Year in Review

Yeah, I know that I've neglected this blog, which makes me wonder why it's so popular (it isn't). Anyway, everyone is doing a stupid top movies of the year blog, but I like to buck the trend in my own way (also, I haven't seen a lot of the "top movies" this year), so I'm going to go through the movies that I saw last year and give you my impressions of them. Just to make it interesting, I'm going to limit myself to a maximum of two sentences. I know you're psyched. Let's roll.

The Book of Eli:
Stevie Wonder meets Mad Max with a touch of Fahrenheit 451; Mila Kunis is very pretty.
See it if you're a fan of apocalyptic movies; skip it if you can clearly imagine a movie like my first sentence--it's pretty much exactly like that.

Shutter Island:
Martin Scorsese directs this story of loss and the slip into madness. If you want a companion piece to Inception, see this movie; if you don't like your stories unresolved, skip it (like I said, Inception companion piece).

Alice In Wonderland:
Tim Burton tackles a classic story--nuff said. See it if you buy a majority of your clothes at Hot Topic; if the opposite is true, skip it.

She's Out of My League:
A fun family film (false); see it with Grandma (very false). It's pretty much a slightly less intelligently written version of 40 Year Old Virgin; act accordingly.

How To Train Your Dragon:
I disagree with it being so high on the IMDb top 250 (it simply isn't that good); however, I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. This movie is like Ratatouille (or Jazz Singer, or any movie that has a father and son disagreeing on the son's profession), but with dragons.

Clash of the Titans:
Avatar spent millions of dollars on their effects to create a fully involving film with breath-taking 3D; this movie spent about the equivalent of a buck fifty on special effects and rushed 3D into development. It's like Hollywood knee-ed moviegoers in the balls and took their lunch money.

Date Night:
Steve Carell and Tina Fey being funny together. It's like NBC's Thursday night lineup.

Kick-Ass:
Taking comics as their inspiration, amateurs dress up as superheroes; I would say it's a pretty realistic depiction, except they used MySpace...so that's out. If you're squeamish or old, do not see this movie; if you want to see a 12 year-old girl swear, and (for lack of a better term), kick ass, see this movie.

The Losers:
Didn't actually catch that in theaters. Check out the blog.

Iron Man 2:
As good as the first one? No, but as a comic book fan, I can't help but loving it as a real life Marvel comic book adaptation, complete with comic crossovers.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time:
For a bit, my brother was hopeful that this movie would buck the trend of terrible video game adaptations. No dice.

Get Him to the Greek:
Russell Brand is an acquired taste--if you liked his character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, then you should see this movie. It may drag at times, but there are some genuinely good laughs.

Toy Story 3:
I'm a Pixar fan, so it should be no surprise that I loved this movie. This year will see Cars 2 as Pixar's major release, and I don't know how to feel about that.

Predators:
A sequel to the governor-making original (Arnold and Jesse Ventura), but can this movie create the same number of future state leaders? This is pretty much the first movie, but on an alien planet.

Inception:
We've come full circle: I started this blog with Inception after my co-workers kept asking for my take on movies. Check it out here.

The Other Guys:
I have seen a pattern in my movie watching habits: comedies and action. The blog on this is here.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World:
Nerdy movie. Nerdy blog.

Due Date:
Pretty much Planes Trains and Automobiles meets *insert stoner movie here*. A good strong percentage of the funny parts of the movie were in the trailers.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1:
Cash grab by Warners? Maybe, but it told the story very well and allowed for the passage of time, which is just hard to do in movies (if you think this is a drop in quality, you're wrong).

To be honest, I rented a lot of movies rather than seeing them in theaters. It's just much cheaper that way, and I am a patient man. As for the best movies of the year? I haven't seen a lot of the ones I know are good.

A side note: This is year one of the fallout of Avatar. I saw four of those movies in 3D with the quality varying. It's not worth it, at this point, to see any live action movie in 3D, and studios have taken advantage of people by charging more for the price of a ticket. Toy Story 3 was fun to see in 3D; so was How to Train Your Dragon. But Alice in Wonderland, and especially Clash of the Titans, are examples of how Hollywood can turn this remarkable technology into a fad. People will get pissed off if the quality isn't mind-blowing.

As for what movies I want to see, pick any top ten list out there and you're pretty much done. All of those.