Early Oscar Prediction

The Academy Award nominations are out early tomorrow morning, but here's an early prediction: The Hurt Locker takes Best Picture, despite Avatar's unprecedented financial success. Avatar's a great popcorn movie, and is wholly entertaining, but I don't think it'll take home that particular little gold man (although it'll almost certainly earn a handful of other Oscars).

Tougher to predict is Best Director - Kathryn Bigelow did outstanding work with The Hurt Locker, but every element of Avatar has James Cameron's signature on it, and you can't deny how well the picture works; I give the slight edge to Cameron.

20 Great Movies from the 2000s

Anyone who knows me probably knows that I don't really believe in "Best of" lists for movies - there are far too many factors at play to declare one film better than another (although we can all agree that most are better than anything starring Ashton Kutcher).

So rather than counting down the 20 best pictures of the 2000s, here's a list of what I consider some really great movies from that decade that was, in alphabetical order:

Ali

Almost Famous

The Aviator

Chicago

The Dark Knight

The Fountain

Good Night, and Good Luck

Hot Fuzz

The Hurt Locker

Mystic River

No Country for Old Men

Requiem for a Dream

Syriana

There Will Be Blood

Traffic

25th Hour

Up

Why We Fight

World Trade Center

Zodiac

Special mentions: Michael Clayton, Transformers, Million Dollar Baby, Crash, Iron Man, Narc, Sideways, Dancer in the Dark, Che, The Departed, The Prestige, Wall-E, Kingdom of Heaven (The Director's Cut), The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Children of Men, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Agree? Disagree? Think I've missed something?

Where you been?

Holy smokes, has it really been more than three months since I've posted here?

While I'm still kept pretty busy with my new daughter, I'm going to try to get back to regular posting - more regular than before, even - so watch this space.

Coming soon: my list of 20 great movies from the 2000s.

Should've gone with Bell...

Check this out, a montage of charicters in horror movies convienently (or inconvienently) finding their cell phones useless when they need them most. As screenwriter John August points out on his blog, it's a necessary evil - everyone has a phone these days, so a writer often has to explain why it's unusable. Hopefully, though, one can find a more elegant way to do so than these...

Blu-ray Review: Streets of Blood

Val Kilmer actioner Streets of Blood is the subject of my latest review, available here.

This'll be my last review for a while, until after our baby is born, but I'll try to step up the blogging as I can.

Blu-ray Review: High Crimes

It's a middle-of-the-road thriller from seven years ago, but it's new to Blu-ray, so here's my review of High Crimes. Enjoy!

Before Their Time: Dark City

New column this week, check it out here.