1. The Road

Out of all the films I’ve seen this year,The Road is the one film that truly blew me away, it is a harrowing experience that is equally beautiful in a apocalyptic, grim, raw, moving and hopeless sort of way. As a big fan of the book I was hoping the film would do it justice, at first I had high hopes, Viggo Mortensen is one of my favourite actors, John Hillcoat is a brilliant Director, Nick Cave scored the film and the supporting cast spoke for its self – Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Mickael K Williams (Omar in The Wire) and Charlize Theron, yet with all the delays and the early promotion of the film, the posters were really bad and the first trailer made it look like an action road movie, I was put off slightly. Thankfully the film more than met my expectations, it is as devout to the source material as I’ve seen from an adaptation in recent memory, the changes made actually help the film. To watch the film is agonising, it’s definitely not a film for everyone, it is a real challenge to watch at times but it’s a master class in suspense and the most powerful film I’ve seen this year.

2. The Hurt Locker

I’ve got a feeling this will be winning a bunch of trophy’s come award season, to add to it’s already large collection. The Hurt Locker engages you so deeply you really do feel like your there in Iraq with them. The tension the film builds up is ridiculous, the whole film is an adrenaline rush, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. It is the best ‘War’ film for a long long time, it’s the best character study on addiction and courage under fire in film I’ve seen in a while. The cast was great especially Jeremy Renner.

3. Inglourious Basterds

I loved this film, Tarentino was on top form, the dialogue was hilarious and the performances were sensational especially Christoph Waltz, Brad Pitt and Til Schweiger. A film based around the time of War has never been so fun. The opening scene alone was worth the admission for me. I love how Tarentino doesn’t give a monkeys about the norm or conventions, he butchered history but we love him even more for it!

4. Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans

This has been my surprise of 2009, the casting of Nicolas Cage originally put me off to be honest with you, nowadays 90% of his stuff is crap, with this he was amazing! Hands down it is the most entertaining film I’ve seen this year. Every time you think the film is taking you one place it takes you in a whole other direction, Nicolas Cage gives his best performance in years as a rogue detective who is as devoted to his job as he is at scoring drugs – while playing fast and loose with the law, wielding his badge as often as he wields his gun in order to get his way. The movie is hilarious, it’s completely bonkers, the tripped out scene with the iguanas, the dancing soul scene, random alligator point of view shots, the whoa scene and when the ‘pipe’ gets verified the audience were in stitches (I was in a press screening, who are usually a miserable lot so that adds more value) , I can definitely see this film having a cult following in years to come, Werner Herzog is a both a genius and lunitic.

5. A Prophet

Rounding out my top 5 is the French film A Prophet, this year I have seen a number of brilliant films, yet I have only been blown away a handful of times, watching A Prophet was one of them times. I have to admit I am a sceptic, if I see a film getting rave reviews EVERYWHERE in the back of mind I think everyone’s just jumping on the band wagon (my faith in humanity is low!), but with this particular film it deserves every praise it has been getting. It was fully deserving of The Best Film at the London Film Festival and this years Grand Prix Award at Cannes. It must be a shoe in for Best International Film at the Oscars. The lead actor Tahar Rahim was sensational, the prison kingpin played by Niels Arestrup was equally as good. The film was EPIC!

6. Samson And Delilah

Samson And Delilah showcases the harsh realities of sections of the Aboriginal community – including addiction, violence, rascism and poverty. The film is visually stunning, but you best believe you will come out of this film feeling numb, it is brutal at times, a true emotional roller coaster of a film. In Australia and Internationally Samson And Delilah has won a bundle of awards, in which it completely deserves. I’m pretty sure it’s getting a release early 2010 in the UK, do yourself a favour and check it out.

7. The Hangover

By a stretch this was my favorite comedy film of the year, I laughed the whole way through. Definitely the ‘go with your mates to have a laugh’ film of the year. I would go as far to say its a comedy classic. I also really like that it made a sh*t load of money without a huge budget or A list stars. Zach Galifianakis also wins beard of the year.

8. Let The Right One In

With a bunch of crap Vampire films this year (Twilight), Let The Right One In couldn’t have come at a more perfect time, hands down the best Horror film of the year for me, a Horror classic, the whole film had a haunting atmosphere about it.

9. Avatar

For what Avatar is, it’s almost perfect. Yes the story isn’t the most original, yes it’s obvious in parts, but no one can deny it was one hell of a thrill ride, considering the  running time it didn’t drag at all, I didn’t check for the time once. Avatar was definitely an experience, visually it was spellbinding, I have to take my hat off to James Cameron, he’s not scared of change and technology. For blockbuster popcorn fun this would definitely be number one. I was happy it met the hype

10. The Messenger and Up (yes it’s a tie)

The Messenger: Ben Foster gave one of the most underrated performances I’ve seen this year. So many War films don’t get there message across because they are so preachy and ham fisted, The Messenger is one of them rare War films that remind us the cost paid by soldiers and there families, which in turn makes us consider whether those costs are REALLY worth paying, without no political agenda, just a moral one.

Up: Pixar do it again, they keep raising the bar, Up was touching, funny and visually stimulating.

Honourable mention: 500 Days Of Summer, Bright Star, Watchmen, District 9, Me & Orson Welles, The Informant, In The loop, Sherlock Holmes, Tyson, Thirst, Creation, The Firm, Red Cliff, Up In The Air, Chocolate, Gommorah, Zombieland, A Serious Mab

Haven’t seen that may have made my list: Drag Me To Hell, Precious, Synecdoche, New York , The Class, Looking For Eric, Fifty Dead Men Walking

Also just a quick note, I haven’t included any films that were released in the UK in January, that could have qualified for last years Oscars – The Wrestler, Che part 1……. I class them as last year.

Biggest disappointments:

Pubic Enemies: This was OK for me, nothing spectacular like I thought. The cast looked great, I love how Michael Mann shoots films visually, it’s based on one of the most iconic figures of the 20^th century, set in a a hugely interesting time and it’s a gangster film, come on that sounds great doesn’t it, well it wasn’t, it was actually quite boring, the worst thing for me was Johnny Depp, I know I’m gonna get a lot of flack from Johnny Depp’s flock die hard fans for saying this but he wasn’t good as Dillinger, Dillinger was a gangster, he was a complex man, a man’s man, Johnny Depp done his usual conflicted, mysterious, emotional guy act, he wasn’t manly at all, which is how my idea of John Dillinger was, Johnny Depp is a great actor, he was just terribly miscast in this. That being said Stephen Lang was brilliant, when he done that roll and shoot manoeuvre in the woods I nearly wet myself, I loved the cinematography and shoot outs as well. Christian Bales character was pretty much non existent, he wasn’t utilized at all, like Dillinger, Purvis was a complex man which we didn’t really get much of an incite into. I’d still give it at least a 6/10, just dissapointing not bad

Where The Wild Things Are: This was a real shock for me, I’m not saying it was terrible, just that for me it wasn’t very good. I was really looking forward to it as well, before seeing it I loved everything about it, I loved the trailer, I really like Spike Jonze, visually it looked great and the soundtrack sounded great, I thought this film can’t go wrong but boooooooooooooooy was I wrong. The little kid whatever the hell his name was annoyed the hell out of me, the spoilt little bastard, if that was my kid, straight adoption, no question about it, you don’t bite your Mum then run away smiling, little tyrant, I’m not one to advocate beating children but in this case I would have gone medieval on him. My hatred for him during the film grew so much I wanted him to get eaten by the whiny ‘Wild Thing’ that must have been on her period

The 2nd Inception Trailer has been finally released after much anticipation. I’m not gonna write alot about it, the visuals speak for themselves it looks EPIC, I’m truly pumped for this, the imagery looks ridiculous. I like how Warner Brothers are approaching the film, it’s got a real mystique about it in that it’s not giving away too much but still giving us enough to want much much more and keep us guessing. Christopher Nolan’s succession of great films doesn’t looks like it’s gonna stop – Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight……..

The plot is top secret, we’ve only been given extremely brief information about the film, all we know about it is that it’s a – “a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind.” “Inception is about entering peoples’ minds/dreams. A technology to do so has been developed and is done through an injection. DiCaprio and his team work to enter the minds of other characters in order to retrieve/plant information.” Nolan wrote the original screenplay himself, Inception stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard. The film will open on July 16th, 2010, in both traditional theaters and in IMAX. DiCaprio is a CEO character named Cobb, Ellen Page is Ariadne -a grad student working for Cobb and a sidekick of sorts, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Arthur – an associate to Cobb at his company, Tom Hardy is Eames, Ken Watanabe is Saito, Dileep Rao is Yusef, Cillian Murphy is Fischer, Tom Berenger is Browning and Marion Cotillard plays Cobb’s wife.

I’ve had a very lazy Christmas break, I was meant to put this up on Boxing in time for the UK release date, but I was too busy chillaxing and lazing about for once! If you missed part 1 of the interview you can check it out here. It’s good to hear the film is doing so well in the states, it made $65 million over the weekend (big chee$e) and is being recieved very well critically.

What was your devotion to martial arts like, according to the production notes you’ve been doing it for 6 years and also how did you prepare for the bare knuckle boxing scene?

Robert Downey Jnr: There was a choreographed version of it, I went in and got all pissed about it, Guy came in and we worked on it, so I think your seeing probably version 6.0 by the time we shot it, Guy is a jiu jitsu fella we managed to get along some how!

It was so fun though, by the time we had finished shooting that scene I felt like we really had a handle on the movie and not because I took my top off and showed my rippling abs and self important garbage but because this was Guys idea and it was really a bold thing and it could have gone really poorly, in which case the rest of the movie is trying to recover from the bad Guy Ritchie scene we went out and shot but it was literally perfect, it set the tone, it was really his take. We had to trust each other and get each others approval. I’m crazy about fighting, I love it (laughs)

Why do you love filming in Britain and Jude what’s it like filming in your hometown?

Robert Downey Jnr: I was here 20 years ago and the food SUCKED, and I wasn’t particularly happy when I was here, I was doing a film called Air America, I renamed it Air Generica and we were at Pinewood Studios, then I came back and did Chaplin but I think there is something about the work ethic here, the people, the culture, as Americans we sometimes have an abrupt attitude, there’s a much more civilized way to operate over here. For me the film was a huge experience, it was the proper way to do things and I’ve taken everything forth.

Jude Law: The production designer done an amazing job, we’d turn up everyday amazed, they had been preparing for days, there was so much detail, it was exquisite, it’s always fun to be out and about and film, rather than in a studio, I like getting my boots dirty, it was fun, it’s always fun working in the UK.

Guy are we gonna lose you to Hollywood or are you gonna still make the smaller Independent films?

Guy Ritchie: I don’t know, I really just make the films I want to make, the interesting thing about this experience was that it wasn’t the cliché experience between film-maker and studio, I argued for the studio, I wanted to make an assessable, broad film and they wanted the Guy Ritchie’isms so I was arguing for the studio and they were arguing for me, it was like two people going to the bar and both insisting the other should pay, so all the arguments between the studio and myself were coming from a positive place. I think studios have changed as well with there approach to film-makers, I had a tremendous experience from beginning to end, there was no us and them.

Why Sherlock Holmes out of all the iconic characters?

Guy Ritchie: Partly because I was invested in him as a child, I had a really strong visual sense about who I thought Sherlock Holmes should be, not only that but I had not seen any other productions, unlike most people I had no visual reference other than what I had knocked up in my mind. Warners came up to me with the idea and as soon as they mentioned it, I was fascinated.

What were the re-shoots about, there was a lot of talk about that earlier this year?

Guy Ritchie: In every film I’ve ever done we always leave a contingency for a week because you never know what’s gonna surface during the editing process, so we always leave a week and we left a week. The films the film we all intended to make. On the DVD there are no deleted scenes, there was no fat.

The Way Back is Peter Weir’s first film since Master and Commander and stars Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, Mark Strong and Saoirse Ronan, the film follows “Seven courageous multi-national prisoners discover the true meaning of friendship as their epic journey takes them across thousands of miles of hostile terrain en-route to India and their freedom.” From the premise and the brilliant cast this looks like after five times being nominated this could be Peter Weir’s elusive Oscar winner. I’m sold on this, definitely one of my most anticipated of 2010. For more stills check out quietearth

This looks gory as hell, if you don’t take too kindly to blood or organs this is definitely not for you, the premise alone screams GORE – a company sells terminally ill people organs, then if they can’t pay, they rip them from their bodies and leave them for dead, very heart warming. From the trailer it looks pretty decent to me, nothing spectacular, if your a fan of gritty, action-packed sci-fi thrillers like I am you’ll probably give this a go.

In the futuristic action-thriller Repo Men, humans have extended and improved our lives through highly sophisticated and expensive mechanical organs created by a company called The Union.  The dark side of these medical breakthroughs is that if you don’t pay your bill, The Union sends its highly skilled repo men to take back its property…with no concern for your comfort or survival. Jude Law plays Remy, one of the best organ repo men in the business.  But when he suffers a cardiac failure on the job, he awakens to find himself fitted with the company’s top-of-the-line heart-replacement…as well as a hefty debt.  But a side effect of the procedure is that his heart’s no longer in the job.  When he can’t make the payments, The Union sends its toughest enforcer, Remy’s former partner Jake (Academy Award® winner Forest Whitaker), to track him down. Repo Men stars Liev Schreiber, Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Alice Braga, Carice van Houten, and RZA

If you know me personally, or have been reading this blog you will know that 99% of time I hold a deep hatred for romantic comedies, once in a while a good one does comes along (500 Days Of Summer for example) this looks like it could be one of those times. The trailer gives away a bit too much for me though, everyone knows the twist at the end now. I spoke to Amy Adams while she was promoting Night At The Museum 2 briefly about Leap Year check out what she said below.

Can you discuss your new film, Leap Year, set in Ireland?

Amy Adams: “It’s a romantic comedy with Matthew Goode. I play a woman who feels that her boyfriend is dragging his heels on the engagement. He has not proposed to her, so she decides to take matters into her own hands and go to Ireland to propose to him because of the tradition in Britain and Ireland that in a leap year, on February 29^th, women can propose. Along the way she is forced to look at herself and her choices by a charming and dapper inn keeper played by Matthew Goode.”

What was Ireland like?

Amy Adams: The weather was not too bad and I had a lot of fun, I was drinking pints of Guinness in pubs and eating Irish cream teas and soda bread which I love.  It was fantastic.

How do you choose roles at this point?

Amy Adams: “I look for interesting characters that I relate to. As far as scripts are concerned, when I read them I don’t spend a lot of time deliberating. I somehow know when I have to do something; there will be a connection I feel with a character, a director, or an actor who I’m going to be working with.  There’s always something about the story that pulls me in. I have an immediate gut reaction to stories that I know I will be passionate about.”

Was acting a big dream for you?

Amy Adams: “I was always been very focused, but I wouldn’t say I was driven. ‘Driven’ to me has a sense of blind ambition, but I definitely worked really hard. I trained as a dancer and that’s what I spent most of my time doing, but honestly I didn’t know what I was going to be. I have always let the wind take me wherever it will. Growing up I never thought that being in films was at all possible; I didn’t even imagine a career in movies.  I always envisioned being on stage, because that was something that I was familiar with.  A film career just wasn’t a part of my reality.  But I love it now.”

Amy Adams (SUNSHINE CLEANING, DOUBT, ENCHANTED) is a young woman who has an elaborate scheme to propose to her boyfriend on Leap Day, an Irish tradition which occurs every time the date February 29 rolls around. However she faces a major setback when bad weather threatens to derail her planned trip to Dublin. With the help of an innkeeper, however, her cross-country odyssey just might result in her getting engaged. From the director of RED RIDING 1983 and AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER, LEAP YEAR is a charming and quirky love story which is guaranteed to leave its audience leaping for joy.

Leap Year is released in cinemas nationwide on 26th February 2010.

I’m been a big fan of Guy Ritchie (bar Revolver and Cast Away which I blame on Madonna) as I am of Robert Downey Jnr, Mark Strong and Rachel McAdams, I’m indifferent to Jude Law for no particular reason, I’m also a sucker for crime and mystery thrillers so this is right up my alley. Yet even considering all those positives when I first saw the trailer for Sherlock Holmes I wasn’t impressed at all, I thought it looked way too goofy and action packed, which for me was alien to my idea of Sherlock Holmes. Thankfully my assumptions were very wrong, the film is a brilliant, intelligent, dark and dynamic action thriller. I recently attended the UK press conference for Sherlock Holmes, check out part 1 below, part 2 will be released 26^th December just in time for the films release.

This is your first real big blockbuster why did you decide to do Sherlock Holmes?

Guy Ritchie: I chose this because I needed a job (laughs). Outside of that I wanted to go from small independent films and this seemed to be the perfect segway to go from something small. But I managed to keep the English identity but at the same we had American muscle and American pockets so its kind of the perfect segway in that it is big and broad but is essentially English but with all the American muscle.

Is there any more pressure because of the American muscle and American pockets?

Guy Ritchie: You’ll have to ask me that in a few days when the film opens (laughs), but as yet it’s really the same, it’s the same process, but they may change in a few days.

Robert and Jude how do you see these characters you’ve reinvented for this movie and how do you see them different from older interpretations?

Jude Law: When I was asked to get involved Robert was already set as Sherlock and I knew Guy was directing so I could see it was a different take on the older films of Sherlock Holmes, it fascinated me and obviously they didn’t expect me to put on two stone and put my foot in waste paper buckets, they wanted me to play Watson with more of an edge, what was intriguing, because I hadn’t read the books as a boy, was to go back to the books and see how much of this new rediscovery was also in the source material, it was a happy juggle between going back to Conan Doyle and relishing in the accuracy which in the past at times may have been overlooked and also looking to the future and adding a new energy to an audience we hope will discover or rediscover Sherlock Holmes.

Robert Downey Jnr: I think a lot of the flaming hoops we had to jump through doing Sherlock was how do you take what comes from the source material, how do you amend it so it’s accessible, and how do you not white wash it and still be respectful, if there’s anything we’ve added this time around it’s that essentially as much as it’s about this far reaching case, it’s also it’s also a fight over Mary Mortsan

For the role I don’t get scared any more, I get busy, I already knew by the time Guy was directing that it was a fresh interpretation, I’ve worked with producer Joel Silver a bunch, I’ve lived with Susan Downey (his wife) a bunch and Lionel Wigram is the person who figured out how to reprise this as a film, so I knew I was in good hands, then it was a matter of just getting down to business, I had spent some time here in the UK in the late 80’s playing Chaplin, I had a great tutelage on all things British from Lord Attenborough, so I felt I kind of past go.

The relationship between both Holmes and Watson reminds us of an old married couple at times, how did you collaborate together and when was your first introduction to Sherlock Holmes?

Jude Law: My second job on TV was on the Sherlock Holmes TV series, I was a stable boy. We started work the minute we met didn’t we?

Robert Downey Jnr: Yeah, we were trying to get Jude to do the movie and your a pretty savvy guy so it wasn’t just talk talk talk, it was more like are you interested in making the best version of this, the feedback we’ve been getting is that the film is about the two of you and the third thing that that creates, it’s one thing to promise you can get there, it’s another to roll up your sleeves and do it. Guy created such a sublime atmosphere on set, we weren’t sure it would turn out as good as it did but we really gave a big effort. It’s funny about the chemistry thing because usually people say that about you with a female cast member, but they’re talking about me and Jude like we should be doing Romantic Comedies together (laughs). This film is not a comedy, it’s a love affair of sorts, it’s about what it’s about but there are elements of Holmes and Watson in all of us. I think we just knew when to ying and yang back and forward, we were just a good team.

You’ve talked about doing a fresh take on Sherlock Holmes, but you’ve also said when you go back to the book this is what Doyle intended, would you go as far to say this is the most accurate Sherlock Holmes film to what Doyle intended?

Guy Ritchie: It’s subjective, it has too come through some sort of creative conduit, I was as a director to some degree that conduit, but from a very young age I had an idea, an image of Sherlock Holmes and the partnership, so I feel as though I’m informed by and inspired by Doyle, every other production obviously had to deal with the other interpretations before it so it’s subjective.

Robert Downey Jnr: There’s an esoteric element, sometimes you just feel like your in the right groove, you feel the history and legacy of something, you feel like your getting silent approval from another space and time. At times we were so locked into it exactly as Doyle expressed it, you can’t beat the guys words, we had some of his quotes on a call sheet everyday, but we had to twist it up a little bit, I think it’s no mystery Sherlock Holmes didn’t invent the silencer, if he invented it he done a crap job because it doesn’t work, the shooting the letters VR into a wall is right out of one of the books, which I think was a celebration of the Jubilee or something like that, it spoke to how strange the guy was. We had to honour it but still be entertaining.

This looks really bad, really really bad! A nice little cash in for the studio (Sony). Not to be picky either but isn’t that Kung Fu in the trailer? The original was one of my favorite films from my childhood, looking back now, yes it was a bit cheesey to say the least but nostalgia is a great feeling, trust Hollywood to break that into little pieces the b**terds! The only positive thing I can say is that Jackie Chan looks quite good in this.

The Karate Kid, directed by Harald Zwart (The Pink Panther 2), stars Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, and Taraji P. Henson. Smith plays Dre, a skateboarding video game buff who moves to China after his single mother is forced to go there for work. Unable to speak Chinese, Dre finds it hard to settle in, and gets beat up by the local bully. Chan plays Mr. Han, a maintenance man who spots his black-eye and offers to teach him both martial arts and Chinese, so he can defend against all the kung-fu students.

The Domestic Trailer was released just a week ago, now today see’s the release of the International trailer, providing us with a lot more dialogue and an brief outline of the plot. So far reactions have been mixed in England to this (from what I’ve been hearing), which is kind of where I stand, on one hand it’s Russell Crowe he’s great at these roles (see Gladiator for proof) and Ridley Scott is not too shabby of a director when it comes to historical epics either (see Gladiator and Kingdom Of Heaven for proof). But on the negative side why isn’t Robin Hood an English actor (Sean Bean, Paddy Considine, Dominic West, Daniel Craig, Jim Sturgess, Christian Bale, Tom Hardy ect). I’m still definitely gonna check it out and after some thought I don’t give a monkeys what country the actor is from, as long as the film is good!

Robin Hood chronicles the life of an expert archer, previously interested only in self-preservation, from his service in King Richard’s army against the French. Upon Richard’s death, Robin travels to Nottingham, a town suffering from the corruption of a despotic sheriff and crippling taxation, where he falls for the spirited widow Lady Marion , a woman skeptical of the identity and motivations of this crusader from the forest. Hoping to earn the hand of Maid Marion and salvage the village, Robin assembles a gang whose lethal mercenary skills are matched only by its appetite for life. Together, they begin preying on the indulgent upper class to correct injustices under the sheriff.

With their country weakened from decades of war, embattled from the ineffective rule of the new king and vulnerable to insurgencies from within and threats from afar, Robin and his men heed a call to ever greater adventure. This unlikeliest of heroes and his allies set off to protect their country from slipping into bloody civil war and return glory to England once more.

This looks like it will be one of the most memorable, hilarious and maniacally violent, action films of the year. Chloe Moretz, who plays Hit Girl, is one of the only child actors that doesn’t piss me off, she was great in 500 Days Of Summer and she looks great in this, the trailer below cracked me up ‘OK you c*nts, let me see what you can do now’ – she’s only 12! In Kick-Ass, Moretz plays Nicolas Cage’s daughter Mindy (aka Hit Girl), an adolescent assassin armed with lethal skills, a pistol, and a pair of pigtails. In 2010 she’s also starring in the remake of one of my favorite movies of the year – Let The Right One In alongside Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Boy in The Road).