Movies for 2010

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1) City of Ember. Steampunky SF about kids escaping an underground city. Entertaining. Bill Murray is not aging well. (p)

2) Cats. Musical based on TS Eliot's Poetry. Plotless, but entertaining. (rewatch, hadn't seen it in years)

3) Hopalong Cassidy. Old TV episodes. (f,1)

4-5) Spartacus: Blood and Sand (5 hrs). Gory, vulgar and brainbreaky. (p)

6) Stardust. Lovely Neil Gaiman fantasy about a youth who promises to bring his love a star. Big name supporting cast, funny, touching and generally good. (p)

7) Northern Pursuit. A Mountie turns traitor to help save Canada from Nazi spies. Farfetched and entertaining (f2)

8) Dodge City. Big cheesy technicolor western. "But Matt! You can't do this too me. We were in the war together. We drove cattle together. We've ate slept, lived and died together!" //"And now we're going to be in jail together. You in there, me out here." (f3)

9) Beyond the Wall of Sleep. Lovecraftian film about the horrors that stalk a remote asylum. Not bad, kind of art-film feeling. (f2)

10) Reanimator. Based on Lovecraft's famous novella, updated and sexed up for the modern era. Same premise: brilliant young doctor wants to get rid of death. (f1)

11) Boondock Saints. Pair of Irish twins on a mission from God. This is violent and excessive and hilarious if your sense of humor lapses into ultraviolet. Willem Dafoe is amazing as Special Agent Smecker. (f1)

12) Boondock Saints 2: All Saints' Day. The boys are lured out by the murder of a priest. Funny as can be, intensely violent. And Special Agent Eunice Bloom steals the show.(f1)

13) Star Wars. Hadn't seen this in years. (f2)

14) The Empire Strikes Back. Part of a marathon (f2)

15) Return of the Jedi. End of the Marathon (f2)

16) Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Why did no one tell me how awesome this movie is? The aesthetic, the snark, the effects. Angelina Jolie as a one-eyed Navy commander. The only thing better would have been if she were a phallogyne and waltzed Polly right out from under Sky-Captain's nose. (f3, they talk but only about him)

17) Shrek 3. This was just plain fun. Prince Charming rounds up all the villains to take over Far Far Away, and Shrek goes to find Arthur to be king in his place. (p)

18) Alice in Wonderland. This is gorgeous. Dark and menacing in a way the original dreamlike Alice wasn't. Everyone turned in a splendid performance and the CGI didn't get in the way of acting. Christopher Lee as the voice of the Jabberwock! Squee! (p)


19) Wizards. The Bakshi animated film. I dunno what he was on, but I want some. The rotoscoping works better here than in Lord of the Rings. (f2)

20) X-Men Origins. Had avoided this because it was all Wolverine all the time. Not a bad flick and Gambit is a hottie. (Damn all the Wolverine/Gambit slash back in the day!) But it left more questions. Does Scott remember Logan? Does he remember being incarcerated and tortured? Did Xavier do one of his questionable mind-alterations? (f2)