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...

As a whole, 2010 was a terrible year for movies save for a select few gems, not the least of which are The Town and Inception. To have a late-year release come and best those two films took me totally by surprise. The fact The Best Movie of 2010 comes from Joel and Ethan Coen does not. We didn't need a remake of John Wayne's classic Western, but the brothers have gone back to the source material, the 1968 novel of the same name, and done a retelling that's all their own. The film is a fine balance between drama and action picture, with a healthy dose of character study and black comedy added to the mix. And don't forget four of the best performances anyone is likely to see in years. Best of all, True Grit is relentlessly entertaining. You don't need to wind your brain up too much to enjoy the hell out of it. It's hard for a movie to get much more Good than this.

Nowhere near the train wreck many say it is, but not quite the fun ride as Anthony Michael Bosa and Shawn believe it to be. Still, there's lots to like in The Brothers Stause's alien invasion flick, including some crazy alien creatures and a number of great special effects/action sequences. In fact, the film's only real flaw is a cast of characters I wanted to see die rather than survive and an ending that doesn't quite work. Still, this is a decent B-movie that entertains despite its flaws. I doubt I will watch it again, so it rates a Bad from me. Sorry dudes.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! A holiday classic of a different sort, this Canadian made horror flick set the trend for slasher films to follow. Granted, Carpenter perfected the genre with Halloween four years later, but this set the stage for his success. The film is cold, classy, and straightforward; relying on suspense and psychological shocks for its scares. Black Christmas also has the advantage of good acting by the female leads played by Margot Kidder and Olivia Hussey and a witty sense of humour. The film still manages a good slice of old-fashioned terror more than 30 years after it was made.A must watch every year, and light years better than the remake. A Good for sure!

A fun and funny riff on the buddy cop/action genre made popular in the 1980s, with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg playing their mismatched partners to the hilt. This is everything Cop Out should have been: clever, exciting, witty and silly without being stupid. The action sequences are brisk and well staged and the humour works more often than it doesn't. I laughed a lot through The Other Guys, which is more than I can say for most mainstream comedies these days. That, and the fact the film is narrated by Ice T and features the sexy Eva Medes, earns this a Good from me. FYI: Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson, who play the hero cops, aren't in this for long. Fans take note.

We've heard a lot of bad buzz about this movie since it's release, but now that Anthony Michael Bosa has weighed in, we may give it a watch. And thanks to him for taking one for the team. Merry Christmas dood! One word. Awesome. Yes, it has it's one flaw: too much drama between the characters. On the flip side, awesome effects, good action, incredibly awesome enemies and, of course, the Army that tries as usual. GO MARINES! I can see why most people would not like this film. They expect too much nowadays, or, they really just don't appreciate awesome. THIS IS A FUN MOVIE PEOPLE!!! They are not going for Oscars, just entertainment! Plenty of that. The heroes, or cast as I will call them, are always on the run from something cool. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Look out! Big bad guy! (That rhymes!) If you like sci-fi,or enjoy action, this has both. I was excited to see this film and it did not disappoint me. It had a different ending which I thought was mega ...

Here' a story I wrote for today's Kamloops Daily News about a former Kamloops resident turned movie extra who witnessed Tuesday's explosion on the set of In the Name of the King 2. By JASON HEWLETT Daily News Staff Reporter A cloud of propane filled a tent full of movie extras minutes before an explosion sent several people to hospital in Maple Ridge with varying degrees of burns, a witness to the blast said Wednesday. "It was a huge explosion. The fireball was bigger than the tent," said Adrian Berry, a former Kamloops resident. Berry, an extra on the set of the Uwe Boll-directed movie In the Name of the King 2, narrowly avoided being caught in the blast himself. He had just left the tent and walked about 10 metres down a path at Golden Ears Park in Maple Ridge where the fantasy/adventure was filming, he said. In the moment it took him to take a picture and turn back to the black, 24-metre long tent, the blast happen...

Anthony Michael Bosa is in The Basement with his thoughts on the Tron upgrade. Read on for details! This is a excellent sequel to the classic from my youth. The disc fighting, light cycles and new machines were all awesome and done with a good homage to the original. However, there were no tank battles, which is a disappointment. But at least the tanks were there! The upgrade to the grid and the fact that they used CGI to make certain characters younger played well into the film. All in all, if you liked the first film, or even if you didn't, this is worth a watch. A Good review from me.

A seriously awesome Ben Affleck movie? You bet! The actor, who quickly became the butt of many jokes at the beginning of the last decade, re-invented himself as a director to watch with Gone Baby Gone. With The Town he pulls out all the stops in front of the camera and behind it. This is a gritty, exciting, emotional, fast paced and fun crime picture. In other words, it's a brilliant piece of work. Affleck surrounds himself with a solid supporting cast, including The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner, and cements his credentials as a serious filmmaker who doesn't let style get in the way of a good story. An award worthy picture, and a Good rating from The Basement from me.

Restrepo Jason: It's tough to put my feelings for Restrepo into coherent thoughts. As a filmgoer, my mind has been trained to expect certain things from a war movie, and Restrepo gives me all of them. But this isn't fiction, it's real. The documentary is like a punch in the gut at times. Other moments are an amusing portrait of men who have chosen a soldier's life. We see them bond, suffer boredom together, live together, die together and grieve together in one of the deadliest place in the world. I felt like I was there for all of it and suffered the deployment with them. I had to keep telling myself this was really happening, which proves what an exceptional documentary this is. I give it a Good rating only because we don't have a higher ranking. Shawn: I had to switch viewing modes while watch this documentary. Where I usually long for some violence and stuff blowing up I was glad to see as little of it as possible while watching Restrepo. My eyes were absolu...