The Ledge:  (Blu-Ray)

I haven’t written a movie review in quite a long time.  But I felt that since one of the main characters in this film is openly atheistic, I couldn’t help but provide some discussion on it’s content.

The film is called The Ledge and it begins with the atheist character, Gavin, walking along the roof of a building and stepping out onto the ledge preparing to jump to his death.  How he got to this point is revealed through flashbacks as Gavin discusses his situation with the police officer there to talk him down, played by Terrance Howard.  What Gavin ultimately does and why is the message of the film.

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I know, I’m a dinosaur.  I’m one of those rare individuals these days who still buy CD’s for my music.  In fact, I’ve never bought a song online.  I refuse to until the format improves.  To me, MP3 might be fine with small earbuds but when you try to play it on a nice high end stereo, it’s deficiencies show.   So until then, I will buy CD’s and rip them using FLAC.

And I’m the same with movies.  Sure I do my fair share of streaming movies, but until they can improve the audio beyond simple stereo I’ll opt to purchase movies I like.  Over the years I’ve acquired my fair share of DVD’s and now that Blu-Ray is the standard I’ve begun buying some titles in that format as well.  As I’ve mentioned before, it’s not just the video that improved with Blu-Ray, but the audio formats as well.  There are many to choose from when mastering a Blu-Ray disk, but the loss-less DTS Master-HD Audio format is quickly becoming the preferred format.  It is fantastic and in my view is the real reason to upgrade to Blu-Ray.

As with any new format, the question comes up, do you spend more money to rebuy the titles you truly love in the new format? or live with the ones you have.  Well, to help me out with my collection of DVD’s, Warner Brothers Home Video has a program that lets you swap out your DVD for the new Blu-Ray version of the movie.  The cost is reasonable at either $5 or $7 a movie.  I went to their website and took a quick look and found out I had about 10 movies that were eligible.

The program requires that you send in your old DVD and they send you the new Blu-Ray version.  And if you have over $35 on the order, shipping is free.  Not a bad deal.  It’s worth checking out and might make that upgrade decision just a tad easier.

I’m definitely late getting this list put together, but here it is in all its glory (or lack thereof). As usual, this is my personal list of the best movies I watched in 2010, not necessarily limited to those that came out in 2010. It’s my way of summing up my viewing year.

It was another great year for movie watching with 77 movies or TV season shows on the list. I also got off my butt and introduced some half-star ratings around the middle of the year so the spread is a bit more accurate. Here is the breakdown.

• 1.0 Star – 1
• 1.5 Star – 0
• 2.0 Star – 12
• 2.5 Star – 3
• 3.0 Star – 25
• 3.5 Star – 15
• 4.0 Star – 21
• 4.5 Star – 0
• 5.0 Star – 0

A fairly typical distribution for me with no 5 star movies and most falling in the 3 to 3.5 star area.  From this breakdown it will be easy to pick the worst film of the year, but the best in each category is always tough.

As usual, I’ve broken down the movies I watched into categories (based on Netflix genre’s) and selected my favorite in each.

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I’m a bit late getting this post up, but we were out of town for an extended period over the holidays and it’s taken me a while to get back into the groove of things.  I think I broke a record this month in that I went to the theater twice, once with my daughter to see the latest Harry Potter movie and the second time to see the Coen’s version of True Grit.  Both were good experiences.

Below is the list of movies for December in no particular order.

• True Grit (1969)
• True Grit (2010)
• Cypher
• Scott Pilgrim vs The World
• The Nature of Existence
• Blood Into Wine
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

As usual, click through to see the reviews and ratings.

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November was a pretty good month for movies with 7 on the list.  Astute readers will notice that the list below actually contains 8 films.  That’s because I forgot one last month so I’ve added it to this months list.  Here they are in no particular order.

• How To Train Your Dragon
• Toy Story 3
• Planet 51
• Gomorrah
• The Messenger
• Fiddler On The Roof
• The Girl Who Played With Fire
• Murder By Death

As always, click through to see the reviews and ratings.

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This month I got back to a more “normal” viewing schedule with 5 films and one 6 hour documentary.  And along the way I finally got around to making the other “half-star” images I was missing.  Yes, a couple of the films needed them to more accurately portray how I felt about them.  Maybe next year I’ll go to a ten star system and eliminate the need for half-stars all together…we’ll see.  But anyway, here are the films in no particular order.

• Agora
• Creation
• The Ghost Writer
• The Secret of Kells
• Mary and Max
• God in America

As always, click through to see the ratings and reviews.

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This looks pretty awesome…might actually prompt me to make a trip to the theater.

September was a busy month with work and travel,  so I didn’t get much spare time to watch movies.  In fact, I only saw one movie last month…way below my average.  But, I did find time to watch the recently released Dexter Season 4 episodes.  Hopefully I can get back on schedule in October.  So not much of a list, but here it is anyway.

• Dexter Season 4 (12 episodes)
• Kick-Ass

As always, click through to see the ratings and reviews.

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August was another relatively slim month for movies with only 5 to review.  Here they are in no particular order.

• 11 Minutes Ago
• The Lovely Bones
• Roger Dodger
• Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage
• Waiting for Armageddon

As always, click through to read the reviews and see the ratings.
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July was a relatively slow month for movie watching with only 5 films.  But they spanned the genre’s with a documentary, a sci-fi, a couple of mysteries and an animated film.  And none got less than 3 stars.  Here they are in no specific order.

• Shutter Island
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Cube
• Lord, Save Us From Your Followers
• Despicable Me

As always, click through to see the ratings and short reviews of the films.
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