Movies for 2011

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1) Into the woods. Stage production. Famous fairy tale characters come together in Sondheim's musical. Bernadette Peters stars. Really entertaining, music very complex. Little Red Riding hood steals the show.(p)

2) Fiddler on the Roof. Traditions are changing everywhere as Tevye the Dairyman deals with five daughters and Russian Pogroms. (p)

3) The Many Faces of Christopher Lee. The veteran actor talks about his career, and shows off trophies of it, including Dracula's ring and the last extant piece of the Wicker Man. (N/A)

4) The Legend of Billie Jean. When the rich kids trash her brother's scooter, Billie Jean wages a one-girl crusade for justice. Helen and Christian Slater, Yeardley Smith looking all of 10. And one of the best Pat Benatar songs ever.(p)

5) Dreams in the Witch House. One of the Masters of Horror series, this gorey, sexualized Lovecraft adaptation actually works quite well. A student rents the cheapest room he can find, only to be haunted by the long-dead Keziah and her familiar, Brown Jenkin. (f, 2)

6) The A Team. I was a fan of the TV series. This was a worthy successor. Liam Neeson was perfect for Hannibal and the rest of the cast did a bangup job. Some nice meta with Reginald Barkley starring in The Greater Escape. Big dumb action movie, and it was perfect. (f, 1)

7) Halloween. This was the original and I had never seen it. Minimal gore, lots and lots of suspense. Jamie Lee Curtis turns in an excellent screen debut. (p)

8) Dorian Gray. Ben Barnes is beautiful and evil in this remake. The story is classic, with some updating. We see ALL of Dorian's debauchery, including some same-sex interludes. Quite yummy and lush. (f,2)

9) Clash of the Titans. Big CGI retelling/mangling of the Perseus myth. Grimmer than the 80s version, much more Nietzschian. Really like the Medusa in this one. (p)

10) Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs. I like the book this is based on and the movie takes some of the same ideas, but doesn't stay true. Cute love story added in, plus the typical winning Dad's approval theme. (f, 2)

11) Batman Begins. Christian Bale in typical origin story action movie with Morgan Freeman doing a Q style part.(f,1)

12) Machete. I wanted to see this from the moment I saw the fake trailer in front of Planet Terror. And it was just as awesome as expected. A renegade federale seeks revenge on those who killed his family. Violent, gory, nudity, and an on-camera crucifixion. But terrific. Lots of big names and strong women. Michelle Rodriguez is fabulous and Danny Trejo, although an ugly man, is ungodly hot. Bonus for Lindsay Lohan in a nun's habot with a big gun. Most memorable scene? the lowrider cars bouncing outside the gate like a pack of wild animals. (p)

13) The Jacket. A damaged Iraq War I vet is sentenced to an asylum where he is experimented on, and accidentally sees the future. AKA Kris Kristofferson plays with Adrien Brody's mind. Good film, some medical squickage. (p)

14) Cats Don't Dance. Animated tale of a cat who wants to be a movie star but finds one Dora Dimple firmly in his way. (f, 2)

15) Karate Kid. Will Smith's son takes lessons from Jackie Chan to defeat the bullies. (f,2)

16) Zombie Strippers. Ridiculous grindhouse piece about a bar making money on undead strippers, and stashing their undead customers in a cage downstairs. Yeah. Because that could not POSSIBLY go wrong... Gross, exploitative, and great fun (p)

17) Gangs of New York. Revenge tale of gang warfare over New York's Five Points during the draft riots of 1863. Leonardo DiCaprio is great, Daniel Day Lewis is brilliant. (f, 2)

18) White Oleander. Psychologically nasty piece about a mother and daughter as the daughter endures foster homes while mother is imprisoned. Michelle Pfeiffer does sociopath extremely well. I watched this thinking "Now I understand Signi and Gerda better. It will help in the next Nick book." (p)

19) The Spy Next Door. Jackie Chan's neighbor leaves him in charge of her three kids. Wackiness ensues. Entertaining, funny and entirely predictable. (p)

20) UHF. George Newman (Weird Al Yankovic) runs a TV station for his uncle against the corrupt network affiliate. Goofy, classic underdog story. (f,3)

21) Freakonomics. Documentary based on the books. Covers ethnic names, cheating teachers/sumo wrestlers, whether kids can be bribed into better performance (Confirmed Mudd's hypothesis on this: the bubble-kids, those almost passing, will work their tails off. The ones with no hope of passing won't bother) and why crime dropped in the 90s. (my statement: baby boomers aged out of it, and we baby busters couldn't continue their levels)

22) Despicable Me. Cute tale of a supervillain who adopts three little girls. (p)

23) 3:10 to Yuma. They so didn't even make me work for it with this one. Onelegged rancher takes an outlaw to the prison train. (f, 2)

24) Bambi. Oli was griping that she hadn't seen most of the Disney classics, so we'll be watching them. This is gorgeously animated, if a bit thin on plot. (f,2)

25) The Crazies. Cheap horror about a town where something in the water makes people homicidal. (p)

26) Jesus Christ Superstar. The 2000 version, all technofascist homoeroticism.

27) Charge of the Light Brigade. Quasi historical movie about the charge at Balaklava.This movie is the reason you see the disclaimer "No animals were harmed in the making of this film." (f, 2)

28) Tombstone. Entertaining western about the showdown at the OK corral. Interesting mix of actors. (p)

29) Repo: The Genetic Opera. In the dark future, everyone experiences organ failure, everyone gets transplants and everyone is in debt to GeneCo. And if one falls behind on payments, Geneco can repossess the organs. Opera, not really any dialogue. (p)

30) Dagon.Adaptation of The Shadow over Innsmouth, For a low budget movie, handled very well. Good effects, strong acting and big kudos to the Innsmouth folk for not blinking while on camera. (p)

31) Hairspray. Overweight girl becomes dancer on popular TV show. Remake with John Travolta in the Divine role. (p)

32) 30 Days of Night. Vampires take over and arctic town. Dreary and dull. (f, 3)

33) Coraline. Horror movie for kids about a girl who finds a way between worlds and a parallel place with another mother and father. But all is not as it seems. A little scray for kid fare, but really good. (p)

34) Rent. Musical about a group of drifter artists trying to keep the building they are squatting in. Quite meh. I like The Tango Maureen. (p)

35) Candyman. Very good horror film about the power of rumor and urban legend. Based on a Clive Barker story. (p)

36) The Fox and the Hound. One of the lesser Disney pictures of the 70s, this chronicles the unlikely friendship of a fox kit and a hound pup. Layered animation but weak story. (f, 3)

37) Casanova. Heath Ledger as the famous Italian lover as he woos and wins the woman of his dreams. Entertaining and very pretty to watch. (f, 3)

38) Trick r Treat.Monster mash in which a small town goes to Hell on Halloween. Psycho killers, werewolves, vampires, undead, they're all out to play. Anna Paquin stars. (p)

39) The people under the stairs. A boy accompanies two men on a burglery only to discover the ghetto landlords have been stealing and "raising" children, with bizarre punishment and keeping them locked under the stairs. (p)

40) Tangled. Disnified Rapunzel...it wasn't horrible. Much more action adventurey, much less with the eyes-gouged-out-by-thorns. (p)

41) Dark Knight. Second Bale Batman with Heath Ledger as the Joker. Too long. Too many explosions. Some good psych stuff, and they didn't even make me work for it... (f, 2)

42) Up. An old balloon seller follows his wife's dream and goes to South America, but childhood heroes have feet of clay and dreams turn into nightmares. The newsreel adventurer is totally Errol Flynn. (f,1)

43) Dark Harbor. A bickering couple goes out to the Island for a weekend, but plans are derailed by a mysterious young man. Alan Rickman and Norman Reedus and a script easily as brutal as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. (f,1)

44) Basket Case. A young man and his deformed twin seek gory revenge on the doctors that separated them. Painfully 1982 grindhouse. (f, 3. Mama and the tutor talk about her qualifications but only as they relate to Dwayne)

45) Vampires Suck. *headdesk* Blame Oli. The best part of this was the Team Edward/Team Jacob rumble.

46) Vampire Circus. 1972 Hammer piece about a town under plague quarantine who receives a mysterious carnival visit. Robin Sachs (Ethan from Buffy) and Lalla Ward (Ramana, companion of Dr., Four) as gorgeous twin acrobats. Dave Prowse (Darth Vader) as the strongman. And Robert Tayman as the gayest gay vamp who ever vamped. I so did not buy the heterosexual sex scene he has. The power of 70s hair overwhelms naked Hammer girls.Anthony Higgens is gorgeous as Emil. Sexy, stylish with the buckest of Hammer blood one expects. (missed most of the dialogue, so no telling)

47) Young Sherlock Holmes. This was a trip down memory lane and a fairly intense one. Excellent bit of filmed fanfic. (Anthony Higgens is in this too, as Professor Rathe/Moriarty) Holmes and Watson meet at boarding school. (p, although they talk about a dog)

48) Lost Boys: The Thirst. The Frog brothers are recruited by a paranormal romance writer to rescue her brother who disappeared at a vampire rave. Interesting concept, retread script. Two excellent moments, and they both belong to Allan Frog. (f,2)

49) Class of Nuke'em High. Cult film about toxic waste turning the honor society into Mad Max rejects. Entertaining. Very 80s. (p)

50) Session 9. An asbestos clean up crew takes on an abandoned mental hospital, but one of them is listening to tapes of a MPD woman's therapy sessions. Slow, but tense. Very good. (f,1)

51) Practical Magic. A pair of sisters live with their witchy aunts after their mother's death and must deal with the family curse that any man they love will die. Moderately accurate depiction of witchcraft, super hot Nicole Kidman licking Sandra Bullock's neck, and Stockard Channing being absolutely fabulous. BETTER THAN THE BOOK! (p)

52) Lost boys: The Tribe. New kids move to Santa Clara and end up needing help from Edgar Frog when they run afoul of vampires. Eminently forgettable. (p)

53) National Treasure. Ben is following the family path, seeking the lost treasure of the ages, clues to which are scattered throughout the writings of the Founding Fathers. Silly, fun and generally innocuous. Sean Bean as the villainous British man. (f, 1)

54) Gothic. Mary and Percy Shelley and Mary's half-sister Claire, spend a stormy weekend with Lord Byron and his lover, Dr. Pollodori. Sexier than I remembered, this smart little horror film just pants. Pollodori is slavishly devoted to Byron, Bryon is desperately in love with Shelley, Shelley adores everyone. And Mary is freaked by it all. Scary, stylish and not very linear. (f,3)

55) Saved! This was funnier than I expected. It traces friends in their senior year at a Christian school. One is pregnant by her gay boyfriend, one is Jewish, one is in a wheelchair. They face off against the holiest blonde girl in town. Macauley Culkin is hilarious. Very realistic. Much more fun because I was watching another recovering fundamentalist and we snarked it hard. (p)

56) Alice in Wonderland (rewatch) The Tim Burton version. Gorgeous and completely the Hero's journey. (p)

57) The Princess and the Frog. Tiana wants to open the restaurant she and her late father dreamed of. But complications involving a visiting prince and Mardi Gras get in the way. Not bad, very entertaining. I like the cajun fireflies. (p)

58) Shaun of the Dead. Ordinary bloke gets caught in a zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately, he remains perfectly ordinary. meh. (f, 3)

59) The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Our hero must track down and train the Prime Merlinium in order to save the world from Morgan LeFay. so unmemorable, I can't even remember the hero's name, either of them. (f, 2)

60) Dance of the Dead. Tobe Hooper directed this tale of a nightclub where undead dancers entertain. (p)

61) Buffalo Girls. Calamity Jane biopic, with amazing cast. Entertaining and worth rewatching. Must do my homework on whether Calamity was bisexual.(p)

62) The Ten Commandments. Big ol' Technicolor spectacle piece, deMille's last. A very hot and shirtless Yul Brenner vies with an equally hot and shirtless Charleton Heston, and John Derek is not just hot and shirtless, but tied up too. Plot? Yeah, i guess there was a plot. Extremely family-friendly orgy scene. (p)

63) Splice.A pair of scientists make critters that go drastically wrong, and adding human DNA only made it worse. At least HBO warns up front for rape. And no, not human-on-human either. Strained some suspension of disbelief in the last reel.(p)

64) National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. Action adventure as Ben goes in search of the City of Gold. Kind of meh. (f, 2)

65) Flakes, Rewatch. Musician and artist couple battle over his work in a cereal bar. Has its moments, but extremely kitschy. (f,2)

66) American Psycho. Yuppie Pride and Prejudice where everything from the font on a business card to what you order for lunch is vitally important. But this is P&P with psychopathic spree killers who feed kittens into ATM machines...Very funny movie, if you get the joke. (f,2)

67) Before I Hang. Condemned doctor tries to reverse aging with serum from human blood. Little Boris Karloff B movie. (f,1)


68) How to Train your Dragon. Young Viking finds a new way to cope with his village's ongoing dragon war. Entertaining and cute. (f,2)

69) Bell, Book and Candle. Jimmy Stewart falls for a witch. Boring, fifties rom-com. Elsa Lanchester is the bright spot. Very clear this was the inspiration for Bewitched. (p)

70) Left in Darkness. Girl dies at a frat party and finds herself fighting got her soul somewhere in a no man's land. Not very good. (p)

71) Once Upon a Mattress. Musical retelling of The Princess and the Pea. Carol Burnett is brilliant as the overbearing queen with Tracy Ullman as the princess. Tommy Smothers as the mute King, An unrecognizable Zooey Daschenel as the desperate Lady Larking, and Denis O'Hare, Russle Edgington from True Blood, as our hero, Prince Dauntless the Dull. Funny, tuneful and generally entertaining. (p)

72) Extraordinary Measures. Father of terminally ill kids gets help from a crotchty old researcher. Brendan Fraiser and Harrison Ford make this watchable. (p)

73) Cowboys and Aliens. Good western about people with no frame of reference dealing with an alien invasion. Daniel Craig is an amnesiac outlaw who reforms. Harrison Ford is a mean old bastard who sees the light. Good characters and effects and just as big and cheesy as you would expect. (f

74) Harry Potter 7.2, The final wrap up. Better than the book, as it manages to shave out a lot unnecessary stuff. (f,2)

75) Spiderwick Chrionicles. Family moves into a fae-haunted housed from which their great-uncle vanished 80 years before. Good faerie lore, kinda boring. (p)

76) The Laramie Project. The story of Matthew Shepherd and what came after. Interesting as a time capsule.

77) Sideshow: Alive on the inside. exploration of sideshows. Interviews with Jeannie Tomaini, the half girl, Percilla the Monkey girl, Sandy Allen world's tallest woman and Ronnie and Donnie, the world's oldest living conjoined twins.

78) Alice Through the Looking Glass. Made for cable adaptation. Carol Channing was better as the White Queen in the old PBS series. (p)

79) Bill Engvall: here's your sign. Stage show. I enjoy Bill Engvall. His family is a few years ahead of mine, so i get a preview of upcoming crises.

80) The Brothers Bloom. Brothers plan their last con, only to have it go all wrong, or all right. Complicated and entertaining. Rachel Weiscz is awesome as always, esp. when juggling chainsaws on a unicycle. And Adrien Brody should be required by law to wear a derby at all times. (iffy, the other female character teaches Penelope to make bombs, but 2 words is not a conversation. Character only has 4 words in the movie.)

81) Peter Pan. Good remake, darker than most, and touching on the more problematic aspects of Neverland. (f, 2)

82) Hal Sparks: Charmageddon. Stage show. Funny, raw and very good.

83) The Wolf-man. Weak weak weak. I had too high of hopes for this one. The twist ending was not a surprise. (f,1)

84) Ed and his dead mother. Loser brings his dead mother back, but bungles it until she turns into a hyperactive cannibal. Humorous zombie movie, but Steve Buscemi is creepier than the dead woman AND a white-haired John Glover as a revivification specialist, put together. (p)

85) Predators. Fifth in the franchise, but stands alone. Did we really need a sf remake of The Most Dangerous Game, with Adrien Brody, Danny Trujo and Alice Braga? Oh wait, answered my own question. (f,1)

86) The Betrayed. A kidnapped woman is forced to sell out her secret gangster husband to buy her son's safety. I liked this one. Tense, and smart. Melissa George keeps her head clear through it and is brilliant. (p)

87) The Experiment. Rewatch. Me? I'm just here for the torture porn...(f,1)

88) Atlantis, The Lost Empire. Disney does steampunk with this tale of explorers hunting for lost Atlantis.(f,2)

89) Children of the Corn. Ridiculously beautiful Peter Horton (*boots vicious Brimstone bunnies to back of hutch*) and good-looking Linda Hamilton find themselves trapped in a town of religious fanatic children. Malachai resembles my own young cult leader way too much. (p)

90) 28 Weeks Later. Dull sequel to a dull film. Americans are trying to contain the virus and all hell breaks loose. (p)

91) The Others. Strict religious woman raises two light-sensitive children with help from creepy servants. Nicole Kidman at her most straight-laced and frumpiest. Very creepy, but I saw the twist coming and discarded it as too convoluted for a Hollywood movie. (p)

92) The Secret of Roan Inish. Sister and cousin try to make a place for the return of baby brother who has been raised by the selkie side of the family. This movie gives me flat out goosebumps and makes me cry for no apparent reason. (p)

93) 28 Days Later. Peculiarly British zombie film, and one that addresses the repopulation problem. Still fairly dull. (f,3)

94) Billy Bathgate. Kid joins up with Dustin Hoffman's mob, and ends up guarding a sexy lady. Very hot. (f, 1)

95) Dogville. Stylized and elegant, this is Our Town meets Judy Blume's BLUBBER, with extra rape and mass murder. (p)

96) Inkheart. Man can read characters out of books and an evil overlord wants his help in conquering the world. (p)

97) Shipwrecked. Two kids and a teen are shipwrecked and must cope with pirates and other problems. Good movie, and Gabriel Byrne really can chew scenery when he chooses. He is not upstaged by the kids which is quite a trick. (f, 2)


98) Drool.

99) I love you, Phillip Morris

100) Eyes Wide Shut

101) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 1.

102) George Romero's Deadtime Stories.