The Movie of 2009 Award

Movies seen lately (not in any particular order):

Ice Age 3 - <3 <3 <3 - it is very impressive of a no.3 in a series to be as good as no.1 in the series, especially when no.1 was very good too. But I like no.2 best, still, maybe because it was the first one I saw. Still, dinosaurs charm me. Throw in a t-rex and I clap and nod, give me a triceratops and I'll forgive you anything.

District 9 - <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 - I always find it easier to sympathize with animated cricket-like green aliens in terribly unfashionable clothing tearing humans limb from limb than I do with humans. I am completely serious. But aside from that, amazing movie, with amazing actors that I've never heard of before but deserve fame and fortune. It's just right with the gore to make it stay with you, and just right with the story to make you feel with the characters, but not mindlessly cheer for them. And I insist the alien was named Christopher! That's what I heard!

Beowulf (the semi-animated one) - <3 <3 - not much to say. It's fun trying to look through the legend and try to find the man and the actual story. Haven't seen any other Beowulf movie either. It has swords and kings and dragons and a naked Angelina Jolie. Blah blah blah.

Coraline - <3 <3 <3 <3 - dunno if this is actually for children or not, but it's a stop-motion doll movie in kiddie style, kinda Nightmare Before Christmas. Something about this one just freaked me out to no end. It gave me nightmares where my mom cut off the limbs off some poor animal she made me hold, and then started digging into my hand.

Sherlock Holmes - <3 <3 <3 - and one of those hearts is solely for Jude Law, whom I otherwise don't like so much but who is great in this movie. It's entertaining, but wasn't worth going to the cinema for, and Robert Downey Jr made such a perfect Iron Man than seeing him anywhere else is like it would be seeing Tony Stark putting on a pig tail and chasing zebras around a ballroom. Not good, and not funny. Also way too hollywoodized for my tastes.

Pandorum - <3 <3 <3 - I am a relative noob at horror, and especially space horror. This movie might hold lot of clichés that I missed since I haven't seen any other of them. But it was well made, and paced very nicely, and managed to have a plot not entirely predictable which is very good for a horror movie. It also had Norman Reedus, very briefly, I rest my case.

Avatar - <3 <3 <3 <3 - I would give it five hearts, but the harsh and honest truth is that the story leaves you lacking in every single way. The CGI is amazing, and see it in 3D, and I really recomment seeing it. There was true potential of a very, very epic movie here. But the moment you see the first of the alien race, you know the story. They do a reasonably nice take on it, but that can't hide the fact that it borderlines plagiarism, if that can still be applied to something that's been done over 9k times before. That it still manages to be one of the best movies ever says something about how good everything else in it is.

The Happening - <3 <3 <3 - I didn't see the whole movie, missed the start, so I can't give it a fair score. Some ppl think it's silly, I think you gotta stop looking for silly and just close your eyes and listen to the wind and let him tell you the story. Open your mind. I liked it.

I was going to give my Movie of 2009 Award to Inglorious Bastards. It's the first time I've seen Quentin Tarantino return to the genius of Pulp Fiction, instead of fillers like Kill Bill or Death Proof, or I-don't-know-what's like From Dusk till Dawn. But District 9 gave it a good fight. I think the Bastards bring it home thanks to the extra points of Christoph Waltz, despite a few weak moments in the cinema with Brad Pitt (a flaw of the script rather than the actor), because I have to pull a few points from District 9 for making me biased by involving cute baby alien. Still, the two are as close to equal as you can get without actually being it :P

That's all for the Movie Review Corner for tonight. Over and out.