Top film of the year:

1) Wall-E (Pixar)
Great story, great characters, drop-dead gorgeous animation--with no technical 
glitches that I can see--and a great message film in a year loaded with great 
message films (Dark Knight & Iron Man, to name two), plus I am an animation 
junkie and in particular, a Pixar junkie. It takes talent to make a movie with 
no words, no human characters for the first half of the movie, and the most 
lovable cockroach since ee cummings's cockroach, Archie. The in-jokes fly fast 
and furious--Wall-E's startup sounds are the same as the Mac computer startup 
and the object of Wall-E's affections EVE, looks and performs like a cross 
between an i-Phone and an i-Pod, while the megacorporation, Buy-n-Large, which 
is responsible for ruining the Earth and leading the remaining human population 
on an extended trip to nowhere through space (as well as turning them into 
flabby, ignorant, incurious, fat slugs with their supersized fast-food diet) is 
a dead ringer for Wal-Mart. It's a witty, intelligent and sweet without being 
saccharine or insulting the viewer's intelligence, as well as having a great story to tell, 
which can be watched by children and adults alike, which is why it's my number one pick of the year.

2)Iron Man
Unbelievably great cast (as in, the actors made the characters their own--can 
you see someone else as Iron Man or Pepper Potts now? I can't.), FUNNY, great 
message in a "message" movie, fantastic story, beautifully executed. Excellent 
CGI and SFX. Standout dialog. Great teaser at the end, can't wait for the next 
Iron Man movie. Or the Avengers movie.

3) Batman The Dark Knight
Just barely edged out by Iron Man. Christian Bale is the best Batman to date and 
Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhardt are the best Joker and Two-Face to date, vastly 
superior to Jack Nicholson and Tommy Lee--and I liked Jack as the Joker. 
Standout performance of the year goes to Heath Ledger, too bad there won't be 
any more of his performances. (IDIOT. How smart do you actually have to be to 
realize that perscription meds [system depressants, no less] and alcohol are not 
good mixers?! Talented, but a complete moron.) I actually felt the story was 
superior to the Iron Man story, but most of the characters are somewhat flat 
compared to the Iron Man characters, which is almost always the problem with any 
Batman movie--Batman has less room to act than the actor has wiggle room in the 
Batman costume and the villains get all the best lines and best parts. Maggie 
Gyllenhall does the best that she can with her character, but Michelle Pfeiffer 
still remains the best
 female character (Catwoman) and performance in any Batman movie, and candidly, 
I don't see that changing any time soon. Still annoyed that the title of Dark 
Knight had nothing whatsoever to do with Frank Miller's Batman story of the same 
name. A cheap trick to gin up hope and buzz and to ride the coattails of 
Miller's superlative Sin City. Hence Batman's place at number 3.

4) Hellboy II The Golden Army
I love Guillermo del Toro's fantasy work, which is beautiful in its own right 
and because it is the antithesis of Disney's plastic cutesiness. Its darkly 
beautiful fantasy is reminiscent of the best of Neil Gaiman's and Dave McKean's 
collaborative work on Sandman (not that we'll be seeing THAT movie any time 
soon..) and other DC Vertigo works and also compares favorably to Tim Burton's 
works such as the Nightmare Before Christmas and the second Batman movie, Batman 
Returns. Now that the introductory movie is out of the way, del Toro can 
actually make Hellboy movies that have a story to tell and this is one of the 
better fantasy storylines out there. You have the pleasure of watching a 
first-rate movie without actually knowing where you're going or what's going to 
happen, unlike most other sci-fi or fantasy movies, which typically have to be 
print bestsellers first with an established fan base before they get translated 
to film. The acting is solid, the dialog has improved, the cinematography and costuming are excellent. In a 
slower year, this could have been a pick for the number 1 movie, but there were 
too many other good movies out there this year. Looking forward to The Hobbit in 
2012, which he will direct, and will also write the screenplay with Peter 
Jackson, who is also the producer.

5) Hancock
Superhero movie with a twist and also some intelligence. The movie takes you in 
some unexpected directions and watching Will Smith and Charlize Theron onscreen 
is always a pleasure. Unfortunately, the plot isn't nearly as good as the acting 
from Smith and Theron and is unworthy of the film's premise, which is one of the 
more original ideas/premises out there, reminiscent of some of the better 
Twilight Zone stories (the original black and white series, not the subsequent 
movies and series). Coulda, woulda, shoulda. If a sequel *is* made, hope it's 
better than the first--Smith and Theron deserve better, as did the audience.


Worst movie of the year, or at least the most disappointing:
Indianna Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I was really looking forward to this movie, which made this onscreen travesty 
that much worse. I was thrilled that Cate Blanchett had signed on, along with 
Karen Allen, who had starred in the original Raiders of the Lost Ark, plus I've 
always loved Harrison Ford's sci-fi movies, notably Bladerunner. Alas, that was 
back when Ford was still making movies like The Mosquito Coast and actually 
cared about the quality of his acting and the quality of the movie he was in. 
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was disastrously plastic and retread, a cheap, 
cynical plot to put out any damn thing with the "Indianna Jones" in the title in 
order to rake in the cash from the hordes of loyal Indianna Jones fans. While I 
liked the idea of updating Indianna Jones to the Cold War era (from the WWII 
era)--after all, how many movies can you make with the Nazis as villains (and 
yes, I realize we are talking about Spielberg of Schindler's List and Saving 
Private Ryan fame)--giving Indy a kid in the form of Shia La Boef was a complete disaster and 
unfortunately, not the only one. Having seen the late River Phoenix acting the 
part of the young Indianna Jones, creditably and with respect for the character, 
one can conclude that there are indeed other actors who could act the role of 
Indianna Jones. Unfortunately, La Boef seemed to be channeling his inner Arthur 
Fonzarelli with an additional bonus of the worst acting in the movie, while the 
movie's plot and scientific premises had the same credulous flatness of a bad 
X-Files episode or the lead story of the now-defunct Weekly World News. 
Spielberg apparently hasn't worked out that the SERIALS he based the Indianna 
Jones franchise on were CONTINUING stories, not a series in which increasing 
grandiosity were an acceptable substitute for forwarding a plot or telling an 
actual story. Steven, give Bill Willingham a call or pick up his DC Vertigo's 
FABLES series to see how it's done.

 Dreadful CGI and SFX, both artistically and technically, round out a laundry 
list of errors. (Spielberg, your Golden Troy-lit for worst CGI in a movie is on 
it's way--congrats on having edged out the CGI Hulk.) Blanchett's and Allen's 
talents were completely wasted onscreen in a way not seen since Ewan McGregor, 
Natalie Portman and Liam Neeson listlessly and thanklessly slogged through The 
Phantom Menace, while Ford phoned in a performance worthy of the Clone Wars, 
which is largely what this movie felt like--an inanimate, soulless clone of a 
movie series once deeply loved and cherished.


Please note that I limited my selections to the movies that I actually saw--I 
skipped Cloverfield and The Spirit, for a good reason.

On a scale of 0 to $7.50

Wall-E 7.50
Iron Man 7.49
Batman The Dark Knight 7.45
Hellboy II 7.00
Hancock 6.00
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--I want my money back, along with the 2.5 hours I 
lost watching this plastic monstrosity.
-Audrey