Killshot is about a couple, Wayne and Carmen, who are newly “seperated” that become witness to a crime at Carmen’s place of work. They then become the object of a hit-man and his annoying side kick.  Ok really he’s not his “side kick” but he is annoying. Carmen and Wayne are then put in to the witness protection program and the rest is shall I say history.

There are a number of reasons why I did not like Killshot and only one reason why I did like it.

Here are four reasons why I didn’t like it.

• I really dislike watching innocent people being killed especially when the only reason is that they are in the way
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character just simply drove me crazy. He was annoying, he talked too much, and was abusive just because he could be.
• I found myself not liking Rosario Dawson’s character. I don’t really dislike Rosario Dawson but I don’t think she’s a favorite person of mine. I also wasn’t positive if she was supposed to be a little off or not.
• I actually thought the ending was pretty predictable. Nothing really shocked me.

This isn’t really a reason to not like this movie but I think Diane Lane should be the type of woman that wears a bra. I am just saying!

Here is the reason why I did like it.

• I thought it was suspenseful and that the story was not slow. It was paced fairly well and I did want to see the end of it to find out what happened.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, mhm.

Sup, today was extremely uneventful, but nonetheless I wouldn’t take it back. Doing my blog is the first accomplishment of my day and its 10:48 at night. Well all I did today was put the Christmas tree back in the box and tucked the box away in the garage where someone could easily trip over it, but at least I know that. I am also doing a 365 photo blog and that took up a good chunk of my time since I decided to actually stage something and set up lighting. Overall my camera can take pretty decent pictures, its a Fugifilm but I would much prefer a Nikon. I would just like a better value of composition. Anyways today is the day before the last day of winter break, sorry for the confusion. But I must admit that I’m pretty stoked to go back to school, one to just get out of the house for at least 7 solid hours without some of my nagging family members around (don’t get me wrong, I love them) Second, there is this one person at school that I am becoming fond of and seeing him would sorta make my day! And third, I’ve made a really good friend at school and we laugh so hard when we get to talking. Not to mention that being a senior has its perks, I no longer have to go to 6th and 7th period, which is amazing, getting to leave school at 12:45 everyday! Getting out that early means that I can now find a job that will let me get out early since I go in early. About the picture that is in this blog, Joseph is just too cute. I loved his hosting on Saturday Night Live. I must admit that his monologue was a wee bit long and he tried to reiterate the original performance, but he made it look a wee bit strenuous. Nevertheless, he is just adorable and a good actor. Well I said to myself that I would write untill 11 p.m. and it is that time so later, Ciao! (btw, not too eventful post)

Starting to wonder if there is anything he can’t do?

This clip is of him performing the opening monologue for SNL. Wow! A showman too? That performance looks so physically draining and yet he charges through with such strong energy. And he carried the last note!!

This guy is it. The real deal. He evokes the same feeling I get when I watch Lady Gaga, that I am watching true, new greatness, the beginning of something magical. I hope he is not a douche in real life, all into drugs and stuff.

Overall, Rise of Cobra wasn’t a terrible action movie. Moving the GI Joe team to an international strike force works fine for the current time and most of the cast is good enough for what the film asks of them, if too young for how good they’re supposed to be at what they do. The addition of dues-ex-machina “nanotechnology” serves its purpose it making the impossible happen without weighing a big-dumb-explosions movie with unnecessarily complicated scientific explanations. Not sure what Joseph Gordon-Levitt is getting out of a one note role where he’s mostly drowning in prosthetics and make up, but that’s his business I guess. As a GI Joe movie, though, it could have used more wacky costumes and personalities, rather than blending most of the characters into a dull, uniformed, indistinguishable group of nobodies (Scarlett’s logic drone was particularly grating), the Baroness started off fine then took a lame turn for the worse, but at least the ninja fights were pretty good, save for Storm Shadow’s one unbeatable move- the desperate tackle. 2 1/2 stars

Wow. This short made as a compliment to 500 Days of Summer is brilliant.

Directed by Marc Webb (who also directed 500 Days of Summer), the video has Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a casanova bank robber and Zooey Deschanel as the enchanting teller. No words spoken, just dancing to Zooey’s band’s (She & Him) song “Why Don’t You Let Me Stay Here.” The chemistry and dance moves tell the story.

It grabbed my heart from the second he touches her hand and I just fell deeper in love as it went on. I am impressed with their dance skills and Zooey’s band! Her voice is so beautiful. The choreography is classic but unique and surprising. Fun, beautiful, cool and tender, the result is nothing short of charming and I love it so much.

I wish these moments were more abundant in my own life. These “meet-cutes” where two people become acquainted by means of a random occurrence or coincidence of time or place.  Be it simply waiting in line or be it nearly drowning in the Aegean, these are new beginnings.  And I am all about that right now. Here’s to a year of more random happenings like these.

What are other meet-cutes in film or in your life? Do tell.

Peace,

I’m a lot of things. I’m a daughter. A friend. A student. A devoted magazine reader. A Traveler. A dancer. A Gossip Girl addict. A photographer. An artist. A dreamer. A number one fan.

But I am not a hockey player.

Hockey is hard. And it’s COLD. It’s really scary too. But it’s also really really fun. If you ever get the opportunity for a (non-serious) game of hockey, do it. … and this is coming from a girl who barely puts in an effort in gym class.

Now, that’s enough talk of sports on here.

I saw NINE today; and it resulted in a new obsession with Kate Hudson. My other latest obsession is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, much like most of the nation at the moment. If 500 Days of Summer didn’t do it for you, look  up his performance on Saturday Night Live and you’ll fall head over heels.

p.s. how do you add pictures to this?

90


Bigger, Stronger, Faster (2008)

“But in America, it seems like cheaters always prosper.” It starts off as a critique on American society where most people are willing to do anything to be the best. And then suddenly, it becomes about family values, body images of both youth and adults, childhood dreams, politics, what we’re willing (or not willing) to give up in our lives just so our loved ones can sleep a little better at night. This documentary was able to fuse two things about the American society: how drug-dependent we are and how much our self-esteem is reliant upon others’ evaluation of us. “Bigger, Stronger, Faster,” written and directed by Chris Bell, was truly eye-opening.

89


Super Size Me (2004)

I always label “Super Size Me,” written and directed by Morgan Spurlock, as the one that got me to stop eating fast food for three months. There are more than a handful of jaw-dropping statistics presented here but they were presented with snarky humor; I think that strategy helped make this film all the more memorable. One of the scenes that was cut from the film (which I thought should have made it in) was the experiment that involved which food did not get mold after several weeks. Normal unrefrigerated food get moldy after a couple of days. Fast food, on the other hand, do not get moldy for months. Now this may sound like a positive thing for fast food. However, critical thinking suggests that molds do not grow on unhealthy food because they cannot digest such food efficienty. If microorganisms that have been around for millions and millions of years could not take care of unhealthy fast food how could we expect (as organisms that haven’t been around for very long) our metabolism to do the same? As a student interested in becoming a doctor, I thought it was outrageous that that experiment did not make it into the movie. Granted, the film was very strong by itself and it really should be seen by everyone.

88


Mean Girls (2004)

Tina Fey wrote the screenplay of Rosalind Wiseman’s book and the film marked Lindsay Lohan’s comeback as a new student in a school ruled by three mean girls led by Rachel McAdams. Despite the picture’s glossy material, I thought it was ultimately a satire of the high school hierarchy, not just focusing on the popular cheerleaders and jocks and the loners and “geeks” (I prefer the term “Future Millionaires of America,” thank you very much) separately, but what happens when the two worlds collide. The film had a number of quotatable lines and I thought the movie was quite “fetch” considering it’s the “Clueless” (when, really, it had the potential to be the “Heathers”) of the 2000s.

87


Away from Her (2006)

As a person who works with people who have Alzheimer’s, I thought “Away from Her,” written and directed by Sarah Polley, was poignant and sensitive without sacrificing its accuracy. A husband (Gordon Pinsent) unwillingly puts his wife (Julie Christie) in a home for people with varying levels of dementia. When she falls in love with someone else, he must deal with his own feelings and find acceptance that his wife was no longer his wife even though the body of the woman he loved was still there. The way the dementia of Christie’s character was rapid just like some of the people I see from week to week. I get really sad whenever I think about my first day and how some of the residents made me feel welcome compared to present time when some of them rarely talk anymore. This is another one of those movies that I believe everyone should see because one day we might be faced with the same decisions that the husband had to make. The lessons and insights that this film has to impart are indescribable. They have to be experienced.

86


Boy A (2007)

Andrew Garfield does an amazing job as Jack Burridge who was sentenced to jail as a child because of a murder he committed. With the help of Peter Mullan’s character who is like a father figure to Jack, Jack is given the chance to reintegrate into a society that he left (or of which that left him?). Garfield, within the first five minutes, proved to me that he truly regrets the past and wants to lead a normal life again. He has that childlike quality that is extremely charming, but at the same time there are moments in the film that shows the audience that the evil inside him–which most likely resides within us as well–is not fully expunged despite his best efforts. “Boy A,” directed by John Crowley, is a very good movie that gathers momentum as it goes on and doesn’t break its spell until after the exemplary last scene. This is a thinking person’s movie because it essentially comments on (and even questions) human psychology.

85


Shortbus (2006)

John Cameron Mitchell’s very sexual film involving a group of New Yorkers opened by eyes in so many ways the first time I saw it at the end of high school. What I loved about this film was it wasn’t just about the sexual escapades that the characters took part in. It was also about the emotional components from those escapades that made some of the characters question whether they were really happy with where they were in life. I also liked the fact that it didn’t paint sex in a negative way. In fact, the film argued that it was healthy and maybe even necessary so we could ultimately laugh at ourselves. One of the many qualities of America that I detest is its aversion to anything sexual and magnetism to anything violent. This may easily be labeled as a gay film because it spends most of its time focusing on gay relationships. But let me reassure you–whether you’re a top Democrat or a bottom Republican, or vice-versa, you’ll undoubtedly enjoy this one.

84


Brick (2005)

Rian Johnson’s modern noir story set in a high school is led by Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s determination to find justice regarding his girlfriend’s death. With the help of Brain (Matt O’Leary), the lead character collides with many members of the school hierarchy, including a drug lord, only to realize that the mastermind of it all was closer than he believed. I love the dialogue of this picture because it really reminded me of the edginess that the noir films of the 1940s and 1950s had. It was very efficient with its time with each scene providing a clue on who the lead character should interrogate next. But as classic noir films prove, nothing is simple or quite as clear-cut when it comes to murder. “Brick” may require multiple viewings to be really appreciated but it’s more than worth the effort.

83


The Good Girl (2002)

Jennifer Aniston completely blew me away in this film because I thought she was just a comedic actress. But her turn here as Justine Last who wanted to break out from the suffocating small town she lives in (after meeting an appropriately named Holden played by Jake Gyllenhaal) was devastating. In every frame, I could feel the desperation in her eyes and how much she hated how her life ended up the way it did. I saw this back in high school during my phase when I felt like I hated everything so it was easy for me to relate. Years later, I can still relate with her but on an entirely new level. I can relate with her when it comes to that fear of entering a new level in her life. “The Good Girl,” directed by Miguel Arteta, is one of those first few films that made me fall in love with dark comedy.

82


Jesus Camp (2006)

This film’s content angered me in so many ways because I think converting kids into having an extremist “religion” is just plain wrong. The supposed Evangelical teachings are so twisted, it’s pretty much brain-washing. Getting to these kids before they even have a chance to think for themselves in morally repugnant to me. Those adults who are taking advantage of the kids should seriously be committed into an institution. As angered as I was, I was also very sad because I have an idea with how these kids will turn out. In a nutshell, they will most likely not be happy people because they will always look for something that isn’t there and therefore cannot be achieved. I urge you to see this film as soon as you can so you can see how horrifying the adults’ methods are of brainwashing these children. Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady made a really powerful documentary. Just recalling what I had seen really digusts me.

81


This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006)

Ever wondered about those movie ratings on the movie posters and prior to watching a trailer? Who really determines such ratings and why are such ratings so inconsistent? This magnificent film, directed by Kirby Dick, will give you answers, while at the same time give you more interesting questions. Several directors such as Kimberly Peirce, Kevin Smith, John Waters and movie critics like David Ansen offer their insights regarding the ratings system and also the sex and violence on screen. After watching this film, I learned to disregard the ratings system because those people in charge are full of bias and homophobia. If you’re a cinemaphile, this is a must-see. If you’re not a cinemaphile, still see it because you’ll be more informed of the information that’s being given to you.

Director Stephen Sommers said “this is not a George Bush movie — it’s an Obama world. Right from the writing stage we said to ourselves, this can’t be about beefy guys on steroids who all met each other in the Vietnam War, but an elite organization that’s made up of the best of the best from around the world.”

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_Cobra

Zooey Deschanel and Jordon Gordon-Levitt will charm your socks off in the unconventional romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer.

500 Days of Summer will be one of the top romantic movies for years to come. While it might not be starting off with the same buzz as popular romantic comedies like Amélie, Hitch, or The 40 Year Old Virgin, it seems more likely to become a well-referenced portrait of romance for young people during this era, much like Reality Bites and Singles were for Generation X in the 1990s.

While other recent films like Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep have also used creative means like humorous, artistic dreams to portray modern romance, 500 Days of Summer seems more accessible to both independent film lovers and mainstream audiences. So what’s so great about the movie?

Some viewers will call it a gimmick, but the film’s non-linear storytelling fits the subject matter well of what it’s like to fall in love, go through a bad break-up, and then reflect scatter shot back on the experience.  We see the film through the jumbled memories of Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who meets Summer (Zooey Deschanel) while working for a greeting card company. He is quickly smitten and falls deeply in love with her. Early on she tells him she doesn’t believe in love, and he challenges her to think such a tangible thing exists. We then get to see how this dynamic works itself out over the course of their time together.

The 500 days referenced in the movie’s title refers to the length of Tom’s relationship with Summer, and as each important moment in their relationship is introduced, we are told what day it is. Sometimes we see a glimpse of the relationship on the rocks, and then skip back to an earlier time when Tom and Summer’s interactions were fresh and alive with a youthful passion. Sometimes we see what seems to be an unimportant detail, that later makes sense in the greater context of their entire relationship. This coherence takes careful direction, and one of the most clever and effective scenes in the movie is a split screen where we see Tom’s expectations of what will happen at a party while simultaneously watching the reality of what actually happened.

If this sounds abrasive, it’s not. Almost always these cinematic departures from the norms of romantic comedies enhance our appreciation of the romance between Tom and Summer and draw us into the universality of what these kinds of passionate, youthful relationships feel like. If you thought The Break-Up took pains to underscore the suffering of a relationship dissolving, you will be impressed by how much more effectively and economically 500 Days of Summer accomplishes this task and leave us with a greater understanding of how romantic failures help us learn more about ourselves and learn how to do better the next time around.

So is 500 Days of Summer a perfect movie? Definitely not, but it’s pretty darn good. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are charismatic, convincing, and charming in rather layered lead roles. The supporting characters in the movie, however, are extremely lame. Tom has two male friends who really just seem like they are there to make jokes and fill time, and there is also a wise-cracking younger sister who provides him with the most helpful advice. The sister character is particularly lame, and really is utterly unconvincing. Luckily for us, these bothersome characters only show up occasionally and are not enough to sink the actors driving the movie.

Despite these relatively minor flaws, 500 Days of Summer is a great movie and worth seeing. Whether or not the film will launch its stars to higher-profile roles is still not clear, but it’s sure to be appreciated for a long time as a new classic in the rather worn and exhausted romantic comedy genre.

Summer: “One day I woke up and I just knew.”
Tom: “Knew what?”
Summer: “What I was never sure of when I was with you.”

500 DAYS (OF SUMMER)

It’s been a long time coming.  Frankly, my viewing of this movie is sooo overdue.  When I first heard about it all those months ago, I swore to myself that no matter what, I would go watch it in the theater.  Needless to say, that didn’t happen.  Today however, I finally understood what everyone had been saying about it.  First of all, I am a sucker for these types of movies.  I love the way it was written, I love the way they put it together, I love the flashbacks being all over the place – going from day 8 to day 1 to day 476 to 290 (those are not the exact dates or order).  I’m in love with Tom.  Infact, I am also in love with Summer.  This isn’t a typical predictable love story.  As the narrator mentioned, it is instead a ’story of love’.  It was cute, funny, sad, but realistic.  This has definitely placed itself into the ‘movies I adore’ category.  I am truly inspired to keep writing now.  500 Days has given me the motivation to continue working on my own script.  I can only hope that it will be just as lovable as this one.  If you haven’t seen it yet, just go buy it – there is no need to preview it first!

It’s arguable that I shouldn’t pick over the very worst movies of the year, that I should concentrate on the good and embrace positivity, but hell, I sat through these clunkers out of curiosity and got a whole heap of pain in return, so I’m going to make something of that experience. If that means writing a lot of words about how dreadful and misguided these films are, then so be it. Sadly, I know for a fact that this list contains movies that are loved by family members, friends, and Twitter acquaintances. Conversations about these films have previously been conducted with care, as I attempted to not give away my feelings about said films for fear of causing offence. As a result, pre-emptive apologies are due to all those who love movies on this list. If you derived pleasure from these films, that’s awesome. I’m genuinely glad that you had a great time with them. I’m just recounting my subjective experience of these films, and if they differ from yours, it is not a personal thing. Though it should go without saying, I feel it necessary to state that I consider it bad form to judge a person because of their opinion. I’ll like you or love you no matter what, and my disagreement doesn’t reflect a judgement upon you. Unless you like the number one movie on this list. If you do, there’s no helping you.

And so, with that defensive caveat in place, on with the hatred:

Worst Movies of the Year:

25. Angels and Demons

Ron Howard’s second attempt at breathing life into Dan Brown’s clunky prose was far more successful than The Da Vinci Code, and even managed to hold our attention for its duration. Only after the credits roll do you realise how extravagantly silly the movie was, and how little had actually happened. A harmless and entertaining failure, maybe, but a failure nonetheless.

24. Surrogates

Adapted from a graphic novel by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele, Jonathan Mostow’s satire on the lure of social media and fears of modern disconnection was ill-served by two things: being directed by Jonathan Mostow, and being a satire on the lure of social media and fears of modern disconnection. Luddite witterings about the awful effects of reliance on new communication technologies are irksome already before being further mangled by Mostow, whose dead eye for action renders the movie as lifeless as its robotic characters. Any good ideas from the original comic are sadly buried under a layer of drabness.

23. The Hangover

A nervous nerd, a socially inept madman, and a gigantic, charmless wanker act like pricks in Las Vegas for two hours, and we pay millions of dollars to see it. Irreverent behaviour like this is always going to be appealing, but Todd Phillips has never been able to bring these moments to any kind of life in any of his previous comedies, and he fails again here. Jokes fall flat, comedic situations are resolved in witless fashion, and convicted rapist Mike Tyson is brought on as an ostensibly daring addition to an overstuffed cast, and succeeds in doing nothing but making the whole enterprise unpalatable without being funny. The main trio — all talented guys — are utterly wasted here.

22. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it was far more entertaining than Stephen Sommers’ leaden-footed series of explosions and bellowed exposition. Poorly staged action, predictable character arcs, boring tech designs, and most regrettably no spark of Bay-style madness. It also gives Channing Tatum more unwarranted screentime and squanders the talents of Rachel Nichols, Christopher Ecclestone and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The worst toy-based movie of the year, by a nose. GO JOES! GO FAR AWAY!

21. Orphan

George Ratliff’s fascinating Bad Seed thriller Joshua was only given a small release a couple of years ago, but is good enough to warrant chasing it down. Ostensibly similar, but far inferior, Jaume Collet-Serra’s hysterical and misjudged horror movie brings an Eastern-European Other into an affluent family with A Dark Past and runs through a litany of thriller cliches with excessive energy. Crashing unsubtlety is only the beginning of Orphan’s problems. Narrative implausibilities pile up the further in we progress, leading to a hysterical finale with a truly demented and silly twist. Kudos to Dark Castle for getting Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard onboard to lend a veneer of respectability, but boo to them too for making those actors look so horribly lost.

20. Paul Blart: Mall Cop

In 2008 Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions did the world a great favour and produced the delightful House Bunny, starring the ever-magnificent Anna Faris. The world didn’t really seem to be bothered by this excellent gift, and it made minor money at the box office. In 2009 Happy Madison bankrolled Kevin James’ simplistic mall cop movie, despite the fact that the script contained no jokes even though it was obviously meant to be playing with the Die Hard template. Fertile ground, you’d think. However, when this short Ben Stiller sketch contains more funny lines than your entire movie, you know you’re in trouble. And yet it grossed way way more than House Bunny. ::sadface::

19. The Box

Richard Kelly attempts to redeem himself for the failure of Southland Tales by making a straight adaptation of Richard Matheson’s excellent short story, exploring the moral quandary therein with thoughtfulness and maturity. Only kidding! He garbles the whole thing with a needlessly complicated and confusing plot about aliens and morality tests and dimensional portals and the afterlife and chickens and sentient masonry and water and water and water and water and oh God, someone please stop him. (Warning: it does not feature chickens and sentient masonry. Please don’t watch it because that makes it sound more interesting.)

18. Knowing

How depressing to see a technically ambitious and interesting SF director like Alex Proyas trot out something so illogical and exploitative. With Nicolas Cage asleep and Rose Byrne in shriek-mode, there is little here for an audience to empathise with, and if this tale of extinction and salvation works at all, it’s because of a couple of grandiose setpieces, especially a poignant moment at the end set to Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. Other than that, it’s a muddle of poorly explained philosophy and New Age and Christian symbolism, and ends up as nothing more than a religious wet-dream, with the odious and smug conversion of our atheist protagonist at the last-second. Remember, the caves won’t save the Chuldren! Only blindly trusting the Sky-People will!

17. Away We Go

What could have been a vaguely interesting article in The New Yorker about Dave Eggers’ experiences during his girlfriend’s pregnancy was instead turned into a bloated and pointless road movie, an exercise in narcissism filled with unpleasant stereotypes broadly played by an array of actors far too talented to be left adrift here. At its best it could have been vaguely diverting, but then Sam Mendes horribly misjudges the tone of the film. His flat visuals and clunky control of pace consign this movie to oblivion.

16. The Taking of Pelham 123

It’s bad enough that anyone thought it necessary to remake this story, one already told twice before and one of those times in remarkable fashion, without it being tackled with such cack-handed aggression. Tony Scott’s sledgehammer style removes almost all of the character from John Godey’s original story, and then Brian Helgeland rubs salt into the wound by adding needlessly coarse dialogue. It’s also hobbled by a depressingly low-energy performance from the usually dependable Denzel Washington, and an even more depressingly high-energy performance from a never-worse John Travolta. It gets more wrong than it gets right.

15. I Love You, Beth Cooper

Larry Doyle’s screenplay probably had some interesting things to say about teenage life, expectations, and sexuality, not to mention referencing pretty much every great (and not so great) teen comedy of the past couple of decades, but you would never know that under the usual empty gloss of Chris Columbus’ direction. All subtlety or purpose is crushed by Columbus’ predictably awful take on the subject matter, with his tone-deaf approach being too crass to make the sweet moments connect, or too prudish to make the bawdy stuff go far enough to become memorable. It’s also utterly unfunny. Not a single joke lands. How is this man still making movies?

14. The Blind Side

Michael Lewis is a smart man and I reckon his book — upon which John Lee Hancock’s feel-good drama is based — is far more interesting than this. It will also have the benefit of not being a trite and patronising two-hour-long pat-on-the-back for affluent white Christian folk who took in lost youngster Michael Oher even though he is depicted here as an African-American Lenny sans rabbit. Wrong-headed in the extreme, this film contains less wit and insight into human behaviour than any randomly selected three-minute-long scene from any episode of Friday Night Lights. FNL also has the benefit of not featuring the dreadful Tim McGraw or Jae Head as the most annoyingly precocious child actor in film history.

13. Dragonball Evolution

Pretty much nothing in this horrible, joyless commercial product works, but it is especially irksome to see something that mangles another cultural work being made by James Wong. His X-Files work had always been so entertaining, the first Final Destination was an endearingly bleak project, and The One was an interesting project that could have worked with a few rewrites and a bigger budget. Since then he has floundered, and this awful sub-Matrix Kung-Fu pastiche is a true lowpoint. It made Chow Yun Fat almost unwatchably smug too. Horrible from overcomplicated beginning to incomprehensible end.

12. Twilight: New Moon

Even the world’s most powerful supercomputer, when given the requisite raw data and a million years to generate alternate scenarios with it, could not create a movie as tedious as this. A stagnant narrative mess filled with singularly unappealing, navel-gazing brats, this pop culture phenomenon continues to fascinate millions while doing little more than running on the spot. It takes an especially bad franchise to alienate a nerd such as myself, but Twilight: New Moon managed it by celebrating dysfunctional romantic relationships while being even less entertaining than the dreary original. The only bright spot was a demented performance by Michael Sheen. Other than that berserk cameo, there is nothing to recommend the most sloppily constructed movie of the year.

11. The Proposal

Romantic comedies are going through a really bad patch. The genre was represented by more cynical and shoddily made exercises than ever before. With only The Invention of Lying and (500) Days of Summer attempting to do anything new with the genre, this year’s commercial enterprises at least tried to do one thing that the genre does really well: explore the gulf in behavioural expectations between men and women in an age where we are more aware than ever of our differences and similarities. This is not to say this was done well, though. The Proposal was essentially a by-the-numbers trainwreck of comedy misunderstandings, last-minute changes of heart, and hilarious grandmothers, this time played by an unwatchable Betty White crushing jokes underfoot with obnoxious relish. Yet another terrible Sandra Bullock movie in ‘09.

10. Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire

As with The Blind Side, life for poor African-Americans is here depicted as a kind of hell that even Heironymous Bosch would shrink from painting. Lee Daniels’ tawdry and exploitative adaptation of poet Sapphire’s novel of urban deprivation and depravity is a relentlessly nightmarish vision. If it were a kind of satire on the Boy-Called-It phenomenon of tell-all child abuse memoirs Precious might hold some tasteless appeal, but instead it is an insult to those who suffer real abuse every day. This racially insensitive melodrama’s only worth — other than in giving a showcase to a strong cast who work hard to make Daniels’ scattershot direction seem better than it really is —  is in celebrating those who strive to maintain support systems in America’s most deprived areas. Those hardworking Samaritans deserve a better tribute than this, though.

9. The Ugly Truth

The Proposal was marginally successful by dint of having Ryan Reynolds in the cast. The Ugly Truth, however, is a disaster on every level. Its odious reinforcement of cultural stereotypes about gender behaviour would be bad enough without featuring a mugging Gerard Butler defining “comedy timing” as “jutting out your chin at certain points in a sentence”. Nevertheless, compared to the joyless charm-void that is Katherine Heigl, he’s Spencer Tracy. While Butler tries to tell jokes, Heigl says every line with the same intonation and emphasis, making it impossible to tell where she is meant to be funny. Maybe she’s not meant to be. Bad-movie legend Robert Luketic has no idea how to modulate tone (or light or frame shots), saving his energy for the big vibrating panties scene: a joke so laboured and cringe-inducing that it should have killed this reductive mess on the spot.

8. Love Happens

Jason Reitman’s adaptation of Walter Kirn’s novel Up In The Air struck me as an insincere and mechanical exercise in sentimentality. I was deeply disappointed by it. Then I saw Love Happens and for a few minutes I felt like writing a letter to Reitman thanking him for every choice he made that stopped him from making something as wholly empty as this. Though Jennifer Aniston looks right at home in such uninspiring fare, Aaron Eckhart is wasted as a man dealing with that romance genre staple: the loss of his wife. Judy Greer, John Carroll Lynch, and Martin Sheen look like they’re praying for someone to rescue them from this openly manipulative farrago. Tricky to get stories about traumatic grief right. This didn’t even try. It makes Nights in Rodanthe look like Gone With The Wind.

7. Obsessed

Somehow a guy who directed episodes of The Wire and Deadwood thought it would be nice to launch his film career by directing a Hallmark Channel movie about evil temps written by the guy who wrote Star Trek V. The nicest thing that can be said about it is that it seems to have been made with a post-racial America in mind. The sympathetic protagonists are African-American and the evil antagonist is Caucasian: a fact that generates no discussion about race or the exploitation of black people in contemporary America. Sadly, I doubt that the filmmakers thought we had progressed beyond the point where this wasn’t worth commenting on: they just didn’t really know what to say, and so ignored the narrative minefield. That left us with a neutered Fatal Attraction clone with flat performances, ugly lighting, and ten minutes of an otherwise unused Beyonce beating up Ali Larter in the signposted finale.

6. My Sister’s Keeper

All I’ve experienced of Jodi Picoult’s work is her terrible run on Wonder Woman, where she revealed absolute ignorance of everything that made the character exciting. This syrupy and insincere adaptation of her novel doesn’t make the idea of reading her books any more appealing. A terrific cast — plus Cameron Diaz in full-on squawk mode — battle with a mountain of disease-of-the-week cliches, all served up in an unconventionally fractured narrative that could be considered avant-garde. I suspect it’s actually just that Nick Cassavetes didn’t really know what he was doing. Yet another shitty movie cynically treating emotional turmoil as grist to the mawkish mill. It gets added evilness points for misrepresenting scientific endeavour as morally compromised by inventing a fantasy scenario designed to scare incurious people into distrusting doctors.

5. The Boat That Rocked

Richard Curtis seems to think that English history is a Lego set that he can use to construct any old fantasy about our cultural past that he likes and no one will mind. When garbling historical events for obvious comedic effect in Blackadder, the result was a superb sitcom. Here it is just another exercise in using the devalued Cool Brittannia brand to hide the fact that England is painfully uncool, and making respectable actors put on drainpipe trousers and do the Twist on the deck of a boat for no reason is like watching the Queen trying to crunk. Curtis also seems to have forgotten how to tell a story: the meandering digressions featured here do not count as narrative. Pointless, needlessly hectic, overlong, unamusing and shoddily filmed, The Boat That Rocked almost represented the nadir of Britain’s film output in 2009. Almost.

4. All About Steve

The Year of Bullock was not a 100% financial success, but it was a total washout. This baffling movie represented the lowpoint of her Trilogy of Awful, and stands as a true curio. Why was this film made? The judgement of everyone involved must be called into question, because it honestly feels like no one knew what was going on at any point during its development and production. Was it an attempt at Farrelly-Brothers-style gross-out comedy? A celebration of the outsider? A denunciation of the outsider? A pro-life pastiche? A remake of Twister? All that is certain is that Bullock is insufferable here, stalking an embarrassed-looking Bradley Cooper across America while his colleagues enable her for no easily-identifiable reason. No one behaves like a human being until the sentimental finale where the grinding tone change paints protagonist Mary Horowitz as an admirable hero and everyone who has previously resented her falls into line to praise her. It’s utterly incomprehensible and nigh-unwatchable.

3. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li

Steven E. DeSouza’s original Street Fighter movie is treated like cinematic dog-doo by game fans and non-fans alike, but hopefully it will be revisited in the wake of this franchise revamp and seen as the light and entertaining diversion it actually is. Because this new Street Fighter movie sure isn’t light, and it sure isn’t entertaining. While the game features exaggerated movements, fantasy elements and imaginatively rendered characters, writer Justin Marks and director Andrzej Bartkowiak make the mistake of treating the game to a Batman Begins / Casino Royale-style revamp that strips every appealing element from the source material and leaving a tedious revenge plot against an unscrupulous entrepreneur in its place. Easily the most boring action movie of the year, it also features one of the worst performances, from oily Chris Klein. To be honest, he’s almost bad enough to earn a recommendation. His oleaginous demeanour and hilarious tough-guy mannerisms are the most entertaining things to be found here.

2. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Arguably the worst, most misguided and compromised big budget summer action movie ever made. To fanboys it represents yet another slap in the face from Tom Rothman, yet again mangling the things about a franchise that make that franchise appealing in the first place, as well as cutting budgets, altering the shooting script, and overriding director Gavin Hood. However, it’s not just nerd-preciousness that powers this rage against the money-making machine. Nothing in this cynical enterprise works, from the set design to the dialogue to the hideous effects to the casting (not counting Ryan Reynolds or Taylor Kitsch). The broad-strokes narrative desperately tries to match up Marvel’s Origin story with the beginning of the X-Men trilogy, but manages to taint all of the movies with its half-arsed stink. I can’t remember ever feeling so cheated by a superhero movie, or so horrified at how brazenly my love of these characters was being manipulated by a man who does not care a jot about their history.

1. Lesbian Vampire Killers

Someone shoe-horned everything that is wrong and miserable about British culture into one movie for the convenience of those of us who cringe at the thought of lad-mags, shoddy horror comedies that are neither funny nor scary, piss-poor “gentle” sitcoms (i.e. they contain no jokes), and traditional British directorial ineptitude. Horne and Corden — who are to Morecambe and Wise as dysentery is to tasty dessert toppings — mug their way through a joke-free and plagiaristic “romp” in which very nearly all women are sexually voracious and scantily-clad gay hotties who appear to be filled with what could be semen, considering how they explode in a shower of white goop when they are “amusingly” killed by the horny protagonists. It doesn’t even have the courtesy to be outrageously tasteless like the horror comedies it emulates so ineptly. It’s just tacky, stupid, gormless, tedious, misogynistic, and puerile. It also single-handedly negates all of the good will generated by British movies made by BBC Films and Film4, dragging the British Film Industry back in time to a period when Carry On films represented our most visible contribution to the world of cinema. If it could be deported, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Worst film of the year? Fuck that. Worst film of the decade, more like.

More to come, hopefully, including Best Actor and Actress, Worst Actor and Actress, and “awards” for directors, writers, and a cinematographer that I dissed last year.

Happy 2010 to you all!!!!!

Later.

The biggest year on record for domestic Box Office receipts was also one of the most forgettable years in memory for the movies. 2009 may have seen us forking over more money than ever to go to the movies, but it also shortchanged us with films that often felt altogether unwatchable. (2012 anyone?) But from amidst the muck and mire of underwhelming, overproduced Hollywood stinkers, came a handful of truly good films to remind us that not everyone behind a camera assumes their audience has the intelligence of a rutabaga. And so, since everyone has a best of list this time of year,  The Pictorial has selected five of what we feel to be the few … the proud … the movies that mattered.

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker © Summit Entertainment 2008

Why it mattered: Because it’s rare that press-fed hyperbole like “Riveting,” “Gut-Wrenching,” and “Unforgettable” are accurate. Kathryn Bigelow’s war epic is all of that and more.

Precious

Precious © 2009 Lee Daniels Entertainment

Why it mattered: Because heartbreak has never been more heartening. And because Mo’Nique gave one the year’s most extraordinary perforamances.

The White Ribbon

The White Ribbon © Sony Pictures Classics, 2009

Why it mattered: Because evil has rarely been quite so beautifully explored, so thoughtfully weighed, so skillfully rendered as in Michael Haneke’s dark study of a small German town.

An Education

An Education © BBC Films, 2009

Why it mattered: Because Carey Mulligan’s Jenny was a reminder of just what a bravura performance can do—in this case turning an old worn-out shoe of a story into something fresh and funny and new.

500 Days of Summer

500 Days of Summer © Fox Searchlight, 2009

Why it mattered: Because it’s a love letter to Los Angeles that doesn’t involve Hollywood, and because it’s a movie about love that is in no way a love story.

Over the past few days, I have complied my 10 favorite moments in pop culture this year. I realized after gathering them together, it could be split into three categories. So here you have them. This is in no particular order, just grouped together.

I. The Renaissance of the Music Video
What an exciting year in music. Equally exciting is what seems to be a return to artists putting some serious thought and innovation into their videos. Some of my favorite nights out this year have been those nights where I end up just sitting at a fun gay bar with a good friend while we watch and critique music videos playing on the screen. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching a return to film in its MGM hay day with the elaborate costumes, sets and choreography. Even better, present day we get deeper meaning and something that can feel tangible with the escape of fanfare. My examples follow:

10. The Year of the Gaga
Lady Gaga is the driving force behind what I believe is the Renaissance of the music video. With her taking it to the next level, artists have been forced to up their game, and the result is so much fun for the fans to watch. Lady G’s debut album, The Fame, brought her into the modern pop lexicon, The Fame Monster took her to that cliché and intangible “other level.” Always unique, always a showman, always amazing, this artist leaves many in my circle with their mouths open and fists pumping. While I am infatuated with her music, it is what she says in interviews that makes me appreciate this artist even more. She is a champion for gay rights, avoids trash talking and always looks exquisite. I love when she said she believed her father thought something was wrong with her (mentally) the first time he saw her perform. Her work caused a rift between them that just now started healing. I love her work. She constantly has me appreciating the moment I live in; that I get to witness, in the present, music history being made. I attach her videos that came out this year, including Video Phone, a video by Beyonce featuring Lady Gaga, which I include because it showcases the influence Gaga has on her peers.

Paparazzi:

Bad Romance:

Video Phone:

9. A New Rihanna
I was at a Rihanna concert recently and after I enthusiastically cheered her entrance and songs a fellow concert goer by my side said to me “Wow, you LOVE Rihanna, don’t you?” Duh! Even though she has been putting out albums since 2005, most of the world is just coming to know this amazing artist. However, long gone are the days of S.O.S. and Please Don’t Stop the music. Though they may again return one day, one cannot deny that the events in Rihanna’s life this year have inarguably made a difference on how this Barbados stunner expresses herself through music and fashion. Our first glimpse of this “new” Rhianna came with the release of Russian Roulette. She called the song a metaphor for falling in love, which I buy. The experience often leads to euphoric highs, but in some cases, and unfortunately for her, it can lead to a collapse of the world you once knew. I am amazed by this woman who claims she picked up the pieces after her loss of innocence all by herself and walked away from what she knew of love for the sake of her sanity and her fans in similar situations. While I am enamored by many of the songs on her new album (Rated R), I attach the videos for Russian Roulette and Hard as they are the only videos shot and released for this album but they also speak to the transformation of one of my favorite artists around today.

Russian Roulette:

Hard:

I love how she’s wearing the same shades SJP wears in the SATC 2 trailer and poster. Mykita & Bernhard Willhelm’s Franz Limited-Edition Aviator Sunglasses. Hawt.

8. Celebrate Madonna
I am one of the few out there who appreciates Madonna’s recent works more than her OG tracks from the 80s. I guess because she always leaves me surprised and unsure if I like what she’s putting out. Eventually, I always come around and before long her music coarses through my veins. The great thing about Madonna is that one can appreciate her for where she’s been and where she continues to go. I absolutely adore Celebration, especially the fan video. While it is not an elaborate or lush video, it is rich in love. You get a sense of just how many people she has left an imprint on, and for how many years she’s been doing it. Plus, seeing her daughter Lourdes paying homage to her momma at the 2:44 mark is so friggin cute (we also see what a beauty the little one is turning into). And who can resist Madonna in a 2009 Balmain with thigh-high Louboutins? To quote Stacy London “SHUT UP!” I attach the fan video below plus follow this jump to pics of Madonna’s “Italian-Neorealism” inspired shoot for Dolce and Gabanna because I love it and her. Amaze. My fave is the one of her washing dishes.

Celebration Fan Video:

II. “Reality” TV As the Ultimate Fantasy
Everyone who knows me knows I love my reality TV. I always have. I remember the first season of The Real World in NYC and being so excited to watch it on weekends at my dad’s house because he had cable. Since then the world has watched this genre grow into an unstoppable force. Viewers like me watch with such devotion that the “real” people on screen become celebrities and start to play out a life as such just by merely being “themselves.” Below are some of my favorite moments of my favorite reality shows of 2009.

7. Kristin Cavallari is Back, Y’all:
I know I will lose some readers with this, but this is my list and I find her fascinating. Also, this is also a little “tongue-and-cheek” because I know Kristin and the rest of the cast of The Hills do nothing to better society or the repuation of the youth in L.A. (or America for that matter). One of the main reasons I tune in is because watching Lauren Conrad, Lo Bosworth and Kristin Cavallari since they were itty-bitty high schoolers in Laguna Beach makes me feel like I’m watching some horribly addictive soap opera like Days of Our Lives, where it’s just comforting to see a familiar face and the evolution of a “character.” And while the show’s main source of flack comes in the sincerity of its authenticity, the drama that plays out is still entertaining. Whether the show is “real” or not, the return of Kristin breathed a breath of fresh air into the series. No more do we have to worry about awkward, producer-staged run-ins between Heidi and Lauren and wonder if Lauren will ever forgive Heidi (so glad Lauren got out of that toxic environment, btw). With Lauren gone so is the original theme of young-girl-following-her-dreams-in-the-big-city, and there is no reason to consider this show anything but a guilty pleasure; aimless youth who get paid to do nothing but gossip, fight and party. The result of capitalism at it’s worst and I can’t. stop. watching. Below is the clip for the season of Kristen’s return, with an ending that left my jaw wide open, y’all:

“She’s like a disease you can’t get rid of”:

6. The Real Housewives of Orange County:
The original housewives have had, what most consider, a lack-luster season 5. People are sick of Tamra’s bitching, Vicki’s neuroses are on the verge of intolerable, and the sanest of the OG – OC housewives, Jeana, left the show. What we are left with is not much, but I absolutely love any argument where Gretchen has to stand up for herself to Tamra and Vicki. Sure Gretchen and her now deceased fiancé had a questionable relationship, but it’s like Carrie Bradshaw said, “In the glass houses of relationships, no one should be throwing stones. Some people are settling down, some people are settling, and some people won’t settle for anything less… than butterflies.” Ugh, I love that bitch. Anyway, I attached this clip because, despite the sluggish season, this war of words between Gretchen and Tamra had me and my friends snapping our fingers all over the place when Gretchen throws out that final dismissal. Tamra’s relentless jabbing at Gretchen so obviously stems from a place of inadequacy and lack of humility. Tamra, your jealousy. ain’t. pretty. Sidenote: I love the shot of Jeana eating her feelings.

Caution: Language alert. Also it’s poor quality but it’s the most concise edit of the fight.

5. Whitney, Olivia, and the new girls on The City:
If you know me, you know I love The City. It seems funny that this show is a spinoff of The Hills, as The City seems to be its complete antithesis. Yes, the loveable, gorgeous and hardworking Whitney Port got her own show that is set in the city that never sleeps, thousands of miles from her hometown of L.A. Most of the drama in The City centers around the careers of 4 young women, with Whitney and Roxy at top fashion PR firm People’s Revolution, and Olivia and Erin at Elle Magazine. Sure there was occasional side drama with boys (enter Freddie Fackelmayer and his weird relationship with his father) but what was so great about this second season of the city was that the producers realized the good television didn’t come from the men in these girls lives, but rather, from their careers. In fact, the only man that was consistenly featured this season was Elle Creative Director, Joe Zee (and come on, what’s not to love about Joe Zee?!). Despite surely being placed at their jobs by MTV, there is an element of reality the City has that escapes The Hills. One such example is attached below (along with the trailer and a ferocious promo for season 2) as Roxy and Whitney dance to Single Ladies in their apartment. I fell in love with those two a little bit harder after watching that. And whether it was watching fashion PR maven Kelly Cutrone guiding Whitney as she creates her own fashion line or Olivia and Erin trying to maintain a civil working relationship at Elle, I enjoyed every second of this season. Trivia sidenote: Did you know Roxy is also on Brothers and Sisters as the surrogate for Kevin and Scotty’s baby? She is also the daughter of Patricia Wettig (who plays Holly, the mistress on B&S) and Ken Olin (who plays Holly’s husband on B&S). I just found this out recently and was totally surprised.

All the single ladies!:

Season trailer:

*!WARNING!* MAJAH FEROSH headed your way in this clip:

Bonus! A gem from the season 1 finale. In this clip, Whitney gets advice from DVF herself:

4. The Real Housewives of New Jersey
Yes, it was the table flip heard around the country with these gals from the Garden State. New Jersey has always held a dubious distinction in American pop culture. Sure, the stereotype can easily dismissed as brash or uncouth but what I love is that there is always a deep loyalty and appreciation for family and loved ones in anything that ever has to do with New Jersey. This holds true for those highly entertaining Real Housewives of New Jersey. Three of these housewives were related by blood or marriage, a fourth was friends with the related women, and the fifth was an outcast who was an expert at self-sabotage. I loved watching these women this season. Out of all of the franchises, this group seems to have the least amount of entitled children and the most amount of appreciation for the things they have. They also had one of the most explosive season finales when the usually calm and friendly Teresa exploded on the controversial Danielle. Tensions mounted through the whole season whether Danielle was a good friend for the loveable housewife-in-law, Jacqueline. And when “Cop Without A Badge”, a book detailing some real and some fictional times of a younger Danielle, surfaced, the other women were up in arms. The scene below depicts what happened on the finale when all the girls gathered with their families and the topic of the book… just came up. Teresa is so infuriated after Danielle tells her to pay attention, you can’t even understand her words. Her table-flipping, however, seemed to say everything she wanted to get across. The reactions from Caroline’s kids are priceless. I love this group and I can’t wait to “watch what happens” next season.

Caution: Language

3. America’s Next. Top. Model. Is….
Duh, I am a sucker for my next nod. Love her or hate her, Tyra Banks has stuck with a winning format of dwindling down a group of 40 or so contenders at the season premiere, down to one girl who, in the finale, wins the title of America’s Next Top Model. Week to week, the group of models-in-training are forced into extreme modeling conditions to see who has the chops to make it in the industry in this still, after 13 cycles, highly-rated series. The show gets flack for not making household names out of its winners, the way American Idol does. But that doesn’t mean that many of its winners and runner-ups haven’t had their own varying degrees of success (see where-are-they-now clips below). It’s a ridiculous show but at its core, and what I love about it, is the documentation of the growth one goes through on the path of chasing a dream. Many girls come on who have gotten by on their looks their whole lives, and it is those with the ego that are usually the early send offs. This season, in particular, we saw growth from Nicole, the self-proclaimed dork and eventual winner. I love when my early favorite ends up winning (it has only happened one other time). You can see why this girl may not have been the most popular in high school, but it just goes to show how far uniqueness and inner beauty will get you. Go Nicole. I hope this girl has amazing success.

(The most recent) Nicole Wins Cycle 13:

Various “Where-are-they-nows”:

And my all-time favorite winner:

*Sidenote*: If you love ANTM as much as I do, start reading Rich’s blog fourfour. He reviews every episode a few days after airing. His crying statistics, Tyra-isms, and sharp, biting insight has me LOL-ing for days.

III. Mainstream Film & Television
I recognize there are amazing things that happened in film and television this year that doesn’t have a thing to do with anything I’ve already mentioned. However, I feel those shows get their praise at Emmy & Oscar time. That being said, there is one television show and one film event that happened this year that I loved so much that I (and I hate double negatives) couldn’t not mention them.

2. 500 Days of Summer
I absolutely loved 500 Days of Summer. This quirky, small movie about the process of breaking up and moving on is one of the truest pieces of fiction I have ever seen on the big screen. With the back-and-forth timeline, the honest conversation and the splashes of fantasy to personify (if you will) emotion, there are so many elements of genius in this film. I loved how it showed that the end of a relationship does not invalidate emotions or connections once shared, even and especially if one person in the relationship felt those emotions more intensely. There are seemingly effortless performances by Joseph Gordon- Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, and I was thrilled to see the film earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Comedy or Musical. Yes, it is everything Garden State wanted to be but couldn’t (I know, different themes completely but as far as nerds-in-love stories go….) It also kicked Garden State’s ass in terms of soundtracks. The standout song, for me, being The Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition. The beat and lyrics completely embody the tone of the movie. I am attaching the trailer to the movie, as well as a link to the teaser which plays “Sweet Disposition.”

Trailer:

Teaser:

1. Juliet and Sawyer – Lost: Season 5
I went without cable this summer and in an effort to entertain myself, I watched my roommate’s copy of the first season of Lost. I had no interest in the show before. It was always described to me as Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Sidenote: That description will instantly make my brain turn off and start thinking about monkeys playing with a jack in the box. Boredom, however, forced me to tune in and I was instantly hooked. Every season got better and better and eventually my favorite character, Juliet, was introduced. Kicking butt since her debut into the series, she helped many beloved characters out of life-threatening situations. Unfortunately, she was always unlucky-in-love as she could never keep Jack’s attention solely on her, his head always turned to Kate. This season, however, we saw her develop a deep and tender relationship with Sawyer. The couple least likely to couple were playing house on the island for three years until the return of the Oceanic Six (mainly Kate and Jack). Juliet, tough as she was, handled their return with grace and respect though you could see the anguish over her confusion on the status of her relationship with Sawyer. Tensions came to a head on the season finale this year, which left every viewer on the edge of their seat. Her character, bad-ass to the very last second of the attached clip of the season 5 finale, carried out what the others in her group could not do while leaving us with so many questions: Is Juliet dead? Will she be on only in flashbacks? Will she be on at all? I love you Juliet. You better not be dead or I hate this show.

(caution: graphic)

oooo…. It still gives me chills.

There you have it. My favorite moments of pop culture in 2009. What a fun year.

Jeremy Renner, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Nicholas Hoult, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Peter Sarsgaard, Sam Worthington, Til Schweiger, and Michael Fassbender

I don’t have time to prepare 10 Best Films of ‘09, I have dozens of blog entries in-line for January, and like the Fantastic Mr. Fox I have thousands of things to do, so many pictures to take, so many pages to write, so many dinners and coffee chats to catch, but my love for movies prevailed. TOP 10 films have popped out everywhere and everybody have their own favorites, movies that they can relate to and films that moved them. That’s why you will rarely see “Hangover” in a 60-year-old film critics top ten, and “A Serious Man” on a 15 years old’s list, the teens and tweens that controls MTV will surely crown “Twilight Saga: New Moon” as the best movie of 2009 (or the best film ever made, totally) and the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, to 90’s dudes and duddettes behind the Academy Awards might lean towards “Precious” (not Golem’s “precious”), but I think it’s the subliminal message that’ll tick on the grand dads and grand moms’ subconscious before they vote (they voted for “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” win after all, and that was a great choice). Thats why they should put more teens and tweens in those Oscar jury so films like “Hangover” and “500 Days of Summer” won’t be snubbed, Oscar’s too serious and MTV’s so lame.

Anyone who’s following DANGEROUSLY NAIVE somehow know by now that I’m a 28-year-old photographer by profession who loves to post Top 10’s of whatever, whenever I get the chance and I’m also working on a fantastic novel (a literary masterpiece that’ll soon be adapted into an Oscar-winning film, I can daydream right?), yes most people email me asking to just keep my day job and shut up. But if you know me, the possibility of shutting up is bleak, unless you continuously feed me potato chips or chocolate chip cookies. So for those who care to know, my Top 10 films below passed my checklist of tasteful cinematography, and set design, the novel writer side of me (considering three of the films below are adapted from novels and a memoir) the films should have a solid screenplay, sprinkle it with great thespians and auteurs voilà MY VERY OWN TEN BEST FILMS OF 2009.

_______________

1. The Hurt Locker

“War is a drug,” and I’m addicted Ms. Kathryn Bigelow. One of the best war movies ever made, and by far the best of the recent dramatizations of the Iraq War, considering hundreds of important war movies have already been created, yet in 2009 from a usually male-dominated genre a female director delivered, it’s really quite impressive. Hot Lead Actor (Jeremy Renner): triple check (drool), Well-acted: check, Great Ensemble: check, Intensely Shot: check, Action Filled War Epic: check, Solid Screenplay: triple check, Oscar Contender: triple check.

Genre: Action | Drama | Thriller | War

Cast:
Jeremy Renner – SSgt. William James
Anthony Mackie – Sgt. JT Sanborn
Brian Geraghty – Spc. Owen Eldridge
Guy Pearce – Sgt. Matt Thompson
Ralph Fiennes – Contractor Team Leader
David Morse – Colonel Reed
Evangeline Lilly – Connie James

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Screenwriter: Mark Boal

Producer: Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier, Greg Shapiro

Composer: Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders

Studio: Summit Entertainment

_______________

2. 500 Days of Summer

And it lived up to its promise of honesty, wit, charm, originality, freshness, cleverness, creativeness, chemistry and broke out of the love story cliché’s that is Hollywood. From the drawing board to the final work (excuse the pun), Director Marc Webb and gang had created a burst of visual feast, like Woody Allen to Manhattan (1979) Downtown LA has never looked so good, I almost want to move back there. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, and the film’s soundtrack are unforgettable. Oscar Nominations? I’m definitely rooting for them.

Genre: Comedy | Drama | Romance

Cast:
Joseph Gordon – Levitt as Tom Hansen
Zooey Deschanel – Summer Finn
Geoffrey Arend – McKenzie
Chloe Moretz – Rachel Hansen

Director: Marc Webb

Screenwriter: Scott Neustadter, Michael Weber

Producer: Mark Waters, Jessica Tuchinsky, Mason Novick, Steven J. Wolfe

Composer: Mychael Danna, Rob Simonsen

Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures

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3. Up in the Air

Ryan Bingham: How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… start with the little things…

The Walter Kirn novel adapted brilliantly by screenwriters Jason Reitman, and Sheldon Turner, beautifully mounted by director Jason Reitman and led by the charismatic performances of George Clooney (drool), Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick. Oscar Contender? The Sky’s the Limit.

Genre: Comedy | Drama | Romance

Cast:
George Clooney – Ryan Bingham
Vera Farmiga – Alex Goran
Anna Kendrick – Natalie Keener
Jason Bateman – Craig Gregory

Director: Jason Reitman

Screenwriter: Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner
Novel: Walter Kirn

Producer: Ivan Reitman, Jason Reitman, Jeffrey Clifford, Daniel Dubiecki, Tom Pollock, Joe Medjuck, Ted Griffin

Studio: Paramount Pictures

_______________

4. Fantastic Mr. Fox

Mrs. Fox: This story’s too predictable.
Mr. Fox: Predictable? Really? Then, how does it end?
Mrs. Fox: In the end, we all die. Unless you change.

Hottie George Clooney: triple check (drool), Meryl Streep: check, Enchanting Tale: check, Severed Fox Tail: check, Creepy Puppets: check, Art History: check, Fury Little Animals: check, Roald Dahl Novel: check, Wes Anderson: triple check, Highly Stylized Animation: triple check, Oscar Nominations: What’s not to love? triple check!

Genre: Animation | Adventure | Comedy

Cast:
George Clooney – Mr. Fox (voice)
Meryl Streep – Mrs. Fox (voice)
Jason Schwartzman – Ash (voice)
Bill Murray – Badger (voice)

Director: Wes Anderson

Screenwriter: Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach
Novel: Roald Dahl

Producer: Wes Anderson, Allison Abbate, Jeremy Dawson, Scott Rudin

Composer: Alexandre Desplat

Studio: 20th Century Fox

_______________

5. An Education

Miss Stubbs: You seem to be old and wise.
Jenny: I feel old. But not very wise.

A star-making performance of Carey Mulligan as a 16-year-old schoolgirl’s charming coming-of-age tale set in London. Faithfully adapted by Nick Hornby from the memoirs of the well-known British journalist Lynn Barber. Peter Sarsgaard is hot as always, and one of my favorite actors in Hollywood in years. Oscar Contender? Educated guess is YES.

Genre: Drama

Cast:
Carey Mulligan – Jenny
Peter Sarsgaard – David
Olivia Williams – Miss Stubbs
Alfred Molina – Jack
Dominic Cooper – Danny
Rosamund Pike – Helen

Director: Lone Scherfig

Screenwriter: Nick Hornby
Memoir: Lynn Barber

Producer: Finola Dwyer, Amanda

Composer: Paul Englishby

Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

_______________

6. Inglourious Basterds

Lt. Aldo Raine: You probably heard we ain’t in the prisoner-takin’ business; we in the killin’ Nazi business. And cousin, Business is a-boomin’.

Hottie Brad Pitt: triple check (drool), Hottie Michael Fassbender: triple check (triple drool), another Hottie Til Schweiger: triple check (drool), Quentin Tarantino Movie: triple check, Fresh and Fearless Rewriting of History: check, Nazi Monster (Chrisophe Waltz): check, Knife Wielding American Commando: check, Genre-Blending Thrill Ride: triple check, Revenge Served Cold: check, Utter Violence: check, Blood Spatters: check, Oscar Contender: triple check. Now the big question is for a straight guy like QT, how does he come up with the hottest ensemble of actors? Pitt, Fassbender, and Schweiger in one movie, Hunk Heaven: triple check.

Genre: Drama | War

Cast:
Brad Pitt – Lt. Aldo Raine
Mélanie Laurent – Shosanna Dreyfus
Christoph Waltz – Col. Hans Landa
Eli Roth – Sgt. Donny Donowitz
Michael Fassbender – Lt. Archie Hicox
Diane Kruger – Bridget von Hammersmark
Daniel Brühl – Pvt Fredrick Zoller
Til Schweiger – Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Screenwriter: Quentin Tarantino

Producer: Lawrence Bender

Composer: Ennio Morricone

Studio: Miramax Films

_______________

7. A Serious Man

Rabbi Marshak: When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies…

The Coen Brothers most mature and greatest film to date, returning to their homeland of the Minneapolis suburbs to tell a story of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) who strives to be a good man. A virtuoso lead performance, great supporting cast, perfect blending of dark humor -the Coen Brothers way, and beautifully photographed and mounted. Oscar Contender? Seriously yes.

Genre: Comedy | Drama

Cast:
Michael Stuhlbarg – Larry Gopnik
Richard Kind – Uncle Arthur
Fred Melamed – Sy Ableman
Sari Lennick – Judith Gopnik
Aaron Wolff – Danny Gopnik

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Screenwriter: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Producer: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Composer: Carter Burwell

Studio: Focus Features

_______________

8. Avatar

Jake Sully: Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world and in here is the dream.

What is a Top 10 without the “A” word, yes the “A” word, you guessed it… the world’s beloved Avatar. Although more impressive on a technical level than its screenplay, 3D effects bring the audience into the alien world, it’s an imaginative, absorbing filmmaking nonetheless. James Cameron still has the gift after more than a decade since the maiden ship sank. I never heard a photographer who doesn’t love this pure Cameron Visual Masterpiece, he’s a movie-god and Sam Worthington is a sex-god. Oscar Nominations? Are you from another planet?

Genre: Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Cast:
Sam Worthington – Jake Sully
Zoe Saldana – Neytiri
Sigourney Weaver – Dr. Grace Augustine
Giovanni Ribisi – Parker Selfridge

Director: James Cameron

Screenwriter: James Cameron

Producer: James Cameron, Jon Landau

Studio: 20th Century Fox

_______________

9. Sin Nombre

“The greatest sin of all is risking nothing.”

A dark, bleak and violent movie, part harrowing immigration tale, part gangster story, for a début by writer/director Cary Fukunaga, it’s quite impressive. Sensitive, insightful and deeply authentic. An Oscar Contender? A possible dark horse, I’m rooting for them.

Genre: Adventure | Crime | Drama | Thriller

Cast:
Marco Antonio Aguirre – Big Lips
Leonardo Alonso – Policía Judicial
Karla Cecilia Alvarado – Marera

Director: Cary Fukunaga

Screenwriter: Cary Fukunaga

Producer: Amy Kaufman

Studio: Focus Features

_______________

10. A Single Man

Isherwood, Ford and Firth film is beautiful and the art direction impeccable, powerful performances especially of its lead. The last time I saw Colin Firth was in Bridget Jones Diary and his performance in this film is truly inspired. I love Julianne Moore, I love Nicholas Hoult, I love Matthew Goode, and I love Tom Ford. Will Oscar love them too? Mr. Firth has more chance.

Genre:Drama

Cast:
Colin Firth – George
Julianne Moore – Charley
Nicholas Hoult – Kenny
Matthew Goode – Jim
Jon Kortajarena – Carlos

Director: Tom Ford

Screenwriter: Tom Ford, David Scearce
Novel: Christopher Isherwood

Producer: Andrew Miano, Robert Salerno, Chris Weitz

Studio: Weinstein Company

________________________

Honorable Mentions:

Thirst

Broken Embraces

Food Inc.

Two Lovers

Drag Me to Hell

The Road

Paranormal Activity

Antichrist

Sunshine Cleaning

The Hangover

District 9

Zombieland

Watchmen

Precious

Star Trek

Up

________________________

Related Entries: http://naiveboy.com/2009/11/12/i-want-to-have-sex-with-mr-tom-ford-by-navo/

http://naiveboy.com/2009/12/06/the-ten-greatest-films-about-photographers-by-navo/

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©2009 Dangerously Naive

©2009 Naiveboy.com

10 Things I Still Love About 10 Things I Hate About You

1. The central character Kat (Julia Stiles) is a smart, independent, outspoken feminist. She knows what she wants and is not bothered by public opinion. Kat is not a freak even if the 18-year-old may read The Bell Jar for fun [I spent a few summer days in college on my deck reading The Bell Jar] and hanging out in lesbian nightclubs. She possesses a self-confidence and quick wit that boys may find threatening. [Most likely due to the female co-writing team.]

2. The intelligent script is co-authored by two women, Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith. There’s little superfluous banter. Instead, these savvy kids would make Shakespeare proud.

3. The Bard receives the utmost deference. Kat’s best friend, Mandella (Susan May Pratt) keeps a photo of William in her locker and tells someone she is “deeply involved” with Shakespeare. In an English class, the teacher raps one of his sonnets. Plus Shakespearean dialogue is scattered throughout the film that is based on Taming of the Shrew.

4. The only featured sport in this high school atmosphere is……women’s soccer!

5. Boston favorites Letters to Cleo, featuring Kay Hanley, perform three songs.

6. It’s nice to see Heath Ledger healthy in one of his early roles.

7. The cast consisted of mostly new faces at the time and not just a bunch of the usual teen flick subjects. The exception was Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Third Rock from the Sun) who turns in a charming performance as the patient suitor of Kat’s sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik). Also Oleynik and Stiles were both in high school at the time, thus playing their own age.

8. The popular girl, Bianca, is not vapid. In fact she sees right through the school stud (Andrew Keegan) in a reasonable amount of time for a sophomore.

9. Kat does not give up everything for the boy. Patrick Verona (the late, talented Heath Ledger). Kat’s big plan is to head to Sarah Lawrence College in the fall. She never changes but finds someone who accepts her as she is.

10. Julia Stiles and Health Ledger both had Shakespeare connections. Stiles soon after appeared in O, a retelling of Othello with Mikhi Pfeiffer and Josh Hartnett. Ledger was a member of the Globe Shakespeare Company.

Extras include: cast interviews, audition tapes, and interviews with the director and the co-writers

AVAILABLE ON DVD JANUARY 5, 2009

I’m into movies. And sometimes TV. And I realize the definition of “under the radar” is subjective, and none of the people I’m about to describe are really under anything.

• Emily Blunt, Emily Blunt, Emily Blunt. Engaged to John Krasinski. Has been in a mainstream picture with Streep (as Emily, the crazy secretary in The Devil Wears Prada), a touching indie film (as soft-hearted punk Norah in Sunshine Cleaning), and most recently played English royalty in a Golden Globe-nominated role (in Young Victoria. Hey, it worked for Helen Mirren.) The way I see it, she has great range, she’s pretty, she’s getting plenty of recognition even from more mainstream audiences (from Aaron Sorkinites in Charlie Wilson’s War to normal people seeing her in Dan in Real Life to the frightening women who see things like The Jane Austen Book Club). She’s going to be huge someday. At least I hope she will.
• Mark Salling and/or Kevin McHale. Like pretty much everyone with a regular role on Glee (excepting Morrison, Michele, Lynch, and Ushkowitz on a good day), neither one of them has much of an acting history. Salling appears to have been essentially out of movies and TV since the ’90s; Kevin McHale was on The Office for ten minutes as the pizza delivery guy who Michael and Dwight hold captive. But I can see both of them going farther onscreen than any of the other kids (Michele is born for Broadway, not for TV. How they roped her is beyond me.) At 27 and 21, respectively, the two of them have a long time to work out bigger careers. I think Salling has the potential to become an indie movie standard, personally. McHale is more mainstream.
• Scarlett Johansson. Yeah, she’s twenty-five. I think that her career is going to be similar to Ava Gardner’s: she’s going to be a pretty face (and an R.J. Reynolds body) for most of her career, get an Academy Award nomination along the way, and be remembered mostly for being a box-office draw. And you know what? That’s fine. I think she’s got the talent somewhere in there to headline movies for her acting someday; you saw The Prestige, you know she has the chops; I’m not saying she’s going to be Streep. Hell, I’m not even saying that she’s going to be Embeth Davidtz. I just think she’s going to be better than what they’re using her for right now. And don’t tell me she’s not under the radar. She’s under the radar.
• Zooey Deschanel is going to turn thirty in two and a half weeks, so it’s a good thing that I’m doing this column now. I want her to do a drama. She was in The Assassination…Robert Ford, and that might be the only dramatic piece she’s ever done. Anne Hathaway (27, but not at all under the radar), another gorgeous brunette, has paved the way. She went from light comedies (The Princess Diaries, Ella Enchanted), threw a serious movie in there (did you know she was in Brokeback Mountain? I didn’t.), was in a hugely well-received comedy (Prada), and then does a drama where she’s totally different from all her other characters and gets an Oscar nomination (Rachel Getting Married). Hey, Zooey: Elf and Hitchhiker’s Guide, Assassination, (500) Days of Summer…and then what? You can get Oscar talk too! And then I can see those K-Mart eyes at an awards ceremony.
• Speaking of (500) Days, let’s speak of Joseph Gordon-Levitt; I think he is immensely talented. I’ve been watching him since I was little (yeah, he was in Angels in the Outfield with Adrien Brody, Danny Glover, Matthew McConahoweveryouspellhisname, Christopher Lloyd, and Hold Me Closer Tony Danza), and he’s just getting better.
• If Evan Rachel Wood would just get off of True Blood and get back to movie-making, I think her future would go through the roof. She’s proven that she can do crowdpleasers like Across the Universe or act in gritty stuff like The Wrestler. She’s only 22, and she’s broken up with Marilyn Manson. It can only go up. Celebrity death bingo, anyone?
• Abby Breslin. Easy.
• Here at Lists on Caffeine, we try to live up to the interestingly named posts. You want under the radar? Madhur Mittal, who played the oldest version of Salim in Slumdog Millionaire, is about as under the radar as the indie band from Wyoming that formed last week. I think that he showed some serious chops playing a character that conflicted. And while Freida Pinto has a bigger future than him, I think he’s just as talented as she is.

“My God, my God, have pity upon my soul and upon these poor people.” Similar to the Jesus quote from the last post. But I’m amused by William the Shut-ya-face having famous last words.

How many blog comments, I wonder, have inspired whole posts?

I don’t have an answer to that question, but the ever-astute Encore Entertainment posed a difficult but interesting question: Who gave the best performances, the ones that would top my list of favorites for the year?

Now that’s a thinker … but one that only lasted about six minutes. Then in marched the answers, and I present them to you thusly:

The ladies

Mo'Nique's blistering turn in "Precious" deserves to be called the best of the year.

1. Mo’Nique, “Precious”
2. Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious”
3. Melanie Laurent, “Inglourious Basterds” 
4. Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”
5. Amanda Seyfried, “Jennifer’s Body”
6. Melanie Lynskey, “The Informant!” 
7. Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”
8. Isabella Rossellini, “Two Lovers”
9. Charlyne Yi, “Paper Heart”
10. Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”

The fellows

Christoph Waltz creates the perfect villain in "Inglourious Basterds."

1. Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
2. Adam Sandler, “Funny People”
3. George Clooney, “Up in the Air”
4. Matt Damon, “The Informant!”
5. Tobey Maguire, “Brothers”
6. Joaquin Phoenix, “Two Lovers”
7. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “(500) Days of Summer”
8. Sacha Baron Cohen, “Bruno”
9. Mark Ruffalo, “The Brothers Bloom”
10. Zachary Quinto, “Star Trek”

Readers, which actors and actresses delivered the year’s best performances? Let’s hear your picks.

What, no Serpentor?

Starring Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Dennis Quaid, Marlon Wayans, Christopher Eccleston, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Directed by Stephen Sommers. Based on the toy line by Hasbro

It’s Shakespeare for six-year-olds (pending your six-year-old kid isn’t stuck-up and/or going to a private school). It’s over-the-top, laser-blasting, bodies flyin’, shit blowin’ up, fast-paced, unbelievably cartoonish action featuring macho guys, hot chicks, and fight scenes between good and bad guys. In short it’s a literal translation from the cartoon TV show to live-action movie. And it’s entertaining as hell.

Stephen Sommers gives backstories to characters that don’t really need them, but I guess he felt the need to be a “good” filmmaker and clue the audience in on the history of the characters. This only comes into question with the beginning segment showing a “weapons dealer” named James McCullen who, in 1641, was given an “iron mask” for dealing weapons to both the Scots and the French. His received the name “Destro,” short for “destroyer of worlds.” Yeah, okay.

Fast forward to the “not-too-distant future,” where McCullen’s descendant James McCullen runs MARS (Military Armaments Research Syndicate), a weapons contractor that has designed nanomites, micro-robotic bugs that look like green acid when they eat away at metal but come with a safety killswitch. McCullen has armed four warheads with these and wants them transported.

The convoy transporting the much-sought briefcase is sent off-course and intercepted by soldiers with technology far superior than theirs. Of the survivors there is Duke (Tatum) and his best friend Ripcord (Wayans), saved by Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eyes (Ray Park), and Breaker (Saïd Taghmaoui). Duke, Ripcord, and the case are taken to “The Pit,” G.I. Joe HQ.

The Pit is a gigantic training facility buried deep beneath the Egyptian sand. This place has LEVELS: shooting, hand-to-hand combat, and a water park addition that you makes you navigate through hoops –literally. Imagine the scene in “Wayne’s World” where Wayne opens the door to the room where “people are being trained just like in ‘James Bond’ movies” and multiply that by 10, adding some cool hi-tech gadgets; you get my drift. General Hawk (Quaid) presides over The Pit and G.I. Joe, a multi-national group of “the best of the best.” They pour over what facts they have and Duke offers up info on Ana (Miller), a woman he had proposed to 4 years earlier and one of the enemy combatants. Duke and Ripcord do a training montage and are officially Joe-certified.

There’s a reason for McCullen’s backstory as we find that he did the old con man “protect this for me while I hire someone to take it from you” routine. He’s hellbent on playing all sides against the middle just like his ancestor. Another member of COBRA is The Doctor (Gordon-Levitt), a man breathing through a mask who injects the nano-technology into subjects creating “super soldiers” whose bidding he controls via computer. Also, the Baroness/Ana, is married to Baron deCobray (Grégory Fitoussi), a noted French research scientist. I almost forgot to mention: his base is multi-leveled and underwater.

Peril is the name of the game as McCullen and COBRA unleash one of the four nanomite weapons on the Eiffel Tower. Ripcord and Duke don Delta-6 suits which allow them to run, jump, and shoot faster than anyone or anything else. Duke manages to save most of the Eiffel Tower but is captured in the process. It’s up to the Joes to get Duke back and save the world.

This is the kind of movie I had expected “Transformers” to be: whiz-bang special effects with shallow story, plot, characters, and motivation. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing because do you really need depth in “G.I. Joe?” There are a few instances where Sommers tries rising above the source material by giving the characters backstory but really, this is the kind of movie that doesn’t call for that. Tough guys with guns and lasers, bad chicks in leather and high heels, tech-geek weapons, ninja fights… it’s your inner child’s wet dream.

The one downside to this film (if you’ve already accepted it for what it is) is the inconsistency of the special effects. Some of them are really well done while some of the more massive vehicles (especially those in water or the air) seem to be need another layer or two of rendering. Outside of that as long as you know that this movie is as literal a translation of the cartoon as there ever has been… you’re green for Go.

Why watch the movie? Sienna Miller is hot. So is Rachel Nichols. Cool tech-geek stuff. You’re inner six-year-old which remembers the halcyon days of “Yo Joe!” watching real American heroes take down Cobra needs its fix. Or watch it because Sommers got right what Michael Bay gets wrong.

Watch for “Mummy” alums Arnold Vosloo, Brendan Fraser, and Kevin J. O’Connor.

My grade: C (and knowing is half the battle)