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Movie Board: My favorite movies of 2010

Posted in Academy Awards, Harry Potter, movies, reviews with tags Academy Awards, books, Harry Potter, Movie Board, movies, Oscars, reviews on January 11, 2011 by Paxton

Here we are again. It’s time for my annual encounter with The Movie Board. We’ve been through a lot, Movie Board, and it’s time to do it again. Let’s dance.

First off, let’s take a look at this year’s Movie Board.

My Movie Board 2010

According to it’s all-knowing whiteness I saw 52 movies this past year. Very close to last year in which I saw 53 movies. I was on a tear throughout the summer, way ahead of my pace for last year, but the pace slowed to a crawl in September with the birth of my son. However, I rallied and was able to get my movie viewing total back up over 50. Actually, the number of movies I saw was probably closer to 60 as I also saw movies like True Grit (the original), Death Trap and Harry Brown, but they were all released before 2010. And this list is for movies released within the calendar 2010 movie season.

Anyway, from this list I’ve culled my favorites. And here they are in no particular order.

Inception – Mind bending. Best way to describe this movie. Leo is great in this. I think I prefer this movie to Shutter Island. I’d definitely watch Inception again before watching Shutter Island. Sure, some of the dream mechanics are a little…ill defined. Sure, Ellen Page’s character actually going into the dream made little to no sense. But I enjoyed it all the same. Fun and interesting story, action and a cliff hanger ending that usually SERIOUSLY pisses me off but didn’t here. I love that rotating hallway fight sequence. So awesome.

Salt – I was blown away by this movie. It’s brutally AWESOME. The action is intense. I was not expecting the action and suspense in this movie to be as balls out awesome as it is. Angelina is great and Liev Shreiber is also great (as usual). So ridiculously good. It’s like a female Bourne Identity. I seriously think this is nearly as good as the first Bourne Identity (not the last one, the first one).

Harry Potter 7-1
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I – I have seen every one of these movie in the theater. And dammit if every one of these movies hasn’t gotten better and better. Prisoner of Azkaban is phenomenal, Goblet of Fire is pretty good, but then Order of Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince are nothing short of spectacular. And this movie just continues that awesomeness forward. However, many people I know have been saying they were disappointed with this one. I think it’s all expectations. This movie is much darker than any other of the movies. Plus, it covers the section of the book where Ron leaves and Harry and Hermione are running/searching for horcruxes alone. Many people thought that storyline was boring in the book but I loved it. It shows just how difficult a time they had and just how cut off from the rest of the wizarding world they really were. Makes what happens later mean more. I love this movie and I can’t wait to watch the next one. Oh, yeah, since this is a Part I, it sets up a lot of the story for Part II, which may throw people off also.

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Movies the Cavalcade is looking forward to in 2010

Posted in Harry Potter, movies with tags Harry Potter, movies on January 19, 2010 by Paxton

Okay, so we’ve looked back at the best and worst movies from 2009 (Oscar noms and ceremony still to come). Now let’s take a gaze into the future. What movies am I looking forward to in 2010? There are a lot.

Here’s a list of movies I really want to see in 2010, more will surely be added as the year’s movie release schedule becomes more concrete.

These first four movies have already been released and are currently in theaters.

Daybreakers (Jan 8 ) - A cool vampire movie similar in tone to Blade? Thank you, Hollywood. Peep the trailer here.

Youth in Revolt (Jan 8 ) - I read this book a few years ago and it’s funny. I can’t wait to see Michael Cera tackle this highly comedic but dark role. Trailer, my friends.

Book of Eli (Jan 15) - Denzel Washington vs Gary Oldman in a post apocalyptic world fighting over a book that can save humanity? I’ll take two. UPDATE: Saw this on Sunday. It’s pretty awesome. Lots of action and a surprisingly deep story.

Legion (Jan 22) – Well, this isn’t out just yet. It starts on Friday. Paul Bettany is a fallen angel out to protect the would-be savior of mankind. Demons and angels fighting a war on Earth? Hells to the YEAH. Trailer is here.

From here we look at future releases starting in February.

From Paris with Love (Feb 5) - Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) pairs up with Travolta as FBI agents in Paris who attempt to stop a terrorist attack. It looks good, and Travolta plays an over-the-top “renegade” cop. However, seeing Travolta play “over the top” in Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, I’m now a little nervous. I’m just sayin. Here’s the trailer.

The Wolfman (Feb 12) - Universal re-launches a movie based on my favorite monster? With Sir Anthony Hopkins? You can count me my AIS (Ass. In. Seat.).

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Weekly Geeks 2009-05 – Alternate book covers

Posted in books, Harry Potter, pop culture, Weekly Geeks with tags advertising, books, Harry Potter, Weekly Geeks on February 12, 2009 by Paxton

There’s a very cool blog site called Weekly Geeks. Every week it posts a theme that you can do on your own blog. I’ve somewhat passively watched this for a year or so and have debated about following along on this blog. I’ve enjoyed many of the themes they come up with and I especially enjoyed watching other bloggers execute the theme.

This week’s theme is called Judge a Book By It’s Cover. You pick one of your favorite books and talk about the different covers that have been released for that book. Here’s this week’s explanation:

This week it’s all about judging books by their covers! Pick a book–any book, really–and search out multiple book cover images for that book. They could span a decade or two (or more)…Or they could span several countries. Which cover is your favorite? Which one is your least favorite? Which one best ‘captures’ what the book is about?

the bookworm did a great job with Gone With the Wind on her blog. I thought it was a really fun idea so I’m going to try doing this myself. It’s pretty simple and easier to do than a full article, so I’m going to try it.

My pick is going to be my favorite book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I’m not going to show all the different covers, because we’d be here until I keeled over on the keyboard dead before we could finish it all, but there are some very interesting covers for this book. Here are a few of the coolest/most interesting.

This is obviously the American version of the Harry Potter 6 cover. I like all the green and the scene depicted shows Dumbledore and Harry gazing into the pensieve. A very ominous, but great looking cover.

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The End: Harry Potter Book 7

Posted in books, Harry Potter, pop culture with tags book review, Harry Potter on August 1, 2007 by Paxton

Harry7 Well, I finished the book at lunch today. What can I say, I am almost a little stunned right now. The ending hasn’t had a chance to sink in, but I can easily say that the ending was everything I wanted it to be. Well, really, I would have accepted almost any ending Rowling would have given us, but I really enjoyed this one.

As a whole, the book, as some might say, drags a bit in the middle. However, I started the book at a leisurely pace. I wanted to savor it. If you look closely at the picture I posted on my entry last week, I was only about 200 pages in…and that was Wednesday…4 days after the book had been released. I was really taking my time enjoying the book. This is why I think that part in the middle didn’t drag for me at all. It actually had some really good character moments for our 3 heroes. Then, right after this, the action in the book really picks up and by last weekend I was starting to get excited. I really started pounding through the book. I read at lunch, in bed at night (much to the dismay of my wife), even in the bathroom at work (oh yes, my book has been ‘flagged’). I was obsessed again with the story and the final 200+ pages just flew by.

There are some unbelievable moments in this book that pretty much wrap up all my questions and answer some lingering questions I never really knew I had. Some of the actions in the book had me screaming and throwing the book across the room, only to be bawling like an infant 2 chapters later. It’s an emotional roller coaster ride. As I finished reading the book at Firehouse Subs today, people gave me the “eye down” as I started whimpering and crying like a 9 year old girl with a skinned knee. Yes, it was embarrassing, but I couldn’t help it. Wonderful, wonderful book that I loved with my whole heart. I loved the characters, I loved the world created in the book, I loved the journey the stories take us on. Just unbelievable writing. Makes you wonder how far ahead this was planned. I mean, the end had to have been planned by at least book 5. At least. Probably even book 4. Wow.

Like I said, I’m of few words right now because I’m literally only a few hours from finishing it. A journey that began in the Tampa airport in 1999 has finally reached it’s destination, and I couldn’t be happier. I think I may take a day or two before I read another book. A respectful, reading silence if you will, for what will surely go down as one of my favorite book series of all time.

I eagerly look forward to JK Rowlings next venture. Hope everyone else enjoyed it. Potter-palooza can now end (at least until the final 2 movies come out).