3 new posters for "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince"

London Film Critics Circle Award Winners

FILM OF THE YEAR
*The Wrestler

THE ATTENBOROUGH AWARD: BRITISH FILM OF THE YEAR
*Slumdog Millionaire

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR
*Waltz With Bashir

DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR
*David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

BRITISH DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR
*Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire

ACTOR OF THE YEAR
*Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
*Kate Winslet - The Reader and Revolutionary Road


BRITISH ACTOR OF THE YEAR
*Michael Fassbender - Hunger

BRITISH ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
*Kristin Scott Thomas - I’ve Loved You So Long

BRITISH ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
*Eddie Marsan - Happy-Go-Lucky

BRITISH ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
*Tilda Swinton - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

SCREENWRITER OF THE YEAR
*Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire

THE NSPCC AWARD: YOUNG BRITISH PERFORMER OF THE YEAR
*Thomas Turgoose - Somers Town and Eden Lake

BREAKTHROUGH BRITISH FILM-MAKER
*Steve McQueen - writer-director: Hunger

DILYS POWELL AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO CINEMA
Dame Judi Dench

Tilda Swinton for Benjamin Button? I'm a fan of hers, and there is no way she deserves any awards for that performance, even though it was solid. What on earth are they thinking?

Hands down the best Super Bowl commercial...

Another day, another "Watchmen" poster

Football meets Hollywood: 2009 Superbowl TV spots

More Day-Lewis/Kidman set pictures from "Nine"

Taken (2009) - REVIEW

"Taken" is the type of movie that will either strongly attract or strongly repel anyone who watches it. Some will be enthralled by the relentless action, while others will bang their heads in regards to how stupid it is. I'm somewhere in the middle. Though "Taken" is definitely loud and dumb, with way too many conveniences, it's also satisfying as a throw-away piece of loud and dumb entertainment. Brian Mills (Liam Neeson, unleashing his inner bad-ass) is an ex-spy who lives in Los Angeles to try and repair his relationship with his somewhat estranged daughter (Maggie Grace). Making matters harder for Brian is the fact that his bitch of an ex-wife (Famke Jannesen) has remarried a ridiculously wealthy man and tries to keep the daughter away from Brian. Eventually, Brian gets a chance to see her, but when he does, she's asking if she can go with a friend to Paris for a few weeks. At first wary, Brian lets her go, but only if she calls him every day. Of course, once there, things go wrong. A seemingly innocent encounter at the airport in Paris leads to Brian's daughter and her friend being captured by an Albanian crime ring that specializes in selling young women as prostitutes. Having been on the phone with his daughter at the moment of the kidnapping, Brian tells the man who takes to phone that, "I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you", to which the man simply replies, "Good luck". From there Brian uses the help of some of his other ex-spy friends and finds out that he has roughly 96 hours before his daughter will virtually disappear off the face of the earth, and he sets of to Paris. Once he does, the proceedings are pretty standard. Find a piece of information, track someone down, get into a fight and/or car chase. While the action sequences are well staged and well edited, and Neeson's "Brian" makes Jason Bourne look like a pansy, there's just nothing terribly original about any of it. The set up, though a bit sluggish, is acceptable because it makes you care more about Brian's journey than you probably should, but overall, it's just run-of-the-mill revenge fare that just happens to star an A-list actor. So if you're looking for a smart, intricate thriller filled with twists and turns, you'll be disappointed, but if you're just looking for a middle-of-the-road, mindless action flick, then "Taken" might be worth your time, even if it is totally disposable.

Warning: Viewing this film may cause sudden fear of Liam Neeson. Seriously, the guy is actually a pretty kickass action hero....

Grade: C+

Number of 2009 films seen: 1