TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

I'm pretty unaware of anything Captain America as far as comic books wise, so I went into the theater only knowing a few things: Captain America is Steve Rogers, who used to be a 90 lb. weakling, but during WWII they needed a supersoldier for the army. There was a bad guy named Red Skull and he had a sidekick named Bucky. That's literally everything I knew. Unlike the Harry Potter series, you don't need to have read the source material to understand the film. "The First Avenger" plays out like any normal superhero film...and that's exactly what it is: a normal superhero film. It doesn't go beyond your expectations, it's not a below par film like I heard "Green Lantern" was. It plays exactly like "Thor" did actually; establishing the character's backgrounds, setting them up for what's to come, taking time to reveal the main villain. One could argue that that's the set-up for anymovie superhero movie, but if you...

I didn't review last year's prelude to this film, because I didn't want to sound biased as a fairly big Potter fan. Or Potterite? Potthead? I don't know. All I know is that I HAVE to review this movie, not to let people know about it, obviously they do; $168,000,000 over the course of a weekend doesn't lie, but to say how excellent of a movie it is, how marvelous of a franchise it is, and how sad it made me that this is the last bit of Pottermania the world will know unless some very daring idiot wants to remake the series 70 years later. But is that even possible? I don't think so. The intricacies and complications and such spot-on casting make the Potter movies as easy to remake as "Gone with the Wind;" you just can't screw with it. There will be no main character as Daniel Radcliffe's Harry Potter, no one as comically funny as Rupert Grint's Ron Weasley, and no one nearly as intelligent and level-headed as the incredible Emma Watson...

Had I not read Sara Gruen's electrifying novel of the 1930's Depression era Circus there was no chance I was going to catch "Water for Elephants," what with the "dude from 'Twilight'" Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon, looks like a chick-flick right? Perhaps the chick-flick part is true, I must say that about the movie, the audience was about 80% elderly folks, probably 90& women. I read the novel when I was in late 6th grade mostly due to the lure of the critical appraisal the book had sprawled all over it's back cover and the look of a man entering a circus tent. I read the thing in a matter of days. It was so captivating: The setting of the Depression era circus, the sinister villain August, the enchanting heroine Marlena, and the down-on-his-luck underdog Pollack Jacob Jankowski who, after his parent's death joins the circus...it all seemed like a larger than life tale. And who could forget the humor of the older Jacob, who rec...

Well as expected, "The King's Speech" took home 4 big Oscars, including Best Actor for Firth, Best Original Screenplay, Director for Tom Hooper and the greatest of them all...the Oscar for Best Picture! "King's Speech" is now officially in the same breath with "The Silence of the Lambs," "Titanic" and "Rocky!" My favorite film of 2010 "Social Network" won 3 Oscars, Best Editing, Adapted Screenplay and a 3rd for its amazing score. "Inception" won 4 technical awards, nothing major unfortunately. Natalie Portman, the profane Melissa Leo & the tearful Christian Bale each walked away with their first Oscars. All in all I was very pleased with how anything went. Oscar nominees Franco and Anne could've done a better job, and they know it, but for their first times they did a thoroughly decent job, though Franco at times looked liked he wanted to be ANYWHERE but hosting the most esteemed awards show of t...

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 nominees have been released and with that I'm going to list my final round of predictions for who's taking home the Academy Award! THE BIGGEST MOVIE AWARD....EVER! Best Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld's performance was great and filled with confidence, and in my opinion she deserves it for being at such a young age and delivering that great of a role. But the SAGs , Critic's Choice Awards, and Golden Globes prove otherwise, because Melissa Leo is taking home the Academy Award for her role in "The Fighter," there is no doubt about it. Best Supporting Actor: Another no-doubt winner is Christian Bale in "The Fighter," he's won so many awards for his performance, it might literally be a crime if he didn't win on Oscar night. I loved Geoffrey Rush in "King's Speech" but Bale seems pretty much unstoppable. Best Actress: There's a little race in here, but it looks like Natalie Portman is set to win for "Black Swan,...

It's been a long year waiting to see what the Academy saw as the 10 finest films of 2010, and they're finally here! An "*" indicates a film I correctly predicted. -127 Hours -Black Swan* -The Fighter* -Inception* -The Kids Are All Right* -The King's Speech* -The Social Network* -Toy Story 3* -True Grit* -Winter's Bone* "The Town," the nominee I got wrong only got 1 nod for Best Supporting Actor for Jeremy Renner , of [last year's Best Picture winner] "The Hurt Locker" fame. Javier Bardem scored a surprise nod for Best Actor for " Biutiful ," leaving Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine) and Robert Duvall (Get Low) in the cold. "Winter's Bone" won a Supporting Actor nod for its star John Hawkes , who no one's heard of (but good for him though!) over favorite Andrew Garfield (The Social Network.) I'm excited to see this very balanced list and that the Academy finally shook a few things up! I will be back hopefu...