I am a very lazy person, so writing a review of everything I watch/read/use is a miracle for me. I enjoy writing all my reviews, but going out and finding images, cropping them, saving them, uploading them… is too much for me.

It got to a point where I would write my reviews on my PC, but wait to post them because I had to get the image ready first. I had a month worth of reviews, waiting to be posted.

So I have now taken the images on the front page down. This way I will post reviews as soon as I write them. I will eventually come up with static images for each section, but for the moment I am happy with no images.

I am upgrading Wordpress, so the site will be down for maintenance. Come back soon!

UPDATE: The home page doesn’t seem to work. However you can click all different sections in the menu bar, they work fine. I’ll try to fix the home page as soon as possible.

UPDATE 2: The problem was the recent comments plugin. It does not work at the moment, but at least the home page is back.

I’ve decided to create a new section of this site, entirely dedicated to my iPhone. I’ve been spending a lot of time on this new device (too much according to my wife), and I have a lot of opinions and knowledge to share. Hopefully this will be useful to all new iPhone users as well.

I’ll try to modify the main page in the future, but for the moment you can see all iPhone related posts in the sidebar of my main page.  Or you can always reach the iPhone section at reviewsarama.com/iphone.

Time to wrap this years Oscars. Of the 5 picture nominees I loved Juno and No Country for Old Men, liked There Will Be Blood, enjoyed Michael Clayton and didn’t care for Atonement. Not a bad year, but there wasn’t a movie that I really liked with a passion (like Brokeback Mountain or Departed in past years). The ones was passionate about were not nominated (Once, Zodiac).

I am glad about the win for No Country and the Coen brothers, though they couldn’t have been cooler about it during their speeches.

No surprises in the lead actors win, or Bardem’s win. I was a little bit surprised by the supporting actress win, though not as much as Swinton herself. I was hoping/expecting a Blanchett or even Amy Ryan win.

Very happy about Diablo Cody’s win, she certainly deserved it.

Glad also that The Bourne Ultimatum won all his nominations for sound effects. Surprised that Transformers didn’t win the visual effects award, as much as I hate that movie the effects were extraordinary.

The musical performances were suprisingly interesting to me this year. I like Amy Adams and was entertained by her performance. I even like Kristin Chenoweth from Pushing Daisies, had no idea she was performing.

But my favorite song was Falling Slowly, which I was happy to see being performed by Glen and Marketa. Not the best performance I must say, I thought her microphone level was a bit too high, and I didn’t care for the orchestra.

I was thrilled to see them win for best song, which was very clear after they performed their song and the audience applauded very loudly. I loved the first word of Glen’s acceptance speech: “tanks” with his think accent.

Even better was when Marketa didn’t have time to say anything, so after the break Jon Stewart came back and gave her an opportunity to say her thanks. And what an important speech about indy artists all around the world. Best Oscar moment of the last few years. If only they’d awarded this movie with other nominations as well.

This being the 80th Oscar, they showed a lot of montages from previous shows, which on one hand was interesting to see previous winners, on the other it increased the amount of montages that are usually useless.

When I finally started to watch the show, I realized that I had no idea who was hosting. That shocked me, since I always look forward to the show and read up on it. This year I just cared about the movies I guess, not the show itself.

But Stewart did a good job. I even liked him the first time, but this year he seemed even more comfortable, and I wouldn’t mind for him to start a long run as Oscar host.

The Oscars are coming up this Sunday and I always look forward to them. I still have a few movies to catch up on, but in the meantime here are my personal favorite picks:

Best Supporting Actor

• Casey Affleck
• Javier Bardem
• Philip Seymour Hoffman
• Hal Holbrook
• Tom Wilkinson

I liked Casey Affleck, was underwhelmed by the others, who just weren’t in movies I liked. Expect for Bardem, the creepiest villain I’ve seen in ages. Just his voice scares me to death.

Best Supporting Actress

• Cate Blanchett
• Ruby Dee
• Saoirse Ronan
• Amy Ryan
• Tilda Swinton

Ruby Dee was in the movie for only a few minutes, I liked Amy Ryan, Swinton I though was overrated, while Saoirse Ronan was good in her role. But the best performance has to be Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan.

Best Actor

• George Clooney
• Daniel Day Lewis
• Johnny Depp
• Tommy Lee Jones
• Viggo Mortensen

Haven’t seen There will be blodd yet, but I liked Mortensen and Clooney. Tommy Lee Jones is just on another level for me.

Best Actress

• Cate Blanchett
• Julie Christie
• Marion Cotillard
• Laura Linney
• Ellen Page

I don’t even understand how Blanchett was nominated. Christie was excellent as was Cotillard. However the one that I enjoyed most was Ellen Page.

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Atonement
• Away From Her
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• No Country for Old Men
• There Will Be Blood

Haven’t read any of these books, so I am basing this on the screenplays alone. No Country was fairly simple, I didn’t get Atonement, but I loved the subtleties in Away From Her. Haven’t seen the other two.

Best Original Screenplay

• Juno
• Lars and the Real Girl
• Michael Clayton
• Ratatouille
• The Savages

Haven’t seen Savages or Lars. Liked Ratatouille, Clayton was ok, but Juno was a very strong screenplay.

Best Director

• Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
• Jason Reitman (Juno)
• Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton)
• Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men)
• Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood)

Haven’t seen Butterfly. Juno is fun, but a big part of it was the screenplay. I think the Coen brothers should get this one, this is really their vision.

Best Picture

• Atonement
• Juno
• Michael Clayton
• No Country for Old Men
• There Will Be Blood

I think Atonement and Michael Clayton are overrated and don’t belong in this list. I am really torn between Juno and No Country. No Country is technically a masterpiece, the suspense is incredible and the performances are great. However Juno had so much heart, I really had a great time with Juno. In the end that’s what I’ll best remember.

Of course there are some favorites of mine that weren’t nominated: Once, Zodiac, The Namesake.

Welcome to my brand new reviews site. This site is a combination of two of my previous blogs about Movie/TV and Comics/Books. Those were hosted for free by excellent blogging platforms, however I always wanted to make customizations that weren’t allowed, so now I have my own domain and webhost and I can change anything I want.

I tried to divide the site into 4 main sections: Movies, TV Shows, Comics, Books. So if you’re only interested in one of them, you won’t see anything else, except for the main page.

I have already imported all movies/TV posts from my previous film blog, and will slowly import the comics posts as well. To look at all reviews check out the Archives page.

Please browse the site and let me know what you think of the look, the navigation or the content. You can leave a comment here or send me an email at ibccast@gmail.com

Hope you enjoy and subscribe.

In 2006 I reviewed 91 movies plus 17 TV shows. So my goal for 2007 was to review more than 100 movies. I can say that I trumped that goal. Here are the stats for 2007:

Movies: 146
TV shows: 34

I must say that having 35 days off work in March/April really helped me achieve 146 movies, so I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to top that. That being said I was hoping to have a round number of 150, which is why I watched so many movies in December.

As for TV shows, I didn’t think I’d watched more than usual, but I guess I did.

Oh well, we’ll see this year if I can top these numbers.

This year I decided to do my own Top Ten of the Year, which is not too difficult, since I have them all on record in this very blog.

So, these are the best movies that I watched in 2007, that are less than 5 years old:

1) Once: this is the most recent one, so I might change my mind in a few months. But I just enjoyed this little movie so much, I’ve been obsessing about it and the soundtrack. A great simple story about struggling musicians in Dublin.

2) Zodiac: Fincher back in top form, not only great visuals, but they help to tell a great moody/scary story.

3) The Prestige: technically released in 2006, but I only got to watch it this year. One of those great twist stories. Also interesting magic tricks and performances.

4) Pan’s Labyrinth: drama, magic, horror, a great fairy tale for adults. One of my favorite movie endings.

5) The Namesake: I love movies that span a lifetime, this is one of the best ones and it also presents a struggling foreign family (Indian) in America.

6) The Man From Earth: best indy of the year (though Once is also indy). It’s so indy nobody heard of it. Great sci-fi story without any effects, literally filmed like a play. The story of a man who lived 10000 years.

7) Stardust: a great surprise for me, great story, amazing and funny characters, just a fun time.

The Fountain: Daren Aronofsky always tries to give us something to think about, it doesn’t work for everybody, but it works for me.

9) Death Proof: Tarantino never disappoints. A great entertaining movie with great action scenes.

10) Sunshine: Another surprise for me. Best spaceship movie in years. The end changes things, but I still liked it.

Although the majority of movies I watched were at least decent, there were a few that I really didn’t like:

- Transformers: already said enough about this.
- Planet Terror: really didn’t get any fun from it.
- A Good Year: such a disappointing movie by two greats, Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe.
- Spider-Man 3: biggest disappointment after two previous great movies.

Even though I was born and raised in Italy, I was never too fond of Italian movies. Too many T&A comedies and not enough substance. At least on the surface. By the time I started to look for good movies I already left Italy and I couldn’t find the good Italian movies even if I wanted to.

So the bulk of the movies I watched and like are American. However I was always interested in Asian movies. First as a kid I loved the Bruce Lee movies. But more recently I was into the Hong Kong (John Woo etc..), Chinese, Japanese and Korean wave of new titles. I am no expert of Asian movies at all, I only dabbled from time to time, but I watched some unforgettable movies that prompted me to look for others like them.

I also included Japanese animated movies, because these are truly films, not at all like the cute Disney films. Also I did not want to include more than one film for each director, otherwise half of it would be Kurosawa movies and the other half would be Ang Lee ones.

So, in no particular order, here are my favorite Asian movies:

• Seven Samurai (Japan): I’ve written enough about this movie, so just check out my review.
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (China): this is not only a great action movie, but it also speaks to personal relationships and spirituality.
• Hana-bi (Japan): a great story about a police officer and Yakuza. Violent action but also very philosophical and personal.
• Battle Royale (Japan): a brilliant original concept (a high school class stranded in an island, forced to kill each other in order to survive). Lots of fun (violent) action and commentary on war.
• Old Boy (Korea): one of the most original screenplay ever, with a great twist. A man is imprisoned in a hotel room for 15 years, and when he comes out he must find who did it and why. Not for the faint of heart. (I sense a trend in these last 3 movies…)
• Grave of the Fireflies (Japan): the effects of war on a little kid and his sister. The most heartbreaking movie about war, if you don’t cry at the end of this movie you are not human. Just thinking about it my eyes are getting watery. This film shows the power of animation. This should have been in my Top 10 Movies.
• In the mood for love (Hong Kong): a powerful tale of love and affairs, without showing any sex scene, not even a kiss actually. Very poetic and moody.
• Princess Mononoke (Japan): an adult fairy tale about nature vs technology, a fantasy story drawing from Japanese folk tales. My favorite Miyazaki animated movie.
• The Road Home (China): a love story taking place in China, about a woman who waits for her love. You might find it boring, but I thought it was a touching story.
• Yi Yi (Taiwan): a modern tale of a typical Taiwanese family. This is a great family drama that spoke to my roots.

If you want to watch something different from a typical Hollywood movie, I suggest you to start from these movies. If you like these, just look for other movies by the same directors. You won’t be disappointed.

I’d like to talk about movies other than the ones I am watching at the moment, so the Top 10 Lists is a good idea to bring older movies that I haven’t watched recently into the discussion. So here are the Top 10 Nostalgia Movies, movies that I watched as a kid (up until 12) and I loved so much that I watched many many times.

I had no problem coming up with 7 titles, but then I couldn’t think of more. So I looked online and I found so many more that I kept slapping my forehead saying “Of course! How could I forget that?!?”.

• E.T. (1982): this is I believe my experience in a movie theater. I remember at the end of the story I was crying so bad, but when the plant resurrected I started to smile. This is a great movie that I re-watched 3 years ago and it still is great.
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): I remember my uncle taping this movie and playing the truck chase in slow motion. We would study how Indy goes from front seat to front of the car, to below the car and back on.
• Rocky (1976): a classic movie with the Italian Stallion Rocky Balboa. How can anyone forget that music theme?
• Star Wars (1977): I’ve talked about this long enough. Go read my previous posts.
• Goonies (1985): full of imagination and adventure and fun. There was even an Asian looking kid like me! I am scared to re-watch it though. It could be ugly and I don’t want to ruin my memories.
• Superman (1978): another favorite of mine, also reviewed previously.
• Back to the Future (1985): just a great story with lots of fun and great music. Probably the first sci-fi story I saw.
• The Sound of Music/Mary Poppins (1965/1964): these are typical family movies, but I watched them and I enjoyed a lot as a kid. Funny thing is that I saw the Italian dubbed versions, so I know the songs in Italian.
• Ghostbusters (1984): a funny and a little bit scary movie of my childhood. Haven’t seen it in years though, I am sure I will still like it.
• Top Gun (1986): the coolest 80’s movie with the coolest 80’s music.

These are the top nostalgic movies from my childhood, some of which I am proud of, some less…

These lists are a way for me to push the few readers I have to discuss movies with me. So if you have been reading this blog but never left a comment before (cough*susan*cough), please do so now. What are the movies you most fondly remember from YOUR childhood?