MY NINE MOVIES OF 2010

Last year in a forum not related to my LOST blog, I picked the Top 10 movies that I saw in 2009. Not the 10 best movies, just the 10 movies that I saw that year. Now that LOST is over and THE WALKING DEAD is the new thing, instead of making a Totally Amazing Walking Dead Blog of Awesomeness, I have decided to do my Top 10 movies list right here, as a Christmas present to the three people who still check this blog. (Why, keep your eye on this site, cause I may have LOST my mind and decided to post my thoughts on the finale a mere seven months after it aired).

Sadly, this year I can’t even do a Top 10 list, as apparently I only saw 9 movies. And what really smarts is that it’s almost all Hollywood fare . . . I missed great low budget and independent stuff like Life During Wartime, Splice, Enter the Void, Survival of the Dead, MacGruber, The Kids Are All Right, and so on. I am a disgrace to my people.

Anyway, without farther or do, here is my Top 9 of 2010:

Clash of the Titans – This used to be the title of my favorite movie when I was a little kid, a beloved and cherished childhood memory that seemingly could never be tarnished. Now everyone will associate it with a mostly unrelated movie starring Liam Neeson as Zeus, Hades as Ralph Fiennes, and the guy from Avatar who has to be in everything or else it’s just not as good. And now too everyone will look back at the original and laugh at Ray Harryhausen’s groundbreaking stop motion animation because if it’s not James Cameron releasing the Kraken all over your face while raking up fistfuls of your hard earned cash, then it’s generally worthless. But the original also has Harry Hamlin in his undies, and this new movie does not. That has to count for something. Titans wasn’t the only Greek mythology movie of 2010, and it definitely wasn’t the only 3D release this year, and it wasn’t the only movie featuring Ralph Fiennes as a scary demonic magical being, but it . . . oh wait, apparently this movie has nothing going for it. But the monsters were really cool, and I am grateful to this movie for making me realize that the creature from Cloverfield was actually the Kraken. Also, one of the characters in this update is randomly (and awesomely) a djinn from Middle Eastern mythology, which is not Greek but whatever. I guess what I’m saying is the terrorists have won.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 – This is without a doubt the best half-movie of the year. They really varied the formula with this one: no Hogwarts, no Dumbledore, no pay off to the story. I’m not sure why they actually bothered to title it Harry Potter, but I guess that’s what draws the audience. The main wizard kid, whose name I cannot recall, is really upset this time. And his friends are also upset, so to make things better they go camping. And then they go camping again. And then again. And then they get attacked by a giant snake, so to get over it they decide to break with tradition and go for a little camp or two. Or five. But the snake is awesome, Voldemort turns in another terrifying performance as Ralph Fiennes, the acting is all top notch throughout, and it really does feel as if the previous six movies had all been building to THIS ONE EPIC MOMENT OH EM GEE. And then the movie stops, because we have to wait seven more months for that moment. Okay. Also, Tim Burton’s evil hag-bitch life partner snuffs Dobby. Not cool. However, big up for somehow finding a way to work a Nick Cave song into the Harry Potter franchise. And to think, they said it could never be done . . .

Inception – Cue spinning top! Or is it????????? Now that everyone in the world has washed his feet and sucked his toes in adoration of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan decided to tease us because he knows we'll put up with anything he does (for a while). So instead of just getting to it and making a third Batman movie, he went ahead and did this much-hyped glossy remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. For some reason, they got the woman who played Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose to be Freddy Krueger this time out, and then confusingly kept playing Edith Piaf songs anyway, so I guess what they are trying to say is that Edith Piaf is Freddy Krueger. Leonardo DiCaprio leads the latest gang of dumb horny teenagers who are supposed to get picked off one by one. But most of them don’t die, not even the girl from Juno (the cast of which really has it coming), and the deaths that do happen are pretty lame. And for no reason at all there is a James Bond-esque action scene at a ski resort snow palace, which is really just the movie saying “Yeah, we film in the Alps whenever we want. Why? Cause we’re rich and you’re not, that’s why.” Plus, the writers got lazy and made it impossible to know what parts are really a dream and what parts are really real and what parts are really real for real real, so at no point is there ever actually a way to understand what’s going on. It’s just way too complicated for an Elm Street movie. I mean, Dream Warriors was never this hard to follow, and that had a Dokken song in it, so you know some intelligent filmmaking was going on there. But this? This is just lazy filmmaking all around. Pretty much no thought or imagination went into this movie. A huge disappointment. Or is it??????

A Nightmare on Elm Street – Somehow, despite the fact that Christopher Nolan was already filming a remake of Elm Street, the wonderfully talented Michael Bay’s company went ahead and actually made a movie called A Nightmare on Elm Street. They even had the audacity to name the villain Freddy Krueger! (It’s like Hollywood isn’t even trying anymore). Except this time, instead of being Robert Englund or Edith Piaf or Ralph Fiennes, Freddy is played by Rorschach. It seems that after Dr. Manhattan sploded him, Rorschach became a ghost demon that kills people in their dreams, which suspiciously all look like bad music videos. Seriously though, I’m not sure why Jackie Earle Haley has centered his career comeback on playing child molesters and sociopaths, but whatever works, I guess. If he keeps this up he’ll probably have to start alerting his new neighbors whenever he moves. One plus about this movie is that it’s easier to follow than the Christopher Nolan remake. Come to think of it, they probably should have got the people who made this movie to do an actual remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. I bet that would have been awesome.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians – This is the other movie from 2010 featuring a Hydra. It is a very new and unique tale, unlike any other movie released this year, about a downtrodden youngster with a sad home life who finds out that they are really a magical being and then subsequently swept into a hidden world of supernatural intrigue. But with only a minimum of camping! This movie gets a lot of points for having awesome monsters AND Uma Thurman as Medusa AND featuring a Lady Gaga song AND somehow managing to weave Pierce Brosnan into all this madness. The only bummer is that Hades was busy with Clash of the Titans IT’S IN 3D SEE IT NOW WE DEMAND IT, so unfortunately they got Russell Brand or whoever to play Ralph Fiennes in this film. He just doesn’t do as good a job. I took one look at him and said, “Get him to the Greek . . . mythology. Not!” I sincerely hope no one is still reading this.

Piranha 3D – Remember all the popular pretty people in high school who partied and had social lives and thought 311 was a great band and weren’t awkward all the time? Well, those morons all get ripped to quivering hunks of meat in this, the third entry in the blockbuster Piranha franchise. James Cameron thought that no one could top his flying mutant piranha-grunion hybrid movie from 1981, but--just like the time he claimed that Avatar was very original--it turns out he was wrong and even a bit delusional. And did Avatar have a prehistoric fish regurgitating Jerry O’Connell’s member right at the audience? No. No it did not. This is pretty much the best movie ever made. Glad we can finally put that issue to rest.

Resident Evil: Afterlife – After taking a break from the Resident Evil franchise to direct stinkers like There Will Be Blood, Paul Anderson returned to the series to helm the fourth installment, which of course is in freaking 3D oh my gosh big whoop. Milla Jovovich, returning yet again as Alice, continues to kick all sorts of zombie and mutant butt in this movie, most notably in an awesome scene featuring a dude with a big axe who clearly walked off the set of 300 and into this movie by accident. You just cannot go wrong with the Resident Evil series: Milla Jovovich in skimpy clothes killing zombies and tentacled demonspawn, industrial metal blasting over the soundtrack, repeat. This, my friends, is a winning formula. It is also most likely Trent Reznor’s deepest, darkest fantasy come to life. Alas, as with Piranha I did enjoy the 3D on this one, but the very next day went ahead and saw it in 2D and guess what??? Nothing about the movie was different. Same wonderful little film, minus the annoying sunglasses. I think that when Alice finally takes down the ubiquitous Umbrella Corporation, 50 years from now in Resident Evil: Raccoon City Nemesis Apocalypse Rebirth Annihilation , the evil head of the company should be revealed to be none other than James Cameron. And once she fights her way through his army of flying mutant piranha-grunion hybrid hench-fish, she should paint the floor with his bearded head in glorious, glorious 2D. Would that it were so!

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World – Not bad.

The Social Network – This is a hard-hitting yet understated character drama about the perils of success, the difficulties of the creative process, the struggle between the privileged and the visionary, the slippery nature of ownership, and the way technology increases our ability to connect whilst simultaneously depersonalizing those connections and contributing to a broader sense of existential isolation. Whatever. All I know is that David Fincher made Se7en and Fight Club. Those were real movies that spoke to me, because they described exactly what I was going through at the time. Fincher used to have cajones. He used to talk about how happiness is fake and the only real true reality is the one of darkness and pain and serial killers. He used to be Tyler Durden. Now he makes boring “important” movies like The Social Network and Zodiac (which wasn’t even gory and they never even told you who did it at the end! Saw VII was WAY better) and The Boringest Case of Benjamin’s Button Collection. Lame. It also seems like Fincher doesn’t understand kids today. I mean, Facebook is awesome, computers are awesome, and being a 26-year old billionaire is awesome. You get to party every night! I think Fincher is just jealous of Mark Zuckerberg’s success. He obviously doesn’t know what it’s like to be a successful young hotshot living in California, I will tell you that much. Even the score by Trent Reznor, who in the 90’s rocked so hard but now is yet another sellout babbling about sobriety, is just a bunch of wimpy techno music. They might as well have got Enya to do the soundtrack. I think Trent was just ticked because he didn’t get the composer job for Resident Evil: Afterlife. Terrible. And Ralph Fiennes isn’t even in this! Instead it’s this Jesse Iceberg or what have you. He’s like a less pathetic Michael Cera. Could they not just get Michael Cera for this movie? I guess he was busy with Scott Pilgrim. Seriously, kill the f***ing cast of Juno already, is what I am saying. And then waste everyone involved in The Social Network, once Diablo Cody is out of the way. I hated this movie more than Christopher Nolan’s remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, and I almost hated it as much as I hated the ending of LOST (no fairy tale endings for me thank you, I live in the REAL world). Booo!

Worst Movie That I Did Not See: Meet the Fockers – Actual scene: Ben Stiller has to give Robert DeNiro an injection in his throbbing gristle because the old man has taken too much of something that enhances male performance, all in front of his little kid. Sounds hilarious. Christmas fun for the whole family. And the name Focker sounds like F***er! Do you get it? LITTLE F***ERS! Fock you.

Worst Movie That I Actually Did See: Alice in Wonderland – Okay, I hope it’s obvious how much I actually loved The Social Network. I hate to kneel before the boner of public opinion, but I do agree that it was one of the year's best (and the soundtrack by T-Rez does rule). Not so for Tim Burton’s latest attempt to boost merchandising sales at Hot Topic. Somehow managing to drop or otherwise lose every single element from Lewis Carroll’s stories that is actually interesting, Alice in Wonderland replaces the logic puzzles and mildly disturbing surrealism with a half-hearted Harry Potter/Percy Jackson “chosen one” fantasy type story, then caps it with a totally unearned girl-power motif. The 3D is awful and like trying to watch the movie behind a dim window pane, Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen is such an obvious attempt to appease and appeal to the self-hating narcissism of Goth girls that it’s actually insulting (plus she killed Dobby), and Johnny Depp is in major recycle mode as the Mad Hatter, whose CGI hip-hop dance is the single worst thing that I have seen on a movie screen, ever. You know, something like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a completely pandering movie, gleefully selling itself to nerds and hipsters alike, exploding in a masturbatory burst of self-congratulatory nostalgia and pop culture references. BUT, the movie’s got a heart. It totally earns the right to do whatever it wants, and underneath all the Nintendo references is a real story that surpasses the slam-dunk self-marketing of the movie’s sheen. Not Alice in Wonderland, which is so cynically put together and lazy that there might as well be cue cards telling you when and how to respond to the movie. Here is Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts; Laugh Knowingly and Loudly To Demonstrate That You Get It. Here is Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter; Dress Up As Him For Halloween, Costume Available Now! Look At Alice; She Is So Different and Unlike Her Stuffy British Counterparts, Whatever Will She Do Next?! Fock you too. I don’t even count this movie as something that I saw, hence its absence from the above list; it’s more like something bad that happened to me, such as SARS or Glenn Beck or the time I was robbed at gunpoint. As far as I’m concerned, there is only one movie from this year about an ass-kicking girl named Alice set loose in a fantasy land of monsters and mayhem and corruption, and that movie is Resident Evil. Oh yeah, and Underland? What a crock of shit.

Best Movie That I Have Yet To See: Black Swan – Okay, so I still haven’t seen it, but every Darren Aronofsky movie is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. This stupid jerk can’t stop being talented and awesome all the time. So I’m looking forward to seeing this butt nugget’s latest movie, which I’m sure will be great, and I will probably love it so much I’ll want to kill myself because I am nothing compared to this guy’s latest masterpiece. Thanks a lot, Aronofsky.