10 movies I liked a lot in 2010

Now we're getting into the good stuff. These ten films were almost perfect, but for some minor detail that kept me from loving them forever.

Number 20



The dialogue, the setting, the acting, and the mood are all as great as everyone says they are. I loved it right up until the "25 Years Later" jump, which is where it lost me. I know people who appreciated that closure, but I would've preferred it another way.

Number 19



A powerful and moving love story, but I couldn't get behind the couple, as I've said before. And even though I suspect that was exactly the reaction I was supposed to have, it kept me from fully embracing this movie.

Art Show: Pocketses

What is he, My Precious?



By Sam Bosma. [Picture Book Report]

Conan



By John Buscema. [The Pictorial Arts]



By Evan Shaner.

The Hoard of the Gibbelins



By Sidney Sime. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Art Show: Never Too Many Cookes

Dragon-in-the-Box



By NC Wyeth. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Red Sonja



By Darwyn Cooke. [Comic Art Fans]

I'm not so sure she's a Federal Agent



Artist Unknown. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

After the break: Much more Darywn Cooke (including Black Canary, Death, Wonder Woman, and Padme). Also, an alien robot and an apocalyptic archer.

Movie News: The Happiest Hive of Scum and Villainy on Earth

Well, the Twitter experiment is a bust. Partially because I got tired of struggling with Tinying links, but mostly because it just wasn't as much fun. Time consuming as they are, I actually like creating these posts. Thanks for your patience while I figured that out.

Some of the stuff below was on Twitter last week, but not all of it.

Empires of the Deep



Empires of the Deep is the undersea adventure being produced by both US and Chinese filmmakers. I've talked about it before because I love the concept, but I've also been skeptical that it'll be any better than Dragon Wars. There's some encouraging news though in that Olga Kurylenko (Hitman, Quantum of Solace) will be in it. Dragon Wars also had some folks I liked in it, so this is no guarantee of quality, but Kurylenko is much better looking than Jason Behr and Craig Robinson. If nothing else, the movie will still be breathtakingly gorgeous. [/Film]

How to Train Your Dragon 2



Repeating myself from Twitter: I'm tempted to take a cynical view of Dreamwork's greenlighting a How to Train Your Dragon sequel, but a) this should come as absolutely no surprise, and b) I loved the first one so much that I'd like more. I just hope it's more along the lines of Shrek 2 (which I liked better than the first one) than Madagascar 2. [/Film]

Robin Hood Stills



/Film has tons of them.

A teenaged assassin, Thor, and Star Wars Land after the break.

Art Show: It's not the real thing. It's just a fantasy.

On the Rope



By Travis Hanson.

King Neptune



By Eric Kincaid. [Illustrateurs; who also has a very nice mermaid picture by Kincaid]

The Black Arrow



By NC Wyeth. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Conan



By Jean Pierre Targete. [Illustrateurs]

Dragon



By Berni Wrightson. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Beast Rider



By Travis Hanson.

The Sword of Ardenois



By Etienne Willem. [Illustrateurs]

John Carter of Mars



By Tom Fowler. [ComicTwart]

Captain Peanut Butter



By Jeremy Vanhoozer.

Canadian Space Girl



By Lucio Alberto Ruiz-Diaz.

Art Show: Illustrateurs

If you like the Art Show feature here, you need to add Illustrateurs to your blogroll or RSS feed right away. Chris Mautner linked to it from Robot 6 and I'm hooked. So hooked, in fact, that I'm dedicating an entire Art Show post to sharing just a tiny taste of what's going on over there. Every post of theirs is stuffed full of more amazing art just like the images below.

The Deadly Lady of Madagascar



By Robert Maguire.

Fire Fight for the Village



By Mort Künstler.

Jungle people, giant reptiles, derring-do, and more after the break.

Comics News: Dino Fighting and Dragon Punching

Heralds



Marvel certainly is serious about spotlighting their female heroes this year. Heralds is a mini-series coming in June about She-Hulk, Valkyrie, and others fighting a former herald of Galactus. And apparently some zombies and dinosaurs. [Robot 6]

Dragon Puncher



I said in this morning's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs column that Frenemy of the State was probably the best title anything would get all year. I'd clearly forgotten about Dragon Puncher about "a cute but ruthless kitty in an armored battle suit, dedicated to defeating dangerous dragons wherever they may be. The Dragon Puncher and his would-be sidekick Spoony-E (a fuzzy little fellow armed with a wooden spoon) confront a gigantic, drooling dragon and have a ridiculous, hilarious brawl." Coming from Top Shelf in July. [Robot 6]

Boneyard, The Good Neighbors, and Mouse Guard after the break.

Movie News: I Hate Tentacles

Meet Blackbeard



This man is in talks to play Blackbeard in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. I didn't think those movies could get any better, but I guess I was wrong. (I know it's cool to hate the last two, but I can't help liking them.) Penelope Cruz is going to be in it too, which could ease my grieving over Keira's absence.

Sharktopus vs Dinoshark



The world's not awesome enough for a movie with both Sharktopus and Dinoshark in it, but Undead Backbrain has the complete skinny on their separate films.

Moby Dick with Dragons



And Danny Glover as a fantasy-world Ahab. I'm skeptically curious.

Doc Savage movie



I don't know enough about Doc Savage to be truly excited about this, but any pulp adventure movie set in the '30s is going to get my money.

Dean Koontz's Frankenstein on screen... again



It was meant to be a TV series (I reviewed the TV-movie/pilot a few years ago), but Koontz didn't like how it was going and pulled his name off it, choosing instead to co-author a series of novels. Now those novels are becoming at least one film. I never did get around to reading them, but I'm curious now to see how the new film version compares to the old one.

Monster in Paris



Unfortunately, they're not making a movie out of my and Jason Copland's Paris-set giant monster comic just yet, but there is an animated film in the works about "a shy movie projectionist and an inventor who team up with a cabaret star, an eccentric scientist and his monkey to save the city from a monster."

I miss John Hughes



I pulled out The Smiths' Louder than Bombs to listen to recently. That album always makes me think of John Hughes because he's the one who introduced me to it. After the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, I made a habit of getting the soundtracks to all his films, knowing that I'd find some amazing stuff on them. "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" was on Pretty in Pink and Kirsty Macoll's cover of "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby" is on She's Having a Baby, but I also have Hughes to thank for Echo and the Bunnymen, Love and Rockets, Gene Loves Jezebel, Kate Bush, Flesh for Lulu, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and of course Simple Minds. He's even responsible for my digging into Bowie's career any earlier than Let's Dance thanks to that quote at the beginning of The Breakfast Club.

By sheer coincidence, Vanity Fair ran a series of articles on Hughes about the same time I was listening to The Smiths. /Film has conveniently collected them, but my favorite part was learning that he never lost that love for new music. According to /Film's summary, "His iTunes library filled several hard drives, and he planned the playlists for his sons’ weddings as carefully as he had the soundtracks for his movies. In recent years, he took to dispensing pre-loaded iPods to people he liked, much as he’d assiduously compiled mix tapes for Ringwald and Broderick in the old days." There's a great story about the one he gave John Candy's son and how it was eventually used, but you should go read that one for yourself.

Movie News: Captain America, a witch-hunter, Frankenstien, and Adele

Captain America



Director Joe Johnston's cashed in some of Marvel Studios' goodwill by releasing some silly-sounding details about his vision for the Captain America movie. Most of it's just fine - casting an unknown in the lead role, setting the bulk of the story in WWII Europe, making Red Skull the main villain, etc. - but there's one bit that's pretty terrifying.

After he’s made into this super-soldier, they decide they can’t send him into combat and risk him getting killed. He’s the only one and they can’t make more. So they say, ‘You’re going to be in this USO show’ and they give him a flag suit.

Really. The US government creates the ultimate super-soldier, so instead of putting him into battle they have him doing USO shows? Johnston goes on to say that Cap goes AWOL from the USO in order to fight and "covers up the suit," but then realizes it's a symbol for the troops and allows him to become a leader. He covers up the suit? He can't just take it off?

I realize that I've now become that guy who hates on a movie that he hasn't yet seen, but nothing about this USO idea sounds any damn good. Still, there's a long way to go before the film's made and plenty of time to trash the idea. And who knows? Maybe they can pull off a singing, dancing Captain America better than I think they can.

Still... scary.

Season of the Witch



Speaking of scary, I kind of like this trailer for Nicholas Cage's Season of the Witch. It starts off looking like a horror movie, but turns into something more like a supernatural adventure. It's Nicholas Cage playing a knight, so it could be Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves meets Van Helsing, but I'm hoping it can be more like Brotherhood of the Wolf.

I, Frankenstein



Kevin Grevioux's Frankenstein movie has been greenlit. Back when it was first announced they were calling it an action story where the modern-day Monster carries guns and fights other famous monsters like vampires, werewolves, mummies, goblins, and ghosts. Grevioux is the creator of Underworld and the director for I, Frankenstein is the same guy who directed Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, so if you like those movies - which I do - this one sounds promising too.

Les Aventures Extraordinaires d'Adele Blanc-Sec: Second Trailer



Now with mummies!

Comics: A Human Couldn't Live Ten Minutes in that Jungle!

Voodah



More jungle art by the awesome Matt Baker. [The Comic Book Catacombs]

Valley of No Return



That's the kind of trip I like too. [The Fabuleous Fifties]

Space Family Robinson and the Pit of Doom



But I'll enjoy seeing them try... [Gold Key Comics!]