Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Oscar Nominations

This is a day late, but I had to share some of my thoughts on the Academy Award Nominations. If you haven't seen what they are yet, follow this link.

Well, the Best Picture nominations don't surprise me, I did expect Toy Story 3 and True Grit to get the Best Picture nominations, and I have heard a lot of great things out of 127 Hours. The one that really surprised me was Christopher Nolan getting ignored for Best Director, that really shocked me, as I really think he deserved the nomination at least. For Best Support Actress, I am glad that one girl from True Grit got the nomination, she did a superb job in that movie. Jeff Bridges got an Oscar nomination for his role in True Grit, which is great. I hope Jesse Eisenberg receives the award this time for Best Actor, even though I have heard that Colin Firth did a great job in The King's Speech. Here is another disappointment, Daft Punk wasn't nominated for their work for Tron Legacy in Best Original Score, shame, even more disappointing, the visual effects for Tron Legacy weren't even nominated, but at least it was nominated for Best Sound Editing. For Visual Effects, Iron Man 2, Inception, Hereafter, Alice in Wonderland, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, so they are good movies nominated for Best Visual Effects, but I don't know why Hereafter was nominated, but I never saw the movie so I can't judge, I say Inception will win. Back to Best Original Score, I do think some of the choices are great, The Social Network, Inception, and How to Train Your Dragon, I really didn't think it would get nominated, but I am glad. Those are a few of my thoughts, in about a month we shall see who will take home the Oscars.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Golden Globe 2011 review

I didn't watch much of the show, I only flipped to it to see some of the main awards win. The picks for the year have been pretty solid. The Social Network won Best Picture in a Drama, which is a very good movie if you haven't seen it yet. I picked it up on Blu-Ray this week in anticipation with the award season, and figured that it would take home the big prize, it has been winning a lot of Best Picture awards at different shows. The Social Network also won for Best Score, Best Screenplay, and Best Director. I am glad it won for Best Score, it was a very good score. My big disappointment was that Daft Punk wasn't nominated for their work in Tron Legacy, it was an excellent score, maybe they will at least get a nomination at the Academy Awards. One score that was nominated that was very good as well was Inception by Hans Zimmer. Speaking of Inception, the one award that I think should have gone to that movie was for Best Director, even though I think that David Fincher for The Social Network was a good choice, I think Christopher Nolan for Inception would have been a better choice, my opinion. Such a great movie. I watched the Blu-Ray version of Inception over the weekend, and it was glorious to watch, the picture and audio quality were top notch, an absolute must have. Other wins were The Kids Are All Right for Best Picture in a Musical or Comedy, I never saw the movie, so I can't make any judge call. Christian Bale won a Best Supporting Actor award for his work in The Fighter, which I heard was great. I am sure you can easily check out the rest of who won what on the Golden Globes website, but Oscar Nominations are up on January 25, which is next week. I will obviously be posting my thoughts on those.

As for any other news, not a whole lot to report, except that The Green Hornet was number one this weekend at the box office, haven't seen it yet, but planning to soon. Red comes out on Blu-Ray next week, which I am excited for, it was a very good movie. I will soon be posting a list of movies that will be arriving on Blu-Ray and DVD in the next few months.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Hayao Miyazaki's 70th Birthday

This is late, but I figured I would share this anyway, mainly because this is one filmmaker that I really love, Hayao Miyazaki, for those who don't know who he is, he is an animator in Japan. The one work that you will more like be familiar with is Spirited Away, it won Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards in 2003. He has a great line of features that he made, like Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo (which was released in the US in 2009), Nausicaa, and My Neighbor Totoro. I highly recommend checking out his works. In fact, Nausicaa will arrive on Blu-Ray March 8. He also founded Studio Ghibli, which is an animation studio in Japan, like Walt Disney over here, in fact, almost all the films that were made over there have been released here, with a few more on the way. Check them out.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Top 10 of 2010

Alright, the new year is here, but before we fully embrace this new year, I want to review my top picks of this past year, keep in mind that these are just my picks, these aren't the best of 2010, I am sure that we can agree that some of the movies on this list are the best, but these are the ones that stick out to me and what I will more likely remember when I think about the movies released this past year.

Top 10

10. The A-Team – Okay, some will probably think that something is wrong with my choices in the top ten, this is all my opinion, but this was one of my top ten picks, very entertaining and enjoyable, exactly what a good action flick should be. I was quite sad that it didn’t do better at the box office, I thought it was better than some of the movies that were released this year.

9. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World – This one stands out to me mainly because this past summer was filled with remakes and sequels, nothing really original except for Inception and this. The ideas were a little different than what we normally see, so yeah some won’t respond to it very well, but I think it was very well done, and very enjoyable.

8. Tron Legacy – Were there flaws, of course, but the visuals were still incredible, the 3D was very well developed in this movie, it was put to good use for the experience, and the story really wasn’t that bad in my opinion. I think the story was exactly what it needed to be. A worthy sequel to the original Tron that was released almost 30 years ago.

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 – For a while, the Harry Potter movies were those types of movies that I would go and watch once and be satisfied. That changed recently with the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and sort of with The Goblet of Fire, I realized they were more than just adventures in Hogwarts, that there was much more to the whole story, and that everything started to connect. This one showed so many different connections, it was fun, plus I thought this one had much depth and emotion.

6. Red – A very enjoyable action/comedy flick. It had to do with a group of retired secret agents. It had a great cast, very well developed. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture in the Comedy category. I was very surprised, but yet at the same time, was very happy to see this move. It arrives on Blu-Ray and DVD in Januray, do check it out.

5. True Grit – The Coen brothers recent film. It is a remake of the 1969 version that had John Wayne, or actually it is another take on the original book. It stars Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and Josh Brolin. The dialogue was very well crafted. Check it out if you haven’t.

4. Toy Story 3 – I will be honest, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Toy Story, now before anyone decides to come after me with a hammer, I do believe it was revolutionary, and I really did enjoy the movies, I just prefer other Pixar movies like A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and Up, but the Toy Story movies I still think are great. This last one, however, had a very deep story that went along with the incredible animation that Pixar always does an incredible job with. Such a great movie.

3. The Social Network – This was honestly one movie that truly surprised me. When I first saw the trailer, I was thinking, “A movie about Facebook, that won’t be that good.” However, I was really surprised when the reviews came in, so I decided to check it out, and I was really surprised. I really do think it could take Best Picture at the Oscars.

2. How to Train Your Dragon – I was debating between this one and Inception being number one, picked Inception mainly for a few different reasons. However, I really do believe that How to Train Your Dragon did so much for audience. We all fell in love with the dragons and all the characters. It also pushed the boundaries of 3D, but mainly it was good hearted story.

1. Inception – I really think that this will be one movie that will be remembered for quite some time. It did something that not a lot of movies really do these days, it made the audience think, and they had to think on a different level. The really cool part is that it caught the attention of a lot of different audiences, even those who aren’t fans of the science fiction area. It also got many different audience members to discuss all the different possibilities in this movie, with many forums discussing whether Cobb was still dreaming at the end. Something that I believe will be remembered for a long time.


Other good movies to note


It was difficult for me to narrow down my picks to 10, there were a lot of good movies that could have made the top ten, and I will go through some of those.

Knight and Day – Very enjoyable and funny. This was another one of those movies I thought should have done better than it did. Worth checking out.

Tangled – One of those surprise Disney movies that you really didn’t expect much from. Yeah, I expected it to be good, but it was better than good.

Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance – This wasn’t released this year, it was released in theaters in Japan in 2009, but arrived on Blu-Ray and DVD this year, I decided to import it to check it out. Totally blew me away. It will be arriving in stores like Best Buy at the end of March.

Iron Man 2 – Sequel to the blockbuster hit in 2008, was another pleasant surprise, will be honest, wasn’t as much as a surprise as the original one, as I really didn’t expect anything out of that, but this one was still great to watch.

Despicable Me – Another good animated movie. The one element that I really enjoyed were those little Minions.

Alice in Wonderland – Tim Burton’s recent movie, I really enjoyed it a lot. Thought the 3D worked pretty well.

While we say goodbye to 2010, we have so much to look forward to in 2011. First off, new movies like Green Hornet, Unknown, Rango, Rio, Adjustment Bureau, Green Lantern, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Source Code, Kung Fu Panda 2, X-Men: First Class, Super 8, Cars 2, Captain America, Cowboys and Aliens, and much more. I will continue to keep you updated on what is coming out and what to look for. Also, I plan to do another Blu-Ray schedule soon.