Best Films of 2011

Nearing the end of the year, I thought I'd list my top films. There's still a few I need to see, but I think this list is quite solid.

***UPDATED TO INCLUDE SOME I'VE SEEN SINCE***

In reverse order:

15. X-Men: First Class

What do you do when you've run a blockbuster franchise into the ground? Start again...this is a stylish reinvention of our fave mutants and the best of the years Marvel and DC movies.

14. Everything Must Go

Will Ferrel's shown he's a great drama actor before (Stranger Than Fiction), I loved him in this quirky indie film.

13. Rare Exports

A very different 'horror' take on the Santa mythology. I thought this started to get really good just as it ended, still good enough to make my list.

12. Hanna

This was a big surprise for me, it's quite weird and cerebral with moments of quiet drama, it's not your usual action film. There's plot holes in there, but one of the most enjoyable action films of the year.

11. Source Code

An intelligent blockbuster action sci-fi from Duncan Jones (director of the brilliant debut feature 'Moon')

10. Arrietty

Ghibli does it again! Charming animation, with scenes of cinematic brilliance that are simply breathtaking.

9. Warrior

What's that? A powerful drama that's about MMA? YEAH! A little cliched in places, but brilliant acting from the main cast and some exhilerating action make for a great movie!

8. Super



It's much more than just a Kick-Ass clone, it's not really that much like it, in tone anyway. A very weird, dark and quirky alternative.

7. Hesher

An absolutely original, cool, emotional, funny and brilliant little gem! And a Superb cast!

6. Planet of the Apes

This surprised and impressed me, they actually pulled off a great prequel!

5. 13 Assassins



Takashi Miike's samurai film is truly awesome, the 45 minute action finale is stunning!

4. Super 8



Good old fashioned Summer popcorn flick!

3. Submarine



Great debut! A quirky British coming of age film, very funny.

2. Drive

Coolest film of the year, stylish, visceral and a cool soundtrack. I think this will become a timeless classic!

1. I Saw The Devil



A massively original and inventive thriller. This is destined to be (badly) re-made by Hollywood.

So, I Finally Watched Avatar...

Yeah, I took the plunge. It's only been 2 years! I avoided it on the initial release for a few reasons, mainly all the hype. Hype often puts me off a film, that combined with the fact Cameron's last film was the bloated and equally 'hyped' Titanic didn't put it to the top of my must see pile.

Now I've seen it, has it changed my mind?



Despite all the hype I had considerably low expectations for this film, and it pains me to say this, but I found myself enjoying it! Mainly because of all the eye candy, I watched it on bluray and the film is quite incredible visually. Scene after scene impressed and wowed me, on an aesthetic level anyway, and this was before I'd even been taken away to the forests of 'Pandora'.

One of the other things that put me off it originally was the art design of the 'Na'vi', I thought they looked cheesy, and all the spiritual, connected to nature shit that comes with them is a bit cringe worthy. But, somehow the film immersed me in its world, and it got me caring about them. I also found the lead female character Neytiri (played brilliantly by Zoe Saldana) strangely attractive!




I'm not the biggest fan of Cameron, I prefer Ridley Scott's Alien over Cameron's Aliens and I still think his best work is the original Terminator. And I absolutely hate Titanic! I have to give him credit for one thing though, he can direct action with the very best, Avatar is more like a thrill ride than a film.

Now, the story isn't exactly original, it begs, borrows, steals and blatantly rips off a lot of other ideas! But a very famous person once said; 'good artists borrow, great artists steal', I wouldn't call this a work of art, but it is damn impressive visually. Flaws and fluffy plot aside, this is a technical achievement, in the forests of Pandora I was completely spirited away.

There was a ton of films that I thought were better than Avatar in 2009 (Moon, District 9, Watchmen, Zombieland and Inglorious Basterds to name a few). Not quite as good as the hype, but I did enjoy it all the same.

8/10

BRICKS OF WAR

Amazing Gears of War animation made with lego!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua5qh40x4KA&feature=player_embedded

Top 10 Badass Videogame Characters

Kick-Ass videogames need characters who can, urm, well, kick-ass!

Obviously this is my own personal list, not everyone's favourite bad-ass will make the cut! Leave a comment with who you'd have. I've tried to avoid characters that are more known for their comics or films (i.e Batman).

In reverse order;


10. Dante - Devil May Cry



He's part Devil and slays Demonic beasties for a living! And he somehow makes that gothic-red leather shit look cool.


9. Jack - Mass Effect 2



I could have gone for Commander Shepard, that would have been the obvious choice. But, Jack just OOZES bad-ass! A dangerous criminal locked away in a space prison, with her shaved head and tattoos, not to mention her powerful biotic powers! She would have brutal animal sex with you! And then probably eat you afterwards.

8. Kazuya Mishima - Tekken series



Kazuya is pretty bad-ass; he's survived being dropped from a mountain! And was once thrown into a volcano! WTF!? He's beaten on his old man and even his own son! And he's got the 'devil gene'...


7. Sam Gideon - Vanquish



From massively underrated shooter Vanquish, Sam slides across the screen at break-neck speeds wearing a super cool mech suit. He drop-kicks robots in the face!

6. E. Honda - Street Fighter series



Ryu may be the face of classic beat em' up 'Street Fighter', but a 300 pound Sumo wrestler bitch-slapping his enemies one hundred times a second is way more bad-ass!


5. Starkiller - Star Wars The Force Unleashed



Darth Vader's secret apprentice and hunter of the remaining few Jedi after order 66. Starkiller's skills with the force and a lightsabre make even the best of Jedi look like Jar Jar Stinks.



4. Marcus Fenix - Gears of War



Cole Train's got more beef, but Fenix is way more bad-ass. Stomping on the Locust Horde is like playing a round of golf for this dude.


3. Sephiroth - Final Fantasy 7



He looks like a Goth girl, but he would still cut you in half and then set you on fire. The quintessential RPG baddie!


2. Master Chief - Halo



The Halo fanboy in me couldn't leave the big chief out of this list. It's MASTER CHIEF! He's a 7 foot tall one man army. He teabags his enemies too, smooth.


1. Solid Snake - Metal Gear Solid



Solid Snake. Nuff said!


...ok then, he single-handedly took on a tank and won! He's knacked up a vampire, a cyborg ninja, various mechs, and even his Dad! He's the epitome of bad-ass! And in MGS4 he's got a moustashe! Win



Snake? SNAKE?! SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!

Knightcon Movie Exhibition at Xscape.

Knightcon was a free event at Xscape in Castleford, it just happened to be on one of the hottest days of the year, a phantom late summer in October! This made for one exceptionally good and geeky day!

I went along with the Family Wall; my wife, little girl Lydia, and brother James, we were also accompanied by our good friend David.



Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters!

It being free and a nice day, the place was ram-packed! I was in full geek-uniform, Stormtrooper playing Space Vaders arcade Tee and Ghostbusters belt (2 different people asked me where I got it from ha)!




David and R2D2!

I almost cried when I saw 2 fully functional R2D2s (wasn't expecting to see them)! I came over all nostalgic and wanted to run home and watch the Star Wars films on bluray all over again.



"Where we're going we don't need roads!"

There was loads of fan-made cars outside the exhibition and then inside Xscape there was the real McCoy, behind security ropes. Loads of other geeky delights awaited inside (Darth Vader, Stormtroopers, Daleks, R2D2...)



Best. Day. Ever!


Almost...

Gears 3 (The End of an Era)

The last game in the current story arc, possibly even the last Gears of War (I doubt it though)! Being a big fan of the series I'm excited and sad all at the same time, it's great to be playing as Marcus and co again, yet it's possibly the last one...

So, I've been playing through the campaign (my job allows me to play games early :P), and I have to say it's pretty slow to start. It doesn't go off with a bang like previous games; there's a lot of story build-up, flashbacks, wondering around and not actually getting to smash the Locust hordes (what Gears does best).



But wait! I play co-op, my partner in crime is the missus. And to its merit the game gets better and better as you progress, on previous games the wifey has grown a little bored (she prefers Army of Two!), but this times she's asking to play it longer!

The game mechanics are more of the same (if it's not broke, why fix it?) altough they've added plenty of new things to make it a worth while purchase. And I love the addition of mechs in the game! Except for the slow start the only other grumble I have so far is an underwater level that felt a little like filler to me and wasn't much fun to play. They've improved online play massively and Horde was one of the best online experiences anyway! Gears 3 will certainly be most fun played online.

Also, I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but there's some gargantuan shocks in store plot wise this time around!


One final note,

"Cole Train Eats Whole Grain Baby!
WOOOOOO!"

Star Wars on bluray

A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away...

ahem, Star Wars is one of my biggest passions, so the thought of seeing my childhood memories in HD was a little exciting! I bought the original boxset on blu, didn't bother with the full set, I'm not as keen on the prequels (owning them on DVD is enough!). That said, I did actually like 'Revenge of the Sith' quite a lot.

Anyway, with the original set you just get the films, a bit stingy really. I almost took it back to exchange for the full-set with the shoddy prequels, just for the bonus supplements and a nice box. But, I just couldn't really justify the price difference. A shame I traded in my DVD boxset (along with the bonus features! ARRGH!). Ah well, after a mammoth movie marathon, here are my thoughts...



Star Wars

Well, the picture quality almost made me cry (in a good way), it's amazing to see 'A New Hope' looking so crisp and shiny! Over the years the classic has started to look a tad stale, even with the remastered version. And the transfer doesn't lose any of the charm, it's still got the same tone as before, but now it's in HD! And the sound design! WOW! Some scenes do look better than others, the first film has some saturation issues in the desert scenes, but nothing major. In dark scenes the film excels, it looks very slick indeed. The sheen of the droids, the inky blacks, and all the tiny details on actors faces can be seen.

The added CG Jabba doesn't look as bad, don't get me wrong, you can't polish a turd and it's still ugly as hell! The film would be better without this scene and a lot of the other added stuff too! The minor CG guff didn't spoil my enjoyment and scene after scene wowed me. Nostalgia was in full throttle! I have to say some of the model work on the ships and the battle sequences look truly stunning seen for the first time in high-definition!


Empire Strikes Back

Empire is one of my all time favourite films, and is my fave in the series. Being a dark film it really benefits from the HD upgrade. Empire seems to be the least effected by tacky CG too. Which is a good!



Empire is consistent and looks great, as films go it's pretty much perfect!

Now for the one that people are talking about...

Return of the Jedi

There's a lot of online nerd rage going on about the added sound tweaks on this one. But, I will get back to that later. The thing that pisses me off the most about Jedi is that scene that was added on the DVD release near the start. You know the one! During the attempts at rescuing Han Solo from Jabba there is a scene in his lair with a really irritating singing CG alien. It's truly awful! The worst thing to happen to Star Wars, even worse than Jar Jar!

'Return of the Jedi' was fine before this monstrosity was added, and the original scene is way better! The musics better, the puppets are better than the crude CG, and it just doesn't go with the tone of the film at all! WHY? WHY LUCAS? WHY!! Except for THAT scene I really like Jedi, it's a good fun action flick, I even like the Ewoks! Getting back to the Bluray review, the forest scenes in particular look really nice!

The added sounds I talked about earlier didn't bother me that much to be honest, the purist in me wanted it to be exactly how it used to be though. Was it better when Darth stood silently watching the Emperor attack Luke, contemplating his actions? I don't think you need to watch each version and properly analyse them to work that one out, fuck yeah it was better before! It's way more chilling and atmospheric that way. But, the added sound isn't as bad as the 'NOOOOO!' at the end of 'Revenge of the Sith', like all the rage seems to suggest! So, swings and roundabouts.

I would say the bluray upgrade is definitely worth a purchase, the difference in picture quality is something to marvel at, and the sound is cinematic perfection!