/11/2010
Skyline 11/13/2010
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 11/19/2010 *midnight showing*
Tron Legacy 3D 12/19/2010

BEST OF THE BEST
*excluding Avatar because it is a 2009 movie.

Best Musical Score: Inception
Best Special Effects: Tron
Worst Movie: Skyline
Most People In a Theatre: Eclipse
Biggest Surprise: Let Me In
Funnest Movie: tie between The Losers and Red
Biggest Dissapointment: Skyline
Geekiest Movie: Scott Pilgrim
Strangest Movie: Splice
Cutest Movie: How To Train Your Dragon
Saddest Movie: For Colored Girls
Best 3D: out of the ones i saw, Tron. I am not that big a fan of 3D, however.

Top 5 Movies:
Inception
Tron Legacy
Scott Pilgrim
HTTYD
Let Me In
*excluded Eclipse and HP...wanted to choose things not in such a long series.

I still plan to see Black Swan and True Grit, but I am unsure if i will be able to see them in 2010. I shall try :) I enjoyed going to see a lot of movies this year and hope that i will be able to start reviewing more and getting some of them published

movie review - Explosive Manilness

If ever there was a manly man movie that grew hair on the chest of everyone in the audience - male or female - it is The Expendables.

The movie is excellent for what it is - putting together a dream cast of action stars in one over-the-top, balls-to-the-wall action flick with explosions, killing, guns, and knives. Whether or not the story makes sense is up to the viewer, but we’ll get to that. Let’s talk about that cast.

Movie Review - Fighting Evil Exes

Whether you hate him or love him, Michael Cera is quite good at playing some awkward teen in love. The film adaptation of a comic book, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World opened to a very disappointing weekend while the big name action movie took the top spot. Even still, the movie has garnered an irrevocable cult following amongst geeks, for which the movie seemed heavily marketed towards.

First Solid Movie of the SUMMER - Inception

*spoiler free!*

Sitting here in the food court, I wonder if I'm dreaming. Are all these people projections of my mind? If I tip this chair over will I jolt awake? Or am I took heavily sedated and it won't work?

Was that entire movie a dream?

Inception clearly blew my mind. The concept of the movie was remarkably fascinating. Dreams are intimate thoughts our mind conjures up. Interfering with dreams seems very invasive and that is just one of the themes this multi-layered movie presents.

The acting was superb. The most surprising performance coming from Ellen Page, or Juno as you probably know her by. She holds her own amongst people that have been at this acting game far longer then she - and she does it well.

Visuals and the musical score accompanied the story and action expertly. I would not expect less from the likes of Christopher Nolan, the director who has done such films like The Dark Knight, The Prestige, and Memento.

After such a lackluster summer of movies, Inception has redeemed my faith in the industry. Not all movies have to be remakes or sequels to be absolutely brilliant.

Movie Preview - Inception

I'll try not to talk about Inception too much, but I'm very excited for the movie:

http://movies.ign.com/articles/110/1103912p1.html

IGN just wrote an amazing, pretty spoiler-free review about the movie. They went as far to call it "Nolan's masterpiece". I'm a sucker for movies that have multiple layers or probably confuse the heck out of people - took me 3 times to get Prestige and now it's my favorite movie ever. However, I do not think a standard movie audience wants to be confused while watching a movie. Inception, however, seems to have this beautiful and amazing dream sequences that will hopefully hold someone's attention - that and the main story line. There seems to be sub-plots weaved throughout which always makes me happy.

I'm definitely excited.

Summer slump

As the summer treads onward and movies are being released steadily, I find myself worrying about the movie industry. while I've found enjoyment and solace in sitting in a theatre week after week, no movie released this summer has really been incredible.

Mostly, this summer has been stacked with sequeals. This probably contributes to the high numbers, but, as a movie fan, I really want something that will WOW me.

Inception might do that.

I love Nolan. Two of his movies make my top 5 list (The Prestige is my absolute favorite movie and I love The Dark Knight). This probably makes me automatically love Inception, but others need to love it too.

The movie seems genius to me and I hope I'm not dissapointed. I love the concept, captivating ads, and awesome trailer. Surely, this movie will save this summer from the movie slump.

It has too.

Movies that excite me: The Last Airbender

*i was going to provide pretty pictures and handy links, but I decided to write this from my phone. Gotta love a Blackberry

Despite the fact this movie should have been called Avatar except the fact some huge movie about huge blue aliens took the name, The Last Airbender is based on a highly popular and amazing Nickelodeon cartoon. The series ended in 2008 and consists of series refered to as Books and the episodes are Chapters.

The tale follows Aang, the last of his kind and the Avatar, and the brother/sister pair of Sokka and Katara. They are in a world where the elements - water, earth, fire, and air - can be "bent" by certain people who have the innate ability to do so. The firebending nation is out to rule the world and Aang, the avatar who can bend all the elements, is supposedly the only one who can stop him.

That's the basic story. There are so many layers to the Avatar world that make the series very successful.

When a movie was announced, fans got antsy. They wanted this done, but they wanted it done right. M Knight Shamalan is the director and many people are still worried this movie will not give justice to the series. When actors were being chosen, fans were quite upset as many white actors were rumored to have been chosen when the Avatar world has characters who clearly are not white. Petitions exploded on the internet and so did communities against the moviemakers (such as aang_aint_white on Livejournal)

So, what do I think? I love Avatar...a lot. It is one of my favorite animated series ever. I was worried about the movie. Very worried. I still am quite worried that this will not live up to my expectations, but that is the problem with movie goers these days. They judge movies too harshly. From what I have seen in the trailer, the movie will be taking the entire season 1 (which takes place in the Water tribe area of the Avatar world) and it looks darn good. The bending looks fantastic and I can not help but love the cute kid who will be Aang.

I will be at this movie. I will even be wearing a costume. I'm excited.

Jaden Smith Interview - The Karate Kid

In the recent issue of Ebony magazine, Adrienne Samuels Gibbs conducted an interview with 11 year old Jaden Smith, son of remarkable Will Smith and Jada Pinkett- Smith. Here is the interview:

Gibbs: Why did you take on the challenge of The Karate Kid?
Smith: Well, I’ve always really been interested in the martial arts. I started taking karate when I was 3. So when my dad mentioned the idea to remake the movie, theres no way I was going to pass that up! And the story is really great. Its inspired by the original film, but different. In this one, I play Dre Parker. He’s a cool kid, but he has to move from his home in Detroit when his mom gets a job in China.

Breaking Dawn. Two movies.

Breaking Dawn, the forth and final book in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga, will now be split into two films, the first being released in November of 2011.

This whole scenario seems oddly familiar when the final book of Harry Potter had been split into two films. Is this a way to gain more money from the hordes of fans both franchises have or are they really just dedicated to giving the finale of each work as much dedication as needed?

Yes and no.

While the seventh Harry Potter book seems to need two films to cover the sheer amount of action, story, and character development that the book has, Breaking Dawn seems just the opposite. There does not seem to be any need for the two films as the book does not have much to offer. The basic story is simple and it may be a bit obvious as to where the split would occur, which may mean no Vampire Bella in the first film. Breaking Dawn was a very weak ending to the series, reading like a gigantic epiloque then an actual end. Its going to be very interesting to see what they can possible pack into two films with very little - it seems - to work with.

Twilight: Eclipse (the TRUE ending to the series) releases on June 30th. I'll be at a midnight showing after a release party with friends.

[Also, I'd like to note that Harry Potter and Twlight seem to trade off release months. Eclipse is June this year, HP is Nov this year. They seem to switch off next year. Maybe they do not want to step on each others toes. A pretty smart move]

Don Cheadle on his role in Iron Man 2 - interview

In the June 2010 issue of Ebony magazine, Don Cheadle conducted an interview given by Adrienne Samuels Gibbs. Here's the questions relating to his most recent role:Gibbs: You get to blaze for real as the robot man War Machine in Iron Man 2. That had to be fun.Cheadle: Its cool. Its like being able to play with all the best toys, the high-end expensive toys. I read comic books as a kid and you don't ever think you'll be in a movie as a superhero, so its kind of fun to do.Gibbs: its a different kind of role for you, this sci-fi comic book thing.Cheadle: you just put your finger on it. Its different. It was an opportunity to be in a summer blockbuster.Gibbs: I heard there was some drama though. A few critics say you're a better Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes than Terrence Howard was in the first Iron Man.Cheadle: that's a recipe for disaster if you start reading that stuff or having any reaponse to it. I think we're different actors and its a shame that we're often presented with that sort of comparison. We're not building houses. And I'm sure a lot of people were bummed out about the switch. I hired him for the movie Crash and he did a great job in it. He started in Iron Man. It was something between the studio and his agents. I saw him very soon after it all went down and he was very cool with me and there was no rancor. I didn't expect any.The complete interview is in the magazine where Cheadle also talks about his role in Brooklyn's Finest and other things. Personally, I'd like to hear what Howard has to say about all the "drama" about the switch. Perhaps he's not allowed to say anything? Or maybe he has and I haven't seen it? Either way, the answer seems the kind of thing that will come out of the actor that replaced him's mouth. He was just in a blockbuster summer hit (which he's well aware of from his other answer) so I doubt he cares at all what happened between the studio and Howard's agents. Neither actor did an outstanding job in the role as Rhodey so I really do not have an opinion on the switch of the two actors. I just know its a little jarring in franchise movies when an actor is switched out (I.e. Evie's character in the 3rd Mummy movie *shudders*) whatever the case may be about the switch, with no clear reason as to why it was done, movie watchers can only speculate and wonder