Harry Potter and the Death of Your Childhood.

A review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is hardly necessary at this point.  If you've seen the other films in the franchise it is doubtful that you'd miss the conclusion, and it would be wholly idiotic to see the thing without first having made it through most of the others.  Although, if you were considering it, you should know that (thankfully) the filmmakers made no attempt to appeal to any newcomers.  Deathly Hallows: Part 2 picks up moments after part one left off, and has little time to spare for any off hand reminders of what has gone on before.

Whether or not this final installment is effective is debatable.  Its first act, in which Harry, Ron and Hermione invade the vaults of Gringott's, is by far the strongest; continuing the steady buildup of events--executed so well in Deathly Hallows: Part 1--necessary before facing the evil Voldemort.  But upon their return to Hogwarts, the film starts to feel like the earlier chapters:  too much plot crammed into too little time.

Jennifer Aniston is a Whorable Boss.

This image is likely all that anyone will remember of Horrible Bosses, regardless of whether they decided they liked the film or not.  Now I'm sure if you've seen it, you're all like, "Whoa, bro!  There was some funny stuff in that movie, dogg!"  But given a few years, this thesis will likely prove to be true.  Comedy doesn't seem to have any staying power these days, and as I rack my brain for memorable Hollywood moments in the past few years, I seem to be coming up short.  I had to have seen some comedies, right?

This is not to say that Horrible Bosses is bad, it's simply forgettable, which in my mind translates to "not very good," but I'm sure not everyone agrees with me.  If you're looking for a few decent laughs, go see Horrible Bosses.  If the post-Hangover Hollywood comedy is any indication, it's an acceptable offering to those with nothing better to do.

Midnight In Paris, or a Rhinoceros.

Let it be known that I just wrote for an hour and subsequently deleted all of it.  Prefacing a review with ten paragraphs of commentary on the criticism of Woody Allen just didn't seem appropriate.  But, if anything, it illustrates my appreciation of the man.  He has no rival.

But no one wants to hear about my crush on Woody Allen.  Actually, I'm sure a lot of you do (pervs).  But you should also know that my love for Midnight in Paris does not stem from unconditional affection for the man.  You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger was quite dreadful.  Midnight in Paris is just a wonderful, light-hearted comedy.

Owen Wilson's nose is as obnoxiously bent as ever, but he's perfect as what has come to be known as Woody's 'avatar.'  He delivers Woody's dialogue well--though perhaps not as well as Will Ferrell did--for one of today's best known actors, and never nears obnoxiousness as Jason Biggs and Kenneth Branagh did.  Although, in their defense, they did play more neurotic roles (in Anything Else and Celebrity, respectively).  There's no neurosis here, just nostalgia.

Super 8, or Transformers 3: Dark Side of the Childhood.

Dear M. Night Shyamalan,

Dear J.J. Abrams,

We get it.  You like Spielberg.  So do we.  Everyone does.  The only reason Osama Bin Laden was caught was that, in his haste to order the Jurassic Park Blu-ray, he forgot to change the name on his Amazon account.  Everyone. Likes. Spielberg.

But we didn't need you to make a Spielberg drinking game.  If I did a shot every time there was a lens flare or a child staring wondrously into space throughout Super 8, I would have died of alcohol poisoning halfway through.  Combine that with every other Spielberg homage, and this drinking game's inevitable popularity, you very well may wipe out the entire college population.  You cannot build a work of art on shout outs.  Unless you're a rapper.

Hesher, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Walk with Grandma.

Hesher is a film that does not require me to write a letter.  If anything, I should be sending director Spencer Susser a thank you note.  Luckily, I don't live with my mother anymore so I don't have to send anyone a thank you note ever again.  Not everyone will love Hesher, and if you check out Rotten Tomatoes you'll find that some people even hated it, but that's okay.  We'll set their cars on fire later.

Your Highness, or The Longest Dick Joke Ever.

We all knew Your Highness was going to be bad, but the world runs on hope (and possibly James Franco), so I disregarded almost every review of the film in my quest for shameful giggles.  I got a few, but not nearly enough.  After the reasonably well-written first act, Your Highness descends into little more than dick jokes and action sequences; neither of which were very funny.

Moon 2: Source Code

I'm not really sure what's so funny in the picture above, but I can only assume a sandwich is involved.

I have finally emerged from my Netflix coma (however briefly) to rediscover this moving picture nonsense.  I decided to check out Source Code because Hanna wasn't out yet and--let's face it--everything else probably sucks.  Director Duncan Jones' last film, Moon, was solid and Source Code honors its predecessor with its quality and its plot.

This whole article is a spoiler of both films, but as we all know, spoilers don't usually matter. 

The Dry Months.

Just so we're all aware, I haven't given up on this blog like I have in months past.  I simply haven't seen one film in theaters since The King's Speech.  After all, winter is depressing; and there is no need to leave my house just to see Red Riding Hood or Battle: Los Angeles.  Don't worry though, kids.  When I do leave my apartment and venture to the cinema, you will be the first to know.  Although, even when something does strike my fancy, I'll probably just stay home and watch Rebecca Black videos.

The Green Hornet, or Asians Are Cooler Than You.

This film is fictional; as documented by this photo, in which
Seth Rogen is faster than an Asian.

Dear Michel Gondry,

    Thank you for not writing The Green Hornet, because even though the script isn't very good, you most likely would have found a way to make it worse.  That's right, I saw Be Kind Rewind, and I am going to hold it against you forever.

There are still some problems with The Green Hornet, but I had low expectations anyway so they weren't deal-breakers.  It is important to note that the film's entertainment value comes almost entirely from Jay Chou and Christoph Waltz, so those who don't find Engrish funny aren't going to enjoy this film at all.

Who am I kidding; everyone loves Engrish.

The Company Men, or Ben Affleck Can't Afford His Porsche.

It's a tough life when you don't make 160,000 a year anymore.

I expected fairly little out of The Company Men, as the trailer seemed to highlight Ben Affleck screaming, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and for God's sake, people like me."  No one wants to see that.  But I did anyway and was pleasantly surprised.  I'm not saying that The Company Men was that great, but it is incredibly relevant, quite accurate, and one of the few films that has touched on the recent economic climate.

The Company Men stars Ben Affleck, so naturally everyone is from Boston.  His company has just cut three thousand jobs, and his position is no exception.  Naturally, he gets pissed off and decides to get a new job, because he's Ben Affleck and everyone should be begging to employ him.  Turns out, no one cares.

This Year Sucked. Here's My Top 10.

Sorry, kids! I had a PS3 relapse and stopped visiting the internet. Fortunately, I started playing catch up and had enough time to watch pretty much every live action 2010 film I could get my hands on. Wait, did I say fortunately?
Let's face it: 2010 was awful. Even a large portion of the films that were supposed to be mildly entertaining escapism didn't really do the trick. Personally, I think this may be the worst year in cinema's history. I have yet to prove myself wrong on this point, and I welcome all of you to present a year to add to the debate.
There were, of course, still a lot good films this year, and despite the misleading opening statements, it will be the positive I will be discussing in this entry. We'll discuss the piss poor at a later date.

If you think I missed a film, you should be able to find it at the end of this entry, where I intend to list everything I saw or still intend to see. The execution of this plan, however, hinges entirely on my ability to finish this article before I run out of cigarettes.

Also, I did not see any animated films. Whatevs, dogg.

MacGruber has a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I may have not written this entry had I not found this picture.

I think we have a national treasure on our hands; a term I use as defined below:

National Treasure (na·tion·al treas·ure)
- a film which, although being catastrophically flawed in concept, garners exaggerated praise from its audience for somehow not being the huge turd they expected. Based on the movie of the same name.

MacGruber is a spin-off of an SNL skit, which haven't fared well since Wayne's World, and unlike previous SNL fims, the original MacGruber skit wasn't even funny. Okay, maybe it was funny, like, once. MacGruber is essentially a retarded Macgyver. He doesn't use guns, and relies on a variety of scraps to produce explosives; or more realistically here, distractions. His only effective homemade explosive goes off prematurely, and he's apparently more reliable with a stick of celery.

Iron Man 2, or Mickey Rourke's Cockatoo.

Dear readers,

I'm not going to write a letter to Jon Favreau. Deal with it. This is largely due to the fact that I don't have much to say about Iron Man 2, and certainly little to complain about; but also because I'm not going to praise it either. It's Iron Man 2. What did you expect it to be? It's more or less a continuation of the original, an effective sequel, but nothing revolutionary. I'm sure you'd all love the thing if Mickey Rourke had died during filming; but he didn't, and there won't be any pity Oscars given away this year.

Let's be honest. There's always a pity Oscar. That's right, Sandra Bullock. Suck it.

A Necessary Interjection: Whose Idea Was it to Let Me Buy a PS3?

I doubt anyone has noticed, but I haven't updated in a long time. This is most likely due to the fact that I've logged eight days in game time in Call of Duty in the past month. But it is also due to a lack of films coming out that are more interesting than drinking. I do regret missing the Tooth Fairy. That would have been a good entry for all of us.

I really can't blame the quality of cinema, as we all know I prefer to write letters about bad movies. I think I just got winded after making that Top 50 of the decade list. Luckily, I'm not disappointing too many people since I only have nine followers (one of whom I believe is a spambot).

Anyway, here's a little recap to prove I really haven't seen much:

Daybreakers: Too Infuriating to Write About.

Dear Michael and Peter Spierig,

I understand that you probably aren't wearing Edward Cullen underpants right now. You probably don't have the Twilight shower curtain either. But you didn't have to prove it either. Now, you may not have made this film as an attack against Twilight, but your fans certainly see it as such. "Yeah man, vampires are cool again. They ain't whiny fags no more." Lines like this can be seen most places Daybreakers is mentioned on the internet. The comparison does not interest me.

Anyone with half a brain can see that the Twilight films are complete trash, but Daybreakers isn't much better; and it offends me that large amounts of people will praise your film simply because it "isn't Twilight." I'm actually upset that I'm even mentioning Twilight because even though it's a pop culture phenomenon, I don't care about it anymore. It sucked. Move on, people. But everyone is drawing comparisons between the two films, and I really wanted to link to that picture of the underpants. Enough about how Twilight sucks. Let's talk about why Daybreakers sucks. I hate that that's going to be taken as a pun.

Precious, or the Illiterate Dnt Knw Vwls.

Dear Sapphire,

Now technically, you aren't the filmmaker, but since you wrote the novel Precious is based on I feel that you're responsible for its content, which is why I'm writing to you and not the director.

Precious is a character piece in which we are introduced to the titular character at a critical point in her life. She is pregnant with her second child, kicked out of public school, and her mother is still the same evil bitch she always has been. In an attempt to better herself, Precious goes to an alternative school that strives to teach her how to read and write, despite her mother's insistence that learnin' won't get you nowhere. What we get is lots of mother daughter conflict, and a supposed uplifting tale of obstacles overcome. Unfortunately, as Precious' teacher puts it, "your protagonist's circumstances are unrelenting," and just as she's finally making a new life for herself, she finds out that she is HIV+.

So the "uplifting" bit is out the window. Which isn't necessarily bad, but what is the point to all this? You've created these characters and situations, which are intriguing to watch, but is your story really saying anything?