TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

"Warrior" is a unique sports movie that actually doesn't make the same mistake so many others make of focusing on the sport instead of the players.  A generic sports movie, say "Gridiron Gang" lacked heart, and what it suffered in performances, it surpassed in emotional speeches.  "Warrior" features a sport so brutal, it's hard to picture any of its players being anything but insane. The premise of "Warrior" starts out believable...but in all fairness, it turns out extremely unlikely.  Paddy, (played so well by Nick Nolte in this movie he gets his own paragraph in this review) is an ex-alcoholic who wants to reconnect with his sons.  That plot point right there has sappy potential.  But the film goes another way.  Instead of being glad his dad wants to be back in his life, Tommy (Tom Hardy, who gives a ferocious performance that seems to have gone unnoticed because of Nolte's tour de force work here) rejects his old man, and in the ...

It's that time of year again, when critics announce their ten favorite films of the year!  I'm unfortunately at a disadvantage, for the year of 2011 I only saw about 20 movies in the theaters, where pro-critics see about 80-90 movies.  2011 was a GREAT year for cinema, truly marking some of the best movies I've seen a while.  You got movies about Marilyn Monroe, a man trying to find his coma-stricken wife's lover and a whole lot of movies about Paris.  Go figure.  Here are my top five films of the year, some others that didn't quite make the cut, and some movies I wished I just hadn't seen.  I plan on seeing other 2011 films before Oscar season, like "The Artist," "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" and "The Iron Lady," but since I'll be seeing them in 2012 they won't necessarily count for this list. 5.   MONEYBALL Just like with last year's "The Social Network" Aaron Sorkin writes another incredible scr...