Movies Seen in 2012

Haven't read the book, so I can't comment on how closely the stories match, but if ya liked the story, ya might as well go see it the movie.

 

9/11, Asperger syndrome: these are tricky themes to make a movie about. Also, the book has a rather original format, which might be difficult to translate to the big screen. I wouldn't say the book is a master piece, but it was an interesting and original read. From the reviews I've read I'm not sure the movie is.

 

45. The One-Armed Swordsman
46. Zatoichi the Outlaw
47. Dirty Ho
48. Golden Swallow (1986)
49. Zatoichi Challenged
50. Zatoichi the and Fugitives
51. Samaritan Zatoichi
52. Return of the One-Armed Swordsman
53. Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo
54. The Prodigal Son (81)
55. Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival
56. Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman
57. Ip Man 2
58. The Shaolin Temple
59. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
60. War Horse
61. Chronicle
62. This Means War
63. Hugo
64. The Artist
65. We Need to Talk About Kevin
66. Blade Trinity Exended
67. Johnny English Reborn
68. The Great Gatsby (70s)
69. 13 (2010)
70. Justice League Doom
71. The Walker
72. A Separation
73. The Fourth Protocol

 

Spoiler: The rest of my list.

January

1. Daddy Day Care (✩✩✩½) - TV
2. Wild Child (✩✩) - TV
3. Fling (✩✩✩½) - DVD
4. Arthur 2: On the Rocks (✩✩✩✩) - DVD
5. Havoc (✩✩✩✩) - DVD
6. Contagion (✩✩✩✩½) - On Demand
7. The Blind Side (✩✩✩½) - TV
8. Batman: Under the Red Hood (✩✩✩✩½) - TV
9. The Andromeda Strain (✩✩✩½) - TV
10. The Last Man on Earth (✩✩✩✩) - TV
11. Network (✩✩½) - TV
12. Normal Adolescent Behavior: Havoc 2 (✩) - DVD
13. Starsky & Hutch (✩✩½) - TV
14. The Rundown (✩✩✩½) - TV
15. Mallrats (✩✩✩✩) - DVD
16. My Sister's Keeper (✩✩✩✩½) - TV
17. Valkyrie (✩✩✩½) - TV
18. The Anderson Tapes (✩✩✩) - TV
19. Jack Goes Boating (✩✩✩½) - DVD
20. Margin Call (✩✩✩½) - On Demand
21. Away We Go (✩✩✩½) - TV
22. Girl Fight (✩✩✩½) - TV
23. Superman & Batman: Apocalypse (✩✩✩✩) - TV
24. Pandorum (✩✩½) - TV
25. Paper Man (✩✩✩✩½) - DVD
26. In Like Flint (✩✩½) - TV
27. Blood Diamond (✩✩✩✩) - DVD
28. The Invisible Man (✩✩✩✩) - TV
29. Frankenstein (✩✩✩½) - TV
30. The Dilemma (✩✩✩½) - DVD

February

31. That One Night (✩✩✩½) - Internet
32. Sex Drive (✩✩½) - DVD
33. Chronicle (✩✩✩½) - Theatre
34. Couples Retreat (✩✩✩) - DVD
35. RV (✩✩✩) - TV
36. Chaos Theory (✩✩✩✩) - TV
37. Black Swan (✩✩✩✩✩) - DVD
38. One Missed Call (✩) - DVD
39. Kramer vs. Kramer (✩✩✩✩½) - TV
40. When in Rome (✩✩½) - TV
41. Possession (✩✩) - TV
42. Sex and the City 2 (✩✩✩½) - DVD
43. Little Fockers (✩✩✩½) - DVD
44. Breach: (✩✩✩½) - On Demand
45. Broken Flowers (✩✩✩✩½) - DVD
46. Bronson (✩✩✩✩) - DVD
47. Edge of Darkness (✩✩✩½) - TV
48. In & Out (✩✩✩) - TV
49. Secrets of Eden (✩✩½) - TV
50. Shooter (✩✩✩½) - TV
51. Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (✩✩✩½) - TV

52. 10 Items or Less: (✩✩✩½) - DVD - Morgan Freeman plays an actor who's doing research for a role by visiting a grocery store. Through a series of events, he ends up wandering around the seedy unerbelly of L.A. with the store's 25 year old cashier played by Paz Vega. This is a small independent film that was shot in 15 days and was the first movie to be made available online legally while it was still in theatres. Morgan Freeman isn't playing himself, but you think he is at first because he and his character have a similar profile. There's even a joke about Paz Vega's character being the new Ashley Judd. Freeman's characgter is never named, and the end credits list Morgan Freeman as "him". Now Paz Vega, she was pretty easy on the eyes. If Penelope Cruz and Megan Fox were fused in a transporter accident, you'd get Paz Vega. Her accent is pretty thick but you get used to it. As for the chemistry between the two, it came off more like a horny old man who was trying to get into a young woman's pants than the friendship it was supposed to be. Part of my feeling on this is because I was distracted by Vega's hotness and I was thinking about how I would have reacted to spending the day with her. I admit it. However, it's also because the ordinarily larger-than-life Morgan Freeman was a bit "off". Apparently, Freeman wanted to ditch his usual image and try his hand at being less "larger than life", but he doesn't quite sell it. He's better when he's doing grand voiceovers or playing God. I can't complain though. Morgan Freeman is still cool and I'd probably be much less charismatic as as an older man chasing skirt.

53. The Old Man and the Sea: (✩✩✩✩) - TV - Spencer Tracy stars in this movie based on Ernest Hemmingway's novel. It's about a Cuban fisherman who spends a few days at sea grapling with a giant fish that bit his line. It's pretty gripping. No pun intended. Lots of internal dialog and it captures the quiet and peaceful life of a simple man in a simple fishing village. It's the kind of life I'd love to have.

54. The Reader: (✩✩✩✩✩) - TV - A teenage boy in post-war Germany has a sexual affair with a 30-something woman played by Kate Winslet. She disappears only to resurface years later in a trial because of something she did working for the SS in Nazi Germany. The boy used to read to her before they'd have sex, hence the title. I thought this was an excellent movie. It's the second one to receive 5 stars from me this year. Kate Winslet was great as an aloof woman who wants sex from a boy, and her later performance as the progressively older version of her character is equally compelling.

55. The Stunt Man: (✩✩) - TV - A man on the run from the police finds himself on the set of a movie where the director (played by Peter O'Toole) keeps his secret and hires him as a stunt man. O'Toole is great as the cocky full-of-himself director and the movie has a humorous feel, but it kind of drags.

56. Nine: (✩✩✩✩) - TV - Guido is a famous italian director who is supposed to be working on his next big movie, but as the public awaits, he finds himself without a script and unable to produce anything. The movie is intercut with musical numbers featuring the women in his life. I'm not a fan of musicals, but this was pretty creative and well done. One was to describe this movie is "sexy". And Daniel Day Lewis blew me away as the Italian lead. It wasn't loved by critics, but I loved it. My only problem with it is that it started to lose steam midway through.

57. Untraceable: (✩✩½) - DVD - Diane Lane stars as an FBI agent trying to track down a man who's setting up his captured victims to be tortured and killed on a live web feed. Here's how it works... The more people log on to watch, the more the torture intensifies, hastening the victim's death. If no one visited the site, nothing would happen to the victim. It's a watchable thriller, but subpar.

58. The Quiet: (✩✩✩½) - DVD - A deaf withdrawn girl (Camilla Belle) who lost her parents is constantly taunted by her adoptive sister (Elisha Cuthbert) at home and at school. Over the course of the movie, we learn that each one is keeping a big secret. I like Camilla Belle in anything, so I liked this one, but some of the drama was a little over the top.

59. My Mother's Secret: (✩✩½) - TV - This one is a TV movie staring Nicole De Boer. She plays a woman who just found out that she's pregnant. She also finds out from her mother that she was adopted. As she digs into her past and real parents, she gets embroiled in trying to solve a cover-up that put one of them in prison. This one is general TV movie fare, but it's nice to see De Boer. Michael Riley, who might not be well known in the U.S. was also in this one and delivered a fantastic performance as De Boer's real dad who was sent to prison. He's quite the versatile actor.

60. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time: (✩✩✩½) - DVD - This Japanese anime is about a girl who discovers that she can leap a day or two into the past. At first she has some fun with these abilities, but eventually finds that she has to correct a lot of wrongs that resulted from her time-travelling. Eventually we find out how she's able to move though time due to a big revelation near the end. I liked the concept of the movie and found myself liking the lead character, but the story got pretty convoluted in spots, as did the time travel logic. Reading up on this movie afterwards, I was surprised to find out that it's based on a novel and that it's had several live-action adaptations. Hopefully I can check them out. One interesting thing though... In this movie, our lead character has an aunt who also travelled through time when she was younger. Apparently the novel that this was based on was about her adventures. That makes this more of a sequel with a similar story.

Theatre: 1
DVD/Blu-Ray: 21
TV: 34
On Demand: 3
Internet: 1

 

DVD

Spoiler: Rest of List

Theatre/Cinema
1. Meet the Robinsons
2. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
4. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
5. Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (3D)
6. Spider-Man 2

7. Green Lantern

 

Spoiler: The rest of my list.

January

1. Daddy Day Care (✩✩✩½) - TV
2. Wild Child (✩✩) - TV
3. Fling (✩✩✩½) - DVD
4. Arthur 2: On the Rocks (✩✩✩✩) - DVD
5. Havoc (✩✩✩✩) - DVD
6. Contagion (✩✩✩✩½) - On Demand
7. The Blind Side (✩✩✩½) - TV
8. Batman: Under the Red Hood (✩✩✩✩½) - TV
9. The Andromeda Strain (✩✩✩½) - TV
10. The Last Man on Earth (✩✩✩✩) - TV
11. Network (✩✩½) - TV
12. Normal Adolescent Behavior: Havoc 2 (✩) - DVD
13. Starsky & Hutch (✩✩½) - TV
14. The Rundown (✩✩✩½) - TV
15. Mallrats (✩✩✩✩) - DVD
16. My Sister's Keeper (✩✩✩✩½) - TV
17. Valkyrie (✩✩✩½) - TV
18. The Anderson Tapes (✩✩✩) - TV
19. Jack Goes Boating (✩✩✩½) - DVD
20. Margin Call (✩✩✩½) - On Demand
21. Away We Go (✩✩✩½) - TV
22. Girl Fight (✩✩✩½) - TV
23. Superman & Batman: Apocalypse (✩✩✩✩) - TV
24. Pandorum (✩✩½) - TV
25. Paper Man (✩✩✩✩½) - DVD
26. In Like Flint (✩✩½) - TV
27. Blood Diamond (✩✩✩✩) - DVD
28. The Invisible Man (✩✩✩✩) - TV
29. Frankenstein (✩✩✩½) - TV
30. The Dilemma (✩✩✩½) - DVD

February

31. That One Night (✩✩✩½) - Internet
32. Sex Drive (✩✩½) - DVD
33. Chronicle (✩✩✩½) - Theatre
34. Couples Retreat (✩✩✩) - DVD
35. RV (✩✩✩) - TV
36. Chaos Theory (✩✩✩✩) - TV
37. Black Swan (✩✩✩✩✩) - DVD
38. One Missed Call (✩) - DVD
39. Kramer vs. Kramer (✩✩✩✩½) - TV
40. When in Rome (✩✩½) - TV
41. Love to Kill (✩✩✩) - TV
42. Possession (✩✩) - TV
43. Sex and the City 2 (✩✩✩½) - DVD
44. Little Fockers (✩✩✩½) - DVD
45. Breach: (✩✩✩½) - On Demand
46. Broken Flowers (✩✩✩✩½) - DVD
47. Bronson (✩✩✩✩) - DVD
48. Edge of Darkness (✩✩✩½) - TV
49. In & Out (✩✩✩) - TV
50. Secrets of Eden (✩✩½) - TV
51. Shooter (✩✩✩½) - TV
52. Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (✩✩✩½) - TV

March

53. 10 Items or Less (✩✩✩½) - DVD
54. The Old Man and the Sea (✩✩✩✩) - TV
55. The Reader (✩✩✩✩✩) - TV
56. The Stunt Man (✩✩) - TV
57. Nine (✩✩✩✩) - TV
58. Untraceable (✩✩½) - DVD
59. The Quiet (✩✩✩½) - DVD
60. My Mother's Secret (✩✩½) - TV
61. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (✩✩✩½) - DVD

62. Sex and Death 101: (✩✩✩✩) - DVD - In this light-hearted dark comedy, The Mentalist's Simon Baker plays a man named Roderick Blank who's about to get married, then one day he gets an email with a list of 101 names on it. It's of everyone he's ever had sex with and will ever have sex with. When he gets the list, he's only at number 29, his current fiancé. Elsewhere, there is a vigilante on the loose, played by Winona Ryder, who's seducing and putting misogynistic men in a coma using a drug. Her name is the last one on the list. We also get to see the ones responsible for the list... Three men in suits in a white room who have a computer that can answer any question and predict the future. Apparently this computer sent out emails by accident and one of them was a list for our main character. A nice little scifi perk there. What ensues is a fun story about casual sex, relationships, marriage, sex with catholic school girls, and the man involved with it all. The story also deals lightly with fate and the surprises that life can throw at you. I started this movie not expecting much, but found it to be surprisingly good. The documentary on the DVD revealed that it was written by the same guy who wrote Heathers. He wrote Winona Ryder's part specifically for her.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk_JHKIFzNs[/yt]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWXGlzf_fBA[/yt]

Theatre: 1
DVD/Blu-Ray: 22
TV: 35
On Demand: 3
Internet: 1

 

1) The Artist (2011) - A+
2) Midnight in Paris (2011) - B
3) Tree of Life (2011) - F
4) The Descendants (2011) - B
5) Drive (2011) - B
6) Hanna (2011) - C
7) Take Shelter (2011) - A-
8) 50/50 (2011) - B
9) Baby Mama (2008) - B-
10) United 93 (2006) - Inappropriate to Grade

United 93 was on HBO Signature tonight and while I didn't intend to watch a movie like this, I ended up watching it anyway. I'm not sure if the wounds of 9/11 will ever heal, and every year to honor the anniversary of it with tributes and memorials. This day was my generation's Pearl Harbor and I don't ever want to forget what happened that day.

Well, here was this movie that felt like a documentary tribute in every sense of the phrase. Actually It doesn't really feel like a movie because there is really no "story", no "Character development" and we're pretty much watching the emotions, the chaos and the inevitable that we hope won't happen but know it does.

That's how I felt watching this movie. Whether the movie got things right or not I'll leave the experts and the conspiracy theorists to decide. What I got watching this film was kind of the emotional transition from before 9/11 to our mentality today. There were scenes early in the film where I watch the people board the plane not really caring about the world around them, not listening to the pre-take off speech from the captain about emergency procedures, and just going about their day like nothing is going to happen. I think this is where Paul Greengrass get's high praise. We know what's going to happen, and all throughout the film it's that inevitable certainty that makes this one of the most haunting and unflinching films I've ever seen. Then you get to the ending and you're just rooting for the passengers to take over the plane and that certainty becomes ever so true. I don't call this a movie in the typical sense of the word. I call it a respectful tribute that if you ever forget the emotions that paralyzed us that tragic day, this film takes you back and punches you in the gut.

As for my "Inappropriate to Grade" comment, there are movies that affect you so much in a way where a grade just doesn't do it justice. This is one of those movies.


Theatre: 2
BluRay: 3
On Demand/TV: 1 (+1)
Itunes: 4

 

Updates in Bold:
Bad Boys (8)
Blade of the Phantom Master (8)
Daybreakers (5)
First Squad: The Moment of Truth (8)
Gantz: Perfect Answer (7)
Green Hornet (6)
Heaven's Lost Property: The Angeloid of Clockwork (5)
Hellboy: Blood and Iron (8)
Hellboy: Sword of Storms (6)
John Carter (9)
King of Thorn (9)
Legend of the Millennium Dragon (7)
Mardock Scramble: The First Compression (Director's Cut) (9)
Negima!: Final (7)
Nydenion (7)
Redline (10)
Safe House (2012) (8)
Salt (7)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (5)
Underworld: Awakening (8)

 

This is a great movie indeed. The book is a must-read also.

 

Spoiler: Rest of List

1. Holy Rollers (B-)
2. The Kids Are All Right (B)
3. History of the World, Part 1 (C-)
4. Blazing Saddles (A+)
5. Scarface [1932] (B-)
6. The Purple Rose of Cairo (A)
7. Rampart (B+)
8. We Need To Talk About Kevin (A+)
9. Tucker and Dale vs Evil (B+)
10. They Live (B-)
11. Darling Companion (D)
12. A Dangerous Method (B-)
13. Haywire (C+)
14. Mission: Impossible (B+)
15. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (B+)
16. Twixt (C+)
17. Burn After Reading (B+)
18. Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy (B-)
19. Drive (A)
20. Crazy Stupid Love (A)
21. The Omega Man (D)
22. The Adjustment Bureau (B+)
23. The Artist (A-)
24. Lady and the Tramp (B)
25. Hugo (A-)
26. The Secret World of Arrietty (B)
27. Twelve Angry Men (A)
28. Act of Valor (F)
29. Walker (A)
30. Lonely Are The Brave (A-)
31. Executive Action (C)
32. Three Colors: Blue (A)
33. Bright Leaves (A)
34. Photographic Memory (A)
35. The People Vs. George Lucas (C-)
36. Avatar (B-)
37. The Life of Reilly (A-)

38. Limitless (B-)

Limitless: Much better than I had anticipated, although not as good as it could have been. The ending is a total cop-out (the guy gets off the drugs, keeps the super intellect, gets the girl, AND will probably be President of the United States someday), but I enjoyed the build up. Robert DeNiro sleeps through another supporting role, unfortunately, but Bradley Cooper does well with the material. Stylistically, it can't quite figure out if it wants be stylized like a Guy Richie movie, or be much more conventional. A more decisive editor could have probably fixed that problem. The biggest problem, though, when you come right down to it, is the in media res opening. The constant pounding at the door of his penthouse fortress and Bradley Cooper's willingness to commit suicide rather than fall into the hands of these unseen invaders is a terrific hook. When it turns out to be nothing more than his loan shark and a pair of goons at the door...it's less than satisfying. This is shallow, but watchable entertainment.

Theatres: 15
Home Video: 21 +1
Computer: 2

 

That's one of the things I liked the most about the movie. It's about time someone acquired some form of power or prestige and got a happy ending as a result. I'm tired of cautionary tales that tell us that empowerment is bad and leads to no good, or the formulaic stories where the guy loses everything in the end and learns a "valuable lesson".

 

The joke about Bradley Cooper's haircut is an ambiguity marker. The viewer is not required to cash it.

Started Higher Ground, couldn't finish it. There was an early sequence of adults being baptized in a river or pond (the camera was too close to tell.) There was simultaneously one good thing and one bad thing about this. The good thing was that the responses of the the characters upon emergence varied. They were characterized. It is so common for movies and television to reject characterization in favor of uniformity as a way to impose the desired emotional response on the viewer that this sequence immediately amped up my interest in the movie.

The bad thing was that the baptisms were improperly performed. In real baptisms the person officiating holds a pad over the mouth and nose of the person being baptized to prevent air escaping and water getting in. Being professional actors doing multiple takes in an art movie, no one's emotional response was superseded by snotting out water that got up the nose.

In addition to this glassy eyed nonlook at baptisms, in the parts I could tolerate there was a similar detachment from social reality. The lead characters had no jobs, nor was it possible to guess their socioeconomic status. The churches portrayed had no social or political views, although everyone knows "fundamentalist" or "evangelical" churches of the type portrayed are strongly associated with quite specific social and political and even economic views.

Vera Farmiga, star and director, apparently believes that religion is all about sexual repression. Her character emerges from the water with her bra showing through the wet blouse, revealing the inner sexuality. At a retreat, Farmiga is the one who dances, alone. At key moments she's typically in virginal white. There is a pig symbol. As a child the Farmiga character is feeding piglets (no, it is not at all clear that the character is a farm girl,) while her parents engage in sex play of the fully clothed variety. While she's having intercourse with a crush a hog wanders up to watch.

The sexual motif gets openly aired when what she thinks is a church plays their version of sex ed tapes. The men's version announces there is something called a clitoris which is part of God's plan. The women's version is so inanae I've already forgotten it. The interesting way in which the characters actually got to have individual responses at the baptism sequence is abandoned as soon as it's necessary to hammer at the "funfies are repressed" theme.

There are millions of unbelievers but few atheists in this country. I'm one of the few but it is appalling that anyone could be so ignorant of humanity as to think that churches of every sort aren't full of sexually experienced people as well sexually repressed ones. The Farmiga view, that religion is bad because it causes psychological torment, ignores the disparity in people. Religion is bad because it's not true. It requires rejecting reason. As an insititution, it is built upon superstition and bigotry. The people who do not get psychological satisfaction from the church they're in shop around til they find one that does. The Farmiga critique is merely contemptible snobbery. The preposterous notion that all the really religious people are sexual ignoramuses was far too stupid to tolerate.

Removal was an amusing psychological thriller about multiple personalities and murder. It was entirely literary, didn't make sense in its own terms and didn't have a thrill or frisson or indeed many surprises. It was nicely paced and the performances were nice, but The Perfect Host was much better. This one had the saving grace of not taking itself too seriously. There was a gag reel!

 

That's all well and good, but his happy ending doesn't make any sense in light of everything the movie has established. He gets to keep his magical powers of intelligence? Huh? Every time anyone in the movie is shown to stop taking the drug, they come back down to normal. I'm fine with a happy ending, but a movie has to live by the rules it sets down for itself.

 

35. MacBeth (1948)

It's the first version of the play I've ever seen and for the most part I liked it a lot (especially things like the way they played with shadows).
Some minor things: Contrary to other films based on Shakespeare's works, you really feel that this a stage play (most of it seems to be on only one set - although it is a great set) and I didn't like the fact that the monologues/soliloquies were often voice-over.

 

Spoiler: The rest of my list.

1. My Week With Marilyn (B-)
2. Fantasia 2000 (B+)
3. Blade Runner (B)
4. The Hidden Fortress (A-)
5. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (B+)
6. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (A+)
7. The Descendants (A-)
8. Monsieur Lazhar (A)
9. The Prestige (A+)
10. Blood Simple (A-)
11. The Big Lebowski (B+)
12. West Side Story (A-)
13. The Hours (A-)
14. Lady and the Tramp (B)
15. An Officer and a Gentleman (B)
16. All Quiet On The Western Front (A)
17. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (B-)
18. Spellbound (B+)
19. Seven Samurai (A+)
20. X-Men: First Class (A)
21. Do The Right Thing (N/A)
22. Martha Marcy May Marlene (B+)
23. The Artist (A-)
24. LA Confidential (A)
25. Young Adult (B+)
26. Children of Men (B+)

27. Gaslight (B+)

This feels like a Hitchcock film that Hitchcock didn't actually direct, a connection heightened by the presences of Ingrid Bergman and Dame May Whitty, who appeared in a number of Hitchcock's films in this period (Bergman's first being in this same year). The film is a proto psychological thriller, though it's less about ambiguity (because there is none; what the husband is up to is pretty obvious from the start) than about observing a woman's gradual psychological dissolution because of her husband's manipulations. The main reason to watch the movie is Ingrid Bergman's amazing performance, which captures Paula's breakdown terrifically. There's also the novelty of seeing Angela Lansbury as an impudent, somewhat trampy maid. It never quite breaks through to the realm of greatness because, again, as good as Bergman is there's minimal suspense, and Joseph Cotten feels seriously out of place.

Cinema: 7
Home Video: 16
Computer: 4 (+1)

 

I think at the end, it was revealed that he made improvements to the drug and found some way to wean himself off it. That works for me. I would have expected him to use his intelligence to find some way to make his newfound abilities permanent. Even if something about it didn't fit storywise, I was too happy that they didn't go the typical route to really notice or care.

 

Spoiler: The rest of my list.

1. My Week With Marilyn (B-)
2. Fantasia 2000 (B+)
3. Blade Runner (B)
4. The Hidden Fortress (A-)
5. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (B+)
6. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (A+)
7. The Descendants (A-)
8. Monsieur Lazhar (A)
9. The Prestige (A+)
10. Blood Simple (A-)
11. The Big Lebowski (B+)
12. West Side Story (A-)
13. The Hours (A-)
14. Lady and the Tramp (B)
15. An Officer and a Gentleman (B)
16. All Quiet On The Western Front (A)
17. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (B-)
18. Spellbound (B+)
19. Seven Samurai (A+)
20. X-Men: First Class (A)
21. Do The Right Thing (N/A)
22. Martha Marcy May Marlene (B+)
23. The Artist (A-)
24. LA Confidential (A)
25. Young Adult (B+)
26. Children of Men (B+)
27. Gaslight (B+)

28. North By Northwest (A+)

Speaking of Hitchcock, another foray into his filmography. This may be my favourite of the six that I've seen so far (and the latest of the bunch). The Blu-ray edition of this wonderfully crisp. This is a tremendously fun adventure film, with Cary Grant in top form. It took me a while to realize that James Mason's weird-looking henchman was a young Martin Landau. The plot is preposterous in places, but that hardly matters.

Watching older cinema like this also makes me conscious of how unfortunate for filmmakers it is that trains are no longer the main means of long-distance transportation. The dramatic possibilities of a train (or boat) trip far eclipse what you can do with a plane.

Cinema: 7
Home Video: 17 (+1)
Computer: 4

 

36. Haywire

I guess this film was mostly made to show off Carano's fighting skills, because those were the best moments (well choreographed and shot). As for the rest: I expected a lot more from Soderbergh and his cast (at least get enough story for 90 min).

 

1. Beginners ★★★★
2. The Artist ★★★★★
3. L’Ultimo Terreste ★★★
4. Ace Attorney ★★★★★
5. The Loneliest Planet ★★
6. Damsels in Distress ★★★
7. Gaamer ★★★★
8. King Curling ★★★★
9. The Hunter ★★★★
10. A Dangerous Method ★★★★
11. Hugo 3D ★★★

A Dangerous Method ★★★★
"A look at how the intense relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud gives birth to psychoanalysis." (IMDb)

Beautiful art direction and great performances from Keira Kneightly, Michael Fassbender and Virgo Mortensen. I just wished there would have been a little bit more on the Jung and Freud giving birth to psychoanalysis part, and a little less kinky Keira Knightley sex. But that's probably just me.