Cowboys & Aliens – the interviews

During the promotion of Western/sci-fi flick Cowboys and Aliens, Jon Favreau, gregarious filmmaker that he is, conducted a series of interviews with most of the principal cast in the film. The result is a wonderful series of short but candid interviews on the making of the film. It may not have made a huge splash with audiences and critics when it debuted in the US at the start of the month, but I do wish filmmakers and studios do these interviews a little more often instead of those maddeningly boring Q&A’s that they churn out. Here are a few of them embedded on the site, to see the rest, watch them on YouTube or at the Cowboys & Aliens site.

Reel spotlight: Should we go into a film expecting substance?

Depth, it pretty much means whether we can uncover a deeper meaning from films. Many times when films come out, whether it’s in the silly summer season or the serious winter season, filmgoers and commenters on internet forums squabble over whether films have any resonance or issues to talk about beyond their superficial surface. I wrote this article in part, to the response for Tron: Legacy and claims that beyond the visual and aural impact, there is very little substance to the film.

Best films of 2010 in no particular order

I’ve done my worst of list, my most disappointing list, so now I’ll put my list of the best films I saw on the blog as well. Rather than number the film as I did with previous lists (which in hindsight I think is a bit of an error), I’ll just list the films, what I liked about them and why I think they’re the best films that I saw in the last year. Simples.

Unfortunately there are quite a few films that weren’t released in the UK that came out in the US last year so there will be no 127 Hours, Never Let Me Go, Black Swan, The Fighter, True Grit, Animal Kingdom, The King’s Speech, Blue Valentine, Biutiful, Rabbit Hole. All of these films are being released in a ridiculously short amount of time (little over a month or so, starting from Friday), so I doubt I’ll be able to see this films whithout spending a ridiculous amount of money.

Anyway,onto the best films of 2010!

Top ten disappointing films of 2010

This list comprises of the films that were a bit of a letdown, they still entertained to some degree but didn’t live up to the hype, expectations or generally just didn’t fulfil the promise that the premise put forward. Before that though here a few films that are a worth a watch but have their own problems.

Mentions:

The Runaways – I wouldn’t say that this was a bad or poorly executed film, it has good moments (all of them centring round Michael Shannon’s director) but for a person who’s not familiar with Joan Jett or her music this film never made a case for me to get interested in The Runaways.

Cop Out – I enjoyed Cop Out, I’ve seen it on a few top ten worst lists and I don’t think it’s as bad as that. Considering the talent involved it should be far better than it was and I’m not sure whether Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis were ever a good pairing. Willis seems to be on auto-pilot for most of the film and for a Kevin Smith film it seems tired and really clichéd. Decent watch but it really should have been a lot better.

MacGruber – Stupid but not quite stupidly funny, it missed more times than it hit and running jokes weren’t as effective as the film seemed to think they were.

The A-Team – watching this film in the summer I was absolutely disappointed in the final product. It seemed to lack what I liked about the A-Team. Problem was it wasn’t too fun and placed emphasis on the truly ridiculous so much so that it was hard to suspend your disbelief especially when some poor CGI could be seen in the final sequence. Although the Extended Cut is not too different from the theatrical, for some reason I enjoyed it more than the original release.

The Ghost Writer – I’ve seen this film on a few best of/honourable mentions list and while I think it’s watchable I also think it’s devoid of suspense or intrigue. It’s also hard to care about anyone or anything when watching the film.

Chloe – this was going so well, until Amanda Seyfried’s title character started doing rather wacky things which I won’t spoil. A competent and steamy thriller up until its denouement where things go a little awry.

London Boulevard – Tepid was the word I used for this film, I remember not having much of a reaction to this film. Very ‘meh’.

And now onto the top ten…

Worst films of the year 2010

Initially I was going to write a top ten but decided against as there weren’t enough movies to put on my (dis)honourable list.  Instead they are twelve, twelve films that didn’t cut the mustard, films that bored or were tragically flawed and films in which very little entertainment could be gained. For all those reasons and more these are, in my mind, the worst films that I saw last year.

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