Early 2010 Ruled by Genre Pictures

I was going through the release dates for a few films this morning and began noticing that the spring is actually filled with great to decent looking and sounding horror pictures and genre pictures. It's funny to see what happens when movies like "Taken" and "300" change studios minds about when certain things could get released. Before "300" March was pretty much a waste land for mediocre comedies to drain up some cash or for the blandest films to pick up a little here and there and then disappear. "Taken" became a mega hit through January and February of this year and has seemed to inspire studios to let other action titles take on the spring instead of letting it ride the waves of summer.

Much as it pains me to say it, I feel "Drag Me to Hell" would've performed better either in the spring or fall rather than the summer sandwiched in against "Up" and a week or two before "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen". However with "Shutter Island" would've done well no matter what AND probably been an awards contender this year. But no matter, as soon as we look it'll be in theaters making a killing hopefully. The only thing that's bad about all this is that often these things can go one way or another. Nowadays American audiences want fast food entertainment, and I'm not taking something decent, I'm talking straight out the grease pit, dropped on the floor, wrapped up with a few dead roaches and flung at them, which they'll happily chop into. This is how "Paul Blart: Mal Cop" made $64,000,000.

But there's some good looking stuff coming along anyways. Enough to where people could avoid shitty comedies, awful looking PG-13 horror films directed at tweens or young teens that don't know any better, cheap-o dramas and overly cliche' action films with not style or soul.

I mean you get "Daybreakers", about as genre crazy as it gets. Vampires in the future that are harvesting humans and now the blood is running out. You get Sam Neil, who when he isn't doing plays and running from dinosaurs, can be one creepy as hell villain. Ethan Hawke as a vampire scientist who's become disillusioned with this world and gets changed back to human by Williem Dafoe and now they've got some slainin' and changin' to do. I know, I know... the idea of vampires actually killing someone and sucking their blood is a bit over the top. But I guess the creators don't care too much for ones that glitter all the time.

"The Book of Eli" aka Denzel with a machete in the wastelands of the world. Immediately after the trailer launched people made connections between the film's look and the game "Fall-Out 3". I agree, but "Fall-Out 3" never made Denzel, perhaps ones of cinemas most entertaining badasses to watch. Even when the movie is poor, he's still on his A-game. Furthermore he's protecting a bible with his very life against Gary Oldman and Ray Stevenson and teaching Mila Kunis the ropes. And this is the Hughes brothers first film since "From Hell" a rather underrated thriller with Johnny Depp.

And finally "Shutter Island". The big dog. Martin Scorsese goes horror and I couldn't be happier. The film screened at Butt Num-a-thon in Austin, TX a few weeks ago. The AICN crew has reviewed it and loved it calling it one of his best directed films and saying that this may be DiCaprio's best performance as well. The movie is pure thriller involving an escaped mental patient, a series of mysterious doctors, the CIA... and well... tons of mysterious shit like that. Now audiences of late have given mystery films the rope. Something that's missed me off to high heaven, but I figure with names like Scorsese, DiCaprio, Kingsley, Ruffalo... it'll get itself a nice audience for quite a few weeks.

Others of interest is the "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake with Jackie Earle Harley ('Watchmen'), Nic Cage and Ron 'Hellboy' Pearlman play knights and fight crazy ass witches in "Season of the Witch", Robert Rodriguez's grindhouse trailer "Machete" hits the screen in feature length with the likes of Trejo, Lohan, Don Johnson, Steven Segal and Jessica Alba as well as a treat for "Planet Terror" fans. Benicio Del Toro is "The Wolfman" written by Andrew Kevin Walker ('Se7en') and is being hunted by Agent Smith i.e. Hugo Weaving. Even if this movie looked cheap and was rated PG-13 I'd see it. Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon re-team for a non-Bourne film, "Green Zone". Steve Pink producer of "High Fidelity" and "Grosse Point Blank" r-team for the lowbrow, but filled with potential to rock "Hot Tub Time Machine". "Clash of the Titans"... Liam Neeson is Zeus, what the fuck else matters? "The Runaways"... i.e. the story of the band starring... Kristen Stewart, please don't fuck this up. Jude Law and Forrest Whittaker are "Repo Men" for a futuristic organ company; there will be blood and laughter. "The Losers", based on the graphic novel about CIA agents cut loose by the government and almost killed. The cast makes me smile with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chris Evans, Zoe Saldana, Idris Elba and Columbus Short. Oh and it's screenplay is written by Peter Berg (director of 'The Kingdom' and 'Hancock'). Comic adaptation of "Kick-Ass", nuff said there.

So you see... there's a lot of cool shit to see in the spring. 2010 gonna be interesting I think.

BEST FILMS OF 2009

As it happens just about every year I get the misfortune of not getting to see all the films I want and esspecially the ones around this part of the year. I get tired of waiting for extended January release dates and searching for uploaded for your consideration DVD versions of the movies, so I write my best list without a few films. But as I see them I do still review them, so in the early 2010 months you can expect a number of 2009 reviews for films I sadly missed. Now with all that said I do still have a certain love for this list. And that is because most of these films were made within the mainstream Hollywood curcuit. Meaning that despite what it often feels like, many people in that town DO get what's wrong with a lot of mainstream films and attempt to change it and better it. Hell even the ones I haven't seen were, but think I'd like were made that way so 2009 was maybe the best mainstream year in long time. Now enough gabbin' time for the list.

10. "The Informant!"
Matt Damon gives his funniest and maybe strongest performance as a whistleblower for a corn company. Steven Soderbergh's perfect direction and photography give the film this 70's cinema glow about it and the complex, twisty and engrossing screenplay never slows or bores. There's always something going on, even if at first glance you don't see it in this picture.

09. "Funny People"
Rarely can I find a movie about people treating each other like shit for two and half hours entertaining let alone funny, however Judd Apatow has crafted something weird and awesome; that makes it all work. I think it has to do with how fleashed out these characters are and how they make us buy into them. Adam Sandler makes up for another long stretch of shit movies and the reign of Rogen/Apatow/Mann comedic supremacy continues.

08. "Public Enemies"
Gangster flicks are a fun genre and 30's & 40's gangster flicks are sometimes even more fun because it's like the wild west, but with cars and tommy guns. Michael Mann is someone who knows crime and characters thus a story about John Dillinger is right up his alley. Mann's digital eye is at it's very best here as is his ability to pull great performances out of his actors. Depp and Cotillard being the two shinning examples that impressed me far more than I expected. Also FBI agent Stephen Lang... all kinds of badass.

07. "Avatar"
Hard pressed is it for a movie to live up to hype, let alone James Cameron created hype, but 'Avatar' does. It's an epic 3D sci-fi action picture that's not particularly an original concept (by Cameron's own admissions) but it's based off of classical science fiction literature that he grew up reading and got him interested in movies in the first place. This is one of those labor of love feeling movies too that despite his created hype isn't pretenious yet feels like a lot of it's creator is on screen. The animation is flawless and the action sequences are as exciting as anything I've seen all year. I'd say this was one of the more fun movie watching experiences I had this year.

06. "(500) Days of Summer"
A fantastic love story! Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel have terrific chemistry even during heated scenes and Marc Webb's direction was creative and fresh without becoming another pretenious indie romance with only a soul for blarring unsigned folk rock artists and displaying clothes you can get from Urban Outfitters. I loved this when I saw it and I still very much love it now.

05. "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans"
Best Nic Cage performance in years and one of the best contemparary noir pictures I've seen this decade. Cage displays that manic side that he got famous for in Terrence, the junkie cop who's in deep with everyone from politcians to fellow cops to drug king pins and only getting in deeper. Something to remember while watching it though is that it's okay to laugh at the darkness and enjoy some outlandish drug induced rants throughout the film. In truth the film is a dark comedy hidden in a crime drama. Director Werner Herzog gives New Orleans the full foreboding noir treatment; every skyline shot feels like something bad is just around the corner... and often in the film that's the case.

04. "Fantastic Mr. Fox"
I now think that I can fully and bravely say this, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is Wes Anderson's best film. The casting was perfect, the writing was brilliant and the stop motion animation was detailed to no end and looked great. There are dozens and dozens of moments in this film that made me burst out laughing as well as impress me for all it's maturity. Finally here is a kids film that hits all the right marks, doesn't talk down to kids and is really directed towards them as an audience. Remarkable work.

03. "District 9"
This one has ran up and down my list about a dozen times, but fact of the matter is this is one hell of a sci-fi picture. Impressivly made for around $30,000,000 you don't just get some highly impressive action sequences, but you get ideas. You get several holy shit moments, characters you actually care about and the best presentation of mockumentary filmmaking I've seen in a long time. This one has all the marks to become a sci-fi classic.

02. "A Serious Man"
Definitly one of the Coen brothers best comedies and best films to date. And this is really only a film they could have made. A dark comedy about a Jewish professor whose life is about to spin completely out of control in about every way it can. Michael Shulbarg is hilarious as this doomed man and the Coen's use of Jefferson Airplane throughout the entire film is almost a tell-tell sign of bad things to come. Furthermore the final scene of this movie is one of the best I may have ever seen. It sums up the tone and concept of the film in several grim and unpleasent ways and yet is somewhat funny still. It's really a Coen film to it's nitty gritty.

01. "Inglourious Basterds"
Quentin Tarantino's World War II. It's rare to see someone brave slings and arrows in name of creativity and entertainment anymore. To take such a risk as QT did with certain parts of this film and yet without those risks the film would've still been fantastic... but with those risks, it's a masterpiece. There are tons of larger than life feeling characters throughout the whole picture and yet all of them feel like had the war ended as it does in the film, all of these people feel like ones we could have read about in history books. It's funny, dark, dangerous and very original... everything we've come to expect and love about Tarantino films.

SPECIAL GENRE & PERFORMANCE PRIZES (top 10 excluded from these)

Best Sci-fi: Star Trek
Best Action: The International
Best Drama: Watchmen
Best Horror: (TIE) Drag Me to Hell & Paranormal Activity
Best Mystery or Thriller: The Box
Best Comedy: Duplicity
Best Underrated Performance: (TIE) Sam Rockwell-Moon & Jeffery Dean Morgan-Watchmen
Breakthrough Performance: Sasha Grey-The Girlfriend Experience
Best Score: The Arcade Fire & Owen Pallette-The Box
Best Effects: Star Trek
Best Ensemble: Star Trek
Best Film I Haven't Seen: The Hurt Locker
Biggest Suprise: Disney's A Christmas Carol

Sherlock Holmes review

I found something interesting last night as I was reading through my twitter messages. Apparently as of next summer with "Iron Man 2", Robert Downey Jr. will have had four films hit over one hundred million dollars and giving him probably the best actor come back of all time. Downey Jr. has been adding character after character to his rose gallery ever since he's returned and he can proudly add Sherlock Holmes to it now. Indeed it seems he was the man to play this part just as Jude Law was perfect for Dr. Watson. I will say that this film has three main things to not just like about it for me, but love about. The first two are them and the third is for all the big budget action moments and all the small seemingly uninteresting scenes, director Guy Ritchie STILL makes his style and tone present through it all. This is a dymanic looking and feeling movie. But not without it's draw backs.

On the scale of Robert Downey Jr. films most everyone goes ga-ga for "Iron Man". Hey it was a good movie. But I've never thought it as great as everyone else. Neither is this, but it's better. With the team of writers under Ritchie, the plot to the film is interesting and it's reveal is quite good, but it goes through so much complication that it sometimes feels that for all this guy's smarts, we should've come to this conclusion sooner. Furthermore Rachel McAdams and Mark Strong don't feel as strong character wise as Holmes and Watson and yes I know that they are supporting characters and what not, but one thing Ritchie is great at is handling a ton of characters throughout an overly complicated plot.

However even with those flaws there is so much to enjoy in "Sherlock Holmes" that they're never that big of an issue. The Holmes-Watson banter is great and their chemistry is perfect and Hans Zimmer delivers one of his best scores yet. I mean if nothing else, the score to this film is brillant to no end. McAdams is...welll... still as beautiful as ever and has some very fun moments in the film, but it never felt like she was given too many great lines or pieces in which we could enjoy her acting. Mark Strong has an equally annoying issue as the villian. Strong is an awesome actor and I feel like we're going to be seeing a lot of him in the future. As Lord Blackwood he's lines are very stationary villian and so his is general appearence. Although some of the stuff he does is pretty damn cool.

I think what's holding me back from loving the hell out of the movie is that it's a franchise starter and it's directed towards that sort of general action fans. Which isn't bad, but it means that a lot of it is pointed squarely at what they know people like. That's why the idea of a sequel gets me very excited because that's when you can take some risks and do things a bit differently. And have a feeling a sequel to this is gonna really knock it out of the part. So aside from my personal issues... "Sherlock Holmes" is very fun, smart and generally entertaining for everyone. It's got a great style and terrific actors at work within it. Definitly one of the better holiday films out.

"Sherlock Holmes" *** out of ****

Worst Films of 2009

10. "12 Rounds"
John Cena still can't act. Not even in the wonderful world of late 80's, early 90's styled action films where acting wasn't really an issue so long as things blew up on time and many bad men died. And if you're doing to steal the plot(s) from "Die Hard", at least try not to make it so boring.

09. "Hannah Montana: The Movie"
Not quite as annoying as I figured it would be, but enough to make this list. Boring, old and very much Disney live action styled.. which sometimes is boring and old feeling. Sure I'm not the demographic, but I wasn't the demographic for "High School Musical 3" either and I liked that.

08. "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail"
I loathe the Madea character more and more with each movie now. Perry needs a massive change of pace and soon. Sure this crap is making money, but after a while you've gotta look at other directors and writers and actors and think... damn... I could be doing so much more. Perhaps his appearance in "Star Trek" is his step in a brighter direction. At least I hope so. There's enough horribly unfunny comedies out there.

07. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"
Awesome promo pics, pretty good trailers, rotten as shit movie. The CGI in this rivals only "The Day the Earth Stood Still" in crappiness and non-effects filled rest is mind-numbingly boring and uninspired.

06. "Saw VI"
It's "Saw VI", what else do you need to know?

05. "Year One"
Team Apatow takes a knock for this caveman comedy. Director Harold Ramis does as well. There's no characters in this film, only bored actors in bad wigs and rags and about one joke in thirty actually works.

04. "The Twilight Saga: New Moon"
Boring, seriously mentally challenged and only slightly better made than the first film. The fact that there's still a few more of these movies coming along makes be want to cry a bit. I don't think I can take one more constipated glance from Robert Pattinson.

03. "The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day"
Poorly done action is always something that bugs me. I feel like in this day and age it's not that difficult. But then again when your franchise is based off ripping off better crime and action films from the neck down, this is what you get.

02. "Couples Retreat"
Never again Vince Vaughn... never again.

01. "Terminator Salvation"
Being a hardcore "Terminator" fan this one hit me hardest. I mean really... how could you have fucked up so bad with this McG? How could you make Christian Bale, Common, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Worthington, Helena Bohan Carter, Moon Bloodgood and CGI Arnold suck so bad? Huh? It's the future war that's been discussed since the first film, the most epic display of post apocalyptic action and you decide along with the writers and producers of "Catwoman"... "CATWOMAN" for fucks sake... to make this drab looking turd that rips off "Mad Max", "Transformers" and "Children of Men". "Wall-E" was closer to "Terminator" than this bullshit.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans review

I love contemporary noir films. They hold such bold constructs and characters, have that kind of stark imagery that's foreboding and often show you much seedier places than the average crime picture. All these things are very true in Werner Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans" and more. The more being Nicolas Cage creating as kick ass a character as he did. This is the kind of thing he did when he was younger and the dollar signs of big budget adventure spectacles weren't dancing in his head. Hell this is the kind of stuff that got him his reputation and his Oscar. The last time I've been this impressed with him was probably in 2005 with "Lord of War" and "The Weatherman", but this is the type of character where his talents really shine. You see his character Terrence is a junkie. A bad junkie. A junkie cop.

After saving a jailed inmate during hurricane Katrina, he suffered an injury that would give him severe back pain for the rest of his life. He's prescribed painkillers, but after a year or so... well that just ain't enough. He moves on to cocaine.... then heroin and crack cocaine. He has it stolen by friends in the evidence room or he steals it from local youth and drug dealers. But he's not a bad cop. Well... not in the same sense has like Denzel Washington in "Training Day" or something. He does care about what's doing down in the city and he is very good at what he does. Despite all his problems (which he has tons and tons of), he still finds time to deal with issues involving the murder of an entire family in one of the poorer sections of the city. Everyone knows who's behind the murder, a local gangster named 'Big Fate' played by rapper Xzibit; who finally is in a good film AND actually shows that after all his shitty work he CAN in fact actor pretty well.

But perhaps that's credited to the strong writing here and the great character moments throughout the film. Eva Mendas plays Terrence's high class hooker girlfriend. Cage and Mendas' chemistry in "Ghost Rider" might not have worked, but here they conversations and interactions are very believable. They both care for one another as one junkie to another. Mendas plays it noir style, perhaps even more than the other actors. In those films the love interest didn't have much to do in the film and here honestly she doesn't have a ton to do either, but involvement in Terrence's life is important. Because the time spent together that they have displays a slightly more human side and loving side to both parties and by the end you see how that helps everyone. And I shant leave out Val Kilmer as one of the fellow officers, who's a bit more toned down then you'd expect this sort of role, but manages to impress in his few scenes.

Something to remember is that this is... in a sense a "remake" of Abel Ferrer's 1992 film "Bad Lieutenant" with Harvey Kietel. However it's only in remake in that they have similar titles and both involve drug addicted cops. The characters are very different and the tone of each film is very different. Herzog's film is really a dark comedy, noir pretending to be a simple crime drama. There's a lot of funny things in the film. I mean they even bring back the ole' Nic Cage flip out scene. You remember those right? Back in the 80's and 90's he had to have at least one scene where he completely flips out on someone for some reason. He's good at it. Last time he really had one of those was in "Matchstick Men". But here's is one of his very best ones. I don't really wanna spoil it, but explaining how a cop, high off his ass on coke, tired and stressed to no end, decides to break into a nursing home and cut off the oxygen to an old woman in order to get information from her nurse, then pull a 45. on the two women and begin screaming about how they're ruining the country well... it's funny either way.

The film has been in limited release for a little over a month now and perhaps it'll spread, but I'm guessing it won't be as wide as some of the other films coming along right now. This picture is gritty and cool in the best sort of ways. Every character has their subtleties and they over-the-top show off moments. Herzog takes chances with plot and visuals as often as he likes without making it look like a test movie and Cage reminds us why he got that Oscar. Perfection.

"Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans" **** out of ****

Avatar review

So over a decade after James Cameron blew the Oscars away with his epic story of romance in the face of doom in one of histories most memorable disasters, he follows up with a science fiction adventure, war story involving blue people. Was this really the best choice for him after such a massive achievement as "Titanic"? That's damn sure not for me to say. Cameron's work in the sci-fi genre has had echos well into our time. His designs, themes, style and technology has been used in everything from "Starship Troopers", "Halo" and "District 9" to "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". He is the creator of Digital Domain, one of the best computer animating companies around. So him trumping up this whole 'movies will never be the same' business is pretty ballsy. I can't necessarily say movies will never be the same, but I can say that he's made a damn entertaining movie that does live up to his reputation and trademark style.

"Avatar" isn't the most original sci-fi movie to come along. Neither was Abrams' "Star Trek" and Jackon's "King Kong" and they were quite fantastic as well. What "Avatar" is, is Cameron's love of classic sci-fi adventures he read when he was younger (i.e. "Dune" and "John Carter of Mars"). What is pretty original and overall astounding is Pandora, the alien planet the film takes place on. It's not quite as gimmicky as Skull Island, but it's interesting in just how much eco-life was created for the film. It's great looking, but not really spacey. Cameron's inspiration for 90% of the creatures is based on deep water sea creatures that is his seen while diving. His thought is that as much as we sit down and try to think of how to make up creatures, Earth has dozens that are more bizarre and alien looking then whats in our imaginations.

Now we come to the Na'vi. Actually... lets first talk about the overall visuals. They're fucking fantastic. This is exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to look and style when it comes to CGI. The animation is far more detailed than any of the science fiction flicks this year and several action sequences using people falling, flying and what not look far less phony then what I've been seeing. This is aided by Cameron's strikingly non-gimmicky use of 3D. Sometimes it's in your face, but in the normal ways in which a good action film is made. The military designs are classic Cameron of "Aliens" and "Terminator", with huge flying machines with buttons and lights and tons of random shit, but the difference is that it all seems to have a purpose. There's something very matter of fact about the usage of his tech. The whole avatar program, led by Sigourney Weaver who plays the character like Ripley, had she become a doctor; is a simple brain connecting system.

Think what happens in "The Matrix" sort of. Sam Worthington's Jake Sulley is fun type of lead because he has a real motivation for coming into this project. He's a quick learner and he's got a mouth. He's fun to watch in human form or avatar form because of how fantasticly expressive Worthington is. At first he comes off a bit of a cardboard solider character, but after a while you get his true colors. On the flip side you've got Stephen Lang as the gung-ho Col. Quaritch. Quartich is a classic Cameron villian, the sense that he's ruthless, cunning and damn hard to kill. Then we have Zoe Saldana as Neytiri. Her job maybe was the best here because she had to be extremely expressive, emotional, had to learn a new language and fight. Saldana has been on a roll with a lot of high profile movies and she's been great jobs in them. She's well on her way to becoming a major name actress.

The backlash to this movie has been unworldly stupid. It's been like the whole Bond not Blond thing with Daniel Craig. The fact is the adventure movie genre is in pain and it's because of the lack of original ideas which is stemmed from the lack of respect those films are getting. With "Avatar" there is a hope that things might change. Scratch that, 2009 might change that. For the first time in a long time genre films like this one are getting major respect and even awards praise ("Avatar" has been nominated for Best Picture at the Golden Globes). It is a fantastic adventure film, fun and impressive from beginning to end and shows that Cameron can still make a great picture, even with being out of the game for so long.

"Avatar" **** out of ****

MY FAVORITE FILMS FROM 2000 TO 2009 vol. 3 (79 to 70)

79. "Borat: Cultural Learning for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"
Tough call on where this lay on the list, but this felt right. Sascha Barron Cohen is one of the few continuously interesting and simultaneously daring comedians at work today. With his Borat character he lampooned the hell out of so many and exposed so many truths in American society that we attempt to keep hidden because it might ruin out image. And he made us laugh all along the way. The hope however was that we would laugh and think and somehow I doubt there was much thinking after the laughter had ended.

78. "Funny People"
The most mature of any of Judd Apatow's directed or produced works and for my money just one of the overall strongest. Adam Sandler proves that he can act for the first time since PTA's "Punch Drunk Love". Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann and a slew of supporting actors kill in scene after scene of serious humor, but also show some of the true colors in people. Rarely do I see a movie where people treat others like shit so throughout and like it, but somehow these characters make you care and make you like them despite all their flaws.

77. "Layer Cake"
Directed by Matthew Vaughn (producers of 'Snatch' and director of the upcoming 'Kick-Ass') and starring future Bond Daniel Craig, 'Layer Cake' is a great crime drama that's twisty and witty and filled with the hard boiled storytelling and images that we got in older British gangster pictures. Craig's Mr. X character thinks he smarter than he is and the main issue is that so does everyone else. But he's got a great plan and philosophy about getting out while you're on top. The key to this film though is that everything comes full circle one way or another and every character is involved far more than we think.

76. "Ratatouille"
Brad Bird is one of the best writer-directors of animated fair working. "Ratatouille" is one of those hard to categorize animated movies. It's not a drama or a comedy, but it's damn entertaining and smart. Patton Oswald voices Remy the lead rat that aspires to cook like the masters, but for the fact that he is a rat cannot. Oswald is a comedian, but also is great in dramatic works and is a HUGE film buff. This was a smart choice of a film to take on for him and you really get his wit and character traits through this CGI character. Beyond that it's a beautiful looking Paris and the color pallet is gorgeous.

75. "Lost in Translation"
The little engine that could, awkward indie dramedy by Sophia Coppola. Bill Murray gives one of his best performances and the chemistry between him and Scarlett Johansson is terrific. It's funny, but never too funny and it tells it's story more from visuals and implied emotion than with language which is the real point (hench the title in a way). The only real draw back is that it inspired dozens of imitators. Most simply fell into the pit of soul less, pretentious indie dramedies. But at least the original still stands quite tall.

74. "Ocean's Eleven"
Although for most of this list I picked the series, for this I picked only the first. It's not because I didn't like the sequels, but because I felt that first film was more important on various levels and that the sequels simply followed in suit and didn't add much more than further character quirks. Steven Soderbergh might be my favorite director of the past ten years and it's because he lovingly brings us so many diverse and interesting pictures. His remake of the Rat Pack film with the ridiculously cool cast it boasts has kick started the crime caper genre again and has helped pump out tons and tons of movies wanting to be compared to this one. But no one is as cool as Clooney, Pitt and Damon. No one plays of strong and hurt as well as Roberts and few caper villians quite get into the grooves of being smart, ruthless and pissed as well as Garcia.

73. "Hot Fuzz"
Yes it's far above "Shaun of the Dead". For my money the experience coupled with the film was far more satisfying and fun. "Hot Fuzz" becomes it's own awesome buddy action, comedy while paying homage to dozens and dozens of other ones and doing it so perfectly. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost proved their bromance wasn't a fluke and Edgar Wright showed off his skills at crafting actions sequences that were both exciting and hilarious.

72. "The Fountain"*
A massively underrated science fiction drama!! Darren Aronofsky's beautiful and emotional work of art just couldn't find its way to the mass public. It was pushed back, had different productions entirely and got released on Thanksgivng 2006 along side four other, much bigger and more accessible films. However looking at it today it strikes me in a similar way as Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner". Even if you don't like the tone or the story, the visuals are so stunning and the score by Clint Mansell is so mind blowing that it commands your attention. If you've never seen this film, now is a great time to look into it.

71. "Signs"
M. Night Shyamalan's last major success without a 'but' in someone talking about it. Being a fan of the paranormal, a story like this grabs me from minute one, but what keeps me is if the tone and the pacing work. Shyamalan is terrific with those two particular items, however let's not take any praise from Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix who are trapped in this bizarre world of mystery and water fearing aliens and do great at reacting and coping. Does it have airs of pretentiousness? Sure does. But if it works, it works and 'Signs' is as effective a science fiction thriller as many of old greats. "The Fourth Kind" could have learned something from this.

70. "Spartan"
Unrelated to "300" mind you, but does involve a spartan concept. David Mamet wrote and directed this tense and highly intelligent thriller about the kidnapping of the presidents daughter and the lone soldier played by Val Kilmer sent to find her and bring down those responsible. Kilmer has had a couple of fine roles in the last tens years, but all have been in small films like this one. Derek Luke is great as well as a soldier that somewhat trained under Kilmer. He's flawed and new, but he's far from stupid. A couple of Mamet's usual suspects make appearances like Ed O'Neil and William H. Macy and you will also see a younger Kristen Bell as the kidnapped first daughter.

*film picture at the top of blog