Well~ that was a LONG process. Buth ere it is, after nearly four months of movie-watching and voting… the YAM Magazine team’s favorite movies of this decade so far~ Hope you find one you like, discover one… and that we included some of your favorites!
I’m terrible with timing, aren’t I?
I’m always dissatisfied with my end of the year lists, but I supposed a WHOLE year of catching up is good enough for me to have a proper idea of what I like, right? I managed to squeeze in 227 movies, the rest is history. I hope you like it, that you don’t hate on me for not including some of your faves, that you celebrate that we loved some of others, and that you love me for introducing you to one title you missed.
Too much awesomeness into one.
What made it to the list and where it placed? Some of my biggest biases placed lower than expected, and some that I don’t want to be my bias placed high on there~
I also made a [nomination] list of all my favorite foreign things of the last decade. If I had included all movies, general suspects would have applied (eg. Children of Men, Dancer in the Dark), but still remains a very ME list. I hope you like the selection, and don’t hesitate in suggesting films to watch.
I was finally doing some room cleaning, and ran into this plastic bag that had a whole bunch of the tickets of movies I caught while living/staying in Van. The results? Of course, I spent over two hours trying to make out some of the fade tickets, arranged them and put them in order of attendance.
The first movie that I caught there was Hulk at what used to be Tinseltown Cinemark. The first two columns cover my first year of studies. My maximum number of movies a month was 9 flicks in January 2004 (Cold Mountain, Big Fish, Peter Pan, 21 Grams, Along Came Polly, Monster, Butterfly Effect, The Cooler and Ginger Snaps 2), April 2004 (Hellboy, The Delicate Art of Parking, Kill Bill, Connie and Carla, Home on the Range, The Punisher, Dogville (twice) and Man on Fire), followed by July 2006 (Devil Wears Prada, The Omen,The Lake House, The King, PotC 2, Lady in the Water, Strangers with Candy, and an unidentified movie that’s already faded) with 8 flicks.
I’ve finally fallen for Kwai Lun-Mei’s charms.
I first saw her in the not-so-bad, Taipei Exchanges, but it wasn’t until promotion for Flying Swords of Dragon Gate had started that I had begun sorta having a lady-boner for her because she gave me such rocking vibes a-la-Tilda-Swinton. Then, of course, I saw the movie and it seemed like a done deal. She was fun, rough, rocking and quite the show-stealer with the way she talked, her dreadlocks… that look in her eyes.
She was an insolent fothermucker. I loved it.
Then during my trip to Taiwan, I kept seeing her on some cellphone commercial being all giggly sending funny SMS and using cute emoticons. But nothing much came of this half-lady-boner until watching Gf*Bf. After that, I was done for. Maybe it’s because the movie is actually damn good, but her performance in there actually sealed the deal for me.
I think… I might have become a fan for life.
I put together my lists of Top15 Movies, Bottom15 Movies, as well as my Top15 Albums from 2011.
The New York Times’ got around 1min. clips of actors acting titled Fourteen Actors Acting. From Tilda Swinton to Chloe Moretz going through James Franco and passing through Michael Douglas, all the way to Jennifer Lawrence with a tinge of Noomi Rapace.
And… I want to say it looks great, because I love black and white – but really?
Even I can’t fangirl.
First, let me just say that when the trailer for Dawn Treader came out, I thought it looked terrible. The CGI work in the film looked positively subpar in comparison to what you thought of Lion and Caspian when they came out. I also wondered why I couldn’t remember any details in regards of the book, since I’ve only read the series once. Except for the annoying cousin, I was blank.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader tells the story of Edmund and Lucy Pevensie who stayed over at their cousin Eustace’s place as they’re separated from their family… including Susan and Peter. Eustace is annoying, played very convincingly by Will Poulter (Son of Rambow), he’s loud, whiny, a complete pain. Then one day as the cousins are arguing in a room that includes a painting of a ship at sea, water starts dripping from the painting. The room fills with water, and they’re transported to Narnia.
Edmund, Lucy and Eustace — who’s freaking out by now — get rescued by Prince (now King) Caspian and his crew, plus Reepicheep, on board of the Dawn Treader in search for the 7 allies of Caspian’s kingdom who were betrayed by his uncle when he took power. Stopping in the first kingdom/island, they discovered a group that’s been taking people away to give them as offering to something known as “The Green Mist”.
Aslan’s totally against this Green Mist, so Caspian, the Pevensie bros, Eustace and company must trail the rest of the kingdom’s allies, get their swords together, and vanquish the Green Mist.
Looking at these not-longer-kids makes me feel old. Lucy (Georgie Henley) is even more grown-up that I remember from Caspian. Same thing for Edmund (Skandar Keynes). Peter (William Moseley) and Susan (Anna Popplewell), however, look ageless. At least they do on the film.
Because my expectations were low in regards to the CG and the conversion, I must say Dawn Treader delivers better than expected. The fakeness of the CG in the 2D trailers was lost in the 3D conversion which made the picture darker and blurry. You can’t have crisp action, that defeats the purpose of action. Also, the shots use in the film work quite fine as “3D” shots, you could even believe they had thought in terms of 3D environment.
The problem with Dawn Treader, however, lies in that it’s pretty thin on story. Even in the book, it seemed to only work as an introduction to Eustace… maybe the reason why that’s all I remember about the actual book. The film also includes some very cringe-worthy dialog, but maybe that’s an issue with the dubbing I had to watch.
But I did enjoy it. What the movie makes better than the book is that it fixes the pacing, there’s a lot of action going on while they’re on their way to search for the allies and their swords. They also make a great build-up for Reepicheep, despite the lack of screen-time he’s had in the movies, to give him a deserving send-off. Actually, it’s probably my favorite scene — despite the blatant Christianity hitting me in the face always on the series, I’m rather fond of how the series ended.
However, I wish they had done something more emotional with Lucy and Edmund’s Narnia farewell, because I felt Susan and Peter’s were much more serious, much more felt… after all, we won’t see Lucy and Edmund! We could see a glimpse of Ben Barns as Caspian on The Silver Chair, but not Keynes and Henley.
I hope they do make it to The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle… even cooler if they make The Magician’s Nephew. I really REALLY hate The Horse and his Boy, though.
3/5
