Article by Cameron Spink

Please Note: I am not endorsing any of these movies yet. You will have to wait until I have seen them and reviewed them before you gain my opinion. These are merely the movies that I am anticipating will be some of the stand-outs next year.

10. Priest/The Rite/Red State

I have put these three together because all three concern themselves with Christianity/Catholicism. While they promise to be entertaining they should be approached with caution because of the skewed way they may look at Christ (particularly Red State). Having said that these movies do allow us to view secular perceptions and are worth noting.

9. Cars 2

Expected mid-year this is the sequel to the hugely popular 2006 movie. With a large amount of the cast and crew reappearing as well as a few newbie's to the Cars-universe (Jason Issacs, Thomas Kretschmann and Michael Caine) this movie should be very popular with the kids.

Article by Cameron Spink

5. Shutter Island

Thrillers dominated this year and this was the most suspenseful of the lot. This movie really touches on the human spirit and what it can endure or forget. Not dissimilar to Inception but this is probably DiCarpio's career-defining performance.

4. The Town

For some reason Ben Affleck makes a better director than he does actor and this movie really shows his abilities as he paints a bleak world of drugs, robberies and death and yet there is a great amount of hope that spurs this story on. After all, we are not defined by our surroundings and our past but what we decide to do moment by moment.

3. How To Train Your Dragon

Animated movies seem to have a better strike rate than others of being really good movies. Having said that How To Train Your Dragon is one out of the box and a very family-friendly movie and deserves all of its $493.2 million that it brought in at the box office. It has an underlying message of acceptance to those who are different to us and was simply the movie that can lay claims to being the most fun.

2. Animal Kingdom

This Australian gem was released to critical acclaim. The story roughly follows what actually happened in the late 1980s in the Melbourne gangland scene and is beautifully directed by David Michôd. While the trailer may have come across as corny this movie reaches great heights and breaks the convention of having the climax in the latter part of the movie.

1. Inception

Inception is a movie of the finest quality. Not only does it have stunning cinematography, an epic score, emotional character development and an intriguing storyline but it mixes all these ingredients into a movie that stands alone in the thriller genre. One can't help being awed by the majesty of each world unfolding in high definition.

The Ashes, Cricket and Christ

Article by Bill Muehlenberg

"With the English now here battling Australia to retain the Ashes, it is worth looking at how this evolved, and how one remarkable cricketer became an even more amazing Christian missionary. I refer of course to C.T. Studd, the famous English athlete and follower of Christ.

Charles Thomas Studd was born into a wealthy English family in 1860. Along with his two brothers, he attended Eton, where all three excelled at cricket. They played for the Eton XI, and C.T. captained the team in his last year. He then went to Trinity College, Cambridge.

It was released today, by the ACCC (Consumer Watchdog) that the Power Balance bracelet that is endorsed by many high-performance athletes to improve attributes actually has no scientific basis and provides no advantage to aspiring sports players. It is highly likely that the athletes who used these wristbands knew this but signed some sort of lucrative contract to parade around with them on. Just goes to show that a bit of free-thinking never goes amiss.

Power Balance bracelets exposed as a sham
The Age, December 23rd 2010

"A bracelet worn by high profile sports stars that claims to improve athletic performance has been exposed as a sham by the consumer watchdog.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has ordered Power Balance Australia to refund all customers who feel they were misled by the supposed benefits of Power Balance bracelets.

Article by Cameron Spink

The thing about the Narnian books is that they are primarily aimed at children and the movies are no different. Perhaps this is why, in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the ideals that translate from the book are more blatant than the interwoven messages from the first two.

This movie centres on Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and they don't take long to re-enter the mystical land of Narnia. Unfortunately they are followed by their very annoying cousin Eustace Scrubb (Will Poulter). But no matter, as straight away they are rescued from their water-filled picture frame by their old friend King Caspian (Ben Barnes).