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 stars

The 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.