Happy (belated) New Year!

It's great to back to the ol' blog!

And... Happy New Year to all you YAMBers out there!

We hope this year brings as much fun and excitement as the first year of blogging brought us.

Also, if you were a past follower of our blog, you may have noticed that we changed the site around a bit. Nothing major, just a background shake-up. We thought a fresh new outlook would be fitting for the upcoming new year.

Treat this post as an Open Thread, and share your comments on this site, or your holiday memories, or perhaps your super busy/stressful/awesome interim classes from college. . .

Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

"Because there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

-Aslan

Dawn Treader is flawed from the opening shot. The film skips over what is perhaps the best opening line of any novel. "There was once a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." Instead, we are treated with a stunning 3-D shot of a cathedral, then exposition establishing the war, and some clumsy business showing us Edmund's desire for duty and Lucy's for beauty. I suppose that such a commercial movie demands some exposition tying it to the other films for uninitiated audiences, but one of the strengths of the book was that it stood so well on its own. Lewis' humorous description of the Scrubb family opens the book with a healthy dose of satirical social commentary. This turns into the subtle underlying message of the book; that modernism has destroyed our senses of wonder and creativity. This message is still relevant, but is largely abandoned for one of "faith and family". While some Christians may appreciate this, it will leave a sour taste in the mouths of most viewers.

Movie Review: Black Swan

Don't bring this guy, no matter how suave and worldly he may seem.

Black Swan is, without a doubt, the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. Admittedly, I haven’t seen any good horror movies (or any horror movies, for that matter), but even if I had, Black Swan would blow them all away. However, it’s a different kind of scary, one that makes it hard to place genre-wise. “Psychological thriller” is the term being bandied around to describe it, and that’s roughly accurate, but doesn’t quite capture the depth of it. Straight-up warning: Black Swan is definitely not for younger viewers.

Upcoming Movies: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and more

This looks about right.

Let me ask you a question: did artistic integrity stop George Lucas from making swimming pools of money off of adding three more movies to his trilogy? Of course not. So why should we expect anything different out of Disney regarding their hit Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy?

Movie Review: The Fighter

There are some stories which are told over and over again and never really get old. Of these, one of the most perennial in film is the underdog sports story, or, more specifically, the boxing drama. The Fighter, the latest entry in the genre, tells a tale which, although predictable and not particularly original, as a whole works quite nicely.

The story revolves around the boxer Mickey Ward during the years 1993-2000. Focusing on this time in Ward’s life was an interesting choice for director David Russell to make; in real life, Ward’s greatest and most famous fight took place as a three-part match up with Arturo Gatti some time after the events of The Fighter. Russell’s decision to cut this episode demonstrates his desire to make The Fighter more about the boxer than the boxing. It was a good decision, as Ward’s life outside the ring is far more interesting than his life in it.

Movie Review: Tangled

They never do get his nose right.

Some of you seem to be under the impression that I hate joy, due to such articles as this, and that disappoints and saddens me. A little. I do not, in fact, hate joy (well, not always). Actually, there are occasions where I can get in touch with my inner child, and watching Tangled was one of those times. Tangled was a Disney movie that managed to actually pull off the hardest kind of movie to do well: a children’s movie.

Now, that being said, this is still a Disney movie, and you have to know what you’re getting into. The movie’s humor can get a little silly, in an animals-act-like-people kind of way. It stays away from cheap or immature laughs, but the funniest scenes involve Maximus, a horse with a clear sense of justice who will stop at nothing to hunt down main character Flynn Rider, or else a band of ruffians with mysteriously golden hearts. Reality is rarely ever flirted with, but that seems fair from a movie based on a fairy tale, and the tale of Tangled still manages to be delightful even with the fairy aspects.

Oscar Watch, Pt. III with Add-Ons!

Ah, the final Oscar Watch! post is finally upon us. And while the original list of 24 Films to Keep Tabs On was good, I stupidly left off some very deserving films. These are most definitely now included with this third installment of the Oscar Watch! series. 

The first installment (and other half of the first installment) and the second installment included some ridiculously amazing films. However, this last list is even better in my opinion.

It features what may be the two films that duke it out for the majority of awards . . .