90. Tangled (A-) 91. The Fighter (B+) 92. The Red Shoes (A+) 93. True Grit (A-) 94. Chicago (A+) 95. It's A Wonderful Life (A+) Going to a more Christmas-y film, this was the ideal day to finally watch the Blu-Ray that I bought back in January. Really, what can you say about this one? It's a classic, it's been imitated or parodied by every other TV show at one point (the other half chose to do A Christmas Carol instead). It's one of my all-time favourite films, with great performances, particularly from Jimmy Stewart (and Lionel Barrymore, making the case for him being the best actor who never got to portray Ebenezer Scrooge, due to an injury keeping him from playing the role in the 1938 film version) - and the technical aspects hold up surprisingly well (the characters don't age much, but that's to be expected, and frankly, the black-and-white disguises it a lot better than if this movie had been made in colour twenty years later). Unlike a lot of other movies that run purely sentiment, the film adroitly balances sentimentality with some pretty deep despair as George's world comes crashing down, before he's saved. And while people tend to focus on the final half hour (which is, after all, the movie's big narrative twist), a lot of the earlier stuff is also important, particularly these days. This was for an audience that had lived through the Depression, and Capra pits Bailey's earnest working-man capitalism against Potter's relentless greed. After the 2008 market collapse, there were a lot of people who linked George's Building & Loan logic to the subprime mortgage meltdown, but while that may seem persuasive on the surface, it's really a completely absurd comparison - the traditional business setup of the Building & Loan is so different (and so much more reliable) than the insane convolutions of the 21st century stock market and lending business that it really just illuminates the extent to which the Mr. Potters of the world are safely ensconced in the corridors of power.
Watched Australia (8/10) last night, as I brought the DVD for mum. Still found it enjoyable to watch, after seeing for the first time in over 12 months.
90. Tangled (A-) 91. The Fighter (B+) 92. The Red Shoes (A+) 93. True Grit (A-) 94. Chicago (A+) 95. It's A Wonderful Life (A+) 96. Michael Clayton (A) I sometimes wonder if I give out too many As to the movies I see, but, no, I'm just selective and good at picking films that I'll like. This is a superb little film from writer/director Tony Gilroy - it reminded me a lot of another George Clooney film from earlier this year, The American, which had a similar realistic, low-key style (though The American was a lot less positively received by the public). Clooney's a great presence in the movies not just because he's a great actor (and director), but because he's willing to loan out his marquee name to a lot of films with extremely limited commercial prospects. Tilda Swinton won the Oscar for this movie, and it's a good performance (though from the Oscar, you might expect her to have more screentime than she actually does). I was actually more impressed by Tom Wilkinson, though - one of my favourite character actors. Also nice was the presence of Sydney Pollack, who a decade or two earlier might have been directing this movie. I like the movie's handling of fairly familiar story elements (indeed, from the plot alone this could be a John Grisham novel); there's no over-the-top villainy.
The Duchess - Keira Knightly, Ralph Fiennes & Haley Atwell Grade: B I confess that this was a research film. I've not seen Haley Atwell act and since I'm eager for Captain America this summer I felt I needed to see her in something. Having seen Haley in this period piece showed me she carries herself with a strong poise and grace. She was beautiful in her costume there(late 18th century/early 19th) so I'll be curious to see her in her 1940s outfits. As for the movie itself I found it to be a good movie but still don't get the appeal of Keira Knightly overall. She is a competent actress but nothing more.
Check out Brideshead Revisited from a few years ago for her in period (well, 1920s, but that's pretty close) clothing. I remember liking The Duchess; it's on the lower end of Knightley's costume dramas, but it's well-made, and it sort of deconstructs what was then becoming Knightley's stock-in-trade, the spunky ahead-of-her-time girl.
The Movies Seen in 2010 is 1. Inglourious Basterds 2. The Hurt Locker 3. Zombieland 4. The Road 5. Up in the Air
90. Tangled (A-) 91. The Fighter (B+) 92. The Red Shoes (A+) 93. True Grit (A-) 94. Chicago (A+) 95. It's A Wonderful Life (A+) 96. Michael Clayton (A) 97. Fantasia (C+) Walt Disney's dream project is an instance of a studio shooting for unabashed art over commercialism - and also an example of why studios usually don't do that, because it cost them tons of money. As groundbreaking as the animation was, it's not particularly accessible to people who aren't huge fans of the particular musical pieces. I really wanted to like this, given the ambition and the technical skill involved, but most of the sequences are uninvolving. "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is the most famous, often aired on its own as an animated short, which is why I'd seen it before; indeed, I think a lot of these would have worked better as shorts. Strung together as a two-hour film, it starts to test one's patience. My favourite was probably the Greco-Roman mythology-inspired "Pastoral Symphony".
I'm always amazed at the people who come in here and say "none" or have only watched two or three movies by December.
Updates: (in Bold) Aliens in the Attic (6) Armored Trooper Votoms: Big Battle (7) Armored Trooper Votoms: Roots of Ambition (8) Armored Trooper Votoms: The Last Red Shoulder (8) Armored Trooper Votoms: Pailsen Files: The Movie (7) Batman: Under The Red Hood (9) Boondock Saints (10) Boondock Saints: All Saint's Day (9) The Book of Eli (8) Broken Blade (7) Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie (7) Cargo (7) Cencoroll (8) Les Chevaliers du Ciel (8) Clash of the Titans (2010) (8) Crazy Heart (6) Dante's Inferno (2010) (7) Date Night (7) The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (9) District 9 (8) Eden of the East: The King of Eden (8) Eden of the East: Paradise Lost (8) The Edge of Darkness (9) Evangelion 2.0: You Can [Not] Advance (9) The Expendables (9) The Fantastic Mr. Fox (8) Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works (9) Fist of the North Star (1995) (4) G-9 (6) Gamer (6) Green Zone (7) Harry Potter the the Deathly Hallows (8) Higurashi no Naka Koroni Chikai (7) Inception (10) Inglorious Bastards (7) Iron Man 2 (9) Jonah Hex (6) The Killers (6) King of Thorn (8) Kino's Journey: Life Goes On (7) Kino's Journey: The Country of Disease (7) The Last Airbender (8) Law Abiding Citizen (9) The Lovely Bones (6) Lupin the 3rd: First Contact (7) Lupin the 3rd: Green VS Red (6) Lupin the 3rd VS Detective Konan (7) Lupin the 3rd: The Secret of Mamo (9) Lupin the 3rd: The Last Job Macross Frontier: The False Songstress (9) My Name is Bruce (5) Naruto Shippuden Movie 3 (8) Oblivion Island (6) Oceans (Documentary/ Rating is NA) Oldboy (9) Pandorum (7) Planzet (5) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (8) Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind (8) Summer Wars (9) Sunshine (4) Sword For Truth (6) Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Lagann-hen (8) They Were 11 (9) TRON: Legacy (8) The Triplets of Belleville (5) The Uninvited (7) Unstoppable (8) Walking Tall (7) Waltz With Bashir (9) The Warrior's Way (6) Wicked City (8)
90. Tangled (A-) 91. The Fighter (B+) 92. The Red Shoes (A+) 93. True Grit (A-) 94. Chicago (A+) 95. It's A Wonderful Life (A+) 96. Michael Clayton (A) 97. Fantasia (C+) 98. Long Day's Journey Into Night (B+) A 1962 film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's 1942 play, it shouldn't have existed by O'Neill's own design, since he left instructions with his wife not to publish it until 25 years after his death (1977, as it turned out). But O'Neill's papers fell into the hands of Yale University, and they had other ideas (kind of uncharitable, really). O'Neill won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama four times, more than anyone else (though he should technically be tied with Edward Albee, who was voted the prize four times, but only three times was given it), and is the only American dramatist to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. This has gone down as probably his most famous work, and it's an autobiography of his home life with a disguise that isn't even paper-thin. This would have been a TV movie if made a few decades later (indeed, a few more TV movies have been made of it) - nearly three hours long, with only four characters (plus a maid) and basically one set. It's a filmed play in pretty much every sense of the word, though Sidney Lumet does manage to move the camera around (and use it to some effect) more than in many such examples from this period. The four main characters are all pretty much perfectly cast: two elderly icons of the screen, Katherine Hepburn and Sir Ralph Richardson, as the parents, and Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell as the sons. Robards went on to win two Oscars and was a famous character actor; Stockwell never really lived up to the potential he showed here, eventually becoming a fixture on various genre TV shows in his old age. The play/film is justly famous, and Hepburn does a great job of playing her recovering/relapsed addict (and the way everyone else reacts to her feels authentic; given that this is all drawn so much from O'Neill's personal experience, that's unsurprising). The film is basically a series of two-person conversations in just about every configuration possible, and everybody gets their moments in the spotlight. I will say, though, that it's hard not to notice that of the four, Edmund (Stockwell), who is O'Neill's avatar, is the only one with no real faults. He's suffering from consumption (the gloomy ending makes you think he's going to die, but, obviously, he didn't), but that's not a flaw of personality, which is what everyone else has (even if they're given sympathetic reasons for them). Maybe that is how it went down, but all the same.
283. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1 [C-] 283. The Other Guys [B-] 284. Greenberg [B ] HARRY POTTER 7: The reviews were less than stellar for the penultimate film of the series, but I didn’t pay much attention to them. Other films in the series have received less than terrific notices and been just as watchable as the third film, which will likely remain the best of the franchise at this point. Unfortunately, the film lived up to the lukewarm reviews. I’m sure I would have appreciated more having read the book—I stopped with the books after the third volume when I was 12 and haven’t looked back—but, wow, does this film suck all the whimsy that had been present in the previous six films. Oh, everyone makes a token appearance to collect their check, including some new faces (like Bill Nighy) and some old who haven’t been around since the first film (like John Hurt), but none of them make an appearance of any significance. Alan Rickman, the most delightful adult actor in the series, must have all of three minutes of screen time before vanishing. Also gone is Hogwarts, which might have a blink and you'll miss it appearance on screen, but is, for all intents and purposes, not in the film. And that's a shame, because the atmosphere created by those sets managed to carry the previous six films through even the most dreary of patches. Here it's gone, replaced (mostly) with the humdrum of the woods, which make the final budget of the film a little hard to understand. All the supporting cast of young actors are gone, too, save for a few brief and unimportant appearances. Honestly, the film's worst sin is that it is boring. It's 45 minutes of a movie stretched into feature length, and it leads several patches to be plodding in a way the series has never been before. Unless the second part set to be released in July is bloated with story, it's hard to see Warner Bros.' decision to turn the book into a pair of movies as anything other than a cynical cash grab. THE OTHER GUYS: It's less funny upon second-viewing, which doesn't surprise me, but it's still pretty entertaining, and downright hilarious in places (the Samuel L. Jackson/Dwayne Johnson cameos being the highlight of the film, but things like the bar montage are innovative and work just as well). I don't think I'll buy it, but I may end up seeing it again with friends and/or quoting some of at times ("aim for the bushes"). GREENBERG: I like Noah Bumbauch very much, but through most of his films I can't help but feel I'm watching the trials and tribulations of people that are so rich that they don't matter. Here, however, there's a little more than that, and also what is Ben Stiller's first performance that is not only tolerable, but brilliant (excepting, perhaps, his turn as himself on CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM). It's no surprise that Stiller and Bumbauch want to work together again soon--his outburst about the mistakes of his past which comes near the end of the movie might be the best scene he's ever done as an actor, and a one-sided phone conversation (where, amongst other things, Greenberg re-evaluates the movie WALL STREET) is almost as good. The film also features some of the most awkward, unarousing nudity and sex you'll ever see in a movie (be warned? encouraged?). I also wonder if, after a character has an abortion and Greenberg brings her a burger, the fact that she dismisses the food and expresses a mix of pain and sleepiness, we aren't watching Jennifer Jason Leigh (who co-wrote the story and has a role) re-write the worst moment of her role in FAST TIMES... that I noted earlier this year. That's probably just me, but these things start to pop out to you when you've seen so many movies in a year. Hopefully I'll catch TRUE GRIT before the 1st. That's about all the plans I have. I'm trying to finish off the second season of IN TREATMENT in three days, which means I'm having a television overload right now.
I know some people had problems with the woods scenes, but I don't - I thought it was some of the most effective character work they've done in the series, with the main characters utterly isolated (even moreso in the film than in the novel). I frankly don't think that DH could have been satisfactorily made into a single film, unless that film was at least four hours long.
Blade Runner - Harrison Ford Grade: B+ I hadn't seen this movie in a good 10 years. Ever since I sold my VHS tapes way back when I'd never rebought this film. Got it on Black Friday for $5 and it was like watching it all over again mostly new. It's director Ridley Scott's preferred version with the unicorn dream sequence. I know people say that possibly Decker was an android but I don't see it. I would like to know where they'd have gone had a sequel been made. Someone was bound to hunt them down or at least her and they'd get Decker for harboring I suppose. The standard DVD looked great so I bet the Blu-Ray looks great.
I saw True Grit. It was pretty good, whilst being consistently entertaining and darkly comedic. The film really rode on the shoulders of the actress playing Mattie Ross, and I thought she did a really excellent job. Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin (in a considerably smaller role than I was expecting) all do fantastic performances, but that's a given. One of my few complaints was the pacing, which I thought was a tad lethargic at first. It was helped by some dark comedic bits, which knowing the Coen Brothers' litany of works was pretty expected, but I guess I felt like it took a while to get going. The previews made the film out to be some type of Western thriller or action film, but I would say the film hangs on the often amusing character interaction, and while the dialogue is clever, witty and was delivered well (in the cases where I could actually understand some of the dialogue being delivered...) I guess I was expecting more out of the first hour or so. Things don't get interesting, at least in my opinion, until the last act, where we have some legitimate tension and some great character moments. Matt Damon, for example, did a wonderful job with a character who I thought was going to be one-dimensional but ended up being quite charming and multi-faceted in the end. Josh Brolin's role was pretty inconsequential, despite his importance to the plot, and was more of a plot device than a meaningful character. I was really surprised to see Barry Pepper as Lucky Ned. Out of all the actors in the film, he really changed his appearance the most. I would also agree with CaptainCanada that the epilogue felt useless. This is why I don't really enjoy epilogues where we see certain characters years into the future with different actors; it ruins any emotional resonance because we've been following certain actors as those characters. The ending of the actual story felt way too abrupt, and I'm not quite sure what the epilogue added. On top of that, the ending song was just way too loud and abrasive and totally ruined any good feelings I had for the film. I mean, usually they fade-in credit songs, but this came out blaring at the end, and didn't really feel appropriate. I'm probably giving this film a worse review than it deserves, since the acting is fantastic, the direction is superb and the film overall is fairly strong, it just wasn't the overwhelming success that some critics would suggest. It was enjoyable based on Western and Coen Brothers standards, but I think I was just expecting more out of the execution.
I'm going to a 2pm matinee of True Grit. Till then, the last several I saw. Men In Black - A Black Friday acquistion for $4. I hadn't seen this in 12/13yrs and enjoyed it all over again. A worthy purchase to the collection since I sold off the ole VHS copy. Not a bad time to refailarize myself since MIB:3 is coming soon. Grade: A Jumper - Another Black Friday nap for $2. It's not without it's flaws but it does lay down a fairly solid groundwork for what could've been an interesting franchise. Sam Jackson is a show stealer as an overly dedicated to his cause enforcer. Grade: B- Interview with the Vampire - Only $3.75 at Best Buy so I couldn't pass it up. Haven't seen it since it came out and it holds up cosiderably well. Never a bad idea to have a solid vampire movie in the collection. If you haven't seen it in awhile check it back out. Grade: A- Brideshead Revisited - based on a recommendation here I checked it out. This was part of my Haley Atwell familarization viewing. She wears period clothing well and looks good coming out of it. Thought I was going to see more Haley than I planned on(which wouldn't have upset me in the slightest). Didn't know it was going to have Matthew Goode from Watchmen in it as well. It wasn't a bad movie but just didn't interest me for the love story of unrequited love it was telling. Grade: B
Just bought this yesterday. Didn't enjoy it as much as the first time I watched it. I think everyone is woefully miscast.
Films seen for the first time in 2010 - Where The Wild Things Are ~ B Up in the Air ~ A Avatar ~ C+ Precious ~ B Invictus ~ C+ Inglourious Basterds ~ A Twilight ~ C- Law Abiding Citizen ~ D+ Paul Blart: Mall Cop ~ D- Sherlock Holmes ~ B- An Education ~ C+ The Blind Side ~ D- A Serious Man ~ C Crazy Heart ~ B+ Julie & Julia ~ B- The Princess and the Frog ~ B- Step Brothers ~ C The Prophecy ~ F Green Zone ~ C+ The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus ~ C Kick Ass ~ A Iron Man 2 ~ C- Alice in Wonderland ~ C- The Losers ~ C My Sister's Keeper ~ C The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ~ B Robin Hood ~ C Whatever Works ~ D- The A-Team ~ C Toy Story 3 ~ A+ Inception ~ A The Expendables ~ C- Scott Pilgrim vs The World ~ A Dinner for Schmucks ~ E Winter's Bone ~ B+ The Social Network ~ A Red ~ C The Kids are Alright ~ C- Machete ~ D- Unstoppable ~ B Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow, part 1 ~ B+ It's Complicated - B- How to Train your Dragon - B+ Shutter Island - C+ A Prophet - B- The Town - B Black Swan - A
90. Tangled (A-) 91. The Fighter (B+) 92. The Red Shoes (A+) 93. True Grit (A-) 94. Chicago (A+) 95. It's A Wonderful Life (A+) 96. Michael Clayton (A) 97. Fantasia (C+) 98. Long Day's Journey Into Night (B+) 99. Mean Girls (A-) 100. Munich (A) This post brought to you by the letter 'M' (otherwise, these movies have absolutely nothing in common), achieving my goal of 100 films for the year. Both of these are rewatches - I originally saw these movies on their theatrical releases in 2004/2005, but not since. Mean Girls I recall seeing in theatres only because the original movie we were going to (I don't remember what) was sold out, and the girls in our group outvoted the guys on the replacement - but it was quite enjoyable. It's become huge in internet culture since, generating a half-dozen major memes. Few movies have used the high school characters template so effectively. This was, of course, back when Lindsey Lohan was something other than a tabloid punchline; it's sad, because she doesn't lack for talent, and does a great job. One can't help but notice that she's surrounded by a passel of other young actresses (Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, even Lizzy Caplan) who are all doing much better than her (Lacey Chabert hasn't really had the same success as the others, but she's not a joke either). The movie was also the first real broadside from Tina Fey's burgeoning solo career as a writer/actor, which subsequently resulted in a highly acclaimed TV show (and a couple of other movies that aren't nearly as good). In terms of flaws, well, the main love interest is exceptionally bland - sort of like an early Disney prince. But whatever, it's still great. Munich, from a year later, is Steven Spielberg's big Serious Drama for the 2000s, one of bunch of terrorism-related films produced in the years after 9/11. It remains controversial (both sides thought it was too sympathetic to the other, some people just thought it was naive; I don't know if Israeli Mossad agents would be as philosophical/troubled as these guys are, but it's a legitimate dramatic device, in my opinion). Spielberg doesn't have any real answers (who does?), and the end doesn't pretend otherwise. The film ends with Avner in exile, as it were, from Israel, though with his wife and child. Exile is a prominent theme in Jewish literature, for obvious reasons, and Spielberg uses it in a lot of different ways (as well as the related theme of family, a Spielberg staple). The film is exceptionally well-made, with a very vivid recreation of the 1970s, but one would expect the best from Spielberg. The cast is likewise exceptional, with Eric Bana and a dapper Ciaran Hinds standing out, as well as one of Geoffrey Rush's more understated recent turns. There's only one flaw in the whole thing, the final montage, which starts off okay but becomes absurdly over-the-top (Bana appears to be literally sweating buckets, and I don't know how his wife isn't screaming in pain). It almost derails the film, but a nicely understated scene between Bana and Rush rescues the finale.
I ended up watching 82 films that were new to me this year. 1/1 The Blind Side (2009, Hancock) [A] 1/3 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Kubrick) [*]1/3 Awake (2007, Harold) [C] [*]1/4 Rosemary's Baby (1968, Polanski) [A] [*]1/4 Up in the Air (2009, Reitman) [A] [*]1/4 The Lovely Bones (2009, Jackson) [B-] [*]1/4 The Time Traveler's Wife (2009, Schwentke) [A] [*]1/5 An Education (2009, Scherfig) [*]1/5 A Perfect Getaway (2009, Twohy) [D] [*]1/5 Observe and Report (2009, Hill) [*]1/6 Taking Woodstock (2009, Lee) [C] [*]1/6 State of Play (2009) [*]1/7 The Uninvited (2009)[C-] [*]1/8 Sorority Row (2009) [D] [*]1/8 Bolt (2008) [B+] [*]1/8 A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) [C] [*]1/18 A Serious Man (2009, Cohen) [B+] [*]1/20 Sherlock Holmes (2009) [C] [*]1/24 National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets (2007) [*]1/26 Vanilla Sky [A] [*]1/28 Wild at Heart (1990)[D] [*]1/30 All About Steve (2009) [D] [*]2/24 MASH (1970) [C] [*]3/06 Married Life [A-] [*]3/09 The Stepfather (2009) [C] [*]3/11 New York, I Love You (2009) [C] [*]3/12 Halloween II (2009) [C+] [*]3/13 The Damned United (2009) [A] [*]3/15 The Informant (2009) [*]3/15 New Moon (2009) [B-] [*]3/15 The Descent Part 2 (2009) [D] [*]3/23 The Messenger (2009) [*]3/31 Black Book (2006) [A-] [*]4/03 The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) [*]4/10 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe [C] [*]4/14 Casablanca [*]5/01 Cabin Fever 2 [F] [*]5/07 Iron Man 2 (2010) [B-] [*]5/08 Crazy Heart (2009) [A] [*]5/08 The Human Centipede [D] [*]5/12 Kick-Ass (2010) [A+] [*]5/27 Daybreakers (2010) [C+] [*]5/27 Legion (2010) [C] [*]5/28 The Wolfman (2010) [F] [*]5/29 The Box (2010) [F] [*]5/29 Surrogates (2009) [*]6/12 Shutter Island (2010) [B-] [*]7/06 White Ribbon (2009) [C+] [*]7/07 Almost Famous () [A+] [*]7/?? Brokeback Mountain () [B-] [*]8/?? The Runaways (2010) [*]8/?? Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) [*]8/?? Blood Diamond [A] [*]8/?? Hero [A] [*]8/22 Don McKay [*]8/23 Death Proof [*]8/23 Winged Creatures [*]8/24 Knight and Day (2009) [A] [*]8/24 Splice (2009) [A-] [*]8/25 Hollow Man [B-] [*]8/26 Date Night (2010) [B-] [*]9/04 The Brothers Bloom (2009) [*]9/06 Law Abiding Citizen (2009) [B-] [*]9/07 Pirate Radio (2009) [C] [*]9/?? My Sister's Keeper [A] [*]9/?? Marley & Me [*]10/18 Three Days of the Condor [C] [*]10/20 Toy Story 3 [A] [*]10/22 Black Christmas (1974) [B-] [*]10/22 Ginger Snaps [C+] [*]10/22 A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) [F] [*]10/28 Inception (2010) [A+] [*]10/29 Scott Pilgrim vs The World [A] [*]10/30 The Social Network [B-] [*]10/31 Saw II [C+] [*]11/31 Saw III [C] [*]11/01 Saw IV [D] [*]11/02 Saw VI [B-] [*]11/02 House of the Devil [B-] [*]11/23 Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010) [F] [*]11/25 Before and After (1996) [C] [*]12/08 The Town (2010) [A] I watched several things, including Avatar, Star Trek, Moon, American Gangster, Saw V, Shaun of the Dead, The Assassination of Jesse James, King Kong, Interview with the Vampire, Star Trek: First Contact, all the Star Wars movies, Inglourious Basterds, Alien, Halloween, etc.