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| previous reviews here.
Robin Hood (2010) - Russel Crowe, Cate Blanchett. the Robin Hood origin story. this is not the traditional Robin Hood story about the guy who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, but is rather the story of how an English soldier returning from the Crusades became the Robin Hood legend that we know about. the movie ends where we usually start hearing about him. i'm all for taking something silly and getting serious and violent with it, but really, i'd like it much better if i hadn't already seen it years ago when it was called Braveheart. actually maybe i wouldn't since this iteration of the freedom-fighter story is littered with way too many instances of me wondering "... but why did...?" and "... how come... ?" it's not very well written, and, like i said, is far too similar to Braveheart to go unnoticed. 2 stars.
The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009) - a grim, heist-like tale, except the two guys aren't robbing a bank, they're kidnapping some poor woman named Alice Creed for ransom. do these things ever happen according to plan? this one has the obligatory twists and turns that means, no, these things never go according to plan. the gripping feeling of the crime is there, making this a perfectly capable example of the genre. 3 stars.
Inside Job (2010) - oscar winner for best doc. can't say this film revealed anything i didn't already know about the financial crisis. quite the opposite, it took pains to show just one side of the story, and by doing so gave up any semblance of credibility. the second half of the movie is littered with the filmmaker injecting himself in his film by badgering the interviewees with his pre-formed ideas. it's like a Michael Moore film except this film doesn't have any of Moore's goofy entertainment value. 1.5 star.
Get Low (2010) - Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek, Lucas Black. duvall is a crotchety old recluse with a nasty reputation who decides to hold his own funeral party -- while he's still alive. bill murray and lucas black are the funeral home employees and accomplices in this ruse, while sissy spacek is his ex-lover and one of the only witnesses to the man he once was. careful not to reveal too much at once, the film layout resembles a trail of breadcrumbs, each crumb explaining why and how this perfectly able and once charming man became a reviled shut-in. duvall is strong. he's always a strong presence. bill murray, ditto. 3 stars. Dogtooth (2010) - greek nominee for best foreign language film. a mother and father completely isolate their adult children since birth from the outside world rendering them childlike and ignorant. the only world they've ever known is the inside of their house and have only really interacted with each other until the father brings home a girl he pays to have sex with his man son. the film is a painfully uncomfortable yet fascinating spectacle of authority vs human spirit. 3.5 stars.
Source Code (2011) - jake gyllenhaal, michelle monaghan. a new technology allows someone to relive the last eight seconds of someone else's life. a soldier uses this technology to discover who plants a bomb on a chicago commuter train. this film completely fails to achieve suspension of disbelief, a sacrosanct requirement for any sci-fi film. it also loses its momentum after about an hour and is left twisting for the remaining final act. the only reason why this isn't one star is because the first half hour or so was kind of entertaining. too bad it never delivers on the promise of its beginning. 2 stars.
The Fighter (2010) - mark wahlburg, christian bale, amy adams, melissa leo. biopic about the boxer Mickey Ward and his crackhead brother. despite the typical sports movie ending, this movie is really about the rocky, love/hate relationship between Mickey Ward and his brother. worth watching but not exactly sure i'd seek it out. 3 stars.
Let Me In (2010) - US adaptation of one of my favorite films from the last few years, Let the Right One In. this film hits more on the horror/thriller aspects of this vampire film, but overall isn't too far from the high mark set by its predecessor. if you're going to bother watching this, i suggest you take the extra step and just watch the original. it has more heart, it's better and it's the original! 3 stars.
Four Lions (2010) - controversial british comedy about four bumbling, doofus muslim extremists on a mission to "kill the infidels". it was actually pretty funny at parts and was definitely a unique subject for a comedy but i have to agree with some of the detractors. i have no problem with using taboo subjects for comedy, but the overall theme, and it does have one, as the ending gets a bit serious, doesn't seem to disagree with muslim extremists, just how they might become extremists. 3 stars.
Catfish (2010) - documentary about a young artist from nyc who strikes up a facebook friendship with a young fan and her older sister. the artist, his brother and their friend take a road trip to meet the friends in person with surprising results. there's some debate about the veracity of this film. if you take it at face value, though, it turns out to be pretty interesting. 3 stars. Secret Reunion - korean film about an unlikely friendship between a North Korean spy and a South Korean spy hunter. starring the ubiquitous Song Kang Ho. kind of slapstickish humor, that Song Kang Ho is so good at. not very memorable beyond that. 3 stars.
Breathless - korean film "DdongPaRi". literally every other word in this film is directly or some variation of the word "sheebal", the general, all-purpose korean curse word. the film is about a an older asshole gangster debt collector and his friendship with a strong-willed high school girl. on the surface, this film just looks like a potpouri of cursing and fighting, but underneath all that, it takes some pains to create several real and fleshed out characters that should be hated, and are to some degree, but draw some sympathy. 3.5 stars.
The Hedgehog - french film about a depressed young girl and her observations of the people in her building, especially the budding friendship between the ugly and overlooked janitor and the kind, attentive and handsome older foreigner. 3 stars.
Armadillo - Danish documentary on soldiers in Afghanistan. 3 stars. The Recipe (DwenJang) - korean film. typical korean pap. 2 stars.
Actresses - korean film. real actresses play themselves in this mockumentary about the shared lives of several generations of actresses in Korea. interesting especially if you watch korean stuff and are familiar with the actresses already since they play off their public images. 3.5 stars.
Outrage - Beat Takeshi. lots of gory violence, but not much in the middle. 2.5 stars.
Circumstance - life in Iran sucks for a gay teenager with dreams. really? apparently so. huh. 2.5 stars.
Thor (2011) - this film can be split into two halves: good and bad. the Asgard half was great. Anthony Hopkins as Odin, the head honcho Asgardian god, pretty much commanded every scene he was in including a climactic bitch-fit when he expels Thor from Asgard. and new guy Tom Hiddleston as Loki made a surprisingly able villain. no match for Thor in a fist-fight, he makes up for it with cunning, manipulation, trickery and just a creepy meanness. i even really enjoyed the Frost Giant king Laufy. Thor on earth with Natalie Portman, though? pffffft. crap. 3.5 stars. Cyrus (2010) - Jonah Hill is the clingy live-in grown-up son of Marisa Tomei. he's trying to sabotage her relationship with John C Reilly. not bad. Marisa Tomei is awesome, and gorgeous as always, and it's not a bad movie at all, but i just couldn't get over the creepiness of Jonah Hill's attachment to his mother. 3 stars.
Gasland (2010) - documentary about the harmful, but unmentioned effects of drilling for natural gas. basically the process of extracting natural gas from the ground seems to be polluting the land and water in serious Erin Brokovich fashion. this movie has the now-famous scene of the guy lighting his tap water on fire. crazy ass shit. this movie turned me against natural gas as an alternative energy source. natural gas is not the answer. not if this movie is even half true. 3 stars. Insomnia (1997) - Stellan Skarsgard in the original before Christopher Nolan's forgotten remake that starred Robin Williams. originals are always better. 3 stars. 127 Hours (2010) - Danny Boyle's biopic about the dude who cut his own arm off after being stuck under a bolder for days in the wilderness. definitely interesting, especially the way Boyle was able to translate images of pain into actual discomfort for me, the viewer. when i first thought about this i didn't really think it was a good topic for a movie. i mean some guy is stuck under a rock then cuts his arm off? is it just going to be torture porn-ish? where's the character arc? where's the interaction? where's the chemistry? but that's why Danny Boyle is a great filmmaker. he told a complete story and made it fun to watch. 3.5 stars. 13 Assassins (2011) - Miike's extremely overrated samurai film. just a bunch of b-movie crap. i think read one review saying this movie challenges some of the best samurai movies out there. what a jackass statement. 2 stars.
Rabbit Hole (2010) - Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are mourning their son who was killed in an accident. Eckhart is trying to move on while Kidman is pretty much wallowing in mourning. but there's more than that and i don't want to give away one twist here. it sounds like a typical movie about loss, but it's done well. 3.5 stars.
Meeks' Cutoff (2011) - not your typical western by a long shot. if you're a simple dude back in the days of cowboys and indians and you wanted to wagon west, you didn't have Google and highways and highway patrol and AAA and all that. you had "experts" like this guy Meeks here who was hired by a wagon train to guide them on their journey. maybe take out an indian or two. only maybe the obstacle isn't the murderous indians but actually the simple fact that life was fucking HARD back then. this movie makes a visceral experience out of that hard life and uncertainty. it's also really slow and has very little dialogue. definitely more in the art house category than western. 3 stars.
The Tree of Life (2011) - Terrence Malick. definitely not for uninitiated. if you've seen A Thin Red Line or The New World, then you know what Malick is all about. he tells stories by assembling collages of images, often to the annoyance of people expecting a normal, dynamic film. this one in particular has a spiritual theme so is twice not for the average movie-watching dude. Tree of Life seems to be Malick's thesis on God and our relationship with Him. to me, a Christian, it felt very Christian with specific references to biblical stories. it takes some work to get through, but i can't say i wasn't thinking about a 100 different things when it ended. 3 stars.
Days of Heaven (1978) - Terrence Malick again and again the biblical references. a couple masquerading as brother and sister dupe a rich guy into marrying the woman. then what happens? i'll tell you what happens. hell fire happens, that's what. 2 stars.
X-Men: First Class (2011) - really? all that love for this simple trinket of a movie? this thing that had not one but two musical montages? thanks to Michael Fassbender it wasn't bad, but relative to the hype? meh. 3 stars.
The Town (2010) - Ben Affleck directed and starred. Jeremy Renner. heist film set in Boston. nothing special, nothing terrible. disappointing sophomore effort after the very entertaining Gone Baby Gone. 3 stars. Buried (2010) - Ryan Reynolds is locked in a box. serves its purpose, nothing more. 3 stars.Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) - couldn't finish this. they all just annoyed me so badly. 1 star. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) - wow how the mighty have fallen. i was a fan of the original Wall Street. this movie, though, just feels like a patchwork quilt thrown together to make cheese. i don't even know that that means, and i don't care. kind of like how Oliver Stone made this movie. 1.5 stars. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010) - running running running. Hermione is so cute. the end. 3 stars.Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011) - as someone who has only seen four of the previous films and read none of the books, i was left pretty confused about some points in this film. i do enjoy the dark turn it took though. "Nigiri, kill!" did he just announce killer sushi? because nom nom nom. 3.5 stars. Biutiful (2010) - Javier Bardem is a low level criminal who finds out he has a few months to live. redemption is hard to come by, son, especially the late kind. 2.5 stars. Gallipoli (1981) - a young Mel Gibson. friends in useless war. can anything good happen? 3.5 starsThe Lion in Winter (1968) - Peter O'toole, Katherin Hepburn in her Oscar winning role, and Anthony Hopkins' first movie role. it's based on a play, so you know it's going to be all yip-yappy. King Henry II has to decide which of his three sons to bequeath his kingdom to. a hard enough decision before the plotting queen gets involved with her fangs bared. if you enjoy characters that scheme, this is for you. all schemey and plotting-y. 4 stars. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) - scrawny but tough aspiring soldier Steve Rogers is selected for an army experiment to create the super soldier on a cellular level. he carries a shield and engages in fisticuffs with nazis. not only is the setting a throwback, but so is everything else about this superhero movie. good guys are good. bad guys are bad, and there's really no in between. reserve this for the saturday afternoon crowd with no expectation to ever go beyond the classic hero tale, and no one should be disappointed. it's all good fun. 3 stars. State of Play (2003, original British broadcast mini-series) - only six episodes and makes the remake with Russel Crowe completely irrelevant. a rising young politician's aide kills herself setting two journalists following the string straight to awesome conspiracy-land. oh those dastardly politicians with their secret meetings and punchable faces... an interesting facet of this investigation story is the gray line between the sometimes conflicting interests of the press and the police. 4 stars.
Breaking Bad Seasons 1-3 - easily one of my favorite shows of all time. a nerdy, underachieving high school chemistry teacher is diagnosed with cancer, and starts worrying about how his family will make do after he's gone. solution? put that education to use! he starts cooking meth with a half-baked former student of his. what could go wrong? surely nothing, i say. nothing at all. superior acting (no kidding here. the two stars have four Emmy awards between them and it's only in its fourth season.) and the unending watchability of putting regular, real characters into extreme and stressful situations make this one of the best. 5 stars.
Weeds Season 1 - i've loved Mary Louise Parker ever since she kicked ass as the smart wise ass Amy Gardner on West Wing, and it's no different here. i mean who can't fall in love with those giant doe eyes? she's like a walking, talking Bambi for reals. as a show overall though? interesting enough to pass the time with, but not something i'm going to seek out until i've exhausted all other shows like... 3 stars.
Friday Night Lights Seasons 2 , 3 and 4 - i've been watching this non-stop for a few weeks now. i saw 17 episodes over July 4th weekend. considering all the dark and demented shit i watch and love, it's refreshing to love a show with nothing but really decent and good people. my addiction is kind of like when i watch all those addictive Korean soap operas except all the melodrama in FNL is perfectly acceptable and it doesn't teach absurd values like poor girls should behave well so they can marry a rich grump. (who turns out to be her brother but doesn't matter because she's going to die of cancer in three hours anyway.) anyway back to FNL, i just want to reach through the screen and hug these people. the two main characters in the show are my ideal of how a great marriage should be. i find myself wanting to be like Coach Taylor, and i want to marry a woman like Tami Taylor. season 4 starts going off the rails a little, but by then i was fully vested anyway, so it didn't make much difference. 4 stars.
Game of Thrones - wowzers. i was not expecting this total awesomeness from HBO. it's been a while since The Sopranos and The Wire, you know? but damn i totally got sucked in to this one over the summer. set in a swords-and-horses fictional place a long time ago, where magic and dragons once ruled but are now treated more like superstition. now it's all about these warring families and basically how they hate each other and want to take over the throne. the plot complexity and number of speaking characters is reminiscent of The Wire. it's also completely irreverent to norms and expectations proven by the scientific fact that i was yelling stuff like "No Fucking Way!" to my tv screen. seriously, if you haven't heard of it and plan on watching it, don't read anything online and don't talk about it with friends. there's just too much to ruin by finding out about things beforehand. Winter is coming, bitches. 4.5 stars.
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| righty-o. i'll be updating all night, so stay tuned!
some starting thoughts. this wasn't a very strong year, imo. lots of B+ films. not many A's if any. Inception gets an A, and personally i really enjoyed Winter's Bone, Animal Kingdom, Never Let Me Go and Blue Valentine to varying degrees. The Social Network and The King's Speech both seem to be the favorites for best picture. i'm not very high on either of those. meh gawd, man. what is it about those two films? why does everyone love them so much? it's beyond me, man. True Grit? i'd accept that for best pic. Natalie Portman seems a lock for best actress. i'd put money on Colin Firth for best actor too. i haven't seen The Fighter but Christian Bale's performance has been described to me as the easiest lock of the night. Melissa Leo, also from The Fighter, for best supporting actress? perhaps. Tom Hooper and David Fincher seem to be favorites for Best Director but i'd keep my eye on Aronofsky to swoop in for a dark horse win.
7:32 - marisa tomei is looking elegant and gorgeous. i simply love that woman. oooh. a critic is dishing some dirt. apparently melissa leo was the favorite for best supporting actress but she took out ads promoting her own nomination, and now the mood has soured on her and Hailee Steinfeld (who was the indisputable star, not supporting actress, of True Grit) might sneak in for the win, which would be really cool. she was great in True Grit and i vehemently disagree with Helena Bonham Carter's nom for King's Speech. total overreach. how fucking tacky is melissa leo taking out her own ads?
7:37 - Scarlett Jo is wearing a form-fitting dress that is fucking smashingly flattering her curvy figure. damn that's a nice dress. i even love that color.
7:44 - Anne Hathaway is standing there with the designer Valentino, and all this fucker Tim Gunn can do is talk to Valentino about designing pretty much ignoring Anne Hathaway. i am now remembering that this ABC red carpet team were simply awful interviewers. i've already seen several very awkward moments from each of the three interviewers. someone pull the plug on these fucking jokers please. oh now Tim Gunn is talking to Anne Hathway, finally. she's wearing SO much makeup. it looks jarring close up.
7:55 - robert downey jr is a handsome man. i'm very comfortable saying that because it's just an obvious fact. his wife is wearing earrings designed by angelina jolie apparently. is there anything she doesn't do? i wouldn't be surprised if i heard that she won a rib-eating contest in texas then built an airplane the next day that she used to fly to the south pole. oh hey! look at this. it's a trailer for Source Code, the next film by Duncan Jones, the filmmaker of Moon, one of my favorites from last year. looking forward to this.
8:00 - holy crap. jennifer hudson lost a million pounds! now she's all teeth. Natalie Portman does not look pregnant. not in her face anyway. definitely in her cleavage though. purple seems to be the color of the night. is it true the father of her baby was living with his gf when he and natalie shacked up? so she's a bit of a homewrecker! James Franco has come so far since Freaks and Geeks. it's pretty awesome.
8:08 - a film critic says Colin Firth is the strongest lock of the evening. he even said it's like the green bay packers playing a high school team. Firth being the packers, obviously. he's also saying momentum, which went from The Social Network to The King's Speech, might be swinging back to The Social Network.
8:15 - wow, i'm so used to seeing Christian Bale in american roles that i forget he's a brit. heavy cockney accent! sounds like he's acting when he speaks in his natural accent. and Mila Kunis looks like.. omg. she's so hot to begin with but this dress is just ridiculous. it's totally sexy but it's elegant too. she's so hot she hurts my eyeballs. wow, look at this. there are pics up her up already. dude, check this shit out.
*sigh* she's so beautiful.
8:30 - this opening montage of Anne Hathaway and James Franco in all the best pic noms is fucking hilarious!
8:52 - Kirk Douglas is presenting and he looks unrecognizable. he had a wicked stroke, i think, a while back, and he's also really really old. he's severely slurring his speech and his face looks a little deformed. that mutherfucker was Spartacus! he can barely speak but apparently all his mental faculties are all there because he's talking how hot Anne Hathaway is. so Best Supporting Actress is up. the new Melissa Leo news makes this the most controversial category, imo. Kirk Douglas is stretching this out, not announcing the winner, purely torturing the nominees. funny. and hey waddya know. Melissa Leo won and she said "fucking"!
9:07 - Toy Story 3 wins best animated feature. which pretty much wipes out whatever tiny chance it had at winning best picture. Pixar cannot be stopped.
9:13 - Best Screenplay oscars. paying close attention here. these are the really good films of the year. The Social Network wins its first major award of the night. Best Adapted Screenplay. The King's Speech wins Best Original Screenplay, as i quietly boo in my apartment. i thought the script was one of the WEAK points of The King's Speech, not a strength. it was formulaic and contrived. Colin Firth and director Tom Hooper really worked hard to overcome the script's weakness to ultimately make a good film.
9:24 - Anne Hathaway sings a variation of On My Own from Les Miserables, a song i love, and she can really fucking sing! i love her a little more now.
9:27 - Best Foreign Language goes to In A Better World from Denmark.
9:30 - Best Supporting Actor. Christian Bale wins for The Fighter. first nomination and first win. he was due for something like this, i think. listen to this cockney fool now. he just said "dickhead" on tv! hahaa. actually he was saying dickhedlund.com. say that fast.
9:40 - Best Score. i loved the Inception score. if it doesn't win here, i think it's going to be shut out all night. Trent Reznor's The Social Network score wins. you've come a long way from Head Like a Hole "i want to fuck you like an animal" it was a decent score though, i have to admit.
9:47 - Best Sound and Sound Editing. Inception wins! possibly its only wins of the evening. oh wait.. Wally Pfister won for Inception's cinematography. i take that back. that's a pretty big one.
9:54 - Marisa Tomei is fucking pretty. James Franco seems a bit stiff as the host. Anne Hathaway on the other hand is a natural. and wtf is Cate Blanchett wearing? it's like a battle armor of a jungle war tribe or something.
10:02 - Randy Newman always gets nominated for best song and performs his nominated song at the oscars every year. and it's always so very very boring to me. is this good music? are you fucking nuts? and hey look at that. Zachary Levi who plays Chuck on NBC's Chuck, can really sing well. who knew.
10:07 - did i just miss something? why the hell did they just show a clip of Senator Carl Levin at a senate committee hearing? wtf does that have to do with the Oscars?
10:12 - Amy Adams is pretty enough in the face, but is so charismatic, because i think a genuinely happy and effervescent personality shines through. i'd love to spend some time with her. doesn't she just seem like a genuinely good and happy person?
10:16 - the winner of the Best Short has a crazy fro. it's awesome. Anne Hathaway just did a great shimmy in a silver dress with lots of tassle-type shits hanging off it. that was... pretty incredible. note to self: look for a clip of that on the interwebs somewhere tomorrow.
10:20 - Oprah (?!) is presenting for Best Doco. Inside Job wins. have to see that. the doc is about the financial crisis. the winner just noted in his speech that three years after the financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive went to jail. i guess the movie makes the case that the crisis was caused by maliciousness, and not simple incompetence? interesting.
10:35 - Inception just won another technical award: Best Visual Effects. The Social Network wins best editing. i always considered writing the unsung contribution to a great film, but editing is truly unsung and undeservedly so. i was involved with a few small video projects a while back and saw that the editing process is simply magical. before editing, it's nothing. it's footage. it's components. and those components are not ready made to fit like pieces in a puzzle. and also unlike a puzzle there is no finished image to work towards. they have nothing, but they create the finished product. it's really an amazing process i'm very happy to have seen up close even if it was on a small scale like that.
10:42 - AR Rahman and Florence from Florence and the Machine performing the song from 127 Hours. Florence is very... orange. and now Gwenyth Paltrow is singing her song from that country movie. all these songs are so friggin boring. what was that one song from that awful movie Once? that was a great movie song. (found it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoSL_qayMCc) awful awful movie though. Randy Newman wins Best Song for his exceptionally unexceptional song from Toy Story 3.
10:53 - the montage of death where they scroll through all the people who passed away this year. i always get nervous during this part because the crowd starts clapping for popular dead people, and i feel bad for the families of the people who don't get any clapping. no clapping this year though. maybe they finally told them not to clap. or maybe the people who died this year were all unpopular or unliked. haha.
11:03 - Best Director. Tom Hooper wins for The King's Speech. i wasn't nuts about the film, but if it's good at all it's because of that man and Colin Firth, so it's deserved, imo. i still can't believe Christopher Nolan wasn't nominated for best director. i was silently hoping Black Swan would swoop in and take Best Director or Best Pic. unlikely, but i still hoped. def not happening now.
11:12 - Jeff Bridges is presenting Best Actress. Annette Benning has not aged well. so happy to see Winter's Bone and Blue Valentine get recognition, but Natalie Portman is not walking away from this a loser. ... waiting... see? Natalie Portman wins. it's pretty amazing how well she did in Black Swan, especially considering how wooden and lackluster she's been in nearly all of her adult career. seriously. after The Professional, she's just been a pretty face, but Black Swan was different. anyway, if you're single, go see Blue Valentine. married people shouldn't see that, but you should.
11:20 - Sandra Bullock presents Best Actor. Jeff Bridges and Jesse Eisenberg do not belong here. Ryan Gosling should have gotten a nom for Blue Valentine. anyway, even if he were nominated, he'd still lose to Colin Firth. Firth started the momentum that is clearly rolling in The King's Speech's favor right now. Colin Firth wins. *yawn* surprise us, Academy!
11:32 - Spielberg presenting Best Pic makes a great point that some of the awesomest films in history have been Best Picture losers. now it's a montage of the ten best pic noms. i love these montages. surprise me, please! oh how great it would be if they pulled some shit out their ass like Inception or Black Swan for best pic... but of course it won't happen. it will be The King's Speech. and... The King's Speech wins. i liked it, but best picture? really? ugh.
11:39 - they flew in schoolkids from Staten Island to sing a finale, which is new. and i have to say this is pretty fucking cool. they sound great and they're singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. a perfect song to celebrate these dreamy things called movies.
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| if i don't go out i may live blog the oscars tonight | | |
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Absence of Malice (1981) - Paul muthafuckin Newman, Sally Fields lookin all cute as a button. paul newman is unfairly named a person of suspicion in a criminal investigation and the story is leaked by a reporter, sally fields, with bad results. this is a good film about that moving line between proper journalism and irresponsible persecution. this movie seeps into all the interesting gray areas. i think we need to see one of these every once in a while. the latest was.. State of Play? anyway, even though this is dated, Paul Newman is still muthafuckin Paul Newman and the issue is as relevant today as ever. 3.5 stars
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009) - i haven't caught up with this series and only saw this because it's supposed to set me up for the finale. i could live without watching crap about quiddich and could use more of Hermione. less annoying Harry. more spacey weird classmate who cracks me up. and more dramatic crap like main characters getting killed off. i simply love that stunt. 3 stars
Couples Retreat (2009) - meh. 1 star.
Vengeance (2009) - Johnny To gangster film. just plain crap. he peaked with Election and never made it back again. 1 star.
The Piano Teacher (2002) - french film. a buttoned-up, strict spinster piano teacher sees an outlet for her twisted fantasies in one of her gifted students. dark character film that's more interesting than the 3 stars i rated it. it's french, so it takes its time and therefore tries the patience a bit, but develops into a unique descent into some peculiar emotional places. 3 stars
Restrepo (2010) - another contemporary war documentary, this time in Afghanistan. US Outpost Restrepo is the US Army's giant middle finger to the insurgents that have been hounding them in the Korengal Valley. (the outpost site was originally the high ground staging area the Taliban once launched attacks from. one night the US army crept in there and dug in over the next few days to establish a permanent outpost.) the filmmakers were embedded for over a year, and detail two key moments in the lives of these soldiers: the creation of Restrepo and Operation Rock Slide where the filmmakers filmed an ambush that inflicted US casualties. this movie has some very frighteningly real footage of soldiers getting shot at, including a now popular clip of one soldier crying under fire when he learns that his sergeant was killed. it limits its scope to the soldiers and lets them tell these two stories, which is its strength but also its weakness, since i had to wonder how much more the filmmakers could have covered with over a year's worth of footage. 3 stars
Black Swan (2010) - natalie portman and mila kunis in darren aronofsky's horror/thriller about an industrious but innocent ballerina who must discover and embrace her dark side in order to land the lead role. natalie portman, someone who i'm not usually enthusiastic about except as a pretty doll, deserves all the praise she's getting as the White Swan Queen searching for her Dark Queen flip side. the real kicker here though is aronofsky's risky direction that baldly and successfully injects horror elements into an art-house film about ballet. the mood is pulpy and screeching, and somehow totally relevant to the subject and characters. 4 stars Once Were Warriors (1994) - australian indie film about a poor aboriginal family and their violently lunatic father. very rough around the edges, like most indie films, and isn't afraid to be. rather typical theme of finding inner strength in the face of seemingly impossible adversity, but did i detect a trace of caste bigotry thrown in there? 3 stars TRON: Legacy IMAX 3D (2010) - this should have been so much better, but it got caught up in its own crap zen mythology and eventually fell over itself trying to explain its existence. fun to look at though. 2 stars Winter's Bone (2010) - the little indie that could. if expanding the Best Picture oscar category to 10 nominees means small films like this get recognition, then i'm all for it. jennifer lawrence plays a teenaged older sister of two adolescents and daughter of an invalid mother looking for her missing meth cooking father in this great little film about pluckiness, determination and a poor criminal subculture in the trashy Ozark mountains. she's an interesting and empowering character, but what really interested me was the story and surroundings that produced this earthy griminess that wafted through the screen. it's an ugly place packed with ugly people where all she can do is try and survive. 4 stars Breaking Upwards (2009) - nyc indie film about a young couple of longstanding that decides it's time to call it quits. only they don't sever the cord like normal people, but arrange a schedule of "on" and "off" nights to slowly ween themselves off each other. starts out as a snarky, tongue in cheek look at two people who are still obviously nuts about each other, but ends up getting real. here's a nice tidbit: the two stars are actually ex-lovers and i think they co-made the film. 3.5 stars The Kids Are All Right (2010) - annette benning, juliane moore, mark ruffalo and new up-and-comer mia wasikowski. mia's moms are lesbians who had her and her brother via artificial insemination. since mia is 18, she can contact the sperm donor, who is technically her father. he is mark ruffalo and becomes a welcome or unwelcome quick fixture in their lives, depending on who you ask. ultimately turns out to be a thesis on what constitutes a family. a family is a family is a family. i thought i had this one all figured out, but i didn't, and i like that surprise about it. not sure it's as awesome as everyone else thinks it is though.. 3.5 stars
Carlos (2010) - golden globe winner for best mini-series. this is an epic and sprawling biopic about famed international terrorist and assassin Carlos the Jackal. i love the crime/assassin subject matter, but i hate biopics, which this is. Carlos turns out to be a pretty annoying guy and hard to watch for FIVE HOURS. still though, i give points for being so damn big in scale. i think there were like 98 languages spoken on several continents, and all for a production that only aired on French tv. 2.5 stars The King's Speech (2010) - not bad. but i definitely didn't love it like everyone else i know who saw it. the king of england has a stuttering problem that only the zany madcap therapist knows how to handle. colin firth is a solid actor. he's been gunning for this oscar for a few years now and he just might deserve it. so might the director, who took a very pedestrian and contrived script and made it into a watchable, even enjoyable film. (my eyes couldn't roll back in my head far enough during the "I HAVE A VOICE!" scene. please, son. what a crap line.) but best script? best supporting actress? best picture? all undeserved, imo. i realize you probably love this film, but, sorry, i did not. 3 stars Blue Valentine (2010) - ryan gosling, michelle williams, a broken marriage. man, this one is heavy. and married people should be banned from viewing. ryan gosling and michelle williams are married parents who are trying to rekindle some last spark of their marriage on a night out alone. the pain of this effort is multiplied when, as viewers watching intermingled flashbacks, we see their relationship's sweet beginning. ryan singing for a dancing michelle while he plays his ukulele. great acting and just a devastatingly real-looking story about the unceremonious death of love. 4 stars Mary and Max (2009) - claymation film from australia about a misfit young girl from australia who begins a pen-pal relationship with a misfit old man in new york. a few words to describe this film: funny, cute, warm and also very dark and sad. somehow it is all those things. i loved it. 4 stars True Grit (2010) - the Academy seems to love these plucky teenage girls. newcomer Hailee Steinfeld is the undisputed star of this show despite her nomination as a "supporting" actress. along with Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper, this western remake is almost completely devoid of action, by western standards anyway, but doesn't feel like it. at every turn, the Coens made efforts to paint deep characters, starting with Hailee Steinfeld's, and the result is a great romp through what should be familiar territory. that it's not is why this film is pretty darn good. two hours went by in a blink. 4 stars
I Am Love (2010) - Tilda Swinton in an italian film about the unbridled nature of love. she is a wealthy mother living a formed and seemingly pre-ordained middle-aged life of dinner parties and growing children. the ground under life shakes when love walks the earth. this film is about 30 minutes too long, which is a really long time to be too long for. 2.5 stars
The Social Network (2010) - aaron sorkin's script, david fincher directs. the film about mark zuckerberg and this thing called Facebook. he's a nerd bent on revenge. screws a few people on the way to becoming a mega billionaire. how cliche. but seriously. aaron sorkin's gift for writing characters who prattle off wonky dialogue while keeping you interested isn't lost here. he's a master at that as anyone who likes The West Wing already knows. the drama and issues seem like they might have been real at some point? as do the motivations that drive the main characters. as a step-by-step walk through of the creation of Facebook and the blood spilled along the way, this is an effective and engaging movie. everyone involved should get kudos for taking material and characters that aren't normally compelling, relatable or consequential and elevating it into a movie that i was sort of sad to see end. really, why should i give a shit about anyone or thing in this story? i did, though, and that's to the film's credit. 3.5 stars
Best Worst Movie (2009) - documentary about a movie so bad that it's celebrated as a film event all over the country. Troll 2's stars are the filmmaker and subject of this unexpected documentary revisiting the project that brought them together several decades ago, and is now enjoying a revival for all the wrong reasons. it was voted the worst movie of all time on imdb.com. they speak with the director and other co-stars and talk about where they are now and how the film did or didn't get them there. the subjects are, for the most part, totally game to accept the awfulness of their common work, but at least one, the major star, seems to revel in its newfound notoriety. most come across as real people enjoying a final twirl in the spotlight, which makes this pretty fun to watch. 3 stars
The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) - spanish language film about a retired prosecutor rehashing an old murder case that still haunts him. it's a story about life and its fulfillment on many levels, but it's a tad darker than that. there is a murder involved after all. shmaltzy at times and a bit pokey in the middle, but the end pays off. 3 stars
Inside Deep Throat (2005) - documentary about one of the first (and only?) hard core porn films to penetrate common American pop culture. interviews with the filmmakers, stars, distributors and lots of other people involved paint the complete picture you probably could have guessed before watching the film. in a documentary with very little surprises one statistic stood out: after running in theaters for two years, it was still as high as #11 in america. movies are lucky to last two weeks these days. two years! 2.5 stars
The Housemaid (2010) - korean remake of a 1960s korean film of the same name. the always awesome jeon do yeon stars with (a very ripped and often shirtless, for you ladies) lee jung jae in this film about a poor young woman hired to work as a maid in a very rich young couple's house. she's sexy and willing and he's a cad, so trouble ensues, of course. this theme of poor girl in an obscenely rich dude's house seems to be a very common thing in korean media. wtf is up with that? possible indication of the huge and persistent wealth gap there? anyway, the film looks gorgeous due in no small part to the production design of the pristine, austere and art-like house that drips money where most of the film is shot. it also captures that infuriating sense of systematic injustice that is bound to erupt in this sort of scenario. the story and performances were over-the-top though and that was its downfall, as the characters are all so exaggerated that they seem like fun house mirror versions of actual people. it's also a pretty damn misogynistic film. 2 stars
Animal Kingdom (2010) - australian film, nominated for a best supporting actress oscar. a teenager seeks refuge at his grandmother's house after his single mother overdoses and dies and he has nowhere else to go. the only problem is that his grandmother is the knowing mother of three armed robbers, the kid's uncles, at least two of which are completely screwy in the noggin. welcome to your new life, kid! it's a pretty damn engaging crime drama about this somewhat unwilling kid sunk into his manipulative and amoral family. this film, like many australian films, walks around with a few surprises falling out of its pockets. 3.5 stars
A Town Called Panic (2009) - french stop-motion animated short-ish film about... goodness, wtf was it about? there's a talking horse, a cowboy and indian, and some other weird action figures on some wacked out adventure started when they mistakenly order 50 million bricks. this is easily the most silly, bizarre and absurd thing i saw all year. 3 stars.
Red Riding Trilogy (2009) - british tv mini-series about Yorkshire, a smaller northern UK city, and a series of female abductions there spanning the 1970s and 1980s. a journalist, a cop and a lawyer each make separate efforts to follow the trail of crimes through the growingly murky political and social hierarchy of Yorkshire. a lot of this series' charm is in its complete submersion into the local flavor and one unfortunate result is that the characters all speak with a full on marbles-in-their-mouths heavy accent and dialect making their speech hard to decipher at first. getting past that though opens up a ballsy, sprawling story about an insular community and its spectacular corruption. 3.5 stars.
Firefly: The Complete Series - joss whedon's awesome sci-fi series. it's a western in space with a great sense of humor and a cast of characters that are completely lovable. it's a tried and true formula about a band of outlaws with a heart of gold. the real gem here is the comfortable humor traded between the characters and the sentimental heart of the show. but it only lasted one season! wtf man!!! 4 stars.
Dollhouse: The Complete Series - joss whedon's other series. a lot more serious, and imo a lot less awesome. it's ultimately hobbled by Eliza Duchku, the star of the show, who is a pretty awful actor, but alas, she's one of the producers, so therefore cannot be fired. but after a slow start the show definitely starting cooking and got straight to the red meat since it's only two seasons long. there's definitely an end game and it got there in a hurry, which is cool. 3.1 stars.
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| i'm trying to keep track of all my film watching by updating here, but this list just gets longer and longer and remains unwritten. not having access at work definitely hurts this effort. i've definitely been watching more tv shows like Firefly, Dollhouse, The Walking Dead, Community, 30 Rock, Boardwalk Empire, Top Chef and Big Love. and i haven't even started on Breaking Bad yet.
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