Best and Worst movies of 2010

There’s not a moment in this excruciatingly painful, cliché-filled ridiculously tedious excuse for a film that is not horrible. A star-filled orgy that does not work for either the romance or comedy. Just…terrible.

Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Tim Burton seem like a match made in heaven so such a great combination seemed, at first, like a brilliant idea. But the execution? A total borefest that might look pretty but turned into what’s probably Burton’s worst film, even worse than the mediocre Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

And Burton’s direction wasn’t the only disappointing thing. The performances? Uninspired, the music? Derivative, the script (the third act in particular)? Terrible. In the end the only amazing thing about this movie is just how Tim Burton managed to screw it up so royally.

Remember Me is not a good movie because of its lead actors, who are terrible and lack any real chemistry. But everything surrounding them is actually pretty great. The story is surprisingly captivating and shocking and the performances by Chris Cooper and Pierce Brosnan are absolutely sublime. It’s not a great movie, it could’ve been so much better with better leads, but for what I was expecting, it turned out pretty good.

With competition such as Natalie Portman in Black Swan, Jeremy Renner in The Town and Stephen Dorff in Somewhere, it wasn’t easy to pick a “best” performance of the year. But my favorite and the most surprisingly amazing of them all is Jesse Eisenberg who has come a lot way since being “Michael Cera 2.0”. His Mark Zucerkberg is cold, manipulative, calculating and mesmerizing. He has proven to be one of the finest young actors and I hope we see more of this in the future.

Cliché as the choice might be, Inception is still the best movie of the year. There’s not a dull moment through the movie, and the whole film is a constant climax. Few directors are as good in combining exciting and well made action pieces with a well-crafted and interesting story as Christopher Nolan is. Not only that but every performance is incredible and the soundtrack is among the best of all time. Inception is proof that originality in blockbuster movies isn’t dead yet.

Runner-ups:

Black Swan started as one thing and ended as something completely different. It’s so well made that it works as a psychological drama, a thriller and even a horror movie and it’s all thanks to Darren Aronofsky’s bold direction and Natalie Portman’s incredible performance. Masterfully shot, visually compelling and superbly acted.

More than a movie, Enter the Void is an experience. It doesn’t bother with trivial things such as a plot, or dialogue, or even music. It’s all about showing death from another perspective. It’s an interesting way to see the afterlife and it won’t leave the viewer’s mind even after they finish watching it.

The ghost Writer is such a tight and well-crafted movie that is hard to leave it out the list. Roman Polanski (who I’ve always considered overrated) does a great job at setting up tension and gets the performance of a lifetime out of Pierce Brosnan.

The Kids Are Allright is a heartwarming story that takes us deep into the psyche of what to many might seem like an uncommon family. It’s beautifully told thanks to the great direction, fantastic script and emotionally charged performances by Annette Benning, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo.

Funny, action-packed, wonderfully edited and infinitely quotable. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is perfect in almost every imaginable way, from the casting to the music to the translation of the comics. It’s definitely the best video game movie, and it’s not even based on a videogame!

The Social Network is a lot like its main character: smart, funny, dark, sometimes cold, exciting and always unpredictable. A very well directed work with surprisingly fantastic performances by its three leads . Definitely one of the most memorable of the year.

The first 30 or so minutes of Somewhere are all about setting a mood, showing us the lonely, sometimes boring life of a big Hollywood star (played amazingly by Stephen Dorff). If this had been done by any other director it would’ve been just plain boring, but under the hands of Sofia Coppola it’s just great. She is a master at creating great characters who the viewer can relate to, and the story itself is a roller coaster of emotions. It’s not quite as awe-inspiring as Lost in Translation was, but this is an absolute masterpiece.

Going back some 4 years ago when I first watched Armageddon, one thing I couldn’t get off my mind besides “man, this movie sucks” was “Ben Affleck is a pretty terrible actor” and I confirmed this after watching Daredevil and Surviving Christmas. Who would’ve thought that only a few years later he would not only deliver an amazing performance, but also co-write and direct one of my favorite movies of the year? The Town owes a lot to Heat and though it’s not as great as that movie it feels more human. My only real criticism: Jon Hamm.

Probably the darkest, most complex and haunting movie of 2010 and Jennifer Lawrence’s star making performance is something that proves to be hard to forget, even month’s after watching it for the first time.

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Special thanks to Adriana Gómez for the designs.

Just Dance 2 review

Just Dance 2 had me from the moment I started playing the first song, which if I remember correctly was A-Punk by Vampire Weekend, one of my favorites. And that’s a lot to say considering I was expecting this to be complete garbage and something I got to keep my girlfriend and friends entertained during parties with its gimmicks. Who would’ve thought this would be one of the most fun rhythm games I’ve played and a must for parties.

The whole point of Just Dance 2 is to lose your inhibitions; it’s all about looking silly while recreating the moves seen on the screen. The Wiimote is held in the right hand and used to perform the moves. Why isn’t the balance board used is beyond me but that’s not a big deal considering I don’t have one and the motion controls are pretty accurate even without motion plus.

The most surprising thing of all is that performing the moves with just the remote doesn’t feel random at all, there’s always some level of technique required to nail the moves. Screwing up will result in no points and waving the control around randomly isn’t going to cut it, you have to do the exact moves or you’re just going to flat out fail. Another interesting thing is that real life dancing skills will translate into the game, for example I have a friend who is a pretty great dancer and was able to pretty much nail every move and perform from head to toe almost exactly like the dancers on the screen, the difference in the score was notable.

The song list is also fantastic and diverse. There are many genres and styles covered in this 40 song list. From 80s classics such as The Bangles’ Walk Like an Egyptian and Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go , international tunes from India and Africa, old school classics like Elvis Presley’s Viva Las Vegas and Harry Belafonte’s Jump in the Line and more recent hits such as Outkast’s Hey Yah and Rihanna’s S.O.S. The variety of songs is impressive and while there are a few turn-offs, for the most part there are more hits than misses.

Graphically, Just Dance 2 is a great looking game. The neon-looking dancers and song specific outfits and backgrounds all look fantastic. It’s a nice touch that both the choreography and background match the style of the song, for example there’s a desert and pyramids in the Walk like an Egyptian stage, the dancers have mullets and short shorts in Wake Me up Before You Go-Go and Kris Kross’ Jump has a ghetto-looking background and the lyrics will appear in graffiti during the song. Though it’s lacking a bit on the menu presentation and design, Just Dance 2 is an overall great looking game.

The choreography is also excellent and more often than not, hilarious to perform and see your friend performs. Duets, which feature two dancers to follow, are probably the funniest part as both dancers have unique choreography and more often than not will have you striking hilarious poses. The only downside to the choreography is that it requires plenty of space to perform, especially duets as spins and crossovers are usually part of the routine.

The game itself lacks depth but that’s not really important and the lack of a single player career mode doesn’t hurt Just Dance 2 because playing alone is not the point of the game, it’s all about playing with friends and it works wonderfully well at providing a fun, accessible and hilarious experience. As far as “casual” Wii games go, Just Dance 2 is one of the best.

GoldenEye 007 Wii Review

The 007 videogame series has had a rough time since it hit its peak with Everything or Nothing back in 2004: GoldenEye: Rogue Agent was at best a mediocre FPS and at worst a tedious exercise in frustration, From Russia With Love was decent enough to play all the way through but utterly forgettable, Quantum of Solace was a step in the right direction but it was held back by glitches and a frustrating campaign and Blood Stone… well, Blood Stone just downright sucked. Thankfully, Activision has hit the jackpot with this remake of the classic N64 game, which comes closest to provide a superb 007 experience.

Now, let’s be honest for a second. Goldeneye 007 has aged poorly. Most people hold it in high regard because of nostalgia, but considering the advancements in the genre over the years, it stands as a nearly unplayable first person shooter today. That’s not to say it’s a terrible game. When it came out I was among those who went batshit over it. But truth is, nowadays it stands as nothing but a piece of videogame history.

The great thing about Activision’s Goldeneye remake for the Wii is that it doesn’t rely on nostalgia. It improves on absolutely every aspect of the original and it’s a fantastic game on its own right. In fact, it would’ve been just as good without the Goldeneye name backing it up.

The story pits Bond against the Janus organization, which has taken over the Goldeneye satellite and plans to use it to steal all the money from the bank of England. While this sounds awfully similar to the original game’s (and movie) storyline, the locations, characters and several scenes have been reworked to fit Daniel Craig’s version of Bond so it feels grittier and modern, which is a welcomed addition.

The single player portion provides an exciting globe-trotting experience and features a strong variety of gameplay elements and enemy types. While most of it consists of shooting levels, there are also vehicle and stealth missions, Quick-time Events and boss battles. The gameplay is pretty refined and borrows a lot from Infinity Ward’s and Trechyard’s Call of Duty series, especially from Trechyard’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex as the controls are for the most part the same, but tweaked to make them more fluid. While there’s a variety of control option including Gamecube and Classic Control support, I always felt at ease with the Wiimote + Nunchuck combo as they’re very fluid and consistently accurate. I’d go as far as saying that they are only second to Metroid Prime Trilogy as the best fps controls on the Wii.

One of the best things about the campaign is that it’s challenging. I died… a lot. Now that might have been because I suck at fps and videogames in general but it was mostly because the game’s difficulty is very balanced, it’s never too hard, but it’s never easy. The enemy AI in particular is really well made, they are smart and react accordingly to your actions, taking cover and running from place to place to find the best spot to take you down, among other things. The best thing about it is that the gameplay is so well designed that I can only remember a couple of occasions where I felt that my dead was the game’s fault and not because of a poor decision I made.

The multiplayer aspect was what people remember most fondly about the original Goldeneye and for the remake it comes back with all the gameplay refinements present in the single player campaign, as well as new modes, weapons and characters. While the offline is rather disappointing in that it doesn’t feature AI bots, it still is enjoyable. The online is among the best the Wii has to offer, there’s a highly competitive community so it’s never difficult to find a match in any of the modes and none of the games I’ve played so far suffered from any lag so it’s pretty smooth as far as I’m concerned. The variety of modes is also nice; Golden Gun mode in particular is amazingly fun. And the XP progression and unlockables make it really addictive too.

Graphically, Goldeneye stands shoulder to shoulder with first party Nintendo games as an excellent looking game. The levels are rich in detail and the character design and animation is also excellent. The game is also really colorful, which is a nice contrast to the grey-looking style of the Call of Duty series and most modern FPS. The voice acting, which sees Craig and Judi Dench reprising their roles from the movies, is also well done.

Goldeneye is not without its flaws. The frame rate tends to drop quite a bit when things get hectic, it suffers from long loading times and the original music is forgettable. But for everything it does wrong, it does twice as much right. Eurocom has made an excellent job at updating the venerable shooter and making this remake not only one of the best for the Wii, but also of this generation.