Movie – Tangled (2010)

Tangled is loosely based on the story of Rapunzel.  Other than the tower and the hair, the story bears little resemblance to the fairy tale.  This is the first 3D animated movie that Disney has released.  (Pixar is owned by Disney, but releases their movies separate from them.)  While Tangled is no Pixar movie, it still has some interesting elements to it.

Movie – Unstoppable (2010)

What if a train a half a mile long, including some cars that hold toxic chemicals, got loose with no engineer, no automatic brakes, and with the throttle at full power?  That is the basic idea behind Unstoppable.  It says it is “inspired by true events.”  The true events are that trains actually do get loose now and then.  Usually they are quickly stopped, but the particular incident that inspired this movie involved a train that traveled over sixty miles before they were able to stop it.

Movie – Salt (2010)

Salt is an action movie starring Angelina Jolie.  While it is not as good as her movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith, it is better than her Lara Croft movies.  It may also bring you some surprises.

The premise is that the CIA gets a walk in – a man claiming to have information on Russian spies that have infiltrated the CIA.  Walk ins are interviewed to see if they set off any bullshit detectors with their stories.  The finest interviewer the CIA has is Jolie’s character, Evelyn Salt. 

Movie – Iron Man 2 (2010)

Iron Man 2 is the sequel to, you guessed it, Iron Man.  It does not work quite as well as Iron Man does, but then Iron Man is one of the better superhero movies ever made.

Iron Man 2 returns all the characters who survived the first movie.  They add a new villain, played by Mickey Rourke (Sin City, The Wrestler), a rival defense contractor, played by Sam Rockwell (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Moon), and a new character, played by Scarlett Johansson (Girl with a Pearl Earring, A Love Song for Bobby Long.)  They also re-cast the role of James Rhodes.  He is now played by Don Cheadle (Devil in a Blue Dress, Hotel Rwanda.)

Movie – How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

How to Train Your Dragon is the kind of movie that will probably appeal more to children than to their parents.  It’s got the boy who’s got all these great ideas, but whose father, of course, doesn’t listen to him.  It’s got parents getting into trouble and kids having to rescue them.  Pretty much all the standard clichés of a movie aimed at kids.  It’s the humor, the animation, and some action sequences that lift this movie above the same old same old and that give adults something to enjoy.

Movie – Alice in Wonderland (2010)

This movie is a bit schizophrenic (which may be fitting since it features both a Mad Hatter and a March Hare.)  It suffers from the same problem that hurt Superman Returns (2006) – it can’t decide it if is a remake or a sequel.  Once it finally does decide, though, it is an entertaining movie.

Mia Wasikowska (The Kids Are All Right) plays Alice.  She is not a child, though.  She is of marriageable age.  During the affair where her engagement is to be announced she sees a white rabbit.  She follows him and falls down his hole.  She goes through many of the adventures from both Alice in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking Glass.  This is the section that is pretty much a remake.

Movies – 2011 Best Picture Nominees Recap

I have now posted reviews for the ten films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.  I am not done yet.  I intend to write reviews for those pictures I have seen that received other Oscar nominations.  Look for reviews of Iron Man 2, Salt, Unstoppable, Alice in Wonderland, Tangled, and How to Train Your Dragon in coming days.  I might be able to do one or two others, too.

In the meantime, here is how I would rate the ten Best Picture nominees from best to not quite the best.  (Positions four through six are pretty much interchangeable.)

Movie – Winter’s Bone (2010)

The first thing you should know is that this is not a happy, feel good kind of movie.  If you are looking for something light and fluffy, this isn’t it.  If you are looking for a serious drama with good performances, however, this movie delivers in spades.

Jennifer Lawrence plays a seventeen year old girl living with her mother, brother, and sister in the Ozarks.  Her mother has lost her mind and doesn’t communicate anymore.  Her brother and sister are younger.  Her father is out of the picture.  It is up to her to keep this family together and to keep them from starving.

Movie – The Kids Are All Right (2010)

The Kids Are All Right has the most humor of any of the Best Picture nominees, other than Toy Story 3, of course.  Unfortunately, the filmmakers decided to have the movie turn dramatic in the last third of it.  This weakens the movie some.  It is still a good enough movie to recommend, but it could have been so much better if they had kept it a comedy.

Movie – Black Swan (2010)

I know little about the ballet and pretty much nothing about Swan Lake.  Many of you would probably say the same thing.  I mention this because you should not avoid the movie Black Swan because you think it will be boring or something you would not be able to follow.  I watched Black Swan and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It is really a psychological thriller that keeps you guessing about what is actually happening.  I consider it to be the second best movie of the year.

Movie – Toy Story 3 (2010)

One of these days Pixar may finally produce a movie that is a dud.  This is not that day.  Toy Story 3 is hugely entertaining, action-packed, funny, and very poignant.  I used to consider Toy Story 2 to be the best movie to come out of Pixar, but I think this one might be even better.  Of the ten movies nominated for the 2011 Best Picture Oscar, this is the one that I consider to be the best.

The movie opens several years after the last one.  The boy who owns them, Andy, has now grown up and is getting ready to attend college.  He hasn’t played with the toys much in recent years and this is tough for them, to be mostly forgotten.

Movie – 127 Hours (2010)

The title of this movie refers to the amount of time a hiker (James Franco) is trapped by a boulder crushing his arm.  This is a true story from a few years ago and the events were all over the news.  The movie is based on the hiker’s (Aron Ralston) book Between a Rock and a Hard Place.  I am going to assume you remember what he had to do to get free, so I am going to discuss it in the review.  Unless you’ve been under a rock (hah) and don’t know what happens, then be aware that there is a spoiler for that in this review.

Movie – The Fighter (2010)

The Fighter was nominated for seven Oscars, including acting nominations for Christian Bale, Melissa Leo and Amy Adams, all in Supporting roles.  The lead actor, Mark Wahlberg, did not get a nomination, though.  I have an opinion on why that happened and I’ll discuss it in my review.

Boston sports fans are already familiar with the story of “Irish” Micky Ward, a boxer from Lowell, Massachusetts.  I know not everyone follows Boston sports, though, so I will not assume that you already know what’s going to happen before you have seen the movie.  That means I will try to avoid spoilers for the movie.

Movie – Inception (2010)

Regardless of the high-brow, Oscar-bait other movies nominated for Best Picture, Inception is probably the one that generated the most talk before, during, and even after it was released.  Despite attempts on my part to know nothing about the movie before I saw it, even I heard two things: 1. it’s hard to understand; and 2. there’s a lot of talk about the ending.

First, what is Inception?  Well, the dictionary definition is that it is the start of something.  I think some people are confusing this with “conception”, as in an idea, especially in light of what the movie is about.

Movie – The Social Network (2010)

This is the movie that has won most of the other awards for Best Picture, so it is the favorite going in to the Oscars.  Critics seem to love it, but the general population seems to be a little less enthused.  When I saw it I was entertained.  There were some good lines in it.  I thought it was a good movie; I just didn’t think it was good enough to be thought of as Best Picture material.  It didn’t live up to the tremendous hype.

Movie – True Grit (2010)

The first thing you should know is that this is not a remake of the 1969 John Wayne movie.  It is a more faithful adaptation of the original book, which was also the basis for the 1969 movie.  This version is a little more serious and has a couple of key differences in the ending (which I won’t be spoiling.)

Movie – The King’s Speech (2010)

This movie is the one that might beat out The Social Network for the Best Picture Oscar.  It recently won Best Picture from the Producers Guild, which some people feel means it has a chance against The Social Network, which has won most of the other Best Picture awards.  Combine this recent win for The King’s Speech with the fact that it got the most nominations and some people are thinking this might even be the favorite.

2011 Oscar Nominations

The 2011 Oscar nominations were announced a couple of hours ago.  Going down through them I didn’t see any real big surprises among them.  Here are the Best Picture nominees:

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech

127 Hours

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winters Bone

I will post reviews for as many of these movies as I can prior to the Oscar telecast on February 27^th.  At this point I have seen five of the ten.

Click “Read more” for a complete list of the nominees, what got the most nominations, and some other things of interest.