My Flick Picks from 2010

The year has almost come to an end and what a year it has been for movie going audiences! I certainly had a ball watching the wide array of movies that the big (and small) studios threw in our direction. But not every one of them measured up to my expectations. Some were great in bits and pieces, others were sore disappointments, while some shined like gems.

So here's the low-down on the movies that "I" feel were outstanding in the respective divisions -

Best Action Flick - The A Team

The re-imagined cult action series from the 80’s makes its debut on the big screen with a bang. With Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper, the new A-Team does a whole lotta justice to their small screen avatars. The sheer madness and insanity involved in the action sequences make this my favorite action flick of the year. And yes, "I love it when a plan comes together."

Best Visual Effects Flick - Tron Legacy


The long awaited sequel to the cult classic “TRON”, may not have the same appeal as its predecessor, but the flick scores pretty high in the visual effects and imagery department.
The updated Game Grid and its inhabitants make for some uber cool looking neo-mancers. The highlight as in the first film, is of course the light-cycle races and the Disc Battles. The flick also has some truly orgasmic background score by the techno duo Daft Punk.

Best Drama Flick - The Social Network


I have to admit, I was skeptical about the success of this one. Making a biographical flick of someone who is merely 24 didn’t really sound that interesting. Especially if that person happens to be a Geek. But David Fancier did a fantastic job narrating the story behind the youngest billionaire in the world. The background score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross elevates the brilliance of the movie exponentially.

Best Animated Flick - How To Train Your Dragon


Although I caught this gem on the small screen, the visuals of the animation were still awesome. Not to mention the characters and the overall Story were an absolute treat! The other contenders (Toy Story 3, Despicable Me and Shrek Forever After) for this category were also great, but this one stands apart for its great one-liners and numerous heartfelt moments.

Best Comedy Flick - Date Night


Featuring two of the best TV comedians, this flick may have failed to generate box office buzz, but was my favorite comedy flick of the year, beating even Due Date and Get Him To The Greek.
Both Tina Fey and Steve Carrel have had substantial background in comedy and have successful TV shows of their own. So to watch them together was to hard to pass up. The comic chemistry between Carrel and Fey is simply amazing. I would pay to watch them in another movie any time!

Best flick of the year - Inception

Original and briliant intellectual plot – Bhwaaarrm! Fantastic direction and cinematography - Bhwaaarrm! Top-notch  performances by the stellar cast - Bhwaaarrm! Stupendously Haunting background score Bhwaaarrm! Bhwaaarrm! Bhwaaarrm!

Without a doubt, this has to be the best movie of the year. The intricate plot, the plot within a plot, the back stories, the concept, it all just made this flick an absolute treat to watch. Nolan draws on his experience of working on big-budget flicks (The Prestige, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) and weaves it ever-so skillfully with his master story telling ability (Memento, Insomnia) and brings to audiences a movie that is destined to be one of the best movies of this decade (maybe even this century).


Special Mentions
Although not covered in the categories above, there were a few other movies that do deserve a mention of their own.

Iron Man 2  
The sequel to John Favreau's rendition of Marvel's Superhero gives RDJ plenty of room to ooze his charm and wit. Not to mention a sultry Scarlett Johansson and the evil maniacal Mickey Rourke.

Due Date
Another RDJ starrer, this one was essentially a Road Trip gone wrong thanks to the shenanigans of Zach Galifianakis. Although not as hilarious as some comedies, it did tickle the funny bone now and then.

Alice In Wonderland
Tim Burton's interpretation of Lewis Carroll's classic has his signature style all over the flick, which is a GOOD thing. Add to that Johnny Depp as the mad-hatter and you have a quirky and twisted movie that makes for interesting viewing

Despicable Me
Another Steve Carrel starrer, this animated flick is rib-tickling as hell. And with a plot that would work only in the animated world, the laughs just keep on coming.

The Karate Kid
Another reboot, this one a far-cry from the original, brings my beloved Chinese action hero, Jackie Chan to the role of the mentor with the new kid on the block, Jaden Smith as the protagonist. With some awesome Kung-Fu sequences and great comic timing between the two leads, this one is definitely  worth a watch.


So there you have it, the Best of the Best from 2010 as I saw it. Feel free to leave your comment and your personal recommendations for the categories.

Same Same, But Different.

The blog has a different web-address now. The new link to all those wonderful posts of mine that you love oh-so much is http://stochastic-musings.blogspot.com

Those of you who are curious as to why the sudden change in the address. Well, let's just say the old URL (http://abhijeetgandhi.blogspot) was a tad narcissistic. And well, humility is my middle name (well actually it isn't, but you get the drift)

For the uninitiated (more like, for the D-Uh folks), here are the definitions to the words in the new URL-

So as you can see, the new URL is more in tune with the nature and content of the blog. It's all about the randomness. That and the title does make the blog sound way more pretentious!

For those who are reading this blog for the VERY first time, this post probably has zero value. Except to say that it is simply a way to add ONE more post to my list of random ones!

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A small warning before you read this post. This particular post is the result of reading way too many Sci-Fi books and watching even more movies from the same genre. But it is about a notion that I like to entertain from time to time. So if you disagree with what's about to follow (and I am pretty sure you might), just remember, it's just one man's idea of what could be.


The movie TRON and its long awaited sequel TRON Legacy entertain a fun concept. That the ubiquitous computer houses a digital world of its own, where programs are walking talking replicas of their human creators, living in fantastic digital domiciles and travelling along grids of computer hardware.There is, in essence, a whole other form of life existing in a space no larger than a nano-centimeter (maybe even less!)


Now, what if this concept was extended to our own world. Confused? Let's say just like the human-looking programs in the TRON universe, we too are nano-scopic life-forms to another class of higher beings or creatures.


Before you completely dismiss the idea on the basis of scientific possibility and all sorts of laws and theories, consider this. 500 years ago, we were certain that the earth was at the center of the universe, 50 years ago, we were absolutely certain that the atom was the smallest particle in existence and just a few years ago we thought the Pluto was a planet. Our concept of reality and our idea of the world around us keep evolving as we evolve as a species. So, isn't it just possible that our minds probably cannot accept such radical notions simply because we cannot comprehend the enormity involved.


Douglas Adams, in his Sci-Fi comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy hints at this concept when he states that our entire planet is (rather was, since the planet is disintegrated within the text of the first few pages!) in fact a giant computational matrix with the inhabitants, us, serving as integral organic computational components. If you ignore the part where he mentions that a race of super-intelligent mice had commissioned the massive-computer, the concept isn't all BS.


Throughout modern history there have been numerous concepts and theories proposed by scholars and thinkers regarding the reality of our existence. Many believe that our world may in fact be part of a simulation being run in a world far greater in scale and exponentially more technologically advanced than our very own. What if this was in fact true?


I can already hear the majority (read as ALL of you!) writing this post off as a madman's rambling. To you I say, just stop thinking in terms of rationality and step beyond our "limited" knowledge of the universe (or multiverse, whichever concept you subscribe to) and think about what is being told here. Isn't there just a teeny-tiny possibility of this actually being true?


For those of you scratching your human heads over the title of this post, here's the background - 42