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It's Christmas Holiday again and there are gonna be a ton of movies on TV every day. I thought I'd write some short comments on all the movies that I watch, instead of giving them all a full review.

Shrek The Third (12/19/09)
I heard this one wasn't received so well, but I personally enjoyed it. I thought it was better than the first Shrek movie, but Shrek 2 is still the best of the series in my opinion though. But this one is worth a watch if you got nothing better to do.

Blade Runner (12/19/09)
The first 80 minutes of the movie I didn't think it was all that exciting. There wasn't much action and not much was happening, but I thought it was pretty good still. The last 30 minutes however were really, really good. The ending was very well done in my opinion. Also I was amused by the future view of the makers. I think they were a little too optimistic on some things, while some of our current technology is already far better than it is in the movie.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (12/20/09)
An animation movie made by Tim Burton. It's nothing impressive, but it was fairly enjoyable still. I thought it got better as it neared the ending. Also, with only 70 minutes it's kinda short, but that didn't bother me as much as it did with the Corpse Bride. At least the characters are worked out properly in this one.

Chocolat (12/22/09)
About a woman and her daughter moving to a quiet catholic village where they open a chocolaterie. The people of the church do not like to see the villagers get tempted by the delicious chocolate they make (with lent coming up) and try to make her leave. The woman does not want to leave however and the villagers start to fall in love with her chocolate. I know it may not sound all that interesting, but the high pace of the movie kept it from becoming boring. Technically it was also well made and it had some good actors like Johnny Depp and Judi Dench. However, this is not the kind of movie you'll want to watch when you invite a couple of friends over to have a beer. It really is a typical girls-movie and I don't think there will be that many guys out there who will love this. But it's good enough for a boring evening.

Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban (12/23/09)
I'm not really a Harry Potter fan or anything, but I've found the movie series quite enjoyable up until now. So far the third movie has been the only one I've only seen once in the cinema, hence why I wanted to give it another watch. I thought most fans of the series didn't like it all that much, but I thought it was a good part in the series back then. I felt that it was more serious and mature than the first two movies. After watching it again five years later I still feel the same about it and it's still among my favorite episodes of the HP heptalogy.

Happy Feet (12/25/09)
This is one of the very few movies that I gave up on halfway. Possibly one of the worst animation movies I've ever seen. I just couldn't see how the story elements connected to each other. It's something like this: Apparently singing is very important to pinguins, even so important that it's the only subject given at pinguin school. Every pinguin has his own 'heartsong', but one pinguin can't sing but tap-dances instead. This pinguin gets rejected from the group, leaves and the rest we've already seen a million times before in other movies. I just don't see where it all comes from and I doubt much of it would be explained later in the movie. Perhaps it's not fair to judge it on the first hour, but I just couldn't bare watching it anymore. I have to say that graphically it is amazing though.

Into the Wild (12/27/09)
A movie, based on a true story, about a guy who graduates from college and decided to leave his old life behind to go on a hitchhiking trip to Alaska. Once there he wants to spend his time in solitude and learn what true happiness is. The movie is a bit long (140 minutes) and I found it a little hard to identify myself with the main character in the beginning. But all in all I thought it was really good. The main characters life story is quite interesting, it had beautiful cinematography and the final scenes were done very well in my opinion. I would certainly recommend it to anyone.

The Bucket List (12/28/09)
It's alright, but not much special. The movie is a little on the short side with the standard 90 minutes, but on the other hand I don't think they could've gotten much more out of it. Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson do a fine job once again though and manage to turn it into something enjoyable. I think if this movie would've been made with lesser actors it would've been mediocre at best. Anyway, in my opinion The Bucket List is a decent choice if you don't want to watch anything too difficult or too long.

Babel (01/01/10)
Like Magnolia, Babel is a movie where several plot lines with different people are being told at the same time. These plot lines all have some sort of connection, and in this movie the connection was much more clear than it was in Magnolia. Personally I think this is an interesting way of story telling. Also there is a lot of switching between scenes which keeps the movie from becoming slow. One bad point I found about Babel though is that it ended quite abruptly. Out of the four or five plot lines that were being followed, I had a feeling that only two of them sort of ended. The rest was still working towards the climax in my eyes, but the climax never came and it was just over like that. So I didn't really like the ending, but overall it was an interesting movie.

Citizen Kane (01/03/10)
In one word: Timeless. It's amazing how a movie can still be enjoyable and so popular after 70 years. It's considered the best movie ever made by many and, although it's not my favorite, I can imagine why people would say that. The only thing is, the movie has been spoiled to me so many times before I went to see it. Heck even Family Guy spoiled it for me in one of their episodes. And I think this movie is best if you don't know what 'Rosebud' means yet, because that's pretty much the entire mystery the story centers around. Anyway, I think anyone who loves to watch movies should watch Citizen Kane at least once in their lives. It's really, really good.

And with that, my Christmas Holiday officially ends. If I had to pick 3 favorites out of the above movies I would say:
1) Blade Runner
2) Into the Wild
3) Citizen Kane

In no particular order. Although I think the only one I would want to watch again someday is Into the Wild. But anyway that was it. Hope you all had happy holidays like I had and have a good 2010.