TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

10. CLOUD ATLAS This may be where I lose some of you. Goodness knows the Wachowski sisters and Tom Tykwer lost a lot of the audience for their 2012 sci-fi time zooming epic. This might be the most ambitious film of the decade (Linklater's 12 years has nothing on filming Tom Hanks as a Russian gangster, Halle Berry as an old Asian man, and a Jim Broadbent subplot about escaping a nursing home?!) They all tie in to form one of the most bizarre mosaics of cinema ever assembled. I lapped up every second, all 10,320 of them. Perhaps I'm fascinated by the ripple effect of time, how maybe nothing we do is original because we've been humans for so long, but I plan on rewatching Cloud Atlas for the years to come, fruitlessly and lovingly trying to decipher its message. 9. FRUITVALE STATION We've been blessed by a decade of Michael B. Jordan, and before franchises started deciding to put him in all their properties, he gave us the greatest tragic performance of the 2010's...

It's been brought to my attention that recent Best Picture winners haven't been great.  Common winners that are cited that suck are: "The Greatest Show on Earth," (God was that long) "Chicago" (a satisfactory musical at the most) and "Around the World in 80 Days," which I've yet to see.  I omit one Best Picture winner that EVERYONE calls the worst because I sincerely enjoyed it, and that is 2005's "Crash."  People take a dump on "Crash" a lot, but I really liked it when I saw it on TV several months ago.  Was it the best movie ever?  No.  Was it the best movie of 2005?  I wouldn't even go that far.  I'd even go as far as to say there probably was homophobia among Oscar voters, and that's why "Crash" won over the favorited "Brokeback Mountain," because their Rotten Tomatoes scores are: Crash-76 Brokeback Mountain-87. That's a significant 11 points.  I've yet to see "Brokebac...

2010 was not a fantastic year for movies like 2008 was, but it did provide some very good offerings, especially in the field of animation. Here are my 5 favorite films of the year two-thousand and ten: 5. "How to Train Your Dragon" I remember seeing the poster for this while seeing "The Blind Side" and thought that it looked unbelievably lame. I was very wrong, this is a beautifully designed and produced film for children and adults alike. The story is fairly original, and the Scotish voice talent is very humorous ! The scenes where Hiccup (the main character) gets to know Toothless (the dragon in question) is both comical and touching, and the film is not at all regular kid-fluff, making it my #2 favorite animated film of the year. 4. "The King's Speech" The likely Best Picture winner for this year is a very moving and emotional piece of classic drama. Performances are spot-on, especially Colin Firth's masterful art of stuttering, and it r...

The Golden Globes haven't even been broadcast yet and already it is becoming evident that "The Social Network" will win the the Academy Award for Best Picture. Look at any critic's top 10 list on the website metacritic and 9 times out of 10 you'll see "Social Network" placed on the top or near the top of the list. I knew back in October that the movie was a masterpiece, I just didn't realize how much recognition and rewards it would reap as a result! It seems destined to pick up awards for it Best Picture, its superb screenplay, David Fincher's guided direction....and yet it's undecided if Jesse Eisenberg will receive the coveted Best Actor award, with tough competition coming from Colin Firth in "The King's Speech" (which hopefully I'll be seeing later this year) and James Franco in "127 Hours." Andrew Garfield was very good in "Social Network," but there's no way he'll win as long as Chr...

I feel bad, I did the quick update over a month ago telling my "loyal readers" that I'd see "Social Network" and review it soon. I guess couldn't see my blog over the tons of homework I've been having, so I apologize for that. If "The Social Network" were bad, I wouldn't have bothered to review it after all this time. But it was absolutely EXCELLENT, and I hope while you're reading this right now you've seen or going to see it. Walking into the theater, "Social Network" already had several great things going for it: It had director David Fincher , who directed last year's (IMO) best movie, "Benjamin Button;" it has Andrew Garfield, the new Spider-Man (he's actually British); anadthe important one it featured the site that everybody loves: FACEBOOK ! I bet Tom from MySpace (which I deleted my account last summer) is kicking himself for not thinking of a MySpace movie sooner. Everything works in this...