I decided to make a list of my favorite 15 films of the year. Keep in mind, this is only my opinion and I've written reasons next to the films themselves. The list shows my 15 most liked films, the top ones being the most liked and the lower being the less liked, but still liked. 15-7 are basically in order of least to greatest, so by the time you get to 6-1, it's pretty much a 6-way tie for best of the year, but not quite. So dont ask me why I liked one over the other, unless they are in the bottom 8.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to post opinions in the comment section.
I also apologize that movies such as the Fighter and The Social Network are not on the list. There is little doubt in my mind that they probably would have made my list over some of the lesser entries, but since I never got around to seeing those films, I cannot rank them.
15. The Expendables
I love Stallone. I loved Rambo 4. The action sequences in this movie are made for me. I’m a man. I want to see big men beat the living crap out of each other with loud thuds and smashes. But being a man doesn’t mean I don’t expect a story or believable character motivations, or accurate physics in non-fighting scenarios (see my bullet points on this movie). I loved the action sequences in this movie and I would have preferred it if this film had either had more of the soul that Mickey Rourke brought to it, or gone the other way and been a 30-minute short film with just the action sequences and zero context.
14. The Other Guys
I wouldn’t call myself a fan of Will Ferrell. But I did enjoy this movie. It had more of a plot than Step Brothers (which I enjoyed more than this film), so I’ll give it that. However, when I watch these movies, all I really want out of it is a bucketful of one-liners and dirty jokes. I didn’t mind the plot, and it had plenty of jokes that made me laugh out loud, but I missed that aimless stupidity of McKay’s other comedies. I guess it’s unfair of me to fault this film for being smarter than I thought it ought to be, but I have to play to my expectations.
13. Despicable Me
I wasn’t at all taken in by Steve Carell’s weird Eastern European accent, or by the story itself, or even the animation. But I did think the sight gags and jokes of this movie were funny and I’d be lying if I didn’t rank it where it is.
12. The Town
I have nothing against Ben Affleck. He seems like a decent guy and he’s a damn decent director. He’s doing well with his crime dramas and I hope he sticks to it for his next film. Solid movie. No real complaints. It just wasn’t amazing. That’s why it’s at #12.
11. Tangled
I love Disney movies. I’m not biased towards them, though. I’ll admit when one has missed the mark. This one didn’t miss the mark for me, but it didn’t quite hit it either. I didn’t really like the leading man, but then again, that helped me feel his transformation, so I guess it’s a good thing. The animation was good and the music was alright.
10. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
Yep. I said it. Owl movie. For all of you guys who think that a movie about CG owls couldn’t possibly be exciting to watch, you are incorrect, in my opinion. I really enjoyed this movie. My first experience viewing it was on a Blu Ray, and this movie was made for high definition viewing. The special effects are INCREDIBLE. Every feather, ray of sunshine, and speck of dirt are crystal clear and honestly the visual effects are what carry the film. Well, that’s not fair to say. It is full of interesting characters voiced by talented actors and a surprisingly coherent plot that keeps you focused, if not to just marvel at how pretty the visuals are. The film kept me engaged and entertained and I’m glad I got to see it for the first time in the best way imaginable. It also helped to have a giggling, owl-loving girlfriend sitting next to me through the whole thing.
9. Due Date
That’s right. Due Date. Don’t ask me why. It wasn’t the funniest comedy I’ve ever seen. Or the most original (cough cough Planes Trains and Automobiles). But I enjoyed seeing it. It’s no Hangover, but then again, I didn’t really expect it to be. I won’t buy it. Once is enough for my personal viewing, but if someone wanted to sit down and watch it, I’d be interested in seeing it again.
8. Predators
For the 5th movie about a killer species, you might think that this movie is another half-assed entry into the franchise. I enjoyed this film. And I suppose I enjoyed it on a very basic level. There wasn’t much that was spectacular about this film, except for the few action sequences it had. My affinity for this movie comes mostly from the fact that this could have been one of the crappiest movies ever made, with a stupid plot, crap special effects, and horrible actors. But it wasn’t. Everything was solid and I bought the Blu Ray. And I’m glad I did.
7. Shutter Island
I could watch this movie over and over again, much in the same way I could with Secret Window. But while Secret Window was more of a guilty pleasure, this is certainly a well-crafted film that is worthy of multiple viewings. If anything, the film is even better upon it’s second and third viewings. It won’t be nominated for anything, but I will proudly continue to watch it on Blu Ray.
6. 127 Hours
I never would have thought that a film about a guy with his arm stuck in a boulder could be the least bit interesting. Not only was this film interesting, it was amazing. The music was fantastic once again and Danny Boyle managed to inject the story with a high dose of energy and kineticism and make the story of Aron Ralston an exciting tale of triumph.
5. Black Swan
I saw this almost two moths ago at the Savannah Film Festival. I’ll be the first to say: this movie is messed up. In a good way. It is no doubt an amazingly visualized and well executed piece of filmmaking. I think the performances, especially by lead actress Natalie Portman, are what make this film truly great and I really enjoyed it.
4. True Grit
I wouldn’t consider myself a huge fan of westerns or even a huge fan of the Coen Brothers. But this is a very very great film. Sure, it’s a simple story, but the dialogue is engaging, the directing is superb, and the performances are fantastic all around. I was never bored, and that counts for a lot. No doubt this will be nominated for multiple Oscars.
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
I love these movies. I’ve enjoyed watching these characters on their journey against the Dark forces and I loved this movie. Granted, it is only the first half of a larger film, but I believe it contained much more action and drama than most critics gave it credit for. I cannot wait for part 2 and I have every confidence that they will cap off the series with flying colors (on brooms). I’ll buy this on Blu Ray as soon as it comes out.
2. Inception
I love this movie. It is definitely the most original movie I saw all year. I’ve been taken in again and again by its intricate plot and high concept storyline. The score is thrilling and the way they pulled off their visual effects is amazing. I own the Blu Ray and I’m immensely enjoying it.
1. Toy Story 3
It took me through every emotion. I watched as characters that I grew up with overcame obstacle after obstacle and escape destruction again and again. The music is superb and the animated protagonists were able to make me emote more than any live action character all year. This was my favorite film of the year and I honestly believe it should win best picture.
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Sunday, January 9, 2011
My thoughts on the Expendables. Way too late
These are just my thoughts while watching the movie, rented from iTunes, presented in bullet points.
Bad CG with the lasers in the opening scene.
What the hell happened to Stallone’s face??
23 minutes into the movie, Bruce Willis threatens Stallone. He has just finished explaining that the whole reason he needs the Expendables is because his own people are having trouble dealing with the local army on this island. “If you take this money, and you don’t deliver, me and my people are gonna come get you and your people.” If Bruce’s people are so badass, why doesn’t he just send THEM to the island?!? Oh, right. because they’re not Expendable. I got it. And If his people are having so much trouble with the local dictator that he has to outsource BETTER mercenaries (Stallone and Friends) then what could his people POSSIBLY do to Stallone’s crew should they decide to take the money and run?
Bad green screen in Sandra’s truck after she first meets Stallone and Statham.
You can tell from the beginning of the movie that Eric Roberts and the general are going to end up defeating each other through infighting.
But DAMN does the action deliver!! The sound effects and everything. You really get the sense that these are huge freakin dudes beating the piss out of each other. I love it.
Stallone leaps and grabs onto the open door of the plane, bad green screen again, and bad guys shoot at him. About half of them are using pistols. At this point, Stallone is thousands of feet away, obscured by water. Unless one of these guards is named Martin Riggs, they’re not going to hit the bulls-eye using a pistol. Do none of you own a rifle and/or common sense?
No one entertains me more than Stallone when it comes to computer-generated simulation of faceless antagonists being ripped apart by high-caliber weapons.
A flare gun CANNOT reach that far, especially with the jetstream that you’ve just created by flying in the opposite direction. In this scene, Stallone and Statham have made it to their plane and have taken off, escaping the local army. They decide to turn around and basically kill as many of them as possible, with Statham pulling the trigger on this awesome gun on the front of the plane. Once again, a great action sequence that is literally cut between Statham shooting and these men being decimated by bullets on the dock where the plane previously took off from. Then, Stallone decides to push a button that leaks gasoline all over these men and their vehicles, flies fast over them one last time, and Statham leans out of the plane and fires a flare gun downwards, towards the doc, which is at least a couple hundred feet away, AGAINST THE WIND, and nails it, causing a massive explosion. He doesn't aim upwards so that the flare will arc downwards and hit its target. The flare travels in a straight, unbroken line. You don’t have to be a pilot or a physics professor to know that this is not possible. You simply have to be observant and possess common sense. When a car drives past you, do you ever notice the gust of wind that follows it in the same direction? I think it’s called drag, but anyway. The bigger and faster the object (a large plane), the stronger this gust is. So, with this in mind, the fast object has basically pulled the air behind in the direction of it’s movement, like a sinking ship. To fire a projectile as light and susceptible to wind as a flare in the OPPOSITE direction is to pee into the wind. You’re going to miss. By a lot.
Not to mention the heavy scene of exposition that’s based purely on a highly accurate, but very thin assumption that explains a whole lot without a lot of concrete evidence. Was this any other movie, they’d end up dead simply from lack of facts.
FANTASTIC monologue by Mickey Rourke.
How many movies can I watch where the bad guy has captured a female protagonist, lovingly fondled a necklace that she wears and then ripped from her neck, while she looks at him with disgust?
Steve Austin punches a woman in the face, Really hard.
Plothole. Kinda. The bad guys torture Sandra, asking what the Americans were after. The writers treat this character as if she were a hardened spy, trained to withstand horrendous torture. This is just a normal girl. Plus, she doesn’t KNOW what Stallone was after. Furthermore, even if she did, she would SO TALK, because she met Stallone ONCE before this scene takes place, and can’t possibly have any convincing emotional attachment to him. She doesn’t know him. Certainly not enough to undergo torture in order to help him. I guess Stallone just has that effect on people.
Every scene with Eric Roberts is boring. EV opton IS anERY SCENE. (ß---- I don’t know WHAT that last part means. I typed this portion last night, and when I woke up this morning, that gibberish was there. I cannot begin to extrapolate what it might refer to. I think it was supposed to say EVERY SCENE).
A faceless antagonist is about to burn a woman’s face with a cigarette. Stallone cuts off this man’s head with a HUGE knife. Awesome.
This whole final battle is why you would rent the movie,
Terry Crews rips people in half by running down a hallway with an automatic shotgun. This alone was worth the price of the rental.
They are all about to leave. Statham wants to backtrack. Stallone says “The building’s rigged, this is the only way out.” NO IT ISN’T!!! First of all, you came in another way, so by definition, you’re already wrong. Just because you laid charges in the building doesn’t mean you have to blow them while you’re still inside the building. It IS an option to backtrack, go out the way you came, the safe way where there’s no enemies (or at least there can’t be more than going out the front door) and risk ZERO casualties, and THEN blow the building. But then, there’d be no awesome scene where they blow up the building and charge at their enemies, explosions all around, being manly.
Bad CG with the lasers in the opening scene.
What the hell happened to Stallone’s face??
23 minutes into the movie, Bruce Willis threatens Stallone. He has just finished explaining that the whole reason he needs the Expendables is because his own people are having trouble dealing with the local army on this island. “If you take this money, and you don’t deliver, me and my people are gonna come get you and your people.” If Bruce’s people are so badass, why doesn’t he just send THEM to the island?!? Oh, right. because they’re not Expendable. I got it. And If his people are having so much trouble with the local dictator that he has to outsource BETTER mercenaries (Stallone and Friends) then what could his people POSSIBLY do to Stallone’s crew should they decide to take the money and run?
Bad green screen in Sandra’s truck after she first meets Stallone and Statham.
You can tell from the beginning of the movie that Eric Roberts and the general are going to end up defeating each other through infighting.
But DAMN does the action deliver!! The sound effects and everything. You really get the sense that these are huge freakin dudes beating the piss out of each other. I love it.
Stallone leaps and grabs onto the open door of the plane, bad green screen again, and bad guys shoot at him. About half of them are using pistols. At this point, Stallone is thousands of feet away, obscured by water. Unless one of these guards is named Martin Riggs, they’re not going to hit the bulls-eye using a pistol. Do none of you own a rifle and/or common sense?
No one entertains me more than Stallone when it comes to computer-generated simulation of faceless antagonists being ripped apart by high-caliber weapons.
A flare gun CANNOT reach that far, especially with the jetstream that you’ve just created by flying in the opposite direction. In this scene, Stallone and Statham have made it to their plane and have taken off, escaping the local army. They decide to turn around and basically kill as many of them as possible, with Statham pulling the trigger on this awesome gun on the front of the plane. Once again, a great action sequence that is literally cut between Statham shooting and these men being decimated by bullets on the dock where the plane previously took off from. Then, Stallone decides to push a button that leaks gasoline all over these men and their vehicles, flies fast over them one last time, and Statham leans out of the plane and fires a flare gun downwards, towards the doc, which is at least a couple hundred feet away, AGAINST THE WIND, and nails it, causing a massive explosion. He doesn't aim upwards so that the flare will arc downwards and hit its target. The flare travels in a straight, unbroken line. You don’t have to be a pilot or a physics professor to know that this is not possible. You simply have to be observant and possess common sense. When a car drives past you, do you ever notice the gust of wind that follows it in the same direction? I think it’s called drag, but anyway. The bigger and faster the object (a large plane), the stronger this gust is. So, with this in mind, the fast object has basically pulled the air behind in the direction of it’s movement, like a sinking ship. To fire a projectile as light and susceptible to wind as a flare in the OPPOSITE direction is to pee into the wind. You’re going to miss. By a lot.
Not to mention the heavy scene of exposition that’s based purely on a highly accurate, but very thin assumption that explains a whole lot without a lot of concrete evidence. Was this any other movie, they’d end up dead simply from lack of facts.
FANTASTIC monologue by Mickey Rourke.
How many movies can I watch where the bad guy has captured a female protagonist, lovingly fondled a necklace that she wears and then ripped from her neck, while she looks at him with disgust?
Steve Austin punches a woman in the face, Really hard.
Plothole. Kinda. The bad guys torture Sandra, asking what the Americans were after. The writers treat this character as if she were a hardened spy, trained to withstand horrendous torture. This is just a normal girl. Plus, she doesn’t KNOW what Stallone was after. Furthermore, even if she did, she would SO TALK, because she met Stallone ONCE before this scene takes place, and can’t possibly have any convincing emotional attachment to him. She doesn’t know him. Certainly not enough to undergo torture in order to help him. I guess Stallone just has that effect on people.
Every scene with Eric Roberts is boring. EV opton IS anERY SCENE. (ß---- I don’t know WHAT that last part means. I typed this portion last night, and when I woke up this morning, that gibberish was there. I cannot begin to extrapolate what it might refer to. I think it was supposed to say EVERY SCENE).
A faceless antagonist is about to burn a woman’s face with a cigarette. Stallone cuts off this man’s head with a HUGE knife. Awesome.
This whole final battle is why you would rent the movie,
Terry Crews rips people in half by running down a hallway with an automatic shotgun. This alone was worth the price of the rental.
They are all about to leave. Statham wants to backtrack. Stallone says “The building’s rigged, this is the only way out.” NO IT ISN’T!!! First of all, you came in another way, so by definition, you’re already wrong. Just because you laid charges in the building doesn’t mean you have to blow them while you’re still inside the building. It IS an option to backtrack, go out the way you came, the safe way where there’s no enemies (or at least there can’t be more than going out the front door) and risk ZERO casualties, and THEN blow the building. But then, there’d be no awesome scene where they blow up the building and charge at their enemies, explosions all around, being manly.
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