My thoughts on Hugo? What y'all are saying. It's such a Dickensian work. I think the reason the 3D is great, nay easily the very best yet? It's a Scorsese film through & through. The camera cannot sit still and it's frankly gripping. He also places obstructions in front of the camera and it creates depth. It never feels frustrating, just clever. Scorsese creates some stunning images and wraps them around a richly textured story. Acting is stellar. Kingsley's the best he's been in years. This is an Oscar nomination minimum. Butterfield's a find. Moretz proves 2010 wasn't a fluke year. Man, she's on her way to a nice long career. Just a superb film.

Meanwhile, I liked the animated series because I got to see the design act a bit more like Godzilla should behave. I always thought it would have been a fine Godzilla had it actually been allowed to behave like him. But to each their own.

As for my issues with the monster becoming sympathetic in the end of Super 8, I should clarify that it's not just because it ate people. I can sympathize with monsters easily enough even when I've been shown them killing people. My issue isn't even that the monster is intelligent and didn't see humans as fellow intelligent beings--it's that we're told the creature communicates telepathically through touch and it's a two-way street. Sure, the Air Force apparently poked, prodded, and tortured it during its captivity until it basically hated humanity, but it's kind of hard to overlook the fact it was wantonly murdering people that it had to know meant no harm to it and were just terrified out of their minds.

Conan The Barbarian (2011)--The label sticker on my library's copy merges the tagline with the title to make it Conan The Barbarian: Born on the Battlefield. I prefer to think of it as Conan The Barbarian Who Tried To Reboot A Franchise And Nearly Bombed A Studio Into Bankruptcy. Maybe it's because I have no real attachment to the character--I only saw the John Milius film earlier this year, after all--or because my expectations were just really rock-bottom low, because I found it sort of...well, not good. Not exactly entertaining. Diverting, I'd say. For a generic sword and sorcery flick, it was passable, but hardly memorable. It'll never be enthusiastically mentioned alongside Deathstalker or The Warrior and The Sorceress, much less against the original film, but there were parts of it I enjoyed well enough to not call it a total waste of time.

I must confess, however, I'm having a hard time remembering what any of those moments were.

THE SITTER - While far from my favorite actor, Jonah Hill has displayed some genuine talent, such as his role earlier this fall in Moneyball, or in last year's indie dark comedy-drama, Cyrus. It's easy to forget that when you see him appearing in disposable junk like this, which seems like very little thought went into making it.

Basic plot: Hill plays a 20-something loser going nowhere in his life, who is talked into taking a babysitting job by his mother. The three kids he's looking after include an over-stressed and over medicated kid struggling with the early stages of homosexuality, a little girl who wears too much make up and whose only ambition in life is to become a Manhattan socialite when she grows up, and an adopted Hispanic kid who's a pyromaniac, and has an addiction to setting off explosives in toilets. While watching the kids, he gets a call from his somewhat-girlfriend, who wants him to get some coke for her from a local drug dealer (Sam Rockwell). He takes the kids along on the errand, and the remainder of the film is a predictable series of misadventures, including chases and shootouts with the drug dealer, and run-ins with stereotyped "gangstas".

Even at only 80 minutes, this is a labored movie that barely has any energy. There's not a single original thought or moment, not a solitary laugh, and the movie really just seems to be a tired run-through of various cliches and racially insensitive stereotypes of Hispanics and blacks. What's worse, the movie wants to be raunchy, and have a big heart too. Very few movies can pull off this combination, and this one fails like a lot of them. The movie keeps on breaking from the uninspired sex and toilet humor to take on equally uninspired "touching" moments, where Hill's character sits each of the kids down individually, and talks them through their problems, while sappy music plays on the soundtrack. He also learns some "life lessons" during the course of the night, which equally made me want to gag.

As if I haven't made it clear enough, there was no reason for this movie to be made, and no reason for you to see it. Avoid at all costs.

Full review to come tonight.

Saw Jonah Hill on The Daily Show touting on how original this concept was, a babysitter taking three kids into the city and end up being chased by drug dealers. I know 1987 seems like such a long time ago, but we're suppose to believe he's never even heard of Adventures in Babysitting?

The only movie that I can think of that has even come come close to pulling off the raunchy/big heart dichotomy is the Farrelly Bros. early effort, Kingpin. When Woody Harrelson's Roy Munson goes back to his old hometown after being to ashamed to return for 30 years, it's genuinely touching. The Farrelly Brother's have tried to go back to that well again, but always seem to end up making fun of their characters too much to feel like they really mean the touching stuff (although, Stuck On You with Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon comes close).

Hugo: Martin Scorsese loves film preservation - and so should you.

CHILLERAMA: Someone thinks that Joe Lynch, Adam Green, Tim Sullivan, and Adam Rifkin are the future lights of cutting edge horror. I am not that person. In fact, this joyless effort sums up what I believe is wrong with their brand of retro-trash horror. It is obvious and cheap. It's like the guy in the horror rock band who thinks he's clever because his stage name is Bruce Blair, and then, nudges you and long windedly lets you know the origins of the name because you must be some sort of damned Philistine. That's this movie. It references the most obvious stuff in the most obvious ways and wants points for that. It hurts itself because it mentions SImon Pegg and his superior , joyful effort that sought to celebrate and subvert a beloved sub-genre. See, just saying your spoofing something isn't worthwhile if you do it lazily. The four-ish stories in this supposedly zany anthology seek to mock and celebrate various facets of the horror genre and also throw in a bunch of sexual commentary and scatology. The fact that there's no fun to be had begins and ends with titles such as "The Diary of Anne Frankenstein". Shocking on the surface but lazy and childish upon not so close inspection.

There was an article on this film in the last Fangoria. One of the directors mentioned that he was planning to do a more traditional film for his segment, but then the others pressured him into doing "I Was a Teenage Werebear" instead.

That about sums it up.

Encounter At Raven's Gate - Amazingly atmospheric and suspenseful alien encounter flick from Australia. I heard about this one on the Not Quite Hollywood documentary, and it was just about the only movie mentioned in there that was available on Netflix in any form. The movie apparently had a budget of whatever the value of the director and producer got for cashing in the bottles and cans in the trunks of their cars, but you don't really notice that until the credits are rolling and you realize you never saw an alien or even a space ship. Loads of creative directing and the super-creepy ambiance of the Australian outback give the flick a menacing, fantastical feel that you just can't buy with special effects. It's like a really mean-spirited grindhouse version of Close Encounters of the Third Kind with the visual aesthetic of Razorback. This is what being a b-movie fan is all about, stumbling across these little gems that cut through your jaded, "seen it all" sensibility to show you a new way of looking at something and just completely kick ass.

The Smurfs - Well, it's a movie that took up 100 minutes of my life. That's all I have to say.

A WISH FOR WINGS THAT WORK - Well, after a weekend of double big-time stinkers at the theater (The Sitter and New Year's Eve), I needed some cheering up. This unsung animated Christmas special from 1991 was the perfect thing to fit the bill. This special doesn't get a lot of respect. It was only aired on TV once, and never shown again due to terrible ratings. Also, it's creator and writer, Berkeley Breathed (creator of the Bloom County and Outland comic strips) has publicly spoken out against it. I have no idea why. This is a charming, funny, and extremely well made (there's some great animation here) special that will only set you back $5 for the DVD.

The story focuses on Opus the penguin (voiced by veteran voice actor Michael Bell), who writes a letter to Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, wishing for "wings that work", and would allow him to fly. In his letter, he recounts in flashback his experiences during the day (which make up a chunk of the special), which include his failed attempts at flight, many of which are accidentally foiled by his well-meaning, but not very sociable, friend Bill the Cat (voiced by comedian John Byner). Opus even goes to a support group for flightless birds with flying envy, but it does not help. Opus goes to sleep on Christmas Eve, dreaming of flying the next morning. Little does he realize, Santa Clause (voiced by voice acting legend, Frank Welker) runs into trouble during his flight, and it turns out that only Opus' stubby wings will be able to save him from the situation he finds himself in.

I don't want to spoil too much, as there are some great individual gags and moments here, such as Opus' nightmare he has while trying to sleep on Christmas Eve. (Let's just say "The Critic" didn't invent that "penguins can't fly!" joke.) This is a top quality production all the way, with beautiful animation, great voice acting, and even a memorable music score. There are even some uncredited cameos by Robin Williams (as a kiwi at the support group who is raging over his girlfriend leaving him for an albatross) and Dustin Hoffman (as a cross-dressing cockroach). Supposedly, they both got involved due to the fact that the special's Executive Producer, Steven Spielberg, was working with them on Hook at the time.

So yeah, I love this show, and I have no idea why it has such a bad reputation. It's become quite the cult classic, however. I advise you either pick up the DVD, or watch the special on Youtube, and discover this unsung Christmas treasure.

Godzilla vs. Biollante - This is my favorite Godzilla movie and I watched it for the first time I've seen it since 2005. It's still a wonderful movie; I almost got teary-eyed when Godzilla escapes from the erupting Mt. Mihara and destroys the Japanese navy.

Shinobi: Heart Under Blade - This isn't an adaptation of the classic Sega ninja series, but a Japanese martial arthouse film whose story can be described as being "Romeo and Juliet, but with super-powered ninja." I'm sure I would've watched the Leonardo di Caprio version of the story had it featured a kunoichi with a kiss of death, a Juliet with eye lasers, the Iga equivalent to Wolverine, a guy who fights with this sleeves, and a face-stealing Koga ninja. It's not perfect, but it entertained me for 97 minutes and that's enough for me.

The Hangover, Part 2 - Yes, watching it felt like a hangover. Seriously, Dude, Where's My Car was funnier than this piece of crap.