The Thing

At an Antarctica research site, the discovery of an alien craft leads to a confrontation between graduate student Kate Lloyd and scientist Dr. Sander Halvorson.

The initial plot is nothing revolutionary; we’ve all seen the ‘something weird is found in the middle of nowhere and we want to check it out’ plot be used a million times, but the way it’s portrayed and the creatures, with a Lovecraftian look to them, make it worthwhile.

This movie ends where the 1982 The Thing starts. I don’t remember the original film by John Carpenter, either because I didn’t watch it, or because I repressed the memory of having watched it. Carpenter’s films have the knack to be either very good or incredibly bad (Ghosts of Mars, anyone?) – there’s no middle ground with his stuff.

I plan see it soon; I want to know how the rest of the story goes, and from what I hear, the original The Thing qualifies for the better half of Carpenter’s movies.

Congratulations, Natalie :)

2010 In Retrospect: Movies

2010 was the year when The Empire Strikes Back turned 30 years old, and we rewatched in on the actual day. Other than rewatching movies, we actually saw more movies than I thought. There’s just too many of them to write extensively about, hence the text format below.

The Best

• Inception. The most original movie I’ve seen in a while, with a great cast, a good director, great special effects, awesome story. It was the most enjoyable movie among those I’ve watched this year.

The Good or Even Great

• 500 Days of Summer – simple story . not a love story, but a story about love.
• Alice - I usually prefer Tim Burton’s darker toned movies, but actually enjoyed this one.
• Daybreakers - In the future, humans all all but extinct – we’re just vampire food.
• Iron Man 2 – Popcorn fun
• REC – Pretty cool spanish movie, with zombies in Barcelona!
• Red – wrote about it recently. good cast, funny and entertaining story.
• Salt - Angelina Jolie kicking ass in a movie with a decent story. Still think she needs to gain a few kilograms though.
• Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World – *the* geek movie of the year
• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – shut off brain. eat popcorn. enjoy.
• The Town – I was surprised at how good this was. Favourite part (no spoilers): the smiling ‘nuns’.

The OK

• Coisa Ruim – portuguese movie. better than antecipated
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinossaurs – Some funny stuff, but it’s definitely no Pixar movie.
• Prince of Persia – where were the stakes at the bottom of a precipice? huh? where?! it’s not prince of persia if he doesn’t fall on them at least once.
• REC2 – dumbest. military. ever. gets extra points for the plot twist and also gets the award for ‘most original zombie killing ever’.
• Resident Evil: Resurrection – nice fight scenes, not much content. The usual for RE movies. Next!
• Terminator: Salvation – At least they changed the actor that played John Connor. The one in the previous movie sucked.

The Bad or Meh

• Clash of the Titans
• The Last Airbender
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

The So Bad It’s Good

• Machete - bloody fun for everyone. Probably the movie that made me laugh the most this year.

The Ugly

• Predators – I keep waiting for the day they’ll make a new, decent movie with Predator. Although this was better than AvP, or the cinematic abortion that was AvP2, this wasn’t it.
• Wolverine – I literally fell asleep in the middle of the movie and Gambit, who I like, had already made his appearence by then. It’s *that* bad, yeah.

I’m probably forgetting some movie along the way, but this was mostly it.