Film 100 - Badlands

What can I say.

I've done it.

Film 99 - The Lady Vanishes

I watched most of it, and I'm pretty sure that counts.

Film 98 - Kes

Having previously read the book the film was good, and in many ways following the vision of the original... but maybe just because I read it first, it just seemed like the film was rehashing the same story, an excellent one, but one I'd heard before.

The football scene was just as, if not more funny, as in the book though.

Film 97 - Love Actually

What's better than one love story? About twenty love stories.

That's why Love Actually holds the joint top spot with 500 Days of Summer in rom-com-ville.

How can you chose the best one out of them? The prime minister and a member of his staff, the two stand ins who find themselves standing in on a sex scene from some movies or another before their first date, or possibly my personal favourite, the 11 year old who's found the 'one.'

Film 96 - Lost in Translation

I should really stop watching so many good films, so many really awe-inspiring films. I honestly don't know where to put this film... is it brilliant, or simply great.

Bill Murray, Scarlet Johansson just have one of the greatest connections, the understanding between the two makes the film great. At times, nothing was said for nearly a minute, but both acted with understated brilliance.

Film 95 - My Best Friend's Wedding

90s romantic comedy for me next, a film that delivered less than 500 Days of Summer but more than How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

Therefore, a reasonably good but not great film.

Film 94 - Cloverfield

Another apocalyptic type film, this time with a huge great monster type thingy.

It was all shot on hand-held camera, giving it that sort of Blair Witch Project type feel.

Good film.

Film 93 - 28 Days Later

Another zombie thriller/horror type film, full of suspense, atmosphere but also touching moments.

I would place it on a level with I Am Legend, two different but just as brilliant apocalyptic films.

Film 92 - Flushed Away

To be honest, I watched it because it was short.

Mildly entertaining, thinly plotted, but with some funny moments (mostly slapstick)

Film 91 - Blades Of Glory

I like sports films, so I knew why I liked Blades of Glory. It wasn't a great film, but it was funny despite the fact it was pretty formulaic.

Film 90 - I Am Legend

What a film, what a brilliant performance from Will Smith, what suspense, what atmosphere, what sadness. 

One of the best films of the year, without question. I will write more later, because this really does deserve more.

Film 89 - Happy Feet

This film grew on me immensely up until the point that Mumble was taken to the zoo and almost lost his voice trying to get his point across.

If the film had ended at that point it would have been heartbreakingly sad but also heartbreakingly true to life, but the 15 final minutes just feel like an unrealistic and tacked on happy ending.

Film 88 - Johnny Mnemonic

Just a bad film, and that's all there is to it. A contender for worst film of the year because of the wooden acting, awful dialogue, lack of coherent plot and almost complete pointlessness.

If Logan's Run was an example of good sci-fi, this was an example of terrible sci-fi that really insults the audience's intelligence.

Film 87 - Logans Run

I am a sci-fi fan, and I do like films which are set in the future and introduce a new element to society. Logan's Run's element was the fact that everybody in the sealed society has a palm device thingy which tells them in no uncertain terms that their time is up once they reach thirty. 

One of those sci-fi films which probably could have been better than it was, it could have been a great film but it ended up only being a good film, verging on very good.

Film 86 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit

This was the quintessential film of two halves, the first which I couldn't quite get into despite some decent moments, but somehow it metamorphosed into a really funny film, which did to the world of cartoons what Shrek did to fairy tales and Singing in the Rain did to musicals.

That was a little thing called satire, but a friendly slightly bizarre satire on the world of 1950s Hollywood during the era of the Looney Tunes cartoons, but bringing the characters or 'toons' into the real world with hilarious results. 

Film 85 - Shrek 3

I had seen the first two Shrek films and the third one follows the same sort of formula: subverting the fairy tale stereotypes, a few laughs and generally just a laid back hour and a half of light entertainment.

Just like Singing in the Rain, it's the perfect Christmas film because it works on adult and child levels and doesn't really demand that either think too much.

Film 84 - Singing in the Rain

What can I say that probably hasn't been said before?

Nothing. It's just a classic and one of those films that you have to watch at Christmas.

Film 83 - The Waterboy

As I have five films I've watched over Christmas to review, I'm going to be brief.

I liked the Waterboy to an extent, the extent being that it was a sporting underdog story. Other than that, it wasn't that great, and Adam Sandler was laughable in that there seemed to be no reason for his stupid acting which detracted hugely from the film.

Film 82 - Evan Almighty

Not quite as good as Bruce Almighty, mainly because Steve Carrell is not quite as good as Jim Carrey.

But then again... who is?

Film 81 - Honey I Shrunk The Kids

The perfect film for a lazy Sunday afternoon... and even though it was a Wednesday today I wasn't after a taxing or intellectually challenging film.

And I didn't get one.

Film 80 - Looking for Eric

I really did like this film, unlike the previous one I watched, it was funny, a little bit grim and tremendously strange.

And sometime, that's how I like my films.

Film 79 - How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

Since my computer is right next to my TV, I'm going to put up my impressions of films I watch on there during each advert break.

First Break: Rom-coms are supposed to make you laugh, right? Well I haven't even got near a chuckle so far, but the set up is decent and offers the chance of some laughs later.

Second Break: Slightly funnier I suppose, but nothing that actually made me laugh. It's all been pretty bland so far.

Third Break: Funnier again, the only part of the film so far I've actually enjoyed, still think it's a fairly average film,  and I can predict the ending already: They both find out about their respective agendas, split up in anger, then get back together and realise they love each other.

Fourth Break: Less funny, and a bit too easy, the way that they both suddenly fell in love with each other. There just wasn't enough difficulty in it for my liking, the whole films been a bit too glossy. All the rom-coms I've liked this year have just seemed more real than this (500 Days, Chasing Amy)

End: Just didn't quite make it for me, the fact that I could predict the ending, the massive plot hole of them being mad at each other for doing exactly the same thing.

Film 78 - Die Hard

It took me a while to get into Die Hard, considering the fact that I don't normally like action movies, I was quite surprised that in the end, I really did quite like this.

I think the operative word here is "quite." It's not in my top ten, or even top twenty films, but I reckon it will be in and around the final fifty when I do my final analysis.

Film 77 - Back to the Future Part 3

I'm starting to get into the home stretch, the last twenty movies or so until I can say I've done the seemingly impossible, and watched around 80 movies in under 4 months. 

So my reviews are going to get a little shorter...

Very good second sequel, much better than most, and featuring my favourite thing ever, a steam locomotive time machine. 

Film 76 - I Love You Phillip Morris

Maybe it's because I was very tired, but I didn't love this film like I thought I would. In many ways, I didn't like it at all.

There were parts of the film that I really liked, the original time that Steven and Phillip met in prision, was cute and funny. The part when it seemed like Steven was dying of AIDS was heartbreakingly sad, but both of these good things were ruined by their counterparts: the bad things.

The bad things were the fact that the movie glossed over major things, like about five prison escapes. I also didn't like the end and the fact that Steven faked dying of AIDS, but I guess that's unavoidable, this being a true story.

Film 75 - Back to the Future Part II

I wouldn't say it was quite as good as the original, but it's certainly better than most films about time travel, just because the characters (unchanged from the first film) are so good, so funny and are in a pretty well written storyline.

Again, I wouldn't say it was as good as the first, but sequels never are.

Film 74 - Yes Man

I liked it, because when you look as it, it's impossible to actually dislike a film with Jim Carrey and Zooey Deschanel (especially Zooey, she's lovely)

The whole idea saying yes to everything (taken from the book by Danny Wallace) is one that gives so many possibilities. Carl learns Korean, how to play the guitar, gets into a bar fight, falls in love, and does thousands of other things including a frankly disturbing scene which I can't bring myself to actually mention.

Suffice to say, if you watch it, you'll know what scene I mean. 

Film 73 - A Scanner Darkly

I don't know what it was trying to say to me, the animation confused me, I was tired, the plot didn't seems to make sense.

I laboured through it, even a 20 minute phase towards the end which I quite liked, I didn't have the concentration. It was too spacey, my eyes and my brain couldn't keep up.

Film 72 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

It's a bit different to the book, but I enjoyed it, mainly down to the fact that it - like the the books, and doubtlessly like the radio and TV series' -  is brilliantly written.

I had heard bad things about the film before, that it wasn't true to the original radio series or the books. I can't really comment on that, but as itself, it is a really good film.

It helps that all the characters are perfectly cast, almost exactly as I'd imagined, especially Arthur Dent being played by Martin Freeman and Zooey Deschanel how I imagined Trillian too.

Film 71 - The Matrix

Just like Blade Runner, it's a masterpiece which at times is impossible to follow. To be fair, it made a lot more sense most of the time, but at times near the end I just didn't get it.

You can't deny that it's a masterpiece though, and another film that I'm glad I got round to watching.

Film 70 - Hard Candy

About the most disturbing film I have ever had the fortune/misfortune to see. It tricks with your emotions so well, as you start by believing that Jeff (the paedophile) deserves what's coming to him, but as the torture increases you start to realise how much of a psychopath - 14 year old - Hayley is.

It's one of the most insane films ever, 14 year old girl seduces - not that he needed seducing - paedophile before drugging him and torturing him. A particularly nasty segment comes when she pretends to castrate him whilst he's tied up. Neither him nor the audience know that she hasn't actually done it until he manages to free himself.

Hard Candy is one of those films that it's impossible to love, difficult to even like, and may even make you wish you hadn't watched it. But it will make you think.

Film 69 - Smart People

It failed to rivet me, having the same problem as so many 'comedy-drama' films: it wasn't funny enough and it wasn't dramatic enough.

Few films can pull off this lack of anything on the surface that makes you love it, and those are the ones that have an awful lot underneath. Smart People, just like the Royal Tenenbaums, failed to pull off this ultra-indie style of film.

FIlm 68 - Sliding Doors

Another really good film, with a concept that fascinated me, and given that it was built around getting or not getting on to a tube train, and the alternative realities that followed.

Symmetry was something that was obvious throughout the film, as similar things happened in both universes to slightly different effects and at slightly different times.

The best moments in this film came towards the end of the film, it was an unashamed rom-com throughout with an interesting uniqueness, so towards the end came the point which was most interesting in both ways, with the better reality dying but it looking like in the end almost being resurrected, which also had a brilliant symmetry to  it.

Film 67 - Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Another superlative comedy film, surpassing the other John Hughes film I've watched this year for laughs but maybe not for emotional impact.

Still, it isn't a film to be dismissed as a cheap laugh, there are some genuinely profound moments amongst the crazy madcap stuff that goes on.

EDIT: Actually it's the third John Hughes film I've seen this year... I didn't know he wrote and produced Home Alone.

Film 66 - Shallow Hal

One of those movies that had more than you'd see on the surface. If you look at it shallowly you see a comedy about fat people and good looking people and how one who sees himself as the latter eventually finds a way to see past looks and love a fat person.

The other way of looking at is is that it's a very funny film that contains some important debates about what beauty is and how judgemental our society is.

I prefer to look at it the latter way, but any right thinking person should find thinking about it that way deeply uncomfortable. And that's a good thing.

Film 65 - Slumdog Millionaire

A brilliant, sad, feel-good, moving, heart-warming - there aren't enough adjectives - film.  Simply blew me away with the emotions it made me feel, the quality of the storyline.

Possibly the best Danny Boyle film in this list (the fourth that I've watched) and given that they are all brilliant films, that is a high accolade.

The moment with the cricket question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, would have worked better if I hadn't known the answer (therefore knowing the host was tricking him).

N.B. Second Danny Boyle film to feature toilet diving. Urgh!