My Best Films of the Year: 2010

broderic on January 12, 2011

I was searching through my archives looking for that post on Inception that so many people seem to reach via google and then I remembered that I never put up 2010’s list of best movies. Now these are just the ones I believe that I had liked at the time I wrote the review. As I look at them, I wonder if these rankings even stand up now. I definitely know it doesn’t stand up for Inception, but that is because I don’t really like Christopher Nolan’s films.

Kick Ass (4)
Inception (4)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (4)
The Social Network (4)

No 5 star films? That’s usual, but looking at these only Scott Pilgrim and The Social Network I feel still deserve the ranking. I wonder about Kick Ass. Does it really? I’ll have to see.

True Grit

broderic on December 31, 2010

I heard that Christmas day is one of the days in which people watch a lot of movies at the theatre. Although, we caught it on the day after,True Grit (2010) was our Christmas movie. And while it wasn’t packed at all, it was more people than I expected given that a snow storm was coming and the movie was a Coen brothers film.

Ahh, Coens! Their last film was serious so this one has to be a comedy. You wouldn’t know it from the commercials that play up the fact that this is a western. And you wouldn’t know it that the last time the book was filmed, it had John Wayne in his only Oscar winning role as Rooster Cogburn, one of the protagonists. Jeff Bridges will make you forget John Wayne. But not The Dude.

The young lady playing the lead is pretty good. She would get an Oscar nomination if she wasn’t the lead but the supporting actress. She was good. Very serious as a character and whose seriousness brings out some of the hilarity of her situation.

Jeff Bridges is good too. Somewhat dudish, but only in some of his locution as he sounded more like the dude than a old-timey US Marshall.

I liked the movie for the simple fact that it was funny at times. It made watching it during my Christmas break enjoyable, and the mirth in the movie overshadowed some of the more gruesome parts of the story. It was good enough for 2 young kids to watch as well, as long as they don’t mind the dialog.

3 of 5 stars.

Tron: Legacy

broderic on December 19, 2010

At work, I had to take a training class on writing good requirements. Although, not directly involved with writing requirements, my software functional manager believed that it would help us lowly software engineers to identify terrible requirements that make our lives difficult. Once done the training class, I am now able to identify good requirements.

Good requirements are succinct, feasible, and unambiguous. Tron: Legacy makes a case for good requirements. Flynn says to CLU, “Let’s make the perfect world!” Those are terrible requirements. And from there, you have the downfall of the Grid.

Like the seed, I too am not totally bowled over by Tron: Legacy. The seed notes that the narrative was thin at times. It’s like they had the idea of making Tron 2, but never got around to understanding they needed a story for it. If you’ve seen the original, you’ve seen most of the latest iteration. Get sucked into the Grid. Check! Play games to the death. Check! Ride light cycles. Check! Hot computer chick. Check! Go to i/o! Check!

Lots of story beats from the original movie showed up in this movie. Problems arose when it tried to find its own way to tell the story. Is this an adventure film? Is this a father-son reunion film? Is this the Matrix? It’s all and none and the audience is left to marvel at awesome action set pieces, but can’t fathom the main story line. In the original, Tron there was a thread of a plot: get out of the Grid while attempting to find out the mysteries of Encom power. This movie pulled at one too many threads and didn’t place one in the forefront. Is this about the Grid or about the younger Flynn finding his father. Is this about father Flynn and his creation? Is this about playing Grid games? It’s all and none.

I am a fan of the original. This one gives us something short. Its not as innovative as the original. It needed a better story. I wish we had gotten one.

3 of 5 stars.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1

broderic on December 12, 2010

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 opened while I was on the Hawaiian vacation and I couldn’t leave paradise for the three hours it takes for this movie to finish. And after three hours, there is still probably another 3 hours to come.

The problem with the later Harry Potter films (the Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows) is the novels. The books after Goblet of Fire had a lot of exposition of when, where, and why of Voldemort that needed to be explained. Reading of such is a more natural experience with the story and history of Voldemort. Unfortunately, the last few films tried to condense these stories into two and a half hour movies. Plot points were lost and sacrificed for the sake of movie telling. Threads that made sense in words didn’t when filmed, because of the missing information.

The Deathly Hallows novel gets the privilege of getting stretched out to two films so that all its information can be filmed. And this part was two and a half hours long but got through about two thirds of the book. Yet, the early part of this book was nothing but Hermione, Harry, and Ron wandering the wilderness. They were supposed to find Horcruxes, but did a terrible job at it. So did, Rowling as she just abandoned that thread to get to the ultimate battle.

I thought they could’ve gotten rid of the wilderness parts, but upon re-reading the book, it needed to be fully fleshed out so that the story can continue unabated.

These last few Harry Potter films have been slightly confusing because of all the exposition. This one isn’t, but I can’t wait for the second half.

3 of 5 stars.

Morning Glory

broderic on December 2, 2010

Ooops. I should’ve written something about Morning Glory a while ago, but never got around to it before taking off for vacation. The review would’ve been awesome with lots of insight. Now, I can’t even remember the film. All I know is Rachel McAdams is in it. She hasn’t been in many films lately, but it was good to see her again.

3 of 5 stars.

Hereafter

broderic on October 29, 2010

Before the spooks come out, let’s put down my thoughts about Clint Eastwood’s latest cinema effort, Hereafter. Appropriately released close to Halloween, it is a movie about living with the dead that is how we, the living, approach death, dying, and the dead, and how we think about the afterlife. If we think about it at all.

I’m amazed that Eastwood played it straight. He cast no judgement against any of our beliefs be it for an afterlife or not. Even he didn’t make judgement on those who believed or didn’t believe in communicating with the dead. Straight, right? The movie states that there is something after death.

And you can talk to them. Can we? Eastwood plays it straight and let’s Damon actually communicate with the dead. Then throws us a curve and in a crucial moment, makes it seem like he didn’t. Did he? Hmm.

It was an alright movie. Not creepy. But nice to know. It’s a pragmatic film about what could happen after death.

3 of 5 stars.

The Social Network

broderic on October 4, 2010

The Social Network purports to describe the rise of Facebook. You’ll wonder how much is real and how much is made up in order to expedite telling the story. Then you’ll wonder at the digital technology that made one person into two — Lindsay Lohan eat your heart out.

The Social Network starts off with pure Aaron Sorkin dialogue. The banter between Mark Zuckerberg (not Michael Cera) and his soon to be ex-girlfriend would give clues to why he builds Facebook. They talk in multiple threads, and if you aren’t quick enough you’ll get lost in which they are talking about. She hates it, so do I. Eventually, I start to understand what they’re talking about, and what’s happening. It sets up the break up which as the movie unwinds is what ultimately was the impetus: LOVE and women.

He’s a social misfit. Awkward when he interacts because he’s in his own world. He can program a website, but he can’t make friends. Ironic that he created the one website wherein friending is the unit of exchange. Then the true psychopath shows up in Shawn Parker. Paranoid and fast talker he pushes to the max being a social misfit. Parties and girls. Girls and parties. Trouble follows him. I recognize these type of geeks. Driven by their own ambition but can’t really express it.

I was pretty geeked out when they did the geek stuff. I also recognized some of the old high-flying dot com days from my own days of yore.

4 of 5 stars.

“Boy, I love a good party. Do you love a good party, Joe?” “It’s why I went to college, sir. It’s also why I didn’t graduate.”

broderic on September 21, 2010

In honor of Orioles playing the Red Sux, here’s my thoughts and/or review of Ben Affleck’s The Town.

Here’s the plot: Heat in Boston. It absolutely follows the plot of Michael Mann’s film. Super efficient, highly competent bank robbers (Affleck, Remmer and crew) hunted by a go for broke law enforcement man (that guy with the jaw from AMC’s Mad Men). There is the girl with the baby and the girl who may or may not be dropped in thirty seconds or less. There are heists and double crosses and one last big score with all this heat on them. Yup. If you’ve seen Heat, you’ve seen this one.

Heat by the way is one of my all time favorite movies. Top 5.

The Town isn’t so bad. It’s competently directed by Affleck starring a competent Affleck. Rebecca Hall is a beauty. Pretty. I would watch the movie again to stare at that face for another 2 hours. She’s just my type.

Jeremy Remmer always makes me nervous. His nonchalant demeanor always comes across as reckless whether as a bomb squad member or as a member of Affleck’s bank robbing crew. You’re always waiting for him to do something off the wall that’ll make your palms sweat. Here he takes the last big score. “I ain’t ever going back [to prison],” he says and you know that it’s a death wish.

The last heist was cool. Taking on the Red Sox. Let’s hope the Orioles bring down the house on the Red Sox just as the cops take it to the robbers.

3 of 5 stars.

“Nice to meet you, Andrea Planbee.”

broderic on September 19, 2010

Easy A is the 2010’s Mean Girls. Emma Stone is Lindsay Lohan — same chubbiness, same red hair, same throaty voice. Let’s hope she doesn’t flush her career down the tubes with drinking and drugs. If she looses 15 lbs, it’s the first sign of impending celebrity implosion.

The movie’s plot centers around Stone’s character, Olive, as she makes herself out to be the school skank after a lie she told was warped by the grapevine. This riles up the geeks to hit her up for some of that lying action. She does and they gain some notoriety. Then the school prayer group takes it upon themselves to get her kicked out school. Then the school mascot was always in love with her. Then the school guidance counselor, the school’s coolest teacher, and a weird hairy chrisitan showed up to add another plot thread. This is just to say that there were a lot of plotlines in this movie.

The writers of the movie played a lot off of 80s teen comedies: Say Anything, Can’t Buy Me Love, The Breakfast Club. It tries to bring all those into play. So it was quite something with all these plotlines. It should’ve just settled itself as Mean Girls.

2 of 5 stars.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

broderic on August 17, 2010

Sadly, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World came in 5th place in the box office with approximately $10 million. It was Scott Pilgrim versus The Expendables, but turned out to be no contest. Mr. Pilgrm got his but kicked by several old action movie stars. This dismal performance shouldn’t stop you from catching a very, unique movie. If you see it before it leaves your local cinema, you’ll be treated to whimsical tale of love and music and video games.

Ahh, the video game. Scott Pilgrim must fight his way through the seven exes of Romona Flowers before he wins her heart. Just like a video game each is a battle. But these aren’t the video games of today with their super awesome graphics, 64 fps, first person shooter, it’s your Sega Genesis side scroller Double Dragon, Virtua Fighter. Low res man.

But at heart is the love story. It’s sweet and tender, seemingly emo. Plus, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and her big eyes was suitably cast as the girl. Michael Cera wasn’t, IMHO. He’s too whiny for this part. I would’ve loved to have seen someone else play Scott Pilgrim. I keep seeing Futurama’s Phillip J Fry as the guy. Someone who’s slack but burly, a Joseph Gordon-Levitt type. I guess I’m tired of Michael Cera being the go to emo slacker dude.

This movie as I had tweeted will end up being great to watch on DVD just like Speed Racer. Whimsical.

4 of 5 stars.