It's with sad news that The Basement reports British actor Pete Postlethwaite died of cancer Sunday. He was 64. Postlethwaite appeared in more than 100 films during his 35-year career, most notably In the Name of the Father with Daniel Day Lewis, The Usual Suspects, and The Lost World. He had a big year in 2010, with prominent roles in Clash of the Titans, The Town and Inception. He is survived by his wife, a son an daughter and was hailed by Steven Spielberg as "The best actor in the world." Amen, Steve.

As I said in my review for True Grit, 2010 was a terrible year for movies. I ventured to a theatre perhaps five times this year and sought out very few of the year's offerings on DVD. Given that our Basement duties require us to seek out the odd, obscure and crappy, Shawn and I have little time to catch up on the latest releases anyway. But I was able to scrounge up a Top Five for the year, which are listed below. Keep in mind these are my biased choices based on what I've seen. Films that could very well be in the running include The King's Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, The Fighter and a slew of others. But, based on what I've watched, I will stand by and hang by this list. Remember, Shawn and I are back in The Basement next Friday (Jan. 7) at 10 p.m. PST on 92.5FM CFBX Kamloops and www.thex.ca . The podcast will be up by the Monday. We'll put the urban legend documentary Cropsey and the mockbuster sequel Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus on the chopping b...

Michael Douglas's one-time master of the universe, Gordon Gekko, showed he could still close a deal, as Oliver Stone's sequel to his 1987 Wall Street won the weekend with $19 million. Pairing Douglas with young Shia LaBeouf, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps also won the battle of long movie titles as it bested the $16.3 million announced for the 3D animated feature Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. Legend, based on the first three of Kathryn Lasky's 15-book fantasy series, can at least claim it's the top-opening owl movie ever, unless you count Harry Potter's mail carrier Hedwig. The film version united two disparate forces: Zach Snyder, the director of the R-rated fables 300 and Watchmen, with the guys who animated Happy Feet, that G-rated penguin movie of four years back. Legend started slow on Friday, picked up a number of Saturday-matinee kids yesterday and hopes to pull in more today than it did on its opening day. The Town, the...

B-Aff really went to town at the box office this weekend as the actor/director/co-screenwriter of The Town saw his crime drama perform much better than expected in its debut, taking in an estimated $23.8 million to open in first place, upsetting the widely predicted winner Easy A. Ben Affleck's film, his second as a director, was expected to open in second place with around $15 to $17 million. Credit its actual performance to strong reviews, positive word of mouth and its status as the first serious Oscar hopeful to come out of the gate this season. Easy A had to settle for second place and earned an estimated $18.2 million. Opening in third place was Devil. The movie, the first in the Night Chronicles series of low-budget horror releases produced by M. Night Shyamalan, scared up an estimated $12.6 million. 'Devil' had to share a genre audience with last week's champ, Resident Evil: Afterlife. That film slipped to fourth place and lost 62 percent of its...

Fall is certainly shaping up to be a far more interesting film season than summer. First we've got the hilarious looking Due Date (see below) and now the trailer for The Town has appeared, and boy does it look great. Don't let the presence of BAff scare you. The man was good in State of Play and he directed the brilliant Gone Baby Gone. He's directing again here, and I'm pretty sure he could have a second career in that chair. The film also stars Jeremy (Hurt Locker) Renner and Chris Cooper, who rarely disappoint. This one looks like a winner, but watch the trailer on iTunes and judge for yourself. It hits theatres Sept. 17. Sorry, couldn't find one to embed here.