Oscar Predictions

Well, life has been pretty hectic as of late... I'm sorry to anyone who actually was following me and has been missing my MLiF blogs... I knew I wouldn't be able to keep this up all year, but I was really proud for staying with it or a few weeks at least.  Hopefully, I'll have more time before my next show starts rehearsing in April (although I'm traveling to CA and FL in March, so we'll see)

Anyway, I figured I'd throw my hat in the ring since I've been seeing so many Oscar Prediction blogs... Especially since this is probably the last year where I'll see 90% of the nominees.

The Dark Knight (2008)

#1 - 2008 Box Office: Gross $533,345,358

Why so serious?

Roughly six months after the events of Batman Begins, Gotham City is terrorized by a new kind of villain—one who doesn't steal for personal gain but rather one who simply enjoys spreading chaos—the Joker (Heath Ledger).  Christopher Nolan returns as director/co-writer, as does Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Michael Caine as his butler/friend Alfred, Morgan Freeman as Wayne Enterprises CEO & Q to Batman's 007 Lucius Fox & Gary Oldman as Lt. Gordon.  New to the cast are Maggie Gyllenhaal, who replaces Katie Holmes as Bruce's love interest Rachel Dawes, and Aaron Eckhart, as love interest to Ms. Dawes DA Harvey Dent.  Joker sets forth a plan to turn the city's White Knight, Dent, into a villain, in the process creating Two-Face.  Batman's ally turns into his enemy and he suddenly has to decide whether he wants to continue being the city's Dark Knight, fighting for what's right or should he hang up his Bat-Belt and be the playboy billionaire Rachel said she'd wait for?

Delay

Well, I lasted a month!  I kept up the weekly blogs through January (which was longer than I would have wagered), but here we are with a Friday come and gone and no new MLiF blog...

For anyone actually following me, looking forward to me reviews every week, I apologize... I'm nearly done watching my next film and I've already started working on the trivia... It's just that damn plot summary and review I have to write... I may be able to finish it this weekend; I think I may move my blogs to Tuesdays (new DVD releases) rather than Fridays (new theatrical releases) due to the high number of hits I received this past week on my Worst of 2010 blog.

I am also winnowing down the list of films into a Top 10 of 2010... But I'm still trying to fit in a few more movies on DVD so that blog is still a few weeks out.

Anyway, I figured something is better than nothing this morning and I promise to get my next MLiF blog up Tuesday morning!

Worst of 2010

So far, I've seen 195 different films from 2010 (with a few more DVDs coming this month)... I've heard there were about 600 films released in 2010, so I've again seen roughly 1/3 of them!  Seeing as I'm going to be watching a lot fewer films this year, I figured I needed to make one last Worst of/Best of list since I've seen so many films...

I'm looking at the list of 2010 films I saw and the average rating I gave to all of them is 2.9 stars which makes me think I might over-rate movies, because 2010 didn't feel like all that great of a year.  The actual breakdown is as follows:

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

#2 - 1989 Box Office: Gross $197,171,806

Have the adventure of your life keeping up with the Joneses

The third and final installment of Spielberg's Indiana Jones trilogy (trust me) opens as a thirteen-year-old Indiana (River Phoenix) stumbles across some grave robbers in the Utah desert.  He rushes home with their booty, where we meet young Indy's strict and distant father Henry (Sean Connery), who's meticulously filling a diary with notes about the legendary Holy Grail.  Nearly thirty years later, Henry goes missing while searching for the Grail and a grown-up Indy (Harrison Ford) is asked to pick up where his father left off to find both pop and cup.  Indy is joined by old friends Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) along with a new lady Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody) as they travel from Venice to Berlin to a canyon outside Alexandretta, piecing together clues, running into Hitler and finally confronting the three trials of God.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)

#1 - 2001 Box Office: Gross $317,575,550

Let The Magic Begin.

Chris Columbus's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone marks the first of what was to become an 8-film series based on J.K. Rowling's best-selling novels about a boy wizard.  It opens with baby Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) being dropped off at his Aunt and Uncle's house after his parents are killed by the evilest of all wizards, Lord Voldemort.  Fast forward to Harry's 11th birthday when he receives a letter inviting him to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where headmaster Dumbledore (Richard Harris) and other professors will teach him. While on the train to Hogwarts, Harry meets Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and the three fast become friends.  Together, they learn charms and spells while Harry is chosen to join the school's Quidditch team (think soccer on broomsticks).  As the year goes on, rumors spread that Voldemort may be returning to power, seeking the titular Sorcerer's Stone which guarantees the owner eternal life.  Will three young students be able to stop the most powerful dark wizard of all time? (HINT: this is the first of an 8-film series)

Jurassic Park (1993)

#1 - 1993 Box Office: Gross $357,067,947

An Adventure 65 Million Years In The Making

Spielberg & Williams make their second MLiF appearance.  Based on Michael Crichton's novel of the same name, Jurassic Park is about a theme park built by billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough).  Only this theme park isn't filled with roller coasters and over-priced cotton candy; this park features hundreds of cloned dinosaurs.  Investors are wary, so Hammond invites some experts in the field for a preview—paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) & choas theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) join Hammond's grandchildren (the park's "target audience") to tour the island and give their approval.  Meanwhile, computer programmer Nedry (Wayne Knight) hatches a plan to steal cloned embryos for a rival company, shutting down the phones and park's security measures in the process.  Oh, and did I mention the tropical storm headed for the island forcing most everyone to evacuate?  With the island mostly empty and the fences deactivated, hijinks are bound to ensue.  The T. rex and Velociraptors escape, killing some characters while the rest try to reset the park.  The fact that there were two sequels probably tell you how the story ends...