It’s simple. Four dudes in the present travel back to 1986 via a hot tub that doubles as a time machine. And if that sounds like a good time to you then you’re in. You’ll love this movie. And you’ll love it even more if you actually were around in 1986 doing the same things these guys were doing or seeing the 80’s movies the guys, and the film, reference such as Back to the Future (1985), Say Anything (1989), The Karate Kid (1984), or Terminator (1984). And if a decade or so later in the 90’s you fell out of your seat laughing at the gross-out comedy of Farrelly brother films like Kingpin (1996) and Something About Mary (1998), you’ll love it more. Do you still remember the big-hair Poison and Motley Crue guys like it was yesterday? Even better. And guys, did I mention it’s a guy’s movie? Sex and drugs and rock and roll catered just to your liking with a chance at redemption thrown in for good measure.

Blood often splatters on walls as if from the flicked wrist of Jackson Pollack in large, fanned, atomized brush strokes. Something about the humor, irony, and satire of the film reminded me of Stanley Kubrick. Story takes place in a science fiction world that is partly Blade Runner, Logan’s Run and part RoboCop. And why doesn’t Forest Whitaker win more Oscars? These are just some of the notes I scribbled while watching this oddly entertaining action-suspense-horror film about repossession men, Jude Law and Whitaker, who don’t take back cars or houses when folks fail to pay their creditor but instead reclaim your liver, your heart, your lungs and other man-made biotech body parts when you fail to make payments. Bloody, and violent, Repo Men is a film that at times would make David Cronenberg blush. Be warned, this R-rated film is not for everyone.

Matt Damon and Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass team up again, this time for a war thriller that takes place in Iraq’s Green Zone, circa 2003 on the dawn of U.S. occupation of Baghdad. Named after a boundary intensive, heavily guarded center of U.S. military and diplomatic government refuge, the base of which is Saddam’s presidential palace, it becomes the backdrop for U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Ron Miller’s quest to find WMDs, Weapons of Mass Destruction. But as forceful as the politics of the film are, I almost rather it have been a search for a good chicken salad sandwich.

So I went 15 for 24 on the 2010 Oscars and missed all of my favorite categories which are Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay. Had I just gone with my gut instinct I could have aced those three. Plus I think Avatar was robbed in the Sound Editing and Sound Mixing categories. No matter how much you love The Hurt Locker or hate Avatar, the sound was absolutely on the money in Avatar. We’re talking about a film created nearly entirely on a computer. But I think the Academy nailed it with Best Picture and Best Director going with Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker. But let’s move on, that’s old news. The Oscars are over and it’s time to look forward to the coming months.

Here are 9 films I can’t wait to see:

Not surprisingly, Alice in Wonderland is a visual feast. Especially in 3D. Fans of Jeff Spicoli falling out of their smoke-filled Volkswagen Buses in the back of movie house parking lots will especially be turned on by the psychedelic set design, costumes and visual effects that are simply scrumptious. It all looks like candy in a way and I kept expecting to hear The Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds play over the images. Director Tim Burton unleashes his unique fantasy-macabre vision once again in a perfect surreal setting seemingly destined to have been born a Burton project. My question is, within this experimental magic of Wonderland can Disney capture the kind of large audience complacency they normally find with their animated fairytales?

So what are your picks for The Oscars? A tough one in the Best Picture Category, not between ten but between two. There are only three or four worthy contenders and two with the most buzz currently have earned a total of $723.5 million—that’s The Hurt Locker, total U.S. box office take of $12.7 million, and Avatar, currently at $710.8 million domestically. Total polar opposites in terms of tickets sold. But how do you think the 6000 members of the Academy voted? And do you think there’s an opportunity with so many nominations in the Best Picture category for films like The Blind Side or Inglourious Basterds to slide in between split votes? We’ll see on Sunday, one television event I sorely look forward to because it’s all about the people who went chasing their dreams; the Oscar Ceremony being the one chance of the year they get to tell the World their journey was worth its weight in gold. Oh yeah, and it’s also an occasion for predictions. The following are my picks, with Christoph Waltz a definite lock in the Supporting Actor category.

BEST PICTURE / Film EDITING / DIRECTING: The Hurt Locker (Chris Innis, Bob Murawski for Editing; Katherine Bigelow for Directing)

Five-time Oscar nominee Jeff Bridges, son to famous actor Lloyd Bridges, and younger brother to Beau Bridges will most likely be giving the Best Actor acceptance speech this year at the Academy Awards. Bridges gives a very real performance in Crazy Heart, a film about a fictitious country singer-songwriter named Bad Blake whom staying fans adore even when he’s wiping vomit from his mouth and forgetting lyrics after a few too many bouts with the bottle. It helps that Bridges does his own singing because it gives him further ownership of this familiar but heroic role.

Have you seen all of the 10 Best Picture nominations? Live broadcast of The 82nd Annual Academy Awards is next Sunday, March 7th at 8PM on ABC. Just about all of the films are playing at theaters currently except for A Serious Man and Up which you can now find on Netflix and at Blockbuster. My suggestion is find as many films on DVD or via cable as you can and throw an Oscar party. If you can’t get all of the films, find a synopsis of each movie, get some props, some friends and play a modified 3D version of Charades. That way you won’t feel left out when they announce The Hurt Locker as Best Picture. But please don’t hurt yourself while hurting a locker.

One could say Cop Out starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan is a buddy cop film full of clichés from 80’s films like Beverly Hills Cop (1984) or Running Scared (1986), certainly Lethal Weapon (1987) that mirrors those films so closely it could almost be considered a rip off or slightly better, a parody. Or, one could say it’s simply a loving tribute to black cop, white cop films that honors the best of those movies and proliferates a class of action comedy we’ll call The 80’s Buddy Cop Film genre. Either way, with Willis, and music by Harold Faltermeyer, two quintessential contributors to the best of 80’s action films, nostalgia proves to be an easy sell for Cop Out.

For Shutter Island, 68-year-old grand filmmaker and historian Martin Scorsese dips into the psychological-horror-suspense pockets of a coat once worn by the great Alfred Hitchcock. If Hitchcock were around today would he succumb to 3D and visual effects like the ones you see in seasonal Blockbusters? I think he would but to a more subtle degree. Look at the unusual camera movements and matte paintings of films like Psycho (1960) and Vertigo (1958), and the unique art design contribution of Salvador Dali in Hitch’s Spellbound (1945). Shutter Island has no 3D technology but you wouldn’t know that from what depth and dimension you see presented here visually and aurally. Creepy characters and objects consciously placed in or outside of the frame are done so always as a reminder of what Shutter Island is, an insane asylum for criminals. Scorsese is doing what he does best today which is big studio, professional filmmaking that pushes the boundaries of all key elements of film, including visual effects, to not just sell tickets but to tell a good story. Is Shutter Island worth seeing? To help you decide, here are nine facts and opinions of Scorsese’s 21st feature film, Shutter Island.

The Wolfman is 2010’s first worthy production. For those of us who keep saying they don’t make movies the way they used to, Universal Pictures does just that. They do a re-make of their very own 1941 The Wolf Man. And outside of some fantastic visual effects and updated carcass carvings they barely stray from the original. Chock full of fog and full moon, it’s a horror film done by the numbers, and by the flesh. Let’s just keep this simple: if you like horror films, your tickets to this screening will be entertainment dollars well spent. And I say tickets, plural, because you may not want to see it alone.

I’ll spare you the petty grievances I have with this “spy thriller” such as the title, how the trailers unfairly equate it to Taken (2008), how unmatched the two leads are, how predictable it is. That’s to be expected with a February wide release. But if you’re just the slightest John Travolta fan, or know your Luc Besson films, or watch Spike TV then I think you’ll enjoy the action. And Travolta’s dialogue. Can’t say it’s worth the $10.50 a ticket but if your date says this is the movie they want to take you to, let them. And enjoy the ride.

Not since 1943 have the Academy Awards had ten films in the Best Picture Category. Back then during World War II and the Studio era it was Casablanca that took the Oscar. Can you imagine being the film in a category with Casablanca? What an honor. And so it is with the 82nd year of the Academy Awards, coming at you live on March 7th at 8PM that we have nine other films honored to be on the same ticket as the eventual winner. And I’m talking to you Blind Side. I know you and An Education are feeling pretty excited to be in this category. Might I add one without a Casablanca.

Why so many films in the category when five have barely fit the definition of “best” the last few years? It used to be that there was an abundance of great films mass manufactured conveyor-belt style for a country desperate to escape the threats of Nazis and Kamikazes. This time around though I get the impression it’s more a promotion for Hollywood’s products, and a chance to increase television viewers on Oscar night to sell those products than it is a reflection of five-star overabundance during war time.

Best Picture

"Avatar"
"The Hurt Locker"
"Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire"
"Up in the Air"
"Inglourious Basterds"
"Up"
"The Blind Side"
"District 9"
"An Education"
"A Serious Man"

This detective film turned out to be better than I thought it would and though the Boston accent Mel Gibson tries to emulate is at times too high-pitched, like a cartoon version of his on-screen character, he gets the job done and exudes a Mel Gibson I haven’t seen since the first Lethal Weapon (1987). It helps that the screenplay from William Monahan (The Departed (2006)) is decent, and the dialogue rich. But my theory here is that Mel read the script but didn’t sign on until he was told Howard Shore would be doing the music.

If you have kids and you’re looking for something to do after doing your part to support the victims of Haiti, look to Tooth Fairy and a hand full of other films in theaters now that will lift the spirits and get the giggles going. I know what you’re saying, too. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has gone soft starring as a hockey player gone fairy. But don’t let the pink tutu fool you. They’re just wrestling tights, or in this case, hockey tights, but of a different kind.

Another film by Producers Joel Silver and Susan Downey, part of the team behind Sherlock Holmes (2009), with added Producer Denzel Washington which means he had a hand in picking the script. The Book of Eli is a post-apocalyptic, desolate film, sort of a Western film genre parable thirty years into the future where the John Wayne, Grasshopper, Man With No Name character played by the superb Denzel Washington passes through the trials and tribulations of a Book of Revelations-portrayed mad world, headed west with a possession sorely wanted by bad guy Carnegie, played by Gary Oldman. A powerful item Eli carries that he says probably started the war. “Stay on the path,” he tells himself, turning a blind eye to war ravaged gangs that kill and rape the innocent at the drop of a hat. Though yea as he walks through the valley of the shadow of death he is a man comforted with Bruce Lee agility and a righteous fine knife-sword.

If Vampire films is your sort of thing, put this one on your list. And if you can’t wait for the DVD and don’t mind spending the cash, go see it now while it’s in theaters. That is if you’re a fan. Personally, I’d wait and rent it for a buck at one of those dollar kiosks at Walmart or in the lobby of your local grocery store, or wait to get it through Netflix or cable. The perfect vampire film to rent on a cold Monday night when football has vanished and 24 feels so déjà vu. I’ll get into the specifics here in a sec but know that if you’re shot hunting while watching your movies, looking for great photographic images amongst the cinematic debris, know that there is a frame of such Picasso magnificence near the end of Daybreakers that it will make you feel okay you spent money on the film and it might leave you with something more to digest after the film ends than just flashes of blood dripping wallpaper from exploding bodies.

I had to leave out several really great films to get a list of 99. What you’ll find here is a very short list of films that aren’t necessarily the greatest films of all time but are films I felt were more memorable to me in the 00’s than others and contained strong entertainment value (favorites and opinion) in addition to the elements of directing, screenwriting, cinematography, editing, sound, and visual effects. Missing are films the likes of Traffic (2000), Almost Famous (2000), Gran Torino (2008), Grizzly Man (2005), 28 Days Later (2002), The Departed (2007) and The Hangover (2009). For my top 9 of the year, a surprise with Sherlock Holmes.

99. 24 Hour Party People (2002)
98. Night at the Museum (2006)
97. Punch-Drunk Love (2002) OR The Matador (2005)

The lighting and cinematography by Philippe Rousselot alone warrants an Oscar nod for Sherlock Holmes. If that’s the only category it gets nominated in I’d be satisfied. Like a Dutch painting, like Rembrandt or Italian painter Caravaggio, the light in Sherlock Holmes often comes in from the side, one side of the screen sparsely hotter than the other, often the darker side falling off into a fathomless depth that adds terrifically to the black magic and sorcery that conjures forth mysteries to be solved by our characters Holmes played by Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law’s Dr. John Watson—two buddies the likes of which we haven’t seen on film since Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969); hunting down clues around dirty old London like you would expect in a film about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, and one directed by Guy Ritchie. Filthy, fighting, trouble-prone men who find themselves in another one of Ritchie’s complicated plots only this time all the glory will be for a Warner Brothers franchise, set in the London year of 1891.