Review - A Spielberg double feature

For New Years Eve I took advantage of a unique opportunity; the chance to view two new Steven Spielberg features on the same day. Spielberg has had four others years in which he released two films, but never simultaneously, so this is kind of a first both for him and his eager fans. The two films in question are awards pony War Horse and "animated" action/adventure Tintin. Both my reviews after the cut.

Sunday Top Ten - Pre-CG special effects films

All aspects of filmmaking evolve over time, but none so conspicuously as visual effects. The advancements made even over the last few years continue to amaze audiences. But for all the wonderful possibilities these technical achievements have opened up to filmmakers, I sometimes find myself yearning for a simpler time. Computer-generated images may make for convincing and exciting special effects, but am I alone in feeling that the digitization of this art has somewhat diminished the "specialness" of those effects? When you see a spaceship being blown up on screen today, you know how it was done; CGI. When you see a lifelike ape play the lead role in a movie today, you know how it was done; CGI. Wouldn't it be grand to watch a movie nowadays and legitimately wonder, "how did they do that?"

There was a time when you could, and the effects, though widely considered dated by today's standards, are still truly special in my eyes. For my money, these are the ten best pre-CG special effect showcases.

Sunday Top Ten: Awesome movie deaths

I almost found it a little disturbing how much fun I had putting together this particular list, but if there's any time and place where one can take morbid delight in overly elaborate and exotic deaths, it's the movies! I had lots of bizarre bucket-kickings to choose from, more than this list could include, but if I had to choose only ten that would make me say, “Now that's the way to go!”, these would be them:

(Needless to day, here be a few spoilers.)

Sunday Top Ten: John Williams scores

I've always been a sucker for the music John Williams. There's something about his melodies and orchestrations that just stick with me. I'm not alone, apparently. He was an Academy favourite for decades, amassing 45 nominations in 38 years. Granted, he hasn't been nominated since 2006, a long layoff by his standards, but he could be back with one or two Best Original Score nominations this year courtesy of Spielberg's Tin Tin and War Horse.

After hearing Michael Giacchino's apt impersonation of the composer in Super 8 two weeks ago, I felt compelled to revisit the his works and dedicate this week's top ten list to his finest film scores.