Humpday: 3 stars

When Andrew unexpectedly shows up on Ben's doorstep late one night, the two old college friends immediately fall into their old dynamic of heterosexual one-upmanship. To save Ben from domestication, Andrew invites Ben to a party at a sex-positive commune. Everyone there plans on making erotic art films for the local amateur porn festival and Andrew wants in. They run out of booze and ideas, save for one: Andrew should have sex with Ben, on camera.

I wanted to start my 2011 reviews with Humpday because of it's relative obscurity. Introducing people to new things is always fun. Do you really want to know what I thought of all the big name films? Yes? Well too bad, you're going to hear about two adult heterosexual men who want to have sex with each other for the sake of art.

Humpday stars Mark Duplass who, along with his brother Jay (usually found behind the scenes), introduced the world to the now confusingly labeled genre "mumblecore" with their wonderfully refreshing full length debut The Puffy Chair. Let it be known that I hate that label. These films, which includes Humpday, are basically just lo-budget indie films. Why are they now called Mumblecore? I have no idea; I can hear all of the actors just fine. If you haven't seen The Puffy Chair yet, or their follow up Baghead, do yourself a favor and rent them. They're worth seeing and you may love them. You may hate them too, but so goes lo-budget indie filmmaking. Their newest was Cyrus, which features much bigger stars and had a much larger release. I actually assumed Humpday was written and directed by the brothers Duplass until I wrote this review. It is actually written and directed by unknown filmmaker Lynn Shelton.

I found Humpday to be a very fascinating character study, as it tackled the male psyche through sexuality. I think I've been out of academia way too long to write intellectually on said study, so I'll stick to the movie review. What I think sets these "mumblecore" films aside from your usual indie flicks is the unbelievable level of authenticity they portray. It's a fictional story, largely un-improvised, however if you were stumble upon it on cable one night I wouldn't be surprised if you thought it was a documentary. The true to life conversations, vocabulary and accurate situational reactions make Humpday completely accessible and believable. When you connect to these characters and find bits of yourself in them, it makes the experience so much more satisfying.

I think I speak for most straight men out there, at least the ones who care to admit it, when I say that while the set up of two heterosexual friends agreeing to have sex with each other on film seems out of left field for some, sexual acts between two straight friends is a completely normal thought or conversation that occurs. While most don't end up up on as serious of a level as they do in Humpday, that thought is still there in the background for most guys....what if? Could I? How many beers would it take? I think the true to life reactions and rationalizations that occur between Ben and Andrew are startlingly real. Humpday could have just focused on Ben and Andrew's relationship, however the film also tackles the changes seen in Ben since Andrew's arrival and how their decision effects Ben's relationship with his wife Alycia. With just as much clarity, we watch as Alycia tries to come to terms with her husband's strange actions and decisions.

It's fascinating to witness how the injection of one dude from your past can completely change someone you love. They start acting differently, treating you differently, and having sex on film. It's wonderful to see that change studied with such authenticity as it is in Humpday. This subject matter has been superficially taken on countless times in other sitcoms for the sake of easy humor, but Humpday hits home with its spot on performances and documentary feel. Oh, and that is indeed the guy from The Blair Witch Project. I love him!

2010: A Poor Year for Patrick

When I realized exactly how many 2010 releases I've watched, it was very alarming. I barely even viewed fifteen 2010 films TOTAL. I did get married in the past year, so that took up a lot of my time. Still, there is no excuse for enjoying so few films. I saw more films from 2009, so I'm just simply behind. Picking ten out of a list fifteen seemed easy to me, so I figured I would just list all the 2010 films I was able to catch, followed by some quick thoughts.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: Wow. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World blew my mind. I wish I could have seen this on the big screen, but blu ray wasn't too shabby. If you were raised in the time of Nintendo and enjoy music, all things fun and general silliness then you will love Scott Pilgrim. It's just unbelievably cool and geeky. I geeked out. I'm capable of geeking. 4 stars.

True Grit: This film was excellent. While it isn't classic Coen brothers, it does have their stamp on it. Jeff Bridges breathes new life into Rooster Cogburn, but Hailee Steinfeld steals the show as Mattie and I hope she wins the Oscar. There is also another welcome appearance by Barry Pepper (can the man do any wrong?). Great script, great story, great acting, & great photography = great film. Is it the Coen Brothers best? Not in my opinion. It's really good, but not best picture good. 3.5 stars

Inception: See previous review posted. I forgot to mention, the acting is very solid as well. Noting extraordinary, but nothing detrimental either. 4 stars.

Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: This trilogy is all the rage right now in the movie blogosphere. It has already been picked up by Hollywood and is being remade by the wonderful David Fincher. In the hands of anyone else I would be worried, but I have faith that my main man Mr. Fincher will blow the original out of the water. As far as the original Swedish release, it is very very good. It is a very enthralling story that had me hooked from the start. It is full of moody atmosphere and mystery, it's well paced and sports very solid acting . Rooney Mara has her work cut out for her filling Naomi Rapace's shoes. For the most part I've read that the sequels (Girl Who Played With Fire & Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest) aren't as strong, and I'm assuming that is most likely due to a change in director, but still worthy films. So catch them all while you can before the US versions are released! The first two are already out on DVD/Blu-ray and the 3rd is coming soon. 3.5 stars.

Easy A: I had a lot fun with Easy A. It tries really hard to be as relevant as all of the John Hughes films that it pays homage to, yet it doesn't even reach the level of Mean Girls. However, I still loved it. Emma Stone (Olive) carries the film and along with her cool progressive parents (played by the lovely Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci), makes the movie worth watching. Hell, I even plan on buying it. However, I wish I never had to see Ally Michalka's stupid face and fake boobs again. I cringed every time she was on screen as Olive's annoying and promiscuous best friend. Her, and a forced spontaneous musical scene, hold it back from true greatness. Other than that, it's is a well done and fresh take on the High School genre. 3 stars.

Shutter Island: This was a quasi-controversial release by Martin Scorsese. Not for anything other than people didn't know what to make of it. Adapted for the screen from the Dennis Lehane novel (which I have on good authority is just as odd to read as the film is to watch) Shutter Island is the story of two detectives (DiCaprio and Ruffalo) who are investigating a missing inmate in a maximum security insane asylum. Mystery and twists are everywhere, but it's the performances and Scorsese's visual excellence that I responded so favorably to. I think the one word that describes Shutter Island best is LUSH. This is another one (see Book of Eli below) where your reaction to the resolution will make it or break it. It didn't bother me one bit. 3.5 stars.

Alice in Wonderland: Is it Tim Burton or Johnny Depp's best? No, not at all. Is it as bad as critics and people have been saying. No, not at all. If you're a fan of this combo, you should like this film. It's classic Tim Burton, and Classic Johnny Depp. Neither will follow the rules, or do anything similar to the classic Alice you may be familiar with or fond of. Overall I thought it was a lot of fun, and Johnny Depp was fantastic. Visual feasts abound, and style over substance is not necessarily a bad thing. 3 stars.

Macgruber: BEST SEX SCENE EVER! You can spoil the fun and see it on Youtube, but I urge you not to, and just rent this silly parody flick. It's really worth the watch just for that scene. It's not a good movie by a long shot, but I would definitely buy it for the days I just feel like something silly and mind numbing. If you hated the skit from SNL, you still might like this flick. It's a more fleshed out parody of bad 80's action movies, and I had a lot of fun watching it. 2.5 stars of ridiculous re-watchable fun.

Iron Man 2: Iron Man was such a fantastically fun introduction to the character, that the sequel was bound to be a let down. It was a let down, but I don't think it was as big of a let down as some critics will lead you to believe. The humor, fun acting, good script and general bad assedness is still there, but it's a bit more muddled than the first one. Still fun, but nothing too great. Note: Don Cheadle makes any movie enjoyable. 3 stars.

Get Him to The Greek: "Barkeep! Absimff!" I've watched this movie twice, and it was even better the second time through. If you've seen the trailers, you might think that Get Him to The Greek is all raunchy humor and no heart. However, director Nicholas Stoller picks up right where he left off with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and improves on all of that film's strengths. He gives the raunchy comedy a big heart and characters we actually care about. The film even gets pretty touching towards the end (although the heart is sandwiched between a threesome and a Jeremy (you'll see)). Oh, do you hate Sean Combs? You won't after seeing this. He's hilarious. 3.5 stars.

Twilight: Eclipse: Soooo, I'm totally on team Jacob now. I get it. Vampires make horrible boyfriends. There is really no reason for me to expand on these films. Either you are willing to enjoy a horribly cheesy high school romance film about vampires, werewolves and overly dramatic tweens or you're not. Eclipse is the most appropriately stylish films of the series so far, but the first one is still the best overall. 2.5 guilty pleasure stars.

Until the Light Takes US: This was an incredibly bad documentary and has joined the ranks of the very few films I couldn't even finish. This is a good example of what is scary about trying to make a good movie. It is obviously made by newcomers, and it is obvious they are very passionate about the subject matter, however nothing ever comes together. The filmakers just don't have the skill. It's about Norweigian Black Metal! I was so excited and so sure this would be fun to watch, but it wasn't. The editing was poor and no context was given to any of the sequences. It was just an hour or so of watching people who were involved in the music movement, more specifically the crimes committed in Norway, ramble on about it with no discernable direction. I could have taken away just as much information from a newspaper article. A quick check on IMDB shows two new directors, five producers, and an editor who actually does have quite a few projects under his belt. I just don't think they had the material to make a full length documentary. Give me a voiceover, tell me what question you were asking; give me something! Zero stars.

Kick-Ass: Early in 2010 this film had huge buzz surrounding it. It's part of the "normal people become super heroes" genre that is becoming more and more popular. I had high hopes for this, but it just didn't live up to them. The ending did not sit well with me at all. It was just too easy and too predictable; especially for a movie that was the opposite of that for the first three quarters. In addition, Christopher Mintz-Plasse rubbed me the wrong way this time. He was great in Superbad and Role Models but was reaching too far here. However, it does have many things going for it. Nicolas Cage proves why he used to be in such big demand with a fantastic performance, and Chloe Moretz shows amazing promise in her role as the ass kicking Hit-Girl. Definitely still check it out if you were meaning to, but Kick-Ass just didn't do it for me. 2.5 stars.

How To Train Your Dragon: I finally saw this the other day and loved it! Granted it's no Pixar release, but it is a HUGE step forward for Dreamworks animation studios. They finally balanced themselves with improved animation, a unique story (on top of a familiar structure), solid voice work and fun action. It was an easy breezy 100 minutes. 3 stars.

The Book of Eli (jan '10 release): This is one of those movies that is best viewed completely cold. If you're at all interested, which you should be because Denzel Washington is awesome, don't read anything about it. It has one of those endings that will have you revisiting earlier scenes to see if it is even possible. I loved it. Others hated it. There is enough style and action to keep everyone entertained, but your reaction to the resolution will determine it's worth. 3 stars.

Daybreakers (jan '10 release): The earth is populated by vampires and it's the humans who have been pushed to extinction while vampires harvest their blood and sell it like soda at train stations?! Sign me up! Such a great idea with tragically poor execution. I was hoping this would be one of those bad vampire movies that I still like, but it turns out to actually be a complete mess. The ending was obviously tacked on and re-worked, and you can just smell behind the scenes tension on this one. I love Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe, but you can't act your way out of bad writing and directing. 1.5 stars.

Here are the 2010 films on my to do list. The list could be as long as all the well reviewed movies of the year, but these are the ones I'm most excited about seeing: The Social Network, Machete, The Town, The American, Cyrus, Despicable Me, The Kids Are All Right, Micmacs, Going the Distance, Red Riding Trilogy, Winter's Bone, Black Swan, 127 Hours, Greenberg, Hereafter, & Somewhere. If you haven't heard of any of these yet, check out the trailers on Yahoo or Apple, and add them to your list if they look good.

Here are the films from 2009 that I watched in 2010 with a quick star rating: A Single Man (4), The Crazies (1), Gran Torino (3.5), The Road (3), (500) Days of Summer (2.5), 9 (2.5), Humpday (3), Extract (2), Vicky Christina Barcelona (4), The Hurt Locker (4), A Serious Man (3), Zombieland (im not sure yet), Up In The Air (3.5), Ponyo (3), The Informant! (4), The Invention of Lying (2), Fantastic Mr. Fox (3.5), Terribly Happy (2), District 9 (3.5), & Big Fan (3).

The good thing is that the majority of these from 2009 were on my to do list from my end of year 2009 post. Hopefully I can get through my 2010 to do list a bit quicker. My goal this year is to write a full review of all the films in this post. It's a tall task, and I probably will completely fail, but I think I can slack off at work just enough to get it done. Thanks for reading.