Top and Bottom of 2011 - #1

Best

The Big Heat (1953)

This is one of the first “obsessed cop does whatever it takes to bring down the bad guys” films and also one of the best. Glenn Ford stars as Dave Bannion, a cop on a mission to take down a local drug lord. Along the way he encounters damaged dames, truly evil thugs (especially the one played by Lee Marvin) and corruption that goes all the way up to the police commissioner. I especially liked the scenes of Bannion interacting with his wife; they are so warm and amusing they paint a wonderful portrait of marital bliss in the midst of an otherwise very dark movie.

Worst

Troll 2 (1990)

Every once in a while a movie comes along that is famous for being so bad. This movie is so inept that someone made a whole documentary about how bad it is. First of all, there is not a single troll to be seen in this movie. Instead we get a town full of goblins. The goblins look like cheap Halloween costumes and apparently their favorite food is half human half plant. The acting is bad across the board, especially Deborah Reed as the goblin queen, who chews so much scenery that it’s a wonder there were any sets left by the end of the movie. All the characters are idiots, none of them even approaching likability. And then there is the script, full of clunky dialog and loads of “as you know, Bob” exposition. But the absolute best part of the movie comes during a car trip. Mom tries to cheer up her son by getting him to sing. “Sing that song I like so much.” Taking a page from Manos: The Hands of Fate, I mockingly started singing “Row, row, row your boat.” And then the kid started singing. “Row, row, row your boat...”

Coming up next: I'm not sure. I've been mulling over some posts about themes in Tolkien's writing, so those might be next. I've also got a couple long-abandoned projects that I could dust off and finish. And of course there's the 25+ movies I've already watched this year (that I still haven't written blurbs for). So there's bound to be more stuff coming down the pipeline, though I'm not going to commit to anything specific just yet.

Top and Bottom of 2011 - #2

Best

Ip Man (2008)

This is a fictionalized account of Ip Man, a martial arts master who trained Bruce Lee (and many others). The first half is a whole lot of fun featuring plenty of martial arts hijinks in a largely pre-industrial Chinese town. Then the Japanese invasion of WWII happens, and the film takes a decidedly serious turn. Ip Man and his fellow countrymen struggle to get enough food to feed themselves while still maintaining their honor in occupied territory. Ip Man is fascinating to watch, both in moments of quiet dignity and when he is laying down some martial arts smack-down.

Worst

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)

How is it that a movie can be as inept as this one is in every single aspect possible? The acting is flat, the dialog is clunky at best, the sound is worse than most student films, and the effects are less convincing than the grasshoppers-on-a-postcard shots from Beginning of the End. The story is the illegitimate child of The Birds and An Inconvenient Truth as birds attack a small town for no reason while the main characters spew environmental propaganda. And for some reason, all the birds explode when they run into things. I have a hard time coming up with the worst scene in the movie. It could be the one where our heroes defend themselves from hovering CG birds by randomly waving around coat hangers. It could be the one where the protagonist extolls the benefits of solar panels (or as he calls them, “sorpaos”). It might be the scene where our heroes walk out of a screening of An Inconvenient Truth and one of them says, “That was a really good movie. I’m going to buy a hybrid now.” But my vote probably has to go to all the scenes devoted to either parking or cautiously pulling into traffic. No other film I have seen has devoted so much time to these two activities that are marginally more entertaining than watching paint dry.

Coming up next: The best of the best and the worst of the worst.

Top and Bottom of 2011 - #3

Best

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

This is a fascinating look at the world of street art and the artists who make it. It starts with a montage of street artists plying their craft - some clever, some vulgar, and some outright vandalism - all while a song plays in the background declaring that “Tonight the streets are ours.” Then we are introduced to Thierry Guetta a clothing shop owner/documentarian/aspiring street artist. He’s quirky, full of life, and enjoys almost unlimited access to some of the biggest names in street art. But when he starts doing his own street art it’s derivative and repetitive (and most if not all of the actual artwork is done by other people). Is he a true artist, or merely a flamboyant hack? What results is a wonderfully entertaining look at several interesting people and the work that they do, even when their art is completely illegal.

Worst

The Adventures of Hercules (1985)

THIS is the Hercules movie that has him turn into a cartoon as the climax. In the sequel to 1983's Hercules, Lou Ferrigno once again stars as the Herc, this time tracking down the seven thunderbolts of Zeus which have been scattered across Greece. The plot is no better than that of a video game; Hercules defeats a monster to reclaim the thunderbolt then instantly travels to the next place where he faces off against the next monster. There are visual effects all over the movie, but they all look terrible, especially the scene in which Hercules battles a glowing ball of light and when he faces off against a gorgon in a blatant (and terrible) ripoff of Clash of the Titans. The dialog is laugh out loud atrocious, and for reasons known only to the filmmakers, every time Herc lands a punch, the screen flashes red. But the absolute cinematic pinnacle of the movie is the climax. Hercules and Minos battle each other in the stars as bad rotoscoped images of themselves, occasionally transforming into various animals to make everything more thrilling. Then, once Minos has been defeated, Herc gets huge and stops the moon from colliding with the earth. I was wrong earlier; THIS is the worst Hercules movie ever made.

Coming up next: Defending yourself against a horde of invaders.

Top and Bottom of 2011 - #4

Best

Wait Until Dark (1967)

Audrey Hepburn is amazing as a blind woman who unknowingly gets caught up with a group of drug dealers. There is plenty of thrills and suspense throughout the movie, and the way Hepburn’s character finally deals with her antagonists is wonderful.

Worst

Hercules (1983)

I remember seeing the ending of a Hercules movie some time ago that featured as its climax Hercules going into space and turning into bad animation to defeat the bad guy. It was really bad and I was interested in seeing the whole thing. I hoped this would be it, but sadly it wasn't. Fortunately, it was as bad as I remembered the other one being. Lou Ferrigno stars as the worst Hercules I've ever seen. From the neck down he actually looks like Hercules should look, but his face is too soft to be convincing as a hardened warrior. Add to that wooden acting and only one facial expression of dull bemusement and Ferrigno brings the world of beefy action stars to a new low. Herc fights ridiculous, laser-shooting mechanical monsters, travels from one place to another for no apparent reason, duels King Minos with a light saber, and gets huge. The screenplay has no narrative cohesion with things happening merely due to the screenwriter's whim. This is the worst Hercules movie I've seen. (And it has a sequel!)

Coming up next: A movie where a man is turned into an artist and one in which a man is turned into art.

Top and Bottom of 2011 - #5

Best

The Muppets (2011)

I’m a big fan of the Muppets, especially their work on The Muppet Show. One of the things that I noticed with their movies starting with Muppet Christmas Carol is that the humor wasn’t quite as sharp. It was as if the Muppets had been tamed. I was hopeful when the screenwriters claimed they were trying to recapture the feel of The Muppet Show and the first couple movies, but they were the same screenwriters who did very adult comedies. Would they be able to reign in their baser instincts and deliver a movie fit for the whole family? Fortunately, they did. The movie does an excellent job of keeping the feel of the television show. The jokes are funny, the songs are fun (with “Life’s a Happy Song” being an especially catchy standout), and there are some wonderful celebrity cameos. It was like spending time with old friends again, and I had a smile on my face through the whole movie.

Worst

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

This is an ugly, depressing story about unpleasant, unhappy people who wallow in an unclean world (until the bathhouse/brothel gets up and running, making the uncleanliness more metaphorical). I didn't like anyone in the film, and the background music was both out of place and annoying.

Coming up next: A movie carried on the shoulders of its actress and a bad movie made worse by its actor.

Top and Bottom of 2011 - #6

Best

Gran Torino (2008)

Humor can come from a lot of places. It happens when people say funny things (like Groucho and Chico Marx), it happens when people do funny things (like Harpo Marx), and it happens when funny things happen to someone (like Bringing Up Baby). Humor also can happen on a more subtler level when you get folks just being folks (like most of Garrison Keilor’s Lake Wobegon stories). There is plenty of this final kind of humor in Gran Torino. Not to say that it’s a comedy since the movie deals with some serious subject matter as Walt (played by Clint Eastwood) tries to keep his next-door neighbors from getting caught up in a destructive gang world. But I was surprised at how much I laughed as set-in-his-ways Walt was continually nudged out of his comfort zone. I loved watching the characters interact with each other, especially the scenes of Walt teaching his neighbor how to be a man. (There is a disappointing dearth of scenes like this in movies today, though that’s a rant for another day.) And I loved the ending. Too often a movie like this may end up with an ending that is either too contrived to be believable or too convenient to be satisfactory, but this ending feels so right I can’t come up with a better one. Every once in a while a movie comes along that completely surprises me with how much I like it; this is one of those.

Worst

Samurai Cop (1989)

This is a gloriously bad movie. The action scenes fail at being thrilling or believable, the cinematography is shoddy, the dialog is awful (with lines like, “I will bring you his head and I will place it on your piano.”), and it even features Robert Z'Dar and his incredibly huge face. Samurai Cop's sidekick can't decide if he's the stoic silent type, or the wise-cracking black guy, and he manages to pick wrong in every single reaction shot. But the best part about Samurai Cop is the Samurai Cop's hair. The actor sports gloriously long 80s locks, but halfway through filming he cut his hair, so wears cinema's worst wig for half the movie. The great thing is that it switches back and forth between real hair and wig throughout the movie, even in the middle of some scenes.

Coming up next: A movie with enough joy for two movies (which is a good thing since the other one doesn't have any).

Top and Bottom of 2011 - #7

Best

The Social Network (2010)

This is a slick movie that is full of energy. The opening scene between Mark Zuckerberg and his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend is immediately arresting with dialog so quick it would make Howard Hawks proud. The conversation continually goes on tangents then loops back around in a way that reminded me of reading a comment thread on facebook. Jesse Eisenberg is electric in the role of Mark Zuckerberg, graduating from “poor man’s Michael Cera” status to becoming a force to be reckoned with. The Social Network is engaging all the way through, with fascinating characters, memorable performances, and a taut script, all held together masterfully by director David Fincher.

Worst

Gymkata (1985)

Who comes up with these ideas? An American gymnast is enlisted by the US government to compete in a dangerous competition so they can build a Star Wars satellite station. He is able to come out victorious by combining his skills in gymnastics with martial arts. The movie is full of cliched or implausible moments, the absolute best scene being the one in which he fights off a village full of crazy people by using a stone pommel horse that just happens to be in the middle of the village square.

Coming up next: Two unexpectedly funny movies (though not for the same reasons).

Top and Bottom of 2011 - #8

Best

Tangled (2010)

This is a really fun movie. The animation is gorgeous and features several wonderful moments of pure character animation (with the animators constantly coming up with new and inventive uses for Rapunzel's hair), the songs are all pleasant (though none of them are particularly memorable), and Rapunzel spends most of the movie barefoot. Really, what's not to like?

Worst

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

This movie is terrible. King Kong looks like a man in a bad monkey suit and his face makes him look incredibly stupid. The fight scenes are uninspiring, the models look like models, and the whole idea of electricity making King Kong stronger is just laughable.

Coming up next: A movie that has no business being as good as it is, and a movie that had no business even getting made.

Top and Bottom of 2011 - #9

Best

Contagion (2011)

This is the kind of movie that Roland Emmerich keeps making, but done right. A mysterious illness spreads over the world at an alarming rate, killing millions. The film tells the story of a wide variety of people and how they respond to living in the worldwide epidemic. The bulk of the screen time is devoted to the doctors and scientists who work trying to isolate the disease and develop a vaccine. Each is a hero in his or her own way. But we also get Matt Damon as the husband of the first person to die of the disease as he tries to keep together what’s left of his family and stay alive. We also get Jude Law as a conspiracy theorist/blogger who tries to profit from the epidemic. There’s Marion Cotillard as a World Health Organization agent who is kidnaped and held for ransom so that a village will be the first to get the vaccine. Director Steven Soderbergh deftly weaves all these story threads together to tell a story of how the world might cope if faced with a similar crisis in real life. Each storyline is compelling in its own way and is believable every step of the way. Which makes the movie all the more chilling as I left the theater wondering if this could actually happen.

Worst

Reds (1981)

This movie can’t decide what kind of a movie it is. It starts with a series of real life people talking about journalist and communist John Reed and his girlfriend/lover/not wife Louise Bryant. Then we get Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton running around as Reed and Bryant, doing the things that the talking heads were just talking about. Then we get more talking heads. Then another dose of Beatty and Keaton. Just pick one: documentary or biopic. And at over three hours, the movie is interminably long. The filmmakers really needed to remove the talking heads (or even better, the Beatty and Keaton melodrama) to give the movie a more taut running time. Of course then I started to wonder what was the purpose of even having this movie at all. I disagreed with almost everything Reed said, and the relationship stuff was an unending cycle of fighting, moping, and making up.

Coming up next: Two movies about overgrown things.

Top and Bottom of 2011 - #10

Best

Disney Live-Action Movies

I was brought up on the live action Disney films of the 70s and 80s, and have seen most of them. But there were still a few glaring holes in my Disney watching history. That, coupled with an anemic Netflix queue, led me to start filling those holes. This journey through the Disney vault reminded me of why I liked the live-action Disney movies so much as a kid. They are pleasant and almost always leave you with a smile on your face, even when the humor falls flat. They are trying to be fun entertainment that the whole family can enjoy without talking down to younger audience members or boring the older crowd. When I thought about these movies, the word that kept coming to mind was charming. The particular stand-outs of the crop that I watched last year are The Cat from Outer Space (1978), Toby Tyler (1960), and Freaky Friday (1976), though any and all of the ones I watched this year are worth a look. Even the not-so-good ones.

Worst

Wizards (1977)

I consider the animated movie of The Lord of the Rings to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen, but I was willing to give director Ralph Bakshi another chance. This time around he was telling his own story and didn't have to adapt something as massive as Tolkien's masterpiece into a reasonable running time. Unfortunately, free range Ralph Bakshi isn't much better. The fantasy world he creates makes little sense as most of the rules seem made up on the fly. The animation is cheap, often relying heavily on rotoscoping and stills. (Not-so-small side note: I categorically dislike rotoscoping in animated movies. It's as if the director can't decide whether to make an animated movie or a live action one so says, "Let's do both!" But instead of getting the best that each medium has to offer, what we are left with is the worst of both worlds. Rotoscoped images almost always look woefully out of place once they are placed into an animated world. And one of the main reasons for doing an animated movie as opposed to a live action one is the freedom animation affords filmmakers. Rotoscoping throws that freedom right out the window and deprives animators of the chance to fully ply their craft. Rotoscoping can occasionally be used for interesting stylish effect, most notably in Waking Life, but 99% of the time it is just garish.) Characters flip-flop their allegiances on a whim, powerful magical people don't even know how to use their own magic, the bad guy motivates his army using the power of Hitler, and the fairy princess spends the whole movie dressed in extremely revealing lingerie. It claims to be a kids' movie, but I don't find it suitable for people of any age.

Coming up next: Two single-word titles with sprawling stories.

Top and Bottom of 2011 - Honorable Mentions

The time has come to reveal the best and worst that I saw this year. In all I watched 147 movies (plus a couple more that I didn't record here on the blog). Far too many of them were mediocre, but a select few stood up and demanded to be counted on both extremes of the spectrum. I will get to those soon, but first I wanted to give out a couple honorable mentions. These were both pieces of note that for different reasons I deemed them ineligible for either list. But since I'm the one making the rules I can bend them any way I like. So without further ado, here are the official honorable mentions from this 2011.

Best

The Doctor’s Wife (2011)

The best thing I saw all year was actually an episode of a television show. This episode of Doctor Who is funny, thrilling, sweet, and heartbreaking, and all in about 45 minutes. While I’m not sure this would make a good first episode for someone looking to get into Doctor Who, it has become an instant favorite. And I highly recommend the show. There’s a reason an episode of Doctor Who has won the Hugo award for “best dramatic presentation - short form” five times over the past six years (with a total of sixteen nominations).

Worst

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972)

Back when I started making these end-of-year lists, I decided that any movie I saw that was an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 would be ineligible for consideration for the bottom ten list. I made this decision mostly because it would be just too easy filling the list with the dregs of cinema that Joel, Mike, and the Bots found for me instead of using films I sought out myself. Mystery Science Theater 3000 is no more (pause for a moment of silence) but Rifftrax has come to take its place. While they make downloadable commentaries for recent big-budget blockbusters, they also continue the spirit of MST3K by unearthing really bad movies from yesteryear. This was one of those movies. Santa’s sleigh is stuck in the sand and his reindeer have flown away. So he enlists the aid of the neighborhood kids who try to pull his sleigh out of the sand using various barnyard animals while Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn look on. When everything fails, Santa says, “This reminds me of the story of Thumbelina.” So he tells the neighborhood kids the story of Thumbelina as they look on in boredom, wishing they could be doing something exciting and interesting like homework instead of listening to the old man drone on and on. The story of Thumbelina is an entire short inside this movie with its own credit sequence and is mostly a long commercial for a defunct amusement park called Pirates World. When the story is done, the Ice Cream Bunny drives up on his fire truck. Santa says, “Of course! The Ice Cream Bunny! Why didn’t I think of that?” Then everyone is happy and the movie ends. This was hands-down the worst movie I saw all year. The plot has an IQ of -3, no one can act worth a lick, and the whole thing is interminably slow. However, I deemed it ineligible since it was essentially another episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Coming up next: Movies that are fun (and not-so-fun) for the whole family.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #1

Best

Baseball (1994)

Ken Burns’ loving yet epic documentary tells the story of baseball through the twentieth century. It chronicles the sport from its humble beginnings all the way to the mega-franchises of today, with numerous highs and lows along the way. There is plenty of talk about Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Ty Cobb, but it also examines the way baseball existed outside the major leagues, with plenty of time devoted to the Negro leagues. And when scandal strikes baseball, there is no angry finger pointing or blanket pardons for the guilty parties. Instead, the scandals are treated fairly and the predominant tone is one of sorrow that they marred the face of baseball and hope that we have learned from these mistakes so they will not happen again. The men and women interviewed in the film range from former players to sports writers to broadcasters to fans of the game. I would call this a love letter to baseball, except that description falls far too short of the amazing accomplishment that Baseball is. All 19 hours of it.

Worst

New Moon (2009)

I thought that this would at least be an improvement over Twilight. After all, they replaced the original director with the director of the snappy About a Boy so at least the plodding pace would be sped up. No such luck. The incessant pausing in mid-sentence by every single main character was amplified. We also get what pretends to be a love triangle for Bella whose talent for being vapid reaches new heights. I kept waiting for something to happen. And waiting. And waiting. And then there was a glimmer of what might be mistaken for some rising action and I thought, “Now we must be getting to the explosive climax.” But instead of something happening the credits just rolled. The climax was so uninteresting that I completely missed it and I had to think back and figure out what it was supposed to be. At least the first one had a poorly-staged action piece for a climax, but the only suspense in New Moon came from waiting to see if anyone could get through a complete sentence without a giant pause.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #2

Best

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Toy Story 2 is one of my favorite films of all time. As in top 20. Maybe top 10. So Toy Story 3 had a lot to live up to. While not quite as good as its predecessor, Toy Story 3 is still quite good. The wizards at Pixar deftly juggled Toy Story's huge cast of characters as well as half a dozen new ones. The story delves into themes just touched on in Toy Story 2, dealing with what happens to toys when their owner outgrows them. There are thrilling chases, plenty of laughs, and an exquisitely orchestrated "prison break." And while the action climax may fall short of previous Pixar efforts, the final scene packs such an emotional wallop that any faults the film may have are instantly forgotten.

Worst

Twilight (2008)

Fortunately I watched this with protection,* otherwise I probably would have done irreparable damage to either my eyes or the TV, or both. Bella is a completely uninteresting character, and why she shuns all the high school boys, who generally come across as a fun and interesting group, to instead fawn over the creepy-looking Edward who has no social skills and who apparently has never seen a comb in 200 years of existence, is never adequately explained. She should be calling the cops, not foisting her presence on him at every possible moment. AND WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO HAVE VAMPIRES SPARKLE IN THE SUNLIGHT!? The inane story, flat performances, and erratic camera work combine to form one of the most inexplicable phenomena of the last few years.

*Commentary track from Rifftrax featuring Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett.

Coming up next: the best of the best and the worst of the worst. Any ideas as to which ones they will be?

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #3

Best

Inception (2010)

I don't know how he keeps doing it, but Christopher Nolan has hit it out of the park again. This is essentially a con man/heist movie, but it masquerades so well as a trippy mind game movie that the audience is willingly taken in. There is eye candy galore, thrilling action sequences, and a wonderfully executed zero-g hallway battle.

Worst

Eclipse (2010)

There actually are enough elements here to make a good movie: a reluctant alliance between a group of sparkly leech men and a tribe of shape shifters, an evil leech man raising an army of fellow leech men, and two-thirds of a love triangle that are forced to work together to protect the woman they love. Unfortunately all the potential is squandered. Characters’ motivations are unclear, the dialog is clunky, new plot developments are not sufficiently set up, and everyone (except the breath of fresh air Anna Kendrick) suffers from giant pause-itis. Apparently Bella is really important for some reason or another, but the director, the screenwriter, and actress Kristen Stewart never show us why. Things might make more sense if I read the book, but a movie should never rely on the book to make its sense for it.

Coming up next: the beginning and the end.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #5

Best

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

I saw the trailers (and teaser spots during the Olympics) and nothing really grabbed me. "This is just another in the long line of lackluster Dreamworks ilk," I thought. But then everyone started raving about this movie and I felt that I had to see it. I have rarely been so happy to be wrong. The film is full of engaging characters (especially the main character Hiccup, who has a wonderfully dry humor) and the humor doesn't cater to the lowest common denominator. The story went in some unexpected places and the resolution was completely satisfying. The main dragon is immediately endearing and the scenes of flying are thrilling. The only real complaint I have with the movie is that so much time is spent at the beginning talking about how Vikings kill dragons because dragons kill Vikings, they should have driven that point home with an actual onscreen death.

Worst

The Happening (2008)

The movie starts out promising as the people of New York City start killing themselves in the quickest, most efficient ways possible. The scene is creepy and even a little funny in a morbid sort of way. But things quickly go downhill. We are introduced to a science teacher played by Mark Wahlberg who is going through some sort of marital problems with his wife played by Zooey Deschanel. The screenplay never really explores what is wrong with their marriage, and neither character is particularly interesting, which gives the audience absolutely no reason to care. But our intrepid couple do not have much time to dwell on their issues, because whatever caused the New Yorkers to start killing themselves is rapidly spreading across the east coast. Whatever it is appears to be airborne, so they find themselves running away from the wind. That’s right, The Wind. Scary. The group of people Marky Mark escapes with depletes faster than the cast of a Roland Emmerich film and soon just the hapless couple and the girl they are babysitting are the only ones left. And then a completely different movie starts as they find themselves at an isolated farmhouse inhabited by a crazy lady (who of course just happens to be a religious conservative). No character does anything interesting and every new turn the plot takes is more ridiculous than the last. I usually try to be very sensitive about spoilers, but at times the big twist or explanation at the end is so absurd, so laughable, so idiotic that I feel like I am doing my audience a favor by spoiling it. This is one of those instances. The thing causing all this mayhem and death is not some sort of biological weapon. It is not a terrorist attack. No, it is plants, conspiring against humanity to release deadly toxins that are only harmful to humans. The more I try to wrap my head around this explanation, the more ludicrous it becomes. See? I told you I was doing you a favor.

Coming up next: two movies featuring heavy doses of large-scale destruction.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #6

Best

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

The visuals are stunning (what else would you expect from Terry Gilliam?) and Christopher Plummer puts in a heart-tugging performance as Doctor Parnassus, the world-weary leader of a four-person traveling sideshow. While the rules of the world don't always make sense, it is a feast for the eyes that is well worth it. (Insert obligatory comment about this being Heath Ledger's final performance here.)

Worst

Ultraviolet (2006)

This movie is an absolute mess. It strings one violent action scene after another, held loosely together by something masquerading as a plot involving vampires, a golden child that may save the world, evil government, and some kind of a cure for something or other. The whole thing is rather hazy since most of the plot made absolutely no sense to go along with zero character development. This is a very disappointing followup for director Kurt Wimmer after the underrated Equilibrium.

Coming up next: two groups of people who are struggling to survive against natural elements that are trying to destroy them en masse.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #7

Best

Wonder Man (1945)

Danny Kaye gets to play two roles: a slick nightclub entertainer and his bumbling bookworm twin brother. Both are very funny and they each get a couple fun musical numbers, giving Kaye the opportunity to play both suave and neurotic to the hilt (both of which he does excellently). Wonder Man stands proudly beside The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Court Jester as one of Kaye’s most entertaining roles.

Worst

Cutthroat Island (1995)

Geena Davis is woefully miscast in this mess. She is far too quiet and mousy to be believable as a bloodthirsty pirate queen and looks embarrassingly out of place every time she tries to fight. None of the characters are interesting or likeable in any way, and all attempts at humor fall flat. Half the dialog consists solely of grunts and cries. And then there are the action sequences which have so little regard for the laws of physics (almost every cannonball explodes in a giant fireball) that they lose any semblance of credibility.

Coming up next: two movies that transport the audience into a uniquely visual world.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #8

Best

The Blind Side (2009)

Sandra Bullock is a force of nature as a WASPy wife and mother who takes an African American high schooler into her home, almost on a whim, because he had no other place to stay. What follows is a wonderful movie about unconditional love and how it can change the lives of not only the recipient but the giver as well. This is one of the best examples of feel-good cinema done right.

Worst

AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)

The Alien franchise is full of scares, a sense of dread, and lots of R-rated violence. The lesser Predator franchise is full of new and interesting weapons that do lots of R-rated violence. Alien vs. Predator is full of uninteresting characters, silly ideas, and a distinct lack of R-rated violence. What's so important about the R-rated violence? It's an in-your-face demonstration of how powerful and dangerous the Aliens and Predators are. Tame the violence, tame the monster. And then there is an imprisoned Alien queen and a Predator that has to get assistance from a human, both of which further serve to defang the monsters. And what's with all these Aliens being on earth to begin with? One of the major issues of all four Alien films is "We can't let this thing get to earth. Ever." But apparently they were here all along. Yet all the damage this movie does to its parent franchises could be overlooked if it was any good. Unfortunately, that is not the case. There are no memorable characters, and they spend most of their time running around a pyramid so full of perils and booby traps that it never achieves even a modicum of believability. And what’s with the pyramid? Apparently, thousands of years ago the Predators came to earth and taught ancient civilizations how to build pyramids because there is no way humans could have figured out how to build something as massive as the pyramids with stone age technology. What a dim view of human ingenuity.

Coming up next: a slick movie and an obnoxious one.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #9

Best

Play Time (1967)

There is no real story to speak of here, merely a series of extended comedic set-pieces enacted almost entirely through the visuals. Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot wanders though a sterile, state-of-the-art office building, then through the streets and shops of Paris, and ends up at the grand opening of a restaurant where almost everything goes wrong. There are some wonderful gags sprinkled throughout the film: an elderly doorman confounded by an ultra-modern button panel that is a complete mystery to him, a head waiter and his misadventures with an unglued floor tile, a poor waiter whose uniform gets more and more disheveled as the evening wears on, and a plate glass door that isn’t there anymore. The pace of the film is almost maddeningly slow, leaving the audience to seek out the comedy instead of having it spoon-fed to them.

Worst

The Wicker Man (2006)

Nicholas Cage wears a bear suit, punches women, and screams ridiculous lines in this remake that fails in just about every aspect that the original succeeded. Where the original is creepy, this one is boring. Where the original is suspenseful, this one is silly. And while the original has an interesting religious discussion, this one creates an unnecessary back story for Cage’s character that only serves to confuse matters. To fully experience how special this movie is, I direct you to this video.

Coming up next: two unlikely matches.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #10

Here we go with the 10 best and worst movies I've seen all last year. Any guesses as to which films come in at number one?

Best

The Hurt Locker (2008)

This is a truly intense tale of three soldiers whose job is to defuse roadside bombs in Iraq. Jeremy Renner is riveting as Sergeant First Class William James, the man who actually does most of the dirty work. His unorthodox methods and casual attitude put him at odds with his more by-the-book compatriots, especially when it becomes apparent that he has become addicted to the adrenaline rush of defusing bombs. As the end of their deployment inches closer and closer, the audience holds its breath, hoping against hope that they will manage to survive each new day. Director Kathryn Bigelow keeps the tension level high throughout the film, deftly conducting the disarming of each new bomb so that each one is unique and has its own brand of terror.

Worst

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Having seen all seven seasons of the television show, I was interested to see "the one that started it all" (sort of). I went in knowing that it would be a far cry from the television show, but even knowing that I was still let down. The comedy fell flat, the drama was unengaging, the villain was yawn-inducing, and to top it all off, Kristy Swanson was completely unconvincing as any kind of superhero, giving me absolutely no reason to care about her as a person.

Coming up next: Two men who find themselves completely out of place.