1.The Fifth Element
Luc Besson's colourful sci-fi story ticks all the usual action film boxes - a boy and girl, a comedy sidekick, a terrible evil - but does it with such visual flare and creativity that it feels new all over again. Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman and, yes, Resident Evil's Milla Jovovich, are all on top form.
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2.Spartacus Blood And Sand/Gods Of The Arena
The sex and violence yardstick by which all future TV will be measured, Spartacus Blood and Sand starts out as guiltily pleasurable schlock and then abruptly steps up a gear into proper, gritty drama. The mini-series follow-up, Gods of the Arena, is a most excellent prequel, with even more raunchy Roman romping and body parts flying about.
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3.127 Hours
A cliffhanger in the literal sense, Danny Boyle's biopic tells the story of Aron Ralston, a climber who got his arm stuck under a boulder, then had to make a rather tough decision involving a pen knife. James Franco is awesome as Ralston and the pen knife scene is faint-inducingly intense.
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4.Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky's Oscar-scooping movie teeters constantly on the brink of ludicrousness, from Natalie Portman's demented lead performance to the fact the beautiful, portentous score is by the bloke who once sang Beaver Patrol for Pop Will Eat Itself. Much of what happens in this incandescent tale of obsession is irrational, impossible and mad, but when viewed through the prism of Aronofsky's visual genius it all appears perfectly rational - like the logic of a dream.
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5.Burlesque
It's the new Showgirls (remember that?), camper than a row of pink tents and just as unmissable. Ooh, it is awful. But we like it.
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6.The King's Speech
It's the thespian Rumble in the Jungle: Colin Firth at his most pained versus Geoffrey Rush at his least mad. It's an emotional tour de force, but my gosh there's a lot of acting.
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7.Paranormal Activity 2
The follow-up to the no-budget demonic possession horror sensation inevitably piles on more of everything, but not necessarily to greater effect. There are some good, cheesy shocks to be had, though.
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8.Senna
It's odd to think that F1 was once dominated by a true genius, rather than a succession of blandly handsome young men with all the personality of a tin of beans. Ayrton's legend will live on when they've all retired from driving to promote dandruff shampoo full-time.
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9.The Social Network
David Fincher's Oscar-bait biopic of Mark Zuckerberg, his friends and his enemies - there are rather more of the latter, it must be said - fizzes along on Aaron Sorkin's script and performances that are uniformly strong. Justin Timberlake is particularly Oscar-worthy, playing Napster co-founder Sean Parker as a boundlessly arrogant, moderately creepy arse - Parker will no doubt be frightfully flattered. However, this is largely a film about quite dull people who set up a website then sue each other. It also feels rather meanspirited. They made a few mistakes when they were young. Get over it.
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10.Source Code
A slightly muddled, overlong but ultimately satisfying sci-fi yarn. Jake Gyllenhaal is excellent - being a cerebral action hero suits him well - and director Duncan Jones and writer Ben Ripley make a fairly gripping fist of the central conceit: that Gyllenhaal has to keep going back in time for eight-minute spurts in a bid to discover who blows up the train he is on - but not stop him, obviously, as that would be too obvious and wouldn't allow for a doomed-romance sub-plot.
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