The Year In Review, Movies

Since it's "that time of year" I thought I'd look back over the last 12 months in movies and music b4 a look at my year in running b4 my annual New Years Eve Top Ten races of the year list,which I'm pleased to announce will take place this year........not something I thought possible in June when I wasn't even sure there be 10 races in my season muchless 10 good ones......but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Backtracking slightly if I may, since I didn't get home from The Armory till 12.35am Tuesday morning and I have to be up and at them by 5.35am I elected to take a vacation day for yesterday,this worked well on two counts,A getting a well deserved extra few hours kip and B allowing me to run in the daylight one last week day till next Monday
As luck would have it said 10 mile recovery run was conducted at 1030am which was just as well since come lunchtime the heavens opened for the fourth Tuesday in five weeks and I'd have been SOL yesterday afternoon,although I'll fall short of last years 2,221 miles for the year this year I am on course to notch 2,218,which given all the upheavals of the past 12 months is quite remarkable.

And so to the movies,I managed 7 in total which isn't alot but 2 more than my 2010 tally,the "Magnificent Seven" so to speak were: The Fighter,The Guard,Brighton Rock,50/50,Like Crazy,The Descendants and Sherlock Holmes Game Of Shadows.
As you can see I tend to gravitate more towards "Art House" movies,I am somewhat of a self confessed "Art House Movie Snob" I won't not go see a movie if it's not playing at The Ritz{The Fighter,50/50 and Sherlock Holmes} but I prefer to see movies that play at The Ritz.

At the end of the day it came down to The Fighter,The Guard and Sherlock Holmes for my movie of the year,what set them apart from the other four was I felt they were good all the way through where as Brighton Rock,50/50,Like Crazy and The Descendants were just good in places.
I felt Christian Bale was outstanding in his role as Mickey Ward's drug addicted brother Dickie in The Fighter and Amy Adams and Mark Walberg gave great performances.
The Guard was a riot from start to finish,Brendan Gleeson seldom makes a bad movie and the dialogue was to die for in this one,Don Cheadle gave a epic performance as the "fish out of water" FBI agent sent to Galway in Ireland to thwart the drug ring
Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law did a stellar job reprising their roles as Holmes and Watson in Sherlock Holmes Game Of Shadows,for me the best scenes were often the ones w/ just the two of them,their obvious on screen chemistry working well w/ a returning to form Guy Ritchie who's back to making great movies again after becoming sidetracked as Madonna's husband.

So who gets my pick for best movie?.... I went w/ "The Guard" it was just a laugh a minute,the sad thing is as a small independent movie it probably wasn't seen by the size of audience it deserved to be but hopefully by the time it reaches the likes of HBO,Showtime,Starz etc word of mouth will have gotten it the recognition it fully deserved.