Theatre: Avatar [ B] Precious [A] Invictus [ B] A Single Man [B-] Crazy Heart [A-] A Serious Man [A-] The Last Station [A-] DVD: Adventureland [B+] Samaritan Girl [C+] 3-Iron [A] The Hurt Locker [A-] Citizen Kane [A] Planet Hulk [B+] High Society [B-] The Philadelphia Story [A-] The Pianist [A-] Murder By Decree [A-] A Man For All Seasons [B+] A Patch of Blue [B+] Broadway Danny Rose [B+] The Departed [A] The Purple Rose of Cairo [B+] Zelig [B ] Radio Days [B ] Hannah and Her Sisters [B+] Gone Baby Gone [A+] Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths [B+] Doctor Zhivago [B ] A Beautiful Mind [A-] Match Point [A+] Scoop [C] Vicky Cristina Barcelona [B+] The Maltese Falcon [B+] Love and Death [B-] Shakespeare in Love [A+] Another rewatch; this is becoming a habit. My Lord, but I love this movie. For all the complaints, I'd have voted for this over Saving Private Ryan any day of the week. Of course, I'm just the sort of person this sort of movie is aimed at: an English Lit nerd (the kind of person who'll get the joke about a violence-loving theatre assistant named John Webster). It's a passionate tribute to the greatest wordsmith in the history of the English language, and to art in general (Burbage's offer of the theatre to allow the play performed as an act of solidarity among artists is a favourite moment) and it succeeds brilliantly as a comedy/drama as well. The performances are all great, even from Joseph Fiennes, who's frankly not the widest-ranging actor in the world. Paltrow's really the soul of the film; she makes both the script and Shakespeare's play really resonate. Just a really clever film.
Sherlock Holmes [B-] Men in Black [A] Up in the Air [A] Star Trek: The Motion Picture [D+] I'm Not There [A] Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) [D-] American Violet [B ] Inglourious Basterds [A] Death at a Funeral [B ] A Serious Man [A] The Hurt Locker [A-] Mad Max 2 (AKA The Road Warrior) [C] The Book of Eli [C-] Elegy [B+] Close Encounters of the Third Kind [A] The Invention of Lying [B-] Gamer [C] Timecrimes [A] Metropolis [A] Pandorum [B ] Raiders of the Lost Ark [A] Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [A] Moon [A] Fun with Dick and Jane [C] Sunshine [C] Stanley Kubrick's The Killing [B+] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1964) [A-] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1946) [B+] Glengarry Glen Ross [B-] Gattaca [A] The Big Chill [ B] The Producers [A] Rent [C+] Blade Runner [A] My Cousin Vinny [B-] Zombieland [ B] Infernal Affairs [A] The Walker [F] Starship Troopers [A] Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith [F] Altered States [A] Devil in a Blue Dress [ B] Renaissance [ B] District 9 [ B] The Shawshank Redemption [B+] Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story [ B] Memento [A] Powaqqatsi [C+] The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard [D-] The Box Like Donnie Darko, the strengths of this are two-fold. One, Kelly is excellent at depicting family dynamics. The banter between mother, father, and son all remind me of my relationship with my own parents. Two, a period setting and other visual design choices create an intenseley dream-like state throughout the entire film. Visually, it's very appealing. And like his first film, The Box suffers from an ending which is a little bit of a non-answer. Actually, that's not quite right. I think the answer is pretty plain, just as it is in Donnie Darko. But the entire movie is a build-up to something bigger, more complex, and ultimately, that's not what we get in the end. Still, I rather liked it. There is the rather unsavory fact that Spade doesn't care one bit about Miles Archer, before or after he dies. Spade is perfectly happy to sleep with Iva Archer when Miles Archer is still alive, and ignore her when Miles is dead (this story element is greatly reduced in the film, of course, but it's still there). Miles' name comes off the door before his body is cold, too. His statement that he's just doing what a man's supposed to do when his partner is murdered rings false for this reason. Spade also doesn't seem that interested in delivering a guilty suspect to the police--he's perfectly happy to serve up Wilhelm when he is already convinced of Brigid's guilt, just as long as he gets his cut of the Falcon. But the Falcon is a fake, Gutman is no longer willing to let Wilhelm be their patsy, and Spade has no choice but to serve up Brigid--it's her or him. The thing is, Spade cares about Brigid, so I can forgive him a second thought. All that written, though, I have to confess that I'm not sure Spade has any strong second thoughts in the film. In the end, he's a selfish man, and that means turning over Brigid, which Bogart does without offering up much regret.
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+ 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- StepBrothers ~ B-
Movies Seen in 2010 Duplicity - C- The Hurt Locker - A Moon - A The Princess and the Frog - B Crazy Heart - B+ Julie & Julia - A- A Serious Man - A Fargo - A The Blind Side - B- Wanted to get in an academy award winning film before the big night and The Blind Side was still playing so figured what the heck. I quite liked it, even though I thought it was a bit to over the top in terms of sentimentalism for my tastes. Granted, it's based on a book of a life of an NFL player, but as a movie it was just ok. Bullock was outstanding in this movie, and I wouldn't be upset if either she or Streep won tonight. I hope it's Bullock because I like her more than I like Streep, and she carried this movie.
District 9 - A Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - B+ The Wrestler - B V for Vendetta - C+ Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone - C Corpse Bride - C Battlefield Earth - F There Will Be Blood - A Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - B The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - B Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - A Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - B- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - B Faust (1994) - A Night on Earth - B Schizopolis - B- The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes - B Primer - B Ryan (2005) - B Lost Highway - C+ The Seventh Seal (1957) - A Metropolis (1927) - A Kagemusha - A Following - B+ Masters of Russian Animation 1, 2 - A The Old Man and the Sea (animated) - A The Man Who Planted Trees - A Miller's Crossing - B+ Ocean's Eleven - B- Moon - A Inglorious Basterds - B+ Rewatched Moon recently. It's still great. Something I noticed this time around that I hadn't really paid attention to previously was the soundtrack. It's really amazing. A Inglorious Basterds - This film felt like Tarantino from 10 years ago, somehow, and that's a good thing. The first really good film he's made since Jackie Brown in my opinion, and no doubt, it's even better than that film. Is it as good as Pulp Fiction? Well, no, BUT- it does show how well a revenge fantasy movie can work, if the villains are particularly deserving, and who are more deserving than Nazis? I like how it played into your expectations about Nazis, and then played against them, and then played back into them again to show that you were right all along. With material like this, one can imagine that the movie practically writes itself, yet Tarantino manages to find some unexpected territory to explore along the way. Exciting, visceral, and brainy like the best of his work, yet not quite on the level of a Reservoir Dogs or a Pulp Fiction. B+
Sherlock Holmes [B-] Men in Black [A] Up in the Air [A] Star Trek: The Motion Picture [D+] I'm Not There [A] Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) [D-] American Violet [B ] Inglourious Basterds [A] Death at a Funeral [B ] A Serious Man [A] The Hurt Locker [A-] Mad Max 2 (AKA The Road Warrior) [C] The Book of Eli [C-] Elegy [B+] Close Encounters of the Third Kind [A] The Invention of Lying [B-] Gamer [C] Timecrimes [A] Metropolis [A] Pandorum [B ] Raiders of the Lost Ark [A] Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [A] Moon [A] Fun with Dick and Jane [C] Sunshine [C] Stanley Kubrick's The Killing [B+] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1964) [A-] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1946) [B+] Glengarry Glen Ross [B-] Gattaca [A] The Big Chill [ B] The Producers [A] Rent [C+] Blade Runner [A] My Cousin Vinny [B-] Zombieland [ B] Infernal Affairs [A] The Walker [F] Starship Troopers [A] Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith [F] Altered States [A] Devil in a Blue Dress [ B] Renaissance [ B] District 9 [ B] The Shawshank Redemption [B+] Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story [ B] Memento [A] Powaqqatsi [C+] The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard [D-] The Box [ B] Beverly Hills Cop [B-] 80s as hell, but it remains fairly amusing (Rosewood and his partner stealing the show from Axel Foley more than once) and it has some decent action (keeping in mind that all the bad guys went to the stormtrooper school of shooting).
Well, yeah, but she still killed him in cold blood. That hardly suggests somebody worth settling down with.
Yeah, but like I said, Spade was totally willing to hand over Wilhelm to the police, and likely sentence him to death, even though he knew he was innocent. Spade is a little less unsavory in the movie than in the original serial, though. In that, he has a corrupt lawyer on call, and Spade is the one that conducts a (very illegal) search of Brigid's room, tossing the place. In the movie Brigid still mentions that her apartment had been tossed, but there's no indication that Spade is the one responsibile. At least, I think so. Memory is going in my old age...
Updates: 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 (7) Boondock Saints (10) The Book of Eli (8) Cencoroll (8) Les Chevaliers du Ciel (8) District 9 (8) The Edge of Darkness (9) G-9 (6) Inglorious Bastards (7) Law Abiding Citizen (9) Lupin the 3rd VS Detective Konan (7) Oldboy (9) Pandorum (7) Summer Wars (10) Sword For Truth (6) Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Lagann-hen (8) They Were 11 (9) The Uninvited (7)
Sherlock Holmes [B-] Men in Black [A] Up in the Air [A] Star Trek: The Motion Picture [D+] I'm Not There [A] Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) [D-] American Violet [B ] Inglourious Basterds [A] Death at a Funeral [B ] A Serious Man [A] The Hurt Locker [A-] Mad Max 2 (AKA The Road Warrior) [C] The Book of Eli [C-] Elegy [B+] Close Encounters of the Third Kind [A] The Invention of Lying [B-] Gamer [C] Timecrimes [A] Metropolis [A] Pandorum [B ] Raiders of the Lost Ark [A] Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [A] Moon [A] Fun with Dick and Jane [C] Sunshine [C] Stanley Kubrick's The Killing [B+] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1964) [A-] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1946) [B+] Glengarry Glen Ross [B-] Gattaca [A] The Big Chill [ B] The Producers [A] Rent [C+] Blade Runner [A] My Cousin Vinny [B-] Zombieland [ B] Infernal Affairs [A] The Walker [F] Starship Troopers [A] Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith [F] Altered States [A] Devil in a Blue Dress [ B] Renaissance [ B] District 9 [ B] The Shawshank Redemption [B+] Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story [ B] Memento [A] Powaqqatsi [C+] The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard [D-] The Box [ B] Beverly Hills Cop [B-] Notorious [B+] I don't think this is Hitchcock's best film with Cary Grant (that would be North By Northwest), but it's still a pretty good one. Bergman is great, and so is Claude Rains (you're so manipulated that by the end there's a moment of sympathy for this guy who is about to die). At times, it is very, very well-shot, especially for the period in which it was made. At other times, the rear-projection is a little distracting, although it's nice to know it was shot by the same DP who photographed Citizen Kane.
I thought it was perfectly obvious and needed no further justification. The Nigerian leader even says, after Wikus demonstrates that he can use the alien weapons, that he want to get an arm like that. The Nigerians use witch doctors and the MNU uses scientists – the respective "experts" in both cultures – but they're both just means to identical brutal and power-hungry ends.
On the subject of Hitchcock: Dial M For Murder (A) - I've not watched much of Alfred Hitchcock's work in the past (I watched Rear Window and was incredibly bored, which is of course an extreme minority opinion), but this was on sale for $6 at HMV, so I bought it. And this one I really liked. Having just watched Match Point, that film seems rather like what would have happened if this one had ended about 15 minutes earlier than it did. I guessed before checking that the movie was based on a play, given the limited sets, but unlike a lot of such translations that aren't opened up, I thought this worked really well. Watching the husband constantly adjusting his plans to manipulate everybody was quite riveting. My only complaints would probably be Grace Kelly's character, who seems to have the IQ of a piece of rotten ham (makes her somewhat harder to sympathize with), and the score, which is weirdly upbeat much of the time for the subject-matter.
Sherlock Holmes [B-] Men in Black [A] Up in the Air [A] Star Trek: The Motion Picture [D+] I'm Not There [A] Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) [D-] American Violet [B ] Inglourious Basterds [A] Death at a Funeral [B ] A Serious Man [A] The Hurt Locker [A-] Mad Max 2 (AKA The Road Warrior) [C] The Book of Eli [C-] Elegy [B+] Close Encounters of the Third Kind [A] The Invention of Lying [B-] Gamer [C] Timecrimes [A] Metropolis [A] Pandorum [B ] Raiders of the Lost Ark [A] Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [A] Moon [A] Fun with Dick and Jane [C] Sunshine [C] Stanley Kubrick's The Killing [B+] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1964) [A-] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1946) [B+] Glengarry Glen Ross [B-] Gattaca [A] The Big Chill [ B] The Producers [A] Rent [C+] Blade Runner [A] My Cousin Vinny [B-] Zombieland [ B] Infernal Affairs [A] The Walker [F] Starship Troopers [A] Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith [F] Altered States [A] Devil in a Blue Dress [ B] Renaissance [ B] District 9 [ B] The Shawshank Redemption [B+] Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story [ B] Memento [A] Powaqqatsi [C+] The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard [D-] The Box [ B] Beverly Hills Cop [B-] Notorious [B+] Apocalypse Now Redux [A] One of my favorite films of all time (yes, I like the Redux version more than the theatrical cut...it's just more mythic). A shame I couldn't keep the Hitchcock trend going, though...
Theatre: Avatar [ B] Precious [A] Invictus [ B] A Single Man [B-] Crazy Heart [A-] A Serious Man [A-] The Last Station [A-] DVD: Adventureland [B+] Samaritan Girl [C-] 3-Iron [A] The Hurt Locker [A-] Citizen Kane [A] Planet Hulk [B+] High Society [B-] The Philadelphia Story [A-] The Pianist [A-] Murder By Decree [A-] A Man For All Seasons [B+] A Patch of Blue [B+] Broadway Danny Rose [B+] The Departed [A] The Purple Rose of Cairo [B+] Zelig [B ] Radio Days [B ] Hannah and Her Sisters [B+] Gone Baby Gone [A+] Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths [B+] Doctor Zhivago [B ] A Beautiful Mind [A-] Match Point [A+] Scoop [C] Vicky Cristina Barcelona [B+] The Maltese Falcon [B+] Love and Death [B-] Shakespeare in Love [A+] Dial M For Murder [A] The Last King of Scotland [A-] A rather grisly journey into the realm of Idi Amin, as seen through the eyes of a Scottish doctor (who's a composite character of a couple of real people, with a judicious amount of fiction tossed in). Overall, I think using that vantage is a good idea; if you put Amin centre-stage from the start, you're inviting the audience to sympathize with him (view him as tragically misguided/fallen, etc.) in a way that would likely be irresponsible as a filmmaker. McAvoy often seems to play these kinds of viewpoint characters; he does a good job. Whitaker won his Oscar for this role, deservedly; it's a great performance, and manages to mix Amin's clownishness amiability with his evil menace effectively, something that a lot of actors wouldn't be able to make work. The opening drags a bit; we spend a good stretch of time with Gillian Anderson's character, but it doesn't really amount to anything significant.
I loathe what they do with McAvoy's character in that film, it's just terrible, though I did love Whittaker as Idi Amin. Go figure. Spoiler: the movie McAvoy has learned that Idi Amin can get rid of people on a whim. So he decides to fuck his wife during a party he's holding. There's stupid, extremely stupid, and stupid that is tantamount to murder. This is the last of those, as he put her life at risk, and any attempt to set him up as at all even slightly empathetic guy dies here. Since he's our semi-ficituous white man with his protagonist armour, he can survive his gross idiocy while blacks pay the price. A Traudl Junge type character would have worked better, I think. Any fan of the movie must see General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait, though.
Sherlock Holmes [B-] Men in Black [A] Up in the Air [A] Star Trek: The Motion Picture [D+] I'm Not There [A] Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) [D-] American Violet [B ] Inglourious Basterds [A] Death at a Funeral [B ] A Serious Man [A] The Hurt Locker [A-] Mad Max 2 (AKA The Road Warrior) [C] The Book of Eli [C-] Elegy [B+] Close Encounters of the Third Kind [A] The Invention of Lying [B-] Gamer [C] Timecrimes [A] Metropolis [A] Pandorum [B ] Raiders of the Lost Ark [A] Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [A] Moon [A] Fun with Dick and Jane [C] Sunshine [C] Stanley Kubrick's The Killing [B+] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1964) [A-] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1946) [B+] Glengarry Glen Ross [B-] Gattaca [A] The Big Chill [ B] The Producers [A] Rent [C+] Blade Runner [A] My Cousin Vinny [B-] Zombieland [ B] Infernal Affairs [A] The Walker [F] Starship Troopers [A] Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith [F] Altered States [A] Devil in a Blue Dress [ B] Renaissance [ B] District 9 [ B] The Shawshank Redemption [B+] Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story [ B] Memento [A] Powaqqatsi [C+] The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard [D-] The Box [ B] Beverly Hills Cop [B-] Notorious [B+] Apocalypse Now Redux [A] Death to Smoochy [C+] I can see why this film has a tremendous cult following, but at the same time, it's only a moderately successful comedy. Still, it has a great cast, and there are a few wonderfully demented moments (the Nazi flags during the final ice skating show, for example).
Sherlock Holmes [B-] Men in Black [A] Up in the Air [A] Star Trek: The Motion Picture [D+] I'm Not There [A] Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) [D-] American Violet [B ] Inglourious Basterds [A] Death at a Funeral [B ] A Serious Man [A] The Hurt Locker [A-] Mad Max 2 (AKA The Road Warrior) [C] The Book of Eli [C-] Elegy [B+] Close Encounters of the Third Kind [A] The Invention of Lying [B-] Gamer [C] Timecrimes [A] Metropolis [A] Pandorum [B ] Raiders of the Lost Ark [A] Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [A] Moon [A] Fun with Dick and Jane [C] Sunshine [C] Stanley Kubrick's The Killing [B+] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1964) [A-] Ernest Hemingway's The Killers (1946) [B+] Glengarry Glen Ross [B-] Gattaca [A] The Big Chill [ B] The Producers [A] Rent [C+] Blade Runner [A] My Cousin Vinny [B-] Zombieland [ B] Infernal Affairs [A] The Walker [F] Starship Troopers [A] Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith [F] Altered States [A] Devil in a Blue Dress [ B] Renaissance [ B] District 9 [ B] The Shawshank Redemption [B+] Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story [ B] Memento [A] Powaqqatsi [C+] The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard [D-] The Box [ B] Beverly Hills Cop [B-] Notorious [B+] Apocalypse Now Redux [A] Death to Smoochy [C+] Double Jeopardy [D-] Someone mentioned in another thread that Tommy Lee Jones is basically reprising his role from The Fugitive and U.S. Marshals as Sam Gerard, and since I rather like both of those films, I thought I would give this one a shot. Big mistake. Despite top billing, he doesn't appear until 34 minutes into the picture, and his role isn't a large one. This is Lt. Robin Lefler's movie, and, boy, is it a preposterous movie. I was so worn down by the end that I admit I fast-forwarded through the sappy conclusion. Just terrible. "Awarded" a D- in recognition of being set in my home state and Tommy Lee Jones, who is still pretty good.