A New Year means...

Lists!

2011 Movies I'll Be Waiting For

#5 Water for Elephants

I hope Robert Pattinson doesn't blow his chance to redeem himself.


#4 Sucker Punch

Through the guns and girls, the storyline of reality vs fantasy could be a really cool psychological action movie. If not, it'll still be really cool.


#3 Your Highness











Looks high-larious.


#2 The Muppets

The Muppets + Ali G's James Bobin? Respek.

#1 The Hobbit
Haha I wish..


Random 2011 movies that I'll watch: 
-The Green Hornet because of all the Stephen Chow drama. I've got to see if his resignment as director and actor is justified.
-The Dilemma since I saw them filming live. Not expecting much, though.

My Favorite Movies of 2010 [so far]

#5 Shutter Island

I love psychological thrillers! Shutter Island kept me on the edge of my seat--and the ending blew my mind. Hmm sounds a lot like Inception.

#4 The Social Network

The Social Network tests the definition of friendship, reflecting on the technology of this era. Mark Zuckerberg, has so many layers to his character--playing a protagonist as well as the antagonist. 

#3 Black Swan

The Black Swan creates a darker world of ballet.  Beautiful and terrifying at the same time, Darren Aronofsky and Natalie Portman truly display art at its finest (or worst). 

#2 The King's Speech

Inspiring. The King's Speech touched me with a story about friendship and true courage. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush were absolutely enchanting together. Also, the British humor was hilarious!

#1 Inception

I love psychological thrillers! Inception kept me on the edge of my seat--and the ending blew my mind. Hmm sounds a lot like Shutter Island.

From the ensemble cast to the storyline, Inception was unpredictable and incredibly engaging.

I have yet to see more movies from 2010 since I mostly rely on Netflix dvds.

The Karate Kid

Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) moves to Beijing because his mother's, Sherry (Taraji P. Henson) job. Dre experiences  culture shock and even encounters bullies, such as Cheng (Zhenwei Wang), who is jealous of Dre's smooth [American] moves on Little Miss Mei Ying (Wen Wen Han). After a kung-fu-butt-kicking from the bullies, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) saves Dre, revealing his own kung-fu prowess. The bullies are instructed by Master Li, who promises that his boys will leave Dre alone if he or Mr. Han fights them. Dre and Mr. Han work together to prepare for the kung-fu tournament using unusual methods for training. No waxing the car, though. Just hanging a coat over and over and over...

Jaden's character was sheet thin--almost invisible. Jaden was able to rely on his cuteness in The Pursuit of Happiness, but that safety net is taken away in the Karate Kid. We learn a little about Mr. Han; we learn a little about Mei Ying, but Dre is just a kid with fancy poses. Actually, everyone was poorly developed. Mr. Han busted out a tragic car crash memory and reminisced for five minutes. His dispute with Master Li was left unfinished by the end of the movie. Dre's mom has a shady job, if she even has a job in Beijing. Mei Ying and Dre's "friendship[?]" was super awkward. What made Mei Ying fall for Dre? Was it his braids or his embarrassing dancing? Who knows...the script called for some romance and that's that. 

Awwkwaard...

The Karate Kid could entertain little children, trapping them with flashy kung-fu, popular music, and cheesy jokes.For everyone else: If you want kung-fu, watch Chinese wuxia. If you want culture shock, watch Lost in Translation or something. If you want child romance, go hide in a corner. 

I'm going to hang up my coat now. I have some bullies that need addressing.

"Attitude!"

Kick-Ass

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is a nobody in his school. He's the geek that hangs out at the comic book store. He's the weirdo that decided to become a superhero, Kick-Ass, overnight. Unfortunately, he doesn't have superpowers and he ends up in a hospital, stabbed and hit by a car. He gets fixed with metal-reinforced bones and a damaged nervous system that makes him almost invincible...and his ego a bit inflated. Kick-Ass meets Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) when she kills Frank D'Amico's gangsters when they were getting ready to beat up Kick-Ass. Hit Girl's father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), wants to bring Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) down because he framed Big Daddy as a drug dealer (back in the day when he was a cop). D'Amico thinks that Kick-Ass killed his men and goes after him. Kick-Ass meets Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), another amateur superhero, and they team up. Little does he know, Red Mist is D'Amico's son and has ulterior motives to their friendship. 

Kick-Ass Team

What's that about child profanity and violence? Oh that's right...it's awesome. It's a fictional movie and rated R, so little kids wouldn't be running around swinging butterfly knives in the playground (unless their parents are idiots and let them watch Kick-Ass). Kick-Ass was very entertaining with a great soundtrack to match. The comedy kept the more grim scenes in balance, and it got me laughing a few times. The  choreography was fresh and super cool. Honestly, Hit Girl's action scenes blew me away. Chloë was perfect as Hit Girl--a sweet girl and brilliant killer. Aaron Johnson was a lovable dork in Kick-Ass. The storyline gave enough time and thought into Dave's character development, and Aaron was able to bring comedy and seriousness together without shocking the audience with a bipolar movie. I was surprised to see Christopher Mintz-Plasse play a non-dorky role (not that there's something wrong with McLovin). Soo...movie producers: Chris is versatile! Good thing Nicholas Cage had a mask on for most of the movie; his contemplative-eyebrow-face wasn't there to distract. The ending bothered me; Kick-Ass felt like it ended too early. Maybe a little tweak here and there would have made a perfect movie (to me, at least). 

The hovercraft was disappointing. 

Awaiting The Last Airbender

As bad as this movie may be...

 because of Mr. Constipated (Jackson Rathbone) from Twilight as the hilarious Sokka...

or this white kid with a pet Zoboomafoo as Aang and Momo...

 I'm actually kinda excited for this film! I'll just turn my color vision off and pretend they're all asian.

Be sure to check out show beforehand so the movie wouldn't spoil it.

How to Train Your Dragon

Ok, Dreamworks is no Pixar, but this was a pretty cute movie. The storyline is a little cliché: Hiccup is expected to slay dragons to save his village from the sheep-stealing, house-burning pests. Oh, and did I mention his father is a dragon slayer beast! and the chief of the village. Hiccup's physique isn't quite right for swinging hammers around, so he relies on his engineering to capture dragons instead. Hiccup captures and befriends a Night Fury dragon and names it Toothless. He realizes that dragons aren't the vicious monsters that everyone thinks they are and uses all of the knowledge he learns about dragons to tame them during Dragon training. Actually, the dragons act very much like giant pet cats. Hiccup tells his father and saves the village, blah blah blah. Dragons and Vikings become best friends, but the ending isn't as happily-ever-after as Barbie and Kent. They really went for it, took a risk (I don't want to spoil it), and it paid off.

Love the voice acting (McLovin!), but America Ferrera's voice didn't quite fit Astrid's tough heroine character. Hiccup and Toothless stole the show with their chemistry (which seemed stronger than Astrid and Hiccups). I don't mean to be hating on Astrid, but her sudden change of heart towards dragons and Hiccup seemed unreal. How to Train Your Dragon wasn't as funny as the Shrek movies, but it got me chuckling a couple of times. It was filled with lots of video-game-type action and beautiful flying scenes that reminded me of Avatar--huge complement right there. It's a great family movie, but kids would probably complain about the ending (good luck trying to explain why happy sunshine endings just don't work sometimes).

Iron Man 2

Cue the heavy metal music! It's Iron Man! Two!! Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) returns with his identity as iron man revealed along with an ego bigger than his new muscles. He's having the time of his life because of his shortened life span due to palladium poisoning. Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) becomes CEO of Stark Industries and Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson) becomes Tony's new assistant. Tony also gets a new arch rival, Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), who copies Iron Man's arc reactor to make an electrical whip thing. Ivan joins forces with Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), who owns a rival weapons company and gives Ivan materials in exchange for his innovation. Meanwhile, Tony Stark tries to find a substitute for palladium and ends up with a new armor. Tony and Lt. Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) become the Iron Men and battle Ivan's robot inventions.

"I want my bird."

Doesn't he look so much more menacing with that bird on his shoulder? He's like a pirate.

I was very excited for this movie. I watched Iron Man 1 not too long ago and that open ending just left me hanging. I was so disappointed with Iron Man 2. There wasn't much plot in it for Tony Stark or anyone, really. The whole movie felt like Scarlett Johansson's character: all glitz but no substance. I have no idea why she needed to be in the movie, to tell you the truth. I haven't read the comics, but I assume Natalie Rushman was more than just someone that looks pretty and flights people with her thighs. Ivan wasn't so terrible (haha). He wasn't much of a threat, especially with that new triangle arc reactor and Mr. Rhodes in Tony Stark's posse. Robert Downey Jr. did a great job portraying Tony Stark again. Iron Man 2 was just a pretty movie to look at. Cool fight scenes and good acting...with an occasional laugh. The first movie was better (it always is).

BFFs 4ever.

I found the distracting spinning thing that was on Pepper Pott's desk on Amazon.com! The comments are hilarious.