RocknRolla
Directed by Guy Ritchie
Starring Gerald Butler, Mark Strong, Tom Wilkinson
Rated R
Release date: October 31, 2008

If you told me a few weeks ago back in September that I would have lived to see my home team win the World Series and would have seen Guy Ritchie make a good movie again in the same week, I would have probably shanked you to death. But it’s happened — and I’m surprised like fuck. The Phillies, which is without a doubt the best team IN the league now (and try and fight that with me, because we can just look at the stats), win the World Series and everyone is surprised. Some of us probably still don’t believe that the Phillies have won the World Series this year.

I’m the person that still doesn’t believe that Guy Ritchie made such a film like RocknRolla.

Quarantine
Directed by John Erick Dowdle
Starring Jennifer Carpenter, Stave Harris, Jay Hernandez
Rated R
Release date: October 10, 2008

The first-person tale only really became famous this year, but I remember back in 1999 when it was first introduced. The Blair Witch Project introduced the whole first-person camera shoot, and the film changed my life forever. For the first time in my life, I found something that displayed the meaning of life — the answer was film.

And throughout the years (actually, throughout THIS year), we have seen our share of first-person films. The year was kicked off with Cloverfield, which I still think is one of the best films of the year, and I got TWO ticket stubs to prove that. On the other hand, there was George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead, which very well may just be one of the most disappointing films of the year. I get more disappointed the more I think about it.

I’m usually the one who is baffled whenever a film is remade, specifically horror films that are based off of foreign horror flicks, but this time I became very interested when I heard that the new horror film Quarantine was a remake of a Spanish film released sometime last year called [Rec]. I only heard of the film a few times in the past, but I didn’t really know too much about its story to know that it was remade into one of the most anticipated horror films of the year, and I doubt that most audiences will go into Quarantine knowing that it is a remake.

Mamma Mia!
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Starring Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan
Rated PG-13
Release date: July 18, 2008

Mamma Mia! is one of the more familiar musicals to be made into a film. I’ll admit, I haven’t seen it, but the only musical that I’ve seen on Broadway (and off Broadway) was Evil Dead: The Musical and I don’t regret that the least bit. Put together from a bunch of ABBA songs, Mamma Mia! became a hit everywhere. The makers of the show were once nothing, and now they are two of the wealthiest people in England. So with the great buzz from the musical, wouldn’t the movie version be just as great?

Mamma Mia! doesn’t take long to get into and the plot is very simple. Twenty-year-old Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is getting married and she wants her father to give her away. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know who her father is, so she steals her mother’s journal and finds three possible fathers. The day before the wedding, the men — Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), Harry (Colin Firth), and Sam (Pierce Brosnan) — all meet Sophie at the wedding. They’re not quite sure why they’re there, but it all seems clear to them that they all haven’t seen Sophie’s mother Donna (Meryl Streep) for about the same amount of time — twenty years.

The film starts out as well as a film can start out as. Mamma Mia! introduces all of the characters in the first fifteen minutes, so for the rest of the story, we can watch them develop and get to know them better. Sophie is just like every girl that doesn’t have a father figure in her life — she just wants one or to at least know who her father is. Donna can be described as the town whore back in her day, but the past is behind her and she gave up on that. And the three men, brought in by Sophie, are all here to see Donna, not actually knowing that Sophie invited them so she can meet her father.

Witless Protection
Directed by Charles Robert Carner
Starring Larry the Cable Guy, Ivana Milicevic, Jenny McCarthy
Lionsgate Home Video
Release date: June 10, 2008

My favorite part about a comedy is, obviously, the laughs. Not because I like laughing (which I do), but because what is a comedy if you don’t laugh? I hate one-joke comedians whose one joke isn’t even funny, but what do I hate more than that? Comedians who keep continuing the one joke to make money off of it. If that was a felony, Larry the Cable Guy would be on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

Larry the Cable Guy, if you have no idea who in the hell he is, is a “comedian” that travels around the world with his famous redneck jokes. He must have made so much money off of them with the Blue Collar Comedy Troupe (and according to IMDb, he makes more money one year than I do with this writing gig). Other than the annoying redneck jokes, he often makes fun of cripples, races, political parties, and farting noises. Oh, and he occasionally makes fun of incest, too. I told you that he was an annoying retard.

Speed Racer
Directed by the Wachowski Brothers
Starring Emile Hirsch, John Goodman, Christina Ricci
Rated PG
Release date: May 9, 2008

Speed Racer is a great ride, but yet really uneven. For those that know me know that I will always disapprove of a film that changes genres in certain parts. For Speed Racer, it isn’t just changing genres. It changes direction. By the trailer, you can tell that Speed Racer will be a great ride. And yes, it is very colorful. It’s so trippy that it made some five-year-old kid have a seizure. No, I’m not shitting you. It is a very fun film, but it needs a lot of work. Through the entire time watching the film, four words stuck by me the entire time”¦

“Hot Wheels: World Race.”

Oh, and I remember that video game. I’m not the biggest car guy, but I LOVE car races. So much that I named 2 Fast 2 Furious the best film of Summer 2003. Hot Wheels are all about hot, flashy cars that little animated drivers like to flaunt around on the race track. These tracks are different compared to tracks like the Talladega and Indy 500. They consist of jumps, loops, and dangerous obstacles. I got to play Hot Wheels: World Race back when you could find it, and I loved it. To this day, as much as I love Tetris, Air Hockey, and Vice City, that game takes the cake as the best videogame ever.