Well, isn't this just lovely. Look at all these faces staring in awe at me. I know, you can't believe your eyes. Hello, and welcome to the 1st Annual Snubbies. I am your host, and I will do my best to MC this whole event without teasing or insulting anyone. I mean, Mel Gibson hasn't said anything too offensive in the past month, so it should be easy.
...
Wait, shit!
Ok, enough pleasantries. Your votes have been tallied. Let's get cooking.
A disclaimer before the jump: The keeper of the minutes for the ceremony decided to smoke a fat doobie before starting work, and as such, all the acceptance speeches have been lost. I do apologize. I will get better staff for next year when I have better funding.
300 posts. Woot woot! I didn't know I had it in me to churn out 100 posts that fast, especially given that it took my 2 years to get to the first 100. Since I'm hard pressed to come up with an interesting topic for this post, and comparing my blog to the movie 300 just sounded too tricky, I've decided to do a little retrospective. Every 100 posts, I'll look back, and single out the ones that I thought were the best. You know, the ones you should have noticed before but you're noticing them now because they're in this post but I'm not picky because any recognition is alright by me and this was a terrible run on sentence. Leap away!
We've come to the end. Over the past week and a half, Films From the Supermassive Black Hole has covered everything worth covering about the year that was, from posters, to trailers, to lines. It wasn't the best year there ever was, but, though it was a rare occurrence, everyone found something to enjoy at the movies this year. It was a good year, all in all, so before we finally bid goodbye, I'd like to take the time to make a toast.
Raise your glasses.
To 2010, and the movies it gave us. To the good and the bad. To the socially inept jackasses getting rich. To an epic about dream invasion. To a ballerina slowly losing her mind. To vampire love. To western revenge. To fighters making a comeback. To A-Teams, bank robbers, and foul mouthed superheroes. To rockstars, serial killers, and valiant warriors. To stuttering kings and sentient toys. To wizards. To benders. To lovers. To haters. To rocks. To aliens. To utopias. To computer programs. To lesbian moms. To The Expendables. To video games. To everything else in between. To film!
And, now, the time has come! Here it is, the end all, be all. The definitive list of the year. Here are Films From the Supermassive Black Hole's Top 10 Movies of 2010!
Movie soundtracks are awesome, aren't they? They usually do a lot to heighten and intensify the experience of watching a film, and, as a plus, you can take them with you wherever you go, thanks to Apple and their ever present desire to conquer the world! 2010 had some winner soundtracks, and some that just fell flat, and some that didn't stand out or bring anything new to the table at all. The best soundtracks, however, were spectacular. More than any other year, to my recollection, we had popular artists moving over to scoring films, and it paid off wonderfully. Here are the Top 5 Best Soundtracks/Scores of 2010!
5. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Beck and Others)
Gonna be honest here, any other soundtrack could have found a place at number five. The top four really spoke to me, but I was left out in the rain searching for a fifth. I eventually settled on SPVTW, which boasts songs written for the film from the likes of Beck, Broken Social Scene and Metric. That's all well and good, but what seals the deal is that this movie is the only one to my knowledge to have the theme song from The Legend of Zelda in it. That's hard to beat.
4. Black Swan (Clint Mansell)
WHAT? IT'S NOT ELIGIBLE FOR BEST ORIGINAL SCORE CONTENTION? BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!! No, really. I'm steamed about that. Though it is based on the actual music of Swan Lake - and it makes sense that it would be - Mansell's score is a truly original piece of work. Beautiful and haunting, it really evokes the craziness and madness that Nina is experiencing. Plus, listening to classical music while someone freaks the hell out is just creepy as balls! That's gotta count for something.
3. Inception (Hans Zimmer)
A traditional-esque score needed to show up on this list at some point, and there was no traditional-esque score this year better than Hans Zimmer's amazing score for Inception. Taking everything he did well with The Dark Knight, and then turning it to 11, Zimmer has crafted a score that is exciting to listen to, giving off a very epic feel, while still feeling shockingly intimate and subdued. Oh, and he has Johnny Marr on guitar. What's not to like?
2. The Social Network (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)
This is something really special. Trent Reznor has made some weird music in his time, and, I gotta admit, a lot of it doesn't really appeal to me; I'm not the world's biggest Nine Inch Nails fan. But, I have to say, what Reznor does with Atticus Ross for David Fincher's film is brilliant. When listening to it out of context, you can't fathom how it will fit with Mark Zuckerberg's tale of the founding of Facebook. When paired with the movie though, it fits seamlessly! Evoking such scores as The Dark Knight and Fincher's own Se7en, the music of The Social Network makes the rest of the movie seem a whole hell of a lot grimmer than it actually is. Which is the way it should have been done! Good job Trent!
1. Tron: Legacy (Daft Punk)
Now, this is perfect! Just perfect! Daft Punk's brilliant score for Tron: Legacy not only fits the film like a well worn glove, but it is also the only soundtrack this year that can be listened to outside of the film and still be a complete experience. Mixing traditional, symphonic scoring with their trademark electronic beats and mixes, Daft Punk have crafted a score that's unlike any I've heard. It's truly marvelous!
Well, that does it with the superficial stuff. Now we get into the real meat of The Retrospect. Tune in tomorrow for MVPs of the Year (Actors). It's gonna be lovely! See you then little ones. Get some sleep.
At every movie you go to, there's that one moment that sticks in your mind as you walk out of the theatre. You know, that one scene that just wowed you with whatever excellence it was displaying? You know what I'm talking about. Picking the Top 5 Scenes of a year is always a hard task, since there are so many to choose from. But, I persevered for you like the savior I've deluded myself into thinking I am. Here are the Top 5 Scenes of 2010! (Warning: Possible Spoilers)
5. "Rub the furry wall!!" (Get Him to the Greek)
Easily the funniest sequence of any film this year, this ten-ish minute scene comes right at the beginning of Act 3. Sergio has cornered Aldous and Aaron at some elaborate hotel in Vegas. He proceeds to "mind-fuck" them into oblivion so that they continue on their journey to the Greek Theatre. What follows is a chaotic stew of gunfire, arson, sodomy, adrenaline rushes, all capped off with a mad chase through the hotel hall ways. Funny stuff!
Audio's a little funky on this one...
4. Nina's Freakout (Black Swan)
The punchline before the punchline, if you will. The night before her big opening, Natalie Portman's Nina finally loses any remaining sanity that she had. Starting with a crazed hallucination of a woman stabbing herself in the face, Nina descends into a crazed freakout, seeing pictures move, hallucinating that people are following her, and, to top it off, imagining that she painfully morphs into a massive swan in her room. It's terrifying and memorable scene.
Can't find a clip of it, so here's the trailer, which will suffice.
3. The Lightcycle Battle (Tron: Legacy)
The action scene that gives most other action scenes a run for their money. Though it comes early on in the film, it sets the bar high, and is not topped for the rest of the runtime, despite the fact that everything that comes after it is visually astounding. Once Sam is outed to the world as a user, CLU throws him into the Lightcycle ring, forcing him to engage in heated combat against programs far more powerful than him. It's a beautifully made scene, exciting, with an aesthetic touch unlike anything out there.
Quality on this one's not the best...
2. The Creation of Facemash (The Social Network)
We've all been dumped, I'm sure. It's never a good feeling. We usually retreat to our respective fortresses of solitude, wallow in self pity, until someone comes along an slaps us in the face and tells us to get a grip. Well, most everyone does that. Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, goes back to his dorm room, gets drunk, and proceeds to build a website rating the hotness of his female classmates. He'll narrate for us, showing off how much of a hacking genius he is, while many of the girls he is rating are off partying up a storm. Oh, and it'll be set to a song written by Trent Reznor, and it will be one of the most enthralling scenes of the year.
Can't find the actual scene, but this one's pretty cool...
1. The Hamster Wheel Hallway (Inception)
Well, duh! It's the most exciting sequence of the most exciting movie of the year. Cobb and the rest have entered the third level of the dream, leaving Arthur on the second to guard them. Unfortunately, Yusuf's driving on the first level is making this difficult. Yusuf is suddenly forced down a hill, causing the van to tumble wildly. Since the environments of each dream level are effected by the preceding level, this causes the hallways on the second level to suddenly start spinning. Arthur enters into a heated fistfight with a projection in the middle of all this. Pure! Amazing! Awesomeness!
Ignore Jimmy. He's not welcome...
I'm enjoying these. Aren't you? Tune in tomorrow for the Top 5 Soundtracks/Scores of 2010, and be sure to refresh yourself on all the Black Hole's opinions regarding the year that was with 2010: The Retrospect. See you tomorrow younglings. Listen to Yoda.
Friggin' ballerinas, man! I mean, I've danced on stage before, and yeah, it's hard, especially given that when I dance on stage, it usually involves some combination of acting and singing. But, damn! I can't even begin to fathom how friggin' brutal the life of a professional dancer must be. The physical toll must be tremendous! And if Black Swan, the brilliant new film from Darren Aronofsky, is anything to go on, the psychological toll must be out of this world. Black Swan is, plain a simple, a great film, masterfully crafted, wonderfully atmospheric, with a slew of pitch perfect performances. It's also, quite possibly, one of the most scary and disturbing movies I've ever seen. This is one film that's gonna be sticking with me for awhile and one that easily finds a spot among my favorite films of the year. Black Swan is tough, but it is fantastic!
It's time to root through some trailers! What sorts of wonderful things will be alluded to today?
Ok, Darren Aronofsky is an enigma to me. He'll make a movie as twisted and weird as Requiem for a Dream, as convoluted as the The Fountain, and then turn around and make a movie as raw as The Wrestler! I don't understand him, but I don't think I'm supposed to.
Black Swan is about dancers, and how fucking crazy they are! It concerns Nina, who is embroiled in a feverish rivalry with a fellow dancer, Lily, over who will get the lead in the production of Swan Lake that their company is putting on! Weird stuff transpires, rashes appear, Nina and Lily make out (for some reason), and Nina pulls barbs out of her skin!
...
WHAT?
Natalie Portman is Nina! Portman is an actress who has consistently turned in fantastic work, but never seems to get the recognition she deserves! A sole Oscar nomination? Never before has there been such heinous a crime! She looks primed to deliver another searing performance as this dancer slowly losing her sense! Mila Kunis has not been in anything high profile, dramatically that is, but she's a damn fine actress, and I'm eager to see her creep us out!
This trailer is nuts! I have no idea what the hell is going on in it, but, suffice to say, I interested in seeing how it turns out! Aronofsky isn't the most reliable of directors, but The Wrestler was great, and he got an astounding performance out of Mickey Rourke in that. Here's hoping he can do the same with Portman! I think he can!
