Embrace the bitter and post your own reviews!

Bitter Balcony reported about “Norwegian Ninja” a few months back and after all that time we’ve finally been able to sit and enjoy it’s B-movie antics… or did we?

The movie’s synopsis is as simple as it gets; the true story of how Commander Arne Treholt and his Ninja Force saved Norway during the Cold War. Of course by “true story” they mean a ridiculously bad ninja movie in the style of late ‘70s camp. There are things like the secret island they live on being protected by a Feng Shui barrier. This is totally ridiculous as Feng Shui is probably the furthest thing from a weapon you can use. It leads to a great scene (seen in the trailer) that provides a hearty laugh.

The movie should have continued to tap into this ridiculousness and purposefully bad miniatures for the special effects, but somehow misses the point. It’s not easy to point to one or two direct things that are what fails. It just seems like they had a great idea and somehow missed the point when they started shooting it. There are a few gems that survived from the script, but overall it was a tad too unfunny.

"The Razzies" should be called the Bitter Balcony awards, or at least the Bitter Awards as it points out the worst of the worst from the past year. This year they really did great in pointing out that "The Last Airbender" was an utter piece of crap and that not even fans could love "Sex and the City 2".

Here are the winners, or losers as they should be called, from the evenings event:

• Worst Picture: "The Last Airbender"
• Worst Actor: Ashton Kutcher for both "Killers" and "Valentine's Day."
• Worst Actress: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristen Davis for "Sex and the City 2"
• Worst Supporting Actor: Jackson Rathbone for "The Last Airbender" and "Twilight Saga: Eclipse" (the other most-nominated title of the year)
• Worst Supporting Actress: Jessica Alba for "The Killer Inside Me," "Little Fockers," "Machete" and "Valentine's Day"
• Worst Eye-gouging Misuse of 3-D: "The Last Airbender"
• Worst Screen Couple or Ensemble: The cast of "Sex and the City 2"
• Worst Director: M. Night Shyamalan
• Worst Screenplay: "The Last Airbender"

This won't be a top ten or even a top five because while there were some good films last year not too many were worthy of "Top films of 2010".

A Serbian Film
While hard to recommend because of the topics explored in this film it was the best film of 2010, as far as I'm concerned. It was one of the only films to stick in my head for quite a long time due to it's direction, storytelling and the performances of the cast. Truly a well made film and if you think you can look past the more extreme scenes then it's a must watch.

The Horde (non-dubbed version)
This movie tripped me out. A zombie movie of terrific proportions that starts off intriguing and grabs hold of your interest like a pit bull with lockjaw and doesn't let go. I'll also mention that this could be the first film that made me stand from my chair and cheer for one of the characters in the end. Not because they escape or survive, but because two of the characters have some great exits.

Well, it took about two weeks into 2011 to pile up five films of 2010. Honestly, perhaps laziness played a role for me to just come up with five, for some reason I didn’t hit the theater as much as I would’ve liked. Anyways, here’s my end of the top five:

1. A Serbian Film: A nightmare of perversity, this movie shocked me not for its explosion of violence and sex crimes, but for the context in which these acts are presented. The movie’s extremism will definitely turn many off, but if you can handle the atrocities "A Serbian Film" is driven by, you will find a profound tragedy of Shakespeareian scale.

2. The Social Network: David Fincher’s examination of the 21st century’s most relevant internet empire Facebook. Fincher is cold and calculating in bringing this rites of passage tale. Perhaps the point of "The Social Network" is that even in a world that counts on laptops as our means of engagement, betrayal, disappointment and loneliness are just as relevant as ever.

Nina practices ballet real hard. Nina gets role she’s been practicing for. Nina is barely pressured to do a good job. Nina looses it because, well, who freaking knows? Her mom’s an ass and her instructor wants her to do a good job, but there isn’t a reason there beyond Nina’s own neurosis.

Needless to say this Bitter Swan was not impressed. Aronofsky’s decision to direct this in the style of ‘70s horror sounds good on paper, but all we get are some awful shot selection, mediocre lighting, and 20 too many shots of the back of someone’s head while they walk. It’s incredibly uninteresting and bores the audience. It would have been better to direct this in a beautifully shot high art style and had the horror/violence in stark contrast to the rest of the film.

I, JAS of Bitter Balcony, ventured out into the wild and took the following pics of PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) 2010.

As far as movie related news, there was a point-and-click video game being made of "Back to the Future" and Christopher Lloyd has signed up to voice Dr. Emmit Brown. There was also an online "Lord of the Rings" game that looked just like every other third person MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) game out there. Other than that there really wasn't much else worth mentioning.

Aside from movies, we ran into Morgan Webb from G4. She cried when she saw me, gave me a hug and we regaled of the old days when we used to date… no seriously… what? You don't believe me? FINE!

There were plenty games, but even the gamer in me wasn't too thrilled with what he saw. I can care less about the 300th Final Fantasy and a lot of the other games look like derivatives of every other game out there. If it wasn't for the 40+ hour investment needed I would open the Bitter Gamer, but bad movies are aplenty and I and the rest of the balcony can fill our time with that for now.

Later Friday night I checked out Protomen, Anamanaguchi, Metroid Metal and Minibosses. They all played nice and loud. Protomen is not my cup of tea, but they gave a good show. Anamanaguchihad some jackass engineer that didn’t wire them up right, but they were good and had two old Nintendo systems providing accompanying instrumentation, so that was pretty badass. Metroid Metal and Minibosses rocked!

All in all PAX is a good time and worth going to if you get the chance. I'm sure to be there next year.

A big jumble of pics follows...

I'll be wearing a Bela Lugosi shirt, so say Hi if you see me there!