This is it, the final Year in Movies post. Over the last twelve months I’ve watched a total of 71 movies (this includes the movies watched in December) and actually didn’t hate most of them. Note that this number doesn’t include movies that I just caught parts of on TV. If I didn’t see more than 50% of the movie, I didn’t count it. Below you’ll find December’s offerings. Enjoy them, because I don’t know if I’ll do this year long trek again next year.
Lost in Translation
This is a fantastic movie about two people who find each other while both are more or less lost in Tokyo. It’s the movie that re-introduced us to Bill Murray’s hilarity and introduced us to the beauty of Scarlett Johansson’s butt. It’s sweet, it’s well written and directed by Sofia Coppola, it’s a great movie.
Rating: 
Azumi
According to Netflix I enjoy movies that feature a strong female lead, revenge movies, and Japanese movies. Azumi meets all three categories in one film so it’s no wonder that Netflix recommended it. It’s the story of a girl, Azumi, who is orphaned and adopted by a Samurai master and raised, along with a group of other kids, to become the strongest assassins in Japan’s history. The reason? Kill the warlords who are hellbent on taking power and forcing the nation into constant war. Obviously the warlords don’t like this idea and do everything they can to stop Azumi and her fellow assassins. It’s pretty great, especially if you like foreign films featuring stylistic violence. And really, who doesn’t?
Rating: 
The International
This is a “suspense thriller” about a bank that does very bad things. Strangely, a New York District Attorney and an INTERPOL agent are working together on an international investigation. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but maybe it does to you. The movie tries to be way more suspenseful than it is, even uses the cliché piano music to do so. There is a pretty sweet shootout in the Guggenheim, but really, that’s about all this movie has going for it. The plot is convoluted and silly and the suspense is added by the bucket — if this were a comedy there would have been an old fashioned laugh tracked added. It just comes off silly.
Rating:
When Harry Met Sally
Apparently this is a classic movie that everyone’s seen, at least a certain scene from, but I had never seen. It’s cute, it’s got some pretty funny lines, and overall it’s pretty good.
Rating:
Avatar
The mega-hyped, mega-budgeted James Cameron flick about a completely invented world of giant human-like blue people certainly lives up to the special effects and action hype. Surprisingly, unlike all of the reviews, the storyline is very engrossing and solid as well. It’s nothing new and the major themes are all taken from just about everything else out there, but it’s still a really good movie and a really fun ride. I didn’t see it in IMAX or Digital 3D (what the hell is that anyway?) and am glad I didn’t as I’m almost certain it would have given me a headache.
Rating:
Sherlock Holmes
I submit that Robert Downey Jr. is the best actor working in Hollywood today — especially when it comes to rich, eccentric, recluses. While the storyline for Sherlock Holmes is, at times, a little hard to follow Downey’s portrayal is amazing. It was fun and the directing was pretty awesome. The only thing I didn’t really like was the blatant sequel setup at the end of the movie. Can we have quality movies in Hollywood anymore without thinking about a sequel, at least until a few days after the movie comes out?
Rating:
The Incredibles
The Pixar story about a family of super heros who must actually get along in order to stop an evil mastermind is fun and silly and simply enjoyable. The first bit of the movie, explaining the super hero exile from public life, is basically a kid-friendly version of Watchmen. I found that interesting.
Rating:
Sky High
I like movies about super heroes and usually don’t care for things on the Disney Channel, but this is a movie that I actually enjoyed. It’s unique and cleaver and just plain fun. It’s about a high school for super hero kids that are trying to figure out how to use their powers. There’s a class war between the heroes and sidekicks hero support and, well, a real war. It’s fun. Watch it.
Rating:
Elf
See November
Rating:
~ fin ~
It’s November and that means we’re almost to the end of the Year in Movies run. But lets not get all sentimental just yet. On with the movies. Oh, and this might be one of the best Year in Movies posts yet. I’m just sayin’.
Sunshine Cleaning
This is about two sisters who aren’t really do much with their lives and decide to start a crime scene cleanup business. It’s a quarky movie with some laughs but takes a brief, but very unexpected turn. Wonder what I’m talking about? Just follow the storyline of the youngest sister. There isn’t a lot of character development, or depth for that matter, but it’s entertaining.
Rating:
Objectified
This is a documentary on industrial design by the same group that created Helvetica. It’s a fascinating look at what makes up good design and why and a conversation with those who are doing it, including Jonathan Ive who is the lead designer at Apple. If you’re a design nerd, you’ll enjoy this.
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Space Camp
This is one of the best bad movies to come out of the 80’s. It stars a bunch of people, like Kate Capshaw, Kelly Preston, Lea Thompson and a very young Joaquin Phoenix. The premiss is that a group of kids attending space camp end up being launched into space, for real. Why? Well, basically Phoenix’s character, Max, falls in love with a robot, Jinx, who talks to the NASA computers and figures a way to get him on a real launch. I kid you not. But it’s great. Check it out! It has some pretty great 80’s music as well, including a song that landed on my celebrity playlist last year.
Rating:
The Blind Side
Going in I thought this was going to be a sappy, tearjerker style movie; I was wrong. It was funny, poignant and an amazing story. If you haven’t seen this yet, go do so. It’s worth the cost to see it in the theater.
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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Kind of hard to not like a Charlie Kaufman story and this is no exception. What happens when people in a relationship decide to forget each other? A wicked trip to Jim Carrey’s mind is what. Did I mention Charlie Kaufman wrote it? What more do you need to know?
Rating:
Star Trek
I was never a Star Trek fan growing up, though I did enjoy watching episodes of The Next Generation. But that doesn’t really count I guess. Either way, I didn’t really know the difference between a Romulan and a Vulcan before putting in JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot. This was probably a good thing as all of the characters are re-introduced in a very cool story involving time travel and evil aliens. I really liked this movie and it’s well worth checking out.
Rating:
Elf
I’m no Will Ferrell fan, but this was actually a funny movie. It’s silly and quirky and has Zooey Deschanel and, get this, was directed by Jon Favreau — yeah, Swingers‘ Jon Favreau. Crazy, right?
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Angels & Demons
While The Da Vinci Code was a horrible adaptation of the book, this was a much better movie. Imagine that, considering this was the better of the two books as well.
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Dogma
Kevin Smith and the story of two renegade angels trying to get back into heaven. Need I say more?
Rating:
~ fin ~
It’s been a few months since I watched season 4.0, but I finally got around to finishing the series. At this point, I’m not really sure what to think.
So Say We All
The destroyed planet Earth that was found at the end of 4.0 really was Earth, the home of the 13th tribe of Cobol and guess what? That thirteenth tribe were Cylons. At least their DNA signature matched that of the Cylon skin jobs. Apparently it’s where the real Final Five came from, some 2000 years ago.
Long story short, the Final Five developed the Cylon race and ended up creating Resurrection technology. So they were the creators of the race… sort of. Anyway, the identity of the final Cylon? Helen Tigh. That’s right, Tigh’s wife has been a Cylon all along. You might be thinking that Tigh killed Helen on New Caprica for helping the Cylons. Well guess what, she woke up on a Cylon Basestar — apparently before Resurrection was destroyed. Anyway, Tigh figures this out through unlocking memories while being on Earth, as do the rest of the Final Five.
Fast forward until the end of the series. Basically the whole thing hinges on Athena and Helo’s baby — remember the whole opera house thing? Anyway, apparently their baby is the key to the future of humanity, but no one really knows why. So Boomer — the bad Number 8 — brings Helen Tigh from the Cylons to the Rebel Cylons in an attempt to make amends for going against her units in the split. The whole thing was basically a sham to steal Athena and Helo’s baby so that they could run tests on it to see how to recreate Resurrection.
Fast forward a bit more and Adama decides to take a volunteer suicide mission to jump Galactica into the Cylon home in a recuse mission for the baby. An epic battle happens that ends with a truce that is broken by Chief Tyrol. In the end Galactica jumps out as the Cylon home blows up. But where did they jump?
Athena and Helo’s baby had been drawing pictures — small dots on a page — for awhile. Starbuck (who by the way found her crashed Viper and her body on Earth so has no idea who she really is) discovered that the pictures she was drawing were really musical notes that just so happened to be the notes for the song that activated the Final Five at the end of season 3.0 (which is an awesome song by the way). Anyway, not knowing what that meant she assigned numbers to the notes trying to see if there was some deeper meaning in them. Well, turns out it was the jump coordinates to… well, Earth. But Earth as we know it, not the destroyed one they found at the end of season 4.0.
They found Earth and then spread out severing all ties with each other. Makes sense.
So, in the end, the fleet found Earth after all. But here’s the kicker: it was earth 150,000 years ago at the dawn of civilization. So they all decided to spread out around the world and create population centers. They got rid of their technology and decided to start from scratch. But here’s what I don’t get: after spending a few years trying to build a new community when they finally get a place to call home they split up and live in seclusion? I mean, Adama took the president off to bury her and then lived on a hill by himself. His son decided to go off and explore the planet alone. Tyrol wanted to be alone. Helo, Athena and their child presumably went off by themselves. Even stranger, Dr. Cottle volunteers for the suicide mission, but Adama won’t let him participate because “the fleet can’t afford to loose a doctor.” Um, they why spread people all over the world once the mission is complete? Why the sudden break in community? I didn’t get it.
Fast forward another 150,000 years to present day Earth. Apparently the vision of 6 that Giaus had been seeing the whole time — and the vision of Giaus 6 had been seeing — were really angels sent to help guide their way. The remains of Helo and Athena’s baby were just discovered and she was being called the mother of civilization. But why? It never explained why she was important. And speaking of angels, apparently that’s what Starbuck has been since returning from Earth, seemingly out of nowhere.
After offloading everyone on Earth, the ships were sent to fly into the sun. See ya' Galactica!
Overall the series was pretty great, but it seemed to be pretty downhill from the amazing finale to season 3.0. After the shocking discovery of Earth at the end of 4.0, everything seemed very forced — almost as if the writers had written themselves into a corner they couldn’t quite figure out how to get out of. There were a lot of leaps made in season 4.5 that, given the pace of the series to that point, seemed to be very out of place. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but how could they not end with some sort of awesome Adama led “so say we all” speech about creating the new humanity? Again, spreading out all over the world? Come on…
~ fin ~
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