There’s not much I love more than a well-done montage, and this is one of the best I’ve seen recently. A thematically and visually arranged collage of 2010 releases, both big and small, both good and not-so-good, giving a pretty comprehensive overview of the films of 2010 in a mere six minutes. And it’s truly a case where the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts, as the editor (genrocks on YouTube and Twitter) uses snippets of dialogue here and there to create a great thematic rhythm and at times almost a narrative of the year. This is some incredible work. There’s a full list of the films used here, but watch it first – it’s pretty cool to see how some of the clips you’ll recognize are used.

Every time I see one of these I just want to go watch a gazillion old movies all at once. I’d forgotten that we’d lost some of these people this year. I did cringe a little at them only using Titanic to represent Gloria Stuart, who has plenty of 1930s movies they could’ve referenced as well. Like The Old Dark House. I mean, it is TCM we’re talking about here. Sorry I can’t seem to find a way to embed a larger version, but you can make it a bit bigger on the original page in TCM’s Media Room.

This is my new favorite thing. I randomly stumbled across it on YouTube the other day when I was looking for clips from Pierrot le fou; it’s times like these that I love YouTube and the half-forgotten things it manages to contain sometimes. Because really, finding new ways in which Anna Karina is awesome? Is kind of a hobby of mine.

I’m going to have to go buy a PC from somewhere just so I can play this game, aren’t I? Although, it’s not like this is gameplay and you’ll be able to do all this stuff. I don’t care. This looks so awesome, and I love the Old Republic time period. I’ve never gotten into MMOs before, but if I had the hardware for it, this would definitely be the first.

Classic videogames from the 8-bit era would have us believe that rescuing the princess from the castle where she’s imprisoned by a monster is always a good thing to do. But Dan learns that isn’t necessarily the case! Really clever and well-made short film. Hat tip Cartoon Brew.

I’ve tended to use the Featured Video space for music videos and the occasional trailer lately, but highlighting quality short films and stuff like that was my initial thought when I created it. I need to work on getting back to that (by, like, watching more short films online), and this is a great place to start. I found Apricot while killing time on Vimeo this morning, and fell in love with it – really strong acting, gorgeous cinematography, and a subtle story all contributing. Director Ben Briand has several Australian commercials and short films in his portfolio; hopefully we’ll see some features before too long. Because this is simply a fantastic short.

Thanks to Bob over at Row Three for bringing this little gem of a video to my attention. Film noir is a particular favorite subgenre of mine, and Serena Bramble has done a great job of collecting some of the most definitely noir clips into a single compulsively watchable montage. Click through to YouTube to see the list of films included, but have fun guessing before you do!

Only five more days until Mass Effect 2 is released! Bioware’s hotly-anticipated second game in the proposed Mass Effect trilogy looks to be even more epic than the first one, and based on interviews and articles, sounds like it will fix most of the problems I had with the first game (my review is here). I’ve been looking forward to this one for a long time, and the advance buzz is really good. Guessing I won’t be disappointed.