Top 10 of 2010

I had wanted to do this earlier, but I just didn't have the time. Now that I do, let me give you my top 10 films of 2010.

This list will comprise of my favourites of the year, and I have tried seeing as many movies as I could. Some films won't make the list because they had been banned or delayed, so bear with me.


1. The Book Of Eli
Set in a post-apocalyptic future, Denzel Washington plays Eli, a man on a mission to deliver a very important book to a location west of the country. As he walks through a small town, he runs into Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a gangster who is very interested in that book, and goes all out to get it. A battle ensues. Washington and Oldman deliver sterling performances as expected, with Mila Kunis providing some good support. A great film with a neat twist towards the end.

2. Clash Of The Titans
Most critics hated this film, but I actually found it fun. Avatar's Sam Worthington plays Perseus, the human son of Zeus whose foster family is killed by Hades. Hades threatens to unleash his monster The Kraken on the city of Argos unless they sacrifice their princess. Argos turns to Perseus for help. With a few brave men and a half-god, they set out to find a way to kill The Kraken. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes step into the roles of Zeus and Hades respectively. The film isn't perfect, but I had a blast watching this.

3. Frozen
What would you do if you found yourself trapped on a ski-lift after operating hours are over, high above the ground and nowhere to go? That is the premise of this thriller. Three friends, Joe, Dan and Parker decide to take one last run up the mountain, but the operator, not knowing that there is still someone on the lift, shuts it down and calls it a night. The three, now stuck up there with no way down, suffering in the freezing temperatures and facing the prospect of being there till next weekend, start to panic, and desperate measures are taken, with very unpleasant results. Shawn Ashmore, Emma Bell and Kevin Zegers are terrific as the three kids, and director Adam Green deserves a lot of credit for his realistic direction of the film.

4. How To Train Your Dragon
This animated feature tells the story of Hiccup, a young boy from a village of Vikings. Unlike his fellow brethren, Hiccup isn't brave or strong. His father Stoick, is a brave leader as he rallies the Vikings in defending the village against dragons. Hiccup, in his attempt to prove himself worthy, manages to capture a dragon, but instead of killing it, he befriends the creature, whom he names Toothless. Together, they strike an unlikely bond and he learns more about dragons in the process. But trouble ensues when his dad finds out. The animation here is awesome and the story very engaging. One of the better animated films of last year.

5. Toy Story 3
Pixar's flagship film comes to a close at last, and what a finale it is. Woody, Buzz and the other toys face the prospect of being put away forever when their owner Andy goes off to college. Through a few mishaps, they end up in a day care centre, where the toys are run by Lotso, a teddy bear who seems nice at first, until he shows his true colours. If you have been following the Toy Story films, you shouldn't miss this. It has a great storyline and tons of funny moments, and the ending is just beautiful.

6. Inception
Christopher Nolan brings yet another masterpiece that everyone seems to call the movie of the year. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a man who can enter other people's dreams and steal their secrets. A Japanese businessman, Saito hires Cobb to plant an idea into his business rival's mind. In order to perform this complex task, Cobb assembles a team of experts to assist him. And as expected, chaos follows. Nolan has not only succeeded in creating a brilliant story, but also manages to rope in the best Hollywood cast to make it happen. Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe and Marion Cotillard also star. In the end, Inception may be a bit too cerebral for mainstream audiences, but give it a chance and you might find it fun.

7. Repo Men
In this film, there are companies that manufacture artificial organs, and they offer them to needy patients for a price. But when patients don't pay their bills on time, they send over their men to repossess the organs by force. Jude Law and Forest Whitaker play Remy and Jake, two such repo men who are best friends. However, when Remy gets injured and ends up with an artificial heart, he finds himself on the run and learns what it's like to be on the 'other' side. This film may not make any statements worth saying about health care, but it does offer plenty of violent, in-your-face action, which makes it a lot of fun to watch.

8. Buried
Rodrigo Cortes directs this unique thriller where Ryan Reynolds stars as Paul Conroy, a truck driver in Iraq who wakes up in a box, several feet underground. He only has a lighter and a cellphone with him. For the next 90 minutes, you will see him do many things to try and escape, mostly involving calling for help on the phone, only to be denied time and time again from the person on the other end. The film is pure brilliance as it manages to sustain your interest for the entire 90 minutes without leaving the box. Now how does that not count as amazing?

9. Let Me In
Out of all the films I watched last year, this is probably my favourite. Based on the Swedish novel and film Let The Right One In, this film is about two young adults; Owen, a boy who suffers bullying at his school and feels isolated from his mother, and Abby, the mysterious girl that moves in next door to him. They strike an unlikely friendship, but Owen soon learns that Abby is a vampire, which complicates matters. Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz are simply fantastic in their roles, and I feel that they both deserve Oscars for this. The film itself deserves more attention than its getting, and that's just unfair. Never before have I seen a story that's so tragic, yet dark and beautiful at the same time. You should see this if you haven't yet.

10. The Social Network
David Fincher directs this very fascinating drama about the formation of Facebook, a site which I'm sure you're all familiar with. It chronicles how Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard student, forms the site with best friend Eduardo Saverin, their involvement with Napster creator Sean Parker, the fallouts that followed and the lawsuits that came forth. Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield are great as Mark and Eduardo respectively. I think that this film would appeal not only to Facebook users, but also non-users who may end up joining the site. It's a phenomenal piece of work.


Some other films that deserve some mention (even though they didn't necessarily get the higher ratings on my review blog) are The American, Despicable Me, The Crazies, Kick-Ass and The Next Three Days.


So there you have it. If you need to know what to rent or buy the next time you walk into a video store, look out for some of these pictures. Bring on 2011!

Pesky Kids / Para-no more

I'm going to talk about two things in one post this time, so that I don't have to make two posts, it's better this way.

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Yesterday morning, I was at my favourite restaurant having my breakfast. Near my table was a large family of six, which included two kids and one servant. The younger kid, a little girl who was about three years old, had an empty plate in front of her and a pair of eating fork and spoon. She used the fork and spoon like they were drumsticks and started hammering away on the plate. (I've seen this before actually, kids being given cutlery and then they start misusing them) After a while, the servant took the plate away from the girl, which subsequently made the girl dump the cutlery violently on the floor. Her parents put everything right back in front of her and told her to be quiet.

But of course, like all kids her age, that is NOT going to work. She went back at it again, hammering away like she was Phil Collins on crack. So this time they took the cutlery out of her hands, and she promptly took the plate and dumped it violently on the floor. And yes, that got everyone's attention, including the 20 other people there trying to eat. So they took everything away from her. The she started to cry. Loudly.

And this is where I thought "Oh, this is actually an improvement, because now she's making noise for not getting what she wants, instead of making noise because she got what she wanted." And for every moment she spent bawling her lungs out, I was celebrating inside, even though I hate it when kids do that.

I know this girl can't understand me right now, but I got this to say to you: I don't care if you think you're the next Zac Farro, Tre Cool or Rob Bourdon. You suck at drumming, and if you were my kid, you'd never leave the house again.

But I don't blame her, not really. I blame her stupid parents. Newsflash to you parents: if you have a kid below two, take them out by all means. They'd probably spend it sitting in their pram drinking their milk, or sleeping the whole time. But if your child is above two and not old enough to feed themselves, please for the love of God, keep them at home. Hire a babysitter, get your in-laws or a trustworthy friend to watch over them, just don't take them out. Don't you get it yet??? They don't know any better. They'll just do what they like, and they won't listen to you because they don't care. Why would you take them to places like the shopping mall, or the restaurant, or the cinema? Why? Especially the cinema. You think they'd actually fathom what they see on screen? I challenge you to prove that! You wanna shop for them? You can do it without them. You wanna feed them? Do it at home. Don't take them out. Please.

Later that afternoon, I saw this woman holding her crying son in one hand, and her cellphone in the other. He was crying because she wouldn't give him the phone, and he kept reaching for it. He cried over and over and over, but she refused to budge. Deep down I kept thinking "Yeah, you go girl. Don't give it to him. Let him cry till he's out of breath. Better that than him dropping the phone and you gotta get a new one." Yeah, I sound mean. But I don't want to abuse any kid, I just want them to shut up.

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Earlier this week I received news that Josh and Zac Farro decided to leave Paramore. That felt really surreal, since it was just two months ago that I saw them in action, live. And from the looks of it then, they never looked like they had any trouble within.

But I did remember Josh saying in an interview that he and Zac were tired of touring, so I thought maybe that was why. But then I dug up some dirt on the real reasons behind their departure. You can read them here: http://joshnfarro.blogspot.com/2010/12/josh-and-zacs-exit-statement.html

And well, it is rather shocking. To think that Paramore were always on the brink of splitting up because their formation was never smooth to begin with. I wonder now if Hayley is guilty of whatever Josh is accusing her of, or all this is just backstage politics that got out of hand. Either way, it's sad. It's sad because Paramore had plenty of potential. I didn't love them as much as M2M, but I still had hopes for them.

According to Hayley, she will go on with Jeremy and Taylor, but will it be the same without the Farros? Who knows. This shouldn't have happened, and now the fans will suffer. But I still wanna wish all five of them good luck, and hopefully things will work out better as time goes by.

Look Who's In Town

For those of you who have known me since the existence of the M2M online community, you'd know Silvia Violante, or Silvy as we all call her. She was in KL for the past three days, and we had an opportunity to meet up today.

The first few things that I can tell you about her after meeting her in person are:
- she has a pair of really pretty brown eyes
- she loves playing with her hair
- she loves talking, and she admitted it too :p

But the best thing about her is that she's cool with most things. As I took her around KL a bit today, we did a lot of walking. We were both tired, but she never complained. At one point, I wanted to pay for her train ticket, but she wouldn't let me.

As we spent time together, she spoke about a lot of things, like meeting Patty (another one of our friends) in Monterrey, her life in Australia for the past several months, her family, her hometown, the guy she's dating now and travelling. She's just amazing, in the sense that she's very down to earth and very easy to get along with.

So now officially, she is the third M2M friend I've met in person, and the first one from beyond my borders. ;) Thank you Silvy, for your generous time.

For Anouk

In 25 minutes, my dear friend Anouk will be celebrating her 22nd birthday.

I feel that out of all my friends, she is the most unique, and she cares about me more than I had realized. So Anouk, thank you for your kindness ;)

This song is for you. Happy Birthday!