2010

Movie Reviews (2012)‎ > ‎

2010 - Brief movie reviews, in (roughly) reverse order of viewing

Year-End Summary

I'm lagging on updating this, but I finally have some free time from my busy, busy schedule to quickly list the best and worst of the year. Let's start with the worst five movies I suffered through this year, starting with the one I hated the least:

A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop - Just a misfire all around, seemingly made by people that don't know comedy, in any language.

Robin Hood - What a mess. This one was tied up in development hell for a long time. It should have stayed there.

El Secreto de sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) - This was half a good movie, as I recall, then it started to fall apart in the second half when the writers of Cheers took over.

Cyrus - I can't remember previously seeing such an un-funny movie that was supposed to be a comedy. I'm all for uncomfortable comedy (Bruno, for example) but this one had no characters to connect to, just a mentally retarded mother and son that I wish would have just died at the end. THAT would be a movie I'd want to see.

Best Worst Movie - Just drop the 'Best' from the title and you have a good representation of this douchey piece of crap. It has been a while since I've seen something so contemptible. This was a 'documentary' but I still would have liked to see everyone involved die at the end. By far the worst thing I saw this year. Outside of this website I actually give the movies I see ratings as I go throughout the year. I usually don't consider zero a rating, but I made an exception. I thought it ludicrous to go any lower but I could have easily given this a minus 10 or so.

And now on to the best, working toward my favorite:

Inception - It took me two viewings to like this one, but the second time through really let me discover why this movie was so great. It was difficult to follow the first time, and in some ways it only begat more questions the second time. It's rare that a movie will confuse me so much and then really make me think about what it all meant.

Kick-Ass - I'm a dude. I like mindless crap. And this was some pretty smart, pretty violent, pretty creative mindless crap. It's kinda lame that people bitch about all the conventional superhero movies that come out (Spider Man, I'm looking at you. X-Men, I'm looking at you) then when someone does something different they rail against it. Fuck you, John Q. Public, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World - This one was aimed right at my wheelhouse. If you were to describe this movie to someone, it would be really difficult. But it was sharp, witty and well paced for something that really defies explanation. There was someone in the extras that sort of summed it up in a way that almost makes sense. Paraphrasing: "It's like a musical, where there is a conflict, everyone breaks out into dance to solve it, then when it's over everyone goes about their business as if nothing happened. Except instead of dancing a fight breaks out."

Winter's Bone - I wouldn't say this was my favorite movie from this year, but it is certainly one of the best. I wouldn't buy the DVD. I probably wouldn't watch it again if I saw it on TV. But the thing really just stuck under my craw and showed me what someone can do with a limited budget, compelling characters and an interesting story to tell. Everything about this movie seemed authentic and real. I'm hoping that it gets some recognition during the awards season coming up. It deserves it.

True Grit - I saw True Grit for the second time this afternoon. It's still good. I found that I had missed some of the dialog the first time around and what I caught this time only served to reinforce the brilliance of this moviemaking. I will never fully forgive the Cohen brothers for 'A Serious Man' but this points them back in the right direction, toward their rightful place as iconic American filmmakers and two of the most important influences in Hollywood. Damn, that sounded pretty stupid and righteous, but True Grit is just that good. The second time around I noticed more of the cinematography and outdoor settings, which were gorgeous, especially during the winter/snow scenes when they were riding through the forest. Plus, check this out. It's a bear on a horse. How can you not want to see this movie now? A BEAR ON A HORSE!!!

The King's Speech

Yee-ah! Slipped movie #50 in just under the wire. This one was well acted and told an interesting story but, and this may sound stupid, the focus was very narrow. I know, I know, it's called 'The King's Speech', what else would it be about? But there were a few other stories circulating around this one that were not really explored. I'm not ever sure they had time to do so, but what you get in the title is exactly what you get in the movie. Geoffry Rush gives his usually awesome performance.

True Grit

Holy shit I've been waiting for this bitch to come out for months. And as luck would have it, they played it for us at work earlier this week, a full week and a half before release.

I'm a fan of the Coen brothers' work and they were due to make a good one after that tremendous turd they put out last year. I'm still trying to wash that thing off my brain, and I only sat through half of it. These guys do know how to put a movie together (Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou) and after that last bomb they needed something big. I hope True Grit is it because I loved it.

I'm a dude and I like Westerns, and this is just a good old fashioned Western. If I didn't know the Coens directed it I might not have guessed. There wasn't much 'weird' stuff in it. It actually reminded me, in style, of their debut Blood Simple. Just great performances, great realism, with quick bursts of extreme violence.

After thinking about it for a day I believe that one thing that I really liked about it was that there were a lot of scenes and lines that did not have a direct bearing on the plot. People held inane but colorful conversations between the major plot points. It made it seem more realistic without intruding into the movie or feeling like they were wasting time. Through it all, somehow the plot kept moving along at a pace that was slow and swift at the same time. It's a hard trick to pull off but it worked.

Another thing my wife pointed out for me is that the ending was by no means clean. It was satisfying but nobody just rode out into the sunset. One character in particular we never really know about, where he ended up. And the main character has a major shall we say 'dissatisfaction' to deal with after the credits roll. So the ending was loose and sloppy but ultimately gratifying to the audience, which is another difficult thing to pull off.

As much as I liked everything about it, I have two small complaints. The first one was the trailer and commercials. I tried to stay away from them but the commercials show some very quick shots that I would have liked to not have seen (SPOILER: like the girl falling in the hole. Once they were near the hole, the next 10 minutes of the movie just had me sitting there waiting for her to fall in the hole.)

Secondly, and this was my wife's major complaint too, so I'm not nuts, but the characters did not speak with contractions. It was 'will not' instead of 'won't', 'did not' instead of 'don't', and the list goes on. I managed to get used to it, like when you start watching Layer Cake or Snatch and can't understand a fuckin' word they say until 10 minutes into the movie. My wife was not so lucky and perhaps she had a lower opinion of the movie than she normally would have. Maybe that's the way they talked in olden times or maybe that's how some of the words were written in the book, but when spoken out loud in a movie it's at least a little distracting, and at most a little detracting.

In any case, I still really loved this movie. Easily top 5 of the year.

Note: Here's something that I hate and will bitch about. I'm already tired of hearing people refer to this as a 'remake' of the original film. It is NOT a remake of that film, it's based on the book. I haven't seen that movie or read the book but I understand that this new version of True Grit is very different than the John Wayne movie. So, stop calling this a remake. It's not a remake, it's just another movie that happens to be based on a book that already had a movie made from it.

UPDATE: I have since watched the John Wayne movie and by all accounts it sucked. Ha ha. Just kidding. I enjoyed it in that 'John Wayne being John Wayne' kind of peek back at Hollywood from 40 years ago, but dare I say it doesn't translate much over time. It does seem outrageously outdated. That blaring theme song secretly cracked me up every time. Anyway, yeah, the plot is basically the same as the modern interpretation but the ending is way, way different. I have it on good authority, from someone that read the book, that the new version is very true to it with a few very small changes. Also, the dialog style in the movie matches the book. Maybe back in the 1800's they hadn't invented the apostrophe yet.

The Fighter

It's December, so that means Oscar bait! This movie is based on a true story, which itself is pretty incredible, and the movie had a lot of humanity in it. But somehow all the parts didn't quite fit together. I think my wife nailed it when she said the dialog was repetitive. I couldn't really put my finger on it at the time but I might describe it as being directed in a bit of a heavy handed way, using a hammer when a small pillow would have done, you know? Okay, Marky Mark, we get it. It's your family, and are you going to choose your family over your shot at the big time?

All the performances from all the actors, especially Christian Bale, Melissa Leo and Amy Adams, were off the charts good. If Bale doesn't win an Oscar for supporting actor I'll eat my hat. It was also pretty awesome to see my secret crush Adams play a tough character for once instead of someone kinda ditzy like she usually does. Goddamn that woman can act.

Anyway, the movie is still worth seeing even though I think the directing fell a little short. Like I said, the acting was great, the soundtrack was great, the sense of time and place was very well done, but some of the directorial choices were a little 'off'. SPOILER: In the beginning of the movie, a camera crew is following Bale's character. He claims they are making a movie about his comeback as a boxer, but we know this isn't true. The suspense was very well drawn out then suddenly one of the characters kind of blurts out that it's really a documentary about crack addiction. That revelation was really ill-timed and ill-placed. Later in the movie, everyone is gathering around to watch the documentary, including Bale's character and his mates in jail, which is when the characters in the movie find out what it was really about. Now, I'm wondering, why couldn't we find this out at the same time they did? It really diminished the impact of the whole thing and is one example of bad decisionmaking on the director's part.

Speaking of the director, David O. Russel stopped by my work to talk the other day. He has a certain reputation that I'll refrain from going over (search youtube for 'David O. Russel and Lily Tomlin') but he seemed pretty cordial and nice. He answered the questions thoughfully and gave interesting answers. He often went on tangents but he's a good storyteller. They shot this film in 31 days and the production was short, so I wonder if the final cut was rushed (perhaps to get it out before the end of the year) and perhaps didn't have enough refining time in the editing room. David directed the amazing Three Kings so I know the guy has chops, he just fell slightly short in this one. Could have used some polish.

Tron: Legacy

I actually saw this movie a week before it came out. They had a showing at the theater at the ranch and you just don't pass up opportunities to see a movie at the ranch. Unfortunately, no guests were invited to I had to ditch the wife and then see it again after it comes out. I won't be disappointed that I have to see it again, but I will admit that most of the pleasure in this movie is visceral.

Nobody is going to win any Oscars for writing or acting in this movie, but that's not really what it's about. I will admit that the story was slightly weak and did not have enough suspense for me, but I didn't really care as my seat was practically lifted off the floor due to the soundtrack. Seeing, or more like feeling, a movie in a theater that Skywalker Sound had a hand in designing certainly puts any movie at an advantage.

So why did I like it? Mostly the visuals and the sound. The movie is slick, stylish and well executed, and sometimes that's enough to hold my interest. The original Tron was kinda weak, too, but being one of the quintessential movies of my youth, it does hold a certain nostalgia for me. The new Tron looked like Tron, but not my 11 year old self's Tron. I thought they did a really good job with paying homage to the original Tron but updating the look for my 39 year old self. This is eyecandy at its finest and one of the few movies I've seen lately that utilizes 3D in a meaningful way.

The plot touches on some heavy concepts (the nature of being) but refuses to travel far down any meaningful paths very far. It's not terrible and I get the feeling it didn't tell the story it originally intended.

But did I mention the light cycles? And frisbee battles? Did I mention that?

The first time director of this movie payed a visit to our campus the other day and I went to hear him talk. He was actually a pretty uninteresting guy and answered the questions pretty straight, said good day and left. The interesting thing is that his background is in architecture, and it made sense after having seen the movie. The sets are beautiful, if stark, and the overall production values were high and highly polished. The world seemed constructed in a complete way, and I think that was part of the appeal to me.

Black Swan

Hmmmmmm. I didn't really like it. Didn't hate it but it just wasn't for me. Something about the plot just wasn't strong enough. Or something. It's difficult to put a finger on it. I think part of the problem were my expectations. Darren Aranofsky's previous film, The Wrestler, had both feet planted firmly in reality and it turned out pretty good. This one was hard to grasp, which maybe was the point. But I think the threads running through it were not strong enough, or fleshed out enough, or something. I think we were supposed to be questioning whether or not Meg Griffin's (the second Meg) character was real or not. At least that was what I was getting out of it. But by the end of the movie I didn't really care any more.

The big (little) reveal at the end wasn't big enough for me, maybe. I won't ruin it but overall I feel like the movie was like a bowl of oatmeal with bacon in it. Some tasty nuggets wrapped in a gray goop. You'll eat the oatmeal to get to the bacon.

I do have two compliments, though. First, the sound design was noticeably amazing. The surround capabilities of the theater were heavily utilized to great effect. Footsteps in the hall off on that side, a knock on the door behind you, well-placed background noise ... very well done.

I also have to begrudgingly compliment Mila Kunis on her acting. Maybe she's mediocre and it just looks like she's suddenly a good actress now because she was so terrible on That 70's Show, and is somehow terrible with just her voice on Family Guy. I guess her surprisingly good work in Forgetting Sarah Marshall wasn't a fluke. Go figure.

Love and Other Drugs

Not too bad, not too bad at all. I thought it was schmaltzy in a few places but overall pretty well done. This is what I'd call a romantic romance, with a little comedy thrown in. Not really comedy, more like funny lines and situations. The aim was not to be funny but handle a serious topic in a less heavy way. The commercial plays up the 'Viagra thing' but the movie hardly has anything to do with that. It is used more as a vehicle to set the time and place as well as as give Jake Gilooley's character something to aim for. Speaking of Jake, he and on-screen love interest Anne Hathaway had some nice chemistry. I usually don't like that dopey guy but he plays a douche with a heart of gold pretty well. He became more likable as the movie went on, which actually helped. Unlike that piece of crap 300 Days Of Summer from a couple years ago, I ended up liking and rooting for the characters by the end, which is a good sign.

Much of the movie was highly conventional but it was done right with a light touch when it needed it, a heavy touch when needed, and also an excellent performance from someone else I don't like, Oliver Platt. Lastly, Anne Hathaway's boobs. Repeatedly. She is not shy about showing those things off. Just sayin'.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

This entry in the Harry Potter canon was pretty good. It's mostly a setup for the last movie but I thought the performances and direction in this one carried the appropriate weight. It matched up with the book pretty well. A line in the book that I thought was the real dramatic turning point of the book/series was preserved in the movie (where Hermoine says 'We're alone now') and I thought that one line was really well-placed and acted, it really set the tone for the rest of the story.

I did have two small quibbles. The first was the story of the three brothers. That segment standing on its own was brilliant but the style of it sorta took me out of the movie. There was some really good animation work going on but it's almost as if they cut away from the movie for a little cartoon then came back to the live action. My wife loved it, though, and it was one of her favorite parts. It just didn't 'fit' for me.

The second part involved Ron and an apparition. I won't spoil anything about it but man, was it poorly done. Very poorly done. My wife laughed out loud when it was happening and this was supposed to be a very serious part of the movie. I don't recall exactly how this part unfolded in the book but it looked silly on-screen and showed some seriously not-quite-finished-looking special effects.

Due Date

Not bad. Not awesome, but not bad. Zack Gilaphalupagus and Robert Downey actually had some pretty good chemistry, but (inevitable comparison) it wasn't as sharp as The Hangover. There were a few scenes where I thought the story was a bit neutered, like it was written some other way but didn't make it up on the screen. Spoiler alert: Zack's character was making a big deal about going to the Grand Canyon and at one point muttered 'That would be perfect'. Then when he gets there he's very uptight about it. I get the feeling that more was supposed to happen there. I expected him to reveal that he planned on killing himself there or something. There was a certain gravitas to that scene that didn't turn into anything big. That was one of about three scenes that I sort of recall did not have the right tone, as if something was cut. Maybe it'll be on the director's cut DVD. Anyway, you could do worse, the movie overall was a decent diversion.

Jackass 3D

Part of me wants to feel slightly ashamed for liking this crap, but to hell with it, this garbage is funny. As a guy who likes to see people getting hit on the head, this movie delivered. There are also skits with people getting hit in other parts of the body but the face/head smackdowns are what did it for me. If you liked the first two you'll definitely like this one. My wife resisted going to this for weeks but we finally coaxed her to go with the group by inviting another girl. She laughed harder than I did at some points and I think it brought a needed injection of comedy into our home life (not what you're thinking, we have a sick cat at home.)

To keep the kids interested, this iteration of Jackass employs 3D. For most of it it added nothing but the super-slow-mo intro and outro were brilliant. In fact, they employed some sort of super-duper high-speed camera for some skits, most notably the Rocky series, which was actually pretty amazing. That, for me, was better than the 3D. It's still worth it to pay extra for the 3D, though. It's funny to think that the pantheon of recent 3D features that got it right by not doing post-conversions contains Coraline, Avatar and now Jackass 3D.

I have a hard time remembering anything specific from the first two but this one had two particular sequences that I could have done without, both involving human shit. I mean 'shit' literally, by the way. The outhouse gag is featured prominently on the commercial but the second one ... I won't ruin it but there actually was an element of cleverness in disguising what was forthcoming, but let's say I'm really, really glad I wasn't eating anything at the time. Anyhoo, too much scat and too much penis are probably the only things I can even begin to nitpick about, but overall the rest was worth it. Good, clean, American fun.

RED

I was surprised at how much I like this one. Judging by the trailers it could have gone either way but it ended up meeting and exceeding my expectations. It's hard not to like Bruce Willis, but throw in Morgan Freeman, Helen Miren and an incredibly nutso John Malkovich, what's not to like? What a great ensemble. Mary-Louise Parker was perfectly cast as the 'straight' man/woman. The plot was absurd. Some of the action unrealistic, but the script was sharp and the pacing was just right to make the whole package pretty enjoyable. I appreciated the high level of practical stuntwork, plus all the explosions. Though they were not overbearing. This was mainly a spy movie with a little bit of romance and a healthy dose of comedy. Somehow all those disparate parts worked together.

Lastly, note to the people that cut trailers together: YOU ARE FUCKING MORONS. If you plan on seeing the movie there is a small spoiler ahead, though if you've seen the commercial it's already spoiled even if you don't know it yet.

Anyway, the commercials and trailer prominently feature a quote by Morgan Freeman's character ("We're getting the band back together") that doesn't show up in the movie until he's presumably been killed! How fucking stupid is that? So for a good chunk of the movie we're supposed to believe he's dead but the whole time I'm just waiting for him to pop back in. It wasn't a *huge* deal, plot-wise, but it makes me wonder what kind of mental cases work in Hollywood when they do shit like that. And just to rant a little more about it, my wife pointed out that the trailer for True Grit seems to spell out quite a few plot points that I'd rather not know going in. Trailers are supposed to entice you to see the movie not spell the whole damn thing out to you.

Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone

This was a pretty decent documentary about the band Fishbone, which most people will never have the opportunity to see. The set of all people that would *want* to see it is pretty small, too, methinks. None the less, I'm a big Fishbone fan so this movie was pretty interesting to me. It's a bit different than the Youth Brigade movie from last year. That movie spent a lot of time talking about the scene around the band and around Los Angeles at the time. This Fishbone movie is more like a biography of the band from the band's own perspective. Back in the late 80's and early 90's, when I was just a dumb kid, I couldn't have cared less about the inner-workings of the band members but now that I'm older it's nearly as interesting as the music itself. If you even have the slightest idea who Fishbone is then you should seek this one out or perhaps find it online.

I saw this movie as part of the San Francisco Indie Documentary festival (or something like that) and after the show Angelo Moore and Norwood Fisher, the last remaining founding members of the band, showed up for a little Q&A. I think Angelo is certifiably insane but somehow he manages to spit out coherent and thoughtful answers to about half the questions. If I didn't know who Norwood was I'd probably be scared shitless of him if I wandered across him in a dark alley (because I hang out in dark alleys all the time, you know) but the guy is surprising affable and articulate for someone with a self-professed love of weed.

Fishbone was going to play at a local club that I've wanted to go to for some time, DNA Lounge, after the movie. Our price of admission included entry to that show so after downing some pizza, my hetero man-date and I headed over. Fishbone was supposed to go on around 10:30, which is around the time we arrived. DNA Lounge looks smaller on the inside than I imagined. The pictures I see online make the stage look huge. It's not. As we walked in the first shitty opening band was finishing up. After they tore down and left the second 'band' started in. This band (The Loyd Family Players) consisted of around 12 hipsters with drums, cowbells and various percussion instruments, and it was just as awful as you'd imagine it would be. It was novel for about two minutes but then it just became repetitive. I played drums in gradeschool and all, and Josh Friese is one of my favorite musicians, but you can only take so much of a hipster drum circle. The first song wasn't half-bad and had some singing in it. But after they played two more songs and an entire half-hour had passed, then they said they had 'just a few more ...', well, it was time to leave without waiting for Fishbone. It's too bad Fishbone didn't decide that they wanted to be the opening band, like the last time I saw them and they went on first. That was pretty awesome, but this was not. Bummer.

Let Me In

Not bad. Not awesome. I'm going to be one of those hipster movie snobs and say 'the original was better'. However, not that much better. This was a pretty faithful re-make of the Swedish film (yeah, I said film instead of 'movie') "Let the Right One In" from a couple years ago. This Americanized version kept the same story line, same characters, etc. with a few subtle changes that didn't really affect the story.

So what was my problem with it? The score. Yeah, that's not a typo. I was turned off by the background music, or in some cases the foreground music. I forget that (apparently) American audiences really need tension and emotion spelled out for them in movies and this one really went overboard with it. It really annoyed me, even though I had basically already seen this movie and knew what was about to happen. For me it really broke the tension and just made you sit there, expecting something to happen, instead of just letting it come out on the screen in a more organic fashion. (Organic, jeez, now I really sound like an asshole.)

The original had a much more sparse score and any surprise or tension was built by what was happening on the screen. This story really didn't need those types of cues because it's not a conventional horror movie with cheap frights, loud noises and crap flying toward you off the screen. I wouldn't say it ruined the movie for me, it was a technically well-executed and well-acted movie, but that score really did take away one of the things that was so great about the original. It's a shame, too, because the film's composer (Michael Giacchino) has done a lot of good work for a lot of movies I like but some sound editor somewhere had to go and screw it all up.

But if you are averse to reading subtitles, by all means see this movie, it's pretty good. It's certainly different from the other torture-porn and fake B-movie remakes that usually flood theaters around this time of year (October.) (By 'fake B-movie' I mean horror movies that are made to look cheap but still cost $20 million to produce.) If you do plan on seeing this, better make it quick. It tanked at the box office this past (opening) weekend and probably will not hang around for long. It's a shame, on one hand, because it's good and different enough to warrant a better box office take. On the other hand it's not surprising because American audiences don't want something different or unique, they want the same old crap when it comes to horror movies. It's too bad Europe got its fix for this the first time through because it means Let Me In will probably tank over there, too.

The Social Network

I'd been looking forward to hating this movie ever since I heard it was being made. 'The facebook movie' sounds like something I'd like to punch in the face. Then David Fincher got involved, but it was still destined to be a movie about a douchbag that nobody likes (Mark Zuckerberg.) Then, it gets pretty much universal praise from critics. Then it's going to be the free screening at work this past weekend. Then my wife threatens to see it without me, which means that she would have possibly seen one more movie than me this year, and we just can't have that. So, arm twisted and gun to my head, I checked it out.

Okay, it was good. I was really hoping to hold onto some contempt for this thing but it was very difficult. I'm very much down on Facebook and not a fan of Mark Zuckerberg. By all counts he's a mad genius with zero social skills and questionable morals, and I didn't think I wanted to sit through a movie about someone like that, even knowing full well that the story presented may or may not be 100% true.

In any case, turns out that the movie was more about the genesis of an idea, how that idea grew and who may have been screwed in the process. Charges of 'character assassination' against Mark Zuckerberg are greatly exaggerated, as the way he's presented in the movie is exactly as everyone knows him from being in the public eye anyway. The movie did not depict him doing drugs or hanging out with prostitutes, but instead as a guy with a singular vision and drive to create something that he may have kinda-sorta stole the idea for. In some small way it may have made me like him a little bit more.

The movie and (alleged) story about the founding and early development of Facebook also led to a good discussion with my wife about morals as they apply to business, idea ownership and whether or not Zuckerberg is as big a douche as I think he is. She, being a woman, came from a more emotional place and was appalled by his seeming thievery of the idea behind Facebook. Me, being a heartless techno-savvy a-hole, didn't see a lot of problem with what he (allegedly) did. In the absence of a non-disclosure agreement, anything goes. The people suing him for stealing their idea should have known what they were getting into with Zuckerberg. The only thing I can probably fault him for was leading them on as he was working on his own idea. Not cool but depending on your angle that could be viewed as him being a dick or as a cunning business decision.

I'll stop short of saying I have any respect or admiration toward the guy, he's still done plenty of shitty, douchey things but I just don't see how this movie makes him look any worse than what everyone already thinks of him, and in some cases it makes him look better. If anyone should be pissed it's Justin Timberlake.

Speaking of Justin Timberlake, when did he become a good actor? Okay, he became a good actor in Alpha Dog but shit, that dude is so charming in real life it makes me sick.

Anyway, aside from the interesting and compelling story, and the great acting top to bottom, this movie was as well put-together as anything Fincher has ever done. The guy does not waste a single frame of film, a single note of the score or a single line of dialog. It's great to see someone that really knows the craft of moviemaking and can put a product up on the screen that just oozes quality. I noticed that this movie was shot with the RedOne digital camera and is yet another example of the type of picture you can get from digital media. The overall look had the typical yellow-ish Fincher tint but the depth of the picture would never let on that it was shot digitally.

One last thing I want to mention is that after I saw the movie and started reading some stuff about it, I found out that 'the twins', while played by two people in body, were played by the same actor in face. In other words, they digitally replaced the face on one of the actors with the other to more convincingly play identical twins. Holy shit, there was not even a hint of anything weird going on with them. Other movies do this with single shots or quick cuts, to add an actor's face onto a stunt player's body, but these characters were all over the movie, in scene after scene, sitting at the same table, simultaneously arguing with the college dean, etc. Bravo to Fincher and his (sadly, non-ILM) effects crew.

The Town

This was much better than I expected, and I expected it to be halfway-decent. It's hard to look like a good actor opposite Jeremy Renner but Ben Affleck held his own, somehow. He's a pretty good director, too (I didn't see Gone Baby Gone.) There was a gritty realism to this bank heist movie that showed the unglamorous side of a life of crime. It also explored themes of loyalty, home and family in a way I did not expect. Pretty effective and entertaining stuff.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

This was yet another pretty boring movie from this year. I think the main problem is that it was geared toward fairly young kids. If I was 8 I might have gone ape-shit over this movie but as an adult it was a bit of a snoozer, plot-wise. It was very simple and not that deep. The visuals and 3D were very well done, though. However, there was something a little off or creepy about the ows' beaks. I can't quite put my finger on it but perhaps it has something to do with the uncanny valley (look it up.) The owls were rendered very realistic and perhaps having them speak English through their beaks was just too incongruous with the look of the movie. In a real cartoony film, birds and shit can talk however they want and it makes sense and looks okay. This was almost like those commercials for beans where the golden retriever talks. It just looks creepy and weird.

Easy A

I recently saw Emma Stone* in Zombieland and just now realized she was also in Superbad. I thought she was pretty good in Zombieland (which I liked more than I expected I would) and, for some reason, her new vehicle Easy A intrigued me a little bit when I first saw the trailer. Then it got all kinds of good reviews, plus it was being shown at a free screening for work. At that point it was hard to avoid. I was pleasantly surprised that it was even better than my semi-high expectations.

As far as teen comedies go, this one was better written and better acted than anything I've seen in the genre in quite a while. In fact, since I've been an adult I can't even think of a teen comedy I liked better than this one. The odd thing is that there isn't anything that stands out as something spectacularly special about this one.

It's a difficult task to portray High School teens in a somewhat realistic way, and most teen flicks forgo even attempting it in favor of stereotypes and gross-out gags using elaborate plot devices that a 30-year old genius couldn't even come up with. Maybe that's what hooked me, the effortless portrayal of teens that rung fairly true with just a little hint of outrageousness that didn't overwhelm the plot (American Pie comes to mind, which is a movie I really, really hate and represents the polar opposite of Easy A.)

The dialog was snappy without being too contrived. The film owes a great deal to John Huges and straight out states as much. There's a musical number. And now that I think about it, perhaps there were certain High School movie cliches riddled throughout (at least one montage, which was hilarious, a big misunderstanding amongst friends, teens being smarter than the adults, teen Jesus freaks, etc.) but somehow it all came together to make a pretty funny and charming movie.

Another thing I think I liked is that there were actual consequences to the main character's actions, and actual resolution to them at the end. Not everything was tied up in a neat bow but (another cliche coming) people learned lessons and almost everything turned out for the good.

I'd also like to single out (double out?) Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson and their incredibly funny performances. I usually remember Clarkson as Herb Brooks' wife in Miracle and Tucci as that asshole in ER, but they really showed some versatility and brought it big time, comedy wise, here.

* I'd now like to spend a minute railing on something that I hate. I've been reading that since Easy A did pretty well at the box office that Emma Stone is being tagged as the next 'it girl' in Hollywood. This whole concept of an 'it' girl (or guy) is utter bullshit. There is no such thing. The only time people invoke the 'it girl' concept is when someone is just about to become the 'it girl', or someone who was originally tagged as the 'it girl' enters rehab for the 10th time and the Hollywood press laments the waste of that potential. Nobody ever talks about the successful 'it girl' career of anyone, because nobody has ever had one. The concept of the 'it girl' is only used to point out people that might have a great career in the future, or ones that subsequently faltered and became nobodies. When someone mentions 'the next it girl' they never disclose who the current 'it girl' is, because there isn't one. There never is. There never was. I wish writers would quit using that term because it means nothing and is a hacky thing to write.

A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop

Meh. Double meh. Despite being a sort of remake of Blood Simple (which I can't honestly remember much about, but I don't recall disliking it) this one was kind of boring. The first part (comedy segment) came off really bad. Even though this movie was Chinese-made it offered up a host of stereotypes to the point where I half-expected them to go into blackface. It was bad. During the first few minutes of the opening I honestly thought we were watching a movie within a movie, or a play within the movie, but after a while I realized that these were the actual characters. Woah. The second half of the movie was better but still paced too slowly and pretty incongruous with the first half. My wife and I agree that the best thing about it was the setting and the cinematography. The geology around where they filmed, and the filming of it, was of National Geographic quality. It's too bad the rest of the movie was there to distract you from it. Overall it wasn't terrible, just boring, so there's really no reason to bother with it... Did I mention it was boring?

Machete

Meh. Not bad. Not awesome. It started with a good pace then slowed down a bit in the middle. It was more style over substance, but what style! I have a lot of respect for Robert Rodriguez and what he's able to do with a small budget and loads of personal talent (directing, editing, special effects, composing and performing music himself) and I'm glad that people like him exist outside the system. The movie could have been better if it didn't get mired in the slightly convoluted plot and just left Danny Trejo up on the screen murdering people the whole time.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

I did not like this one. Bummer. Everyone else, including my wife, liked it. This is a 'based on a true story', or rather 'based on a real person' biopic kind of thing about a French gangster that operated in the 60's. It's an intriguing story but I was really bothered by the way the movie was edited. There were big gaps in the story where you were supposed to be able to figure out what happened in the intervening days, weeks or months. This was actually easy to do but I thought they left out some important stuff. The guy is supposed to be charismatic and everyone is supposed to love him, but they never show why this is. Case in point. He goes to Spain. He meets a girl on the beach. They have some good times. In the very next scene, back in France, his friends are ribbing him because he's wearing a wedding ring. He knocked her up and so they had to get married (at least this is what he says.) At first his wife is portrayed as adoring and loving him, and he returns the sentiment to her. But they never show why. Why is he so easy to fall in love with? My imagination can fill in some gaps but not something like that. I felt like they skipped over all the important parts of the story that involve building his character, to the point where I had pretty much no sympathy for him. I almost kind of wanted him to get shot and killed because he wasn't a nice person. However, I knew going in that this was the first film in a series of two so his living through the end was predestined. Anyway, they did this funky editing thing throughout the whole movie and I felt it really eliminated any chance I'd care for or about this character. Funny thing is that my wife had the exact opposite reaction and really cared what happened to him. So we're obviously two different people. :) She knew well before the movie was over that I wasn't going to like it, apparently I'm pretty transparent in my tastes. Ha ha.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

This movie will not be for everyone. It is clearly and blatantly aimed directly at people of my generation, those of us that grew up in the 80's. It was very entertaining, humorous, stylish and you will not see a movie like this again for some time, if ever. The main thing to keep in mind is that it is a fantasy. It took me about 15 minutes to get 'into it' but once I stopped asking questions in my head and just went with it, I enjoyed it much more. It tanked at the box office and that's too bad. Hopefully word of mouth will help it pick up some momentum this week, it deserves wider success.

Get Low

Meh. Well acted. The costumes, sets and whatnot were very well done. But the story was boring. I was bored. The pacing was boring. The conflict was boring. The resolution was boring. Boring.

Salt

I went to my first Lucasfilm 'external' screening it Marin this weekend. Each week they rent out a theater and show a current movie and anyone in the company can just show up. It was pretty crowded for 9am on a Saturday. Anyway, Salt wasn't too bad. It was unrealistic and nonstop action/shooting/running but it was pretty well done. If you're in the mood for some mindless entertainment with a shiny surface you could do worse than Salt. One interesting note is that because of the talks that happen at work I occasionally recognize names in the the credits of people that don't work for Lucas. The DP on this movie was Robert Elswit who gave an interesting lecture at work last year about his work on There Will Be Blood. I'd also like to mention that it appeared that there was a lot of 'practical' stunt work in this movie, or else the CG was done so well you couldn't tell. Some of it was truly ridiculous but by and large it looked like a real person jumping between two moving semi-trucks. Well done.

Inception [UPDATE!!!]

Hmmmmm. I may have to see this one again but I didn't really like it the first time through. There wasn't one big thing I didn't like about it, just a bunch of little things. No huge plot flaws but just a couple points about it that I didn't think were very strong. Overall it's worth seeing, it's one of the few movies coming out this year that is not a sequel or based on a comic book. As an original work it's impressive but a few things bugged me. To wit:

1. The sole purpose of Juno's character, at least for the first 30 minutes she was in the movie, was to repeat what Arnie Grape says using slightly different language, presumably so we would 'get it'. This movie was billed as some sort of intellectual mind fuck but taking time out from the dialog to re-explain things insulted my intelligence more than anything. As an example, you know this movie is about entering dreams. The dream-world has to be re-constructed so the dream invaders have an environment to work in. In this context, if someone merely mentioned the word 'architect' you'd know what they meant. Spending even a minute explaining it in two different ways was unnecessary and this was but one example of the dialog that turned me off right away. Give the audience at least a *little* credit.

2. The main catalyst for the story to begin seemed weak. Without going into too much detail, one businessman wanted to implant an idea into his ailing rival's son's head so he wouldn't continue to be a monopoly. Or something. Jack Dawson agrees to the job with very little motivating by his client. The client obviously knew some deep secrets regarding Mr. Dawson and his past but how he knew this was never addressed. Jack never even questioned it, just took this guy at face value and continued on. How did the client know about Jack? Have they met? Do they have mutual friends? Why was Jack so eager to trust him? What if the client was actually the monopolist and the rival's son was the one that was trying to break up *his* company? Nobody seemed to think about that and it seemed like a weak premise to spark the rest of the story.

3. The ending/resolution for Scarecrow's character ... maybe I just didn't get it but it seemed very sitcom-y to me. I won't ruin it here but there was a certain relationship between Scarecrow and his father that was revealed at the end to not be as it was perceived. Perhaps it could/should have been resolved/questioned prior to pops getting sick. That reveal had almost zero impact to me.

In talking to some other people, I'm in a 'huge minority' on this one, which makes me think I should see it again just to be sure. I liked a lot about the movie but the plot could have used some tightening. If they had left out all the exposition and re-explaining of concepts that were easy enough to understand the first time they are explained it could have cut 20 minutes off the run time. Twenty minutes they could have used plotting a stronger set-up.

---

UPDATE!!!

I saw Inception again at work, for free. Academy screening. Yes, awesome. Anyway, the second time through I got a completely different impression of the movie. I liked it. I liked it a lot. My views are now in line with all the critics which is what I wanted. Ha ha.

My theory was that the first time through I knew it was going to be a mind-fuck, so I paid attention to the wrong things, the details that made no difference. It made the roadmap of the plot hard to follow. At the time it didn't seem like it, but after the first viewing I had a hard time coming to my own conclusion about the nature of the story. The second time through I think I was able to pay attention to the right things and the effect was 180 degrees from the way I felt after the first time through. My wife might want to see it again and I'll go ahead and see it for a third time.

I'm also very happy that this movie has done very well at the box office. If this thing failed then Hollywood would never again let anyone make a creative, unapproachable movie like this, and we'd be stuck with nothing but Eddie Murphy in a fat suit, Martin Lawrence in a fat suit, and Tim Allen riding a Harley on the silver screen until we all die.

The rest of this post is full of spoilers, so stop reading if you haven't seen the movie yet. I thought I'd put my thoughts down on virtual paper because I think anyone watching Inception can justifiably come to a different conclusion than I did. I think the point of the story was to allow viewers to come to these different conclusions, perhaps there really is no solution to the riddle at the end. That riddle being 'did the top spin forever, or stop?' The bigger question is whether or not you think Cobb is in a dream state at the end of the movie.

I think that he was in a dream state. This leads to the conclusion that he was in a dream state throughout the whole movie and there really was no reality for him. People tend to not talk about that and just think about him being with his kids, but if you look at the big picture, to believe he was in a dream at the end means that you think he never was *not* in a dream for the whole movie. His whole reality was one level below, down in the first dream state (relative to him.)

Here are some things that clued me in during the second viewing.

This is perhaps the biggest thing that convinced me Cobb was constantly in a dream state. When he was visiting the chemist and insisted in testing the sedative himself, he wakes up in a panic. He ends up in the bathroom and here he sees Mal outside the window. Mal is dead in this reality and we know that Cobb only sees her is a projection. So in the bathroom, he has to be in a dream state (even though they present it as his reality.) He never 'wakes up' to go up another level. Another sign is that he doesn't have time to spin the top. I can't decide whether I think he was in a dream state the whole time and actually did wake up, or if he ended up permanently in a dream state at the chemist's. I think he actually did wake up but since he was in the second level of a dream while under the influence of the sedative, he 'woke up' to his normal, everyday dream state.

Another important scene is when he is recalling the night Mal killed herself. Mal claimed that her reality with Cobb was actually a dream state. That's one of the big questions of the movie. If she was in a dream state then so was Cobb. When he enters the hotel room it has been ransacked, the top is on the floor and Mal is out on the ledge. My theory is that Mal spun the top in the hotel room before Cobb arrived, it did not stop, she went bonkers and trashed the hotel room. Since she now had undeniable proof that she was in a dream state she was going to kill herself so she could wake up. Unfortunately for her she fell into purgatory instead (I think, I might not be remembering that correctly.)

Cobb says he can't architect any more because he can't know the layout of the mazes. If he knows, then Mal knows and can find him easier. Here's where my theories get really wacky but they make sense to me. I believe that Cobb didn't want to architect any dreams because if he made something familiar he might uncover something in his own mind that he didn't want to see. I believe that not only did Cobb first implant an idea in Mal using inception, but he did so on himself, too. His inception/idea was that he was in the real world when he was actually in his first dream state. I believe something happened in the real world that he didn't want to face so he took himself and Mal into a dream state with the inception that they were in reality. He and Mal spent some time in purgatory together and you can't get there from the first level of a dream, you have to be deeper so I think that most of the time they were starting from a 'reality' that was actually one level deep. The inception Cobb gave himself prevented him from becoming conscious and if he were to architect his own dreams he might accidentally uncover his own deception of his own conscious.

Mal and Saito both use the term 'leap of faith' in a very specific way at a very specific time, indicating to me that they are both projections. Since Saito lives in Cobb's 'reality' he's also a projection, which is why they use similar language in a similar way.

Since Cobb is constantly in a dream state, I think the agents from Cobol that are trying to kill him (for failing at his initial job in Saito's mind) are not agents from Cobol at all but are his own defenses of his subconscious. When things get 'too familiar' (remember, only architect new settings, not real ones) the subconscious attacks. I think Cobb architected his own dream so he gets attacked when he returns to familiar places. Morocco is a good example of this. Plus, Saito seems to show up at just the right moment. How did he know where Cobb was? And how did he find him in Morocco?

Furthermore, how did Saito know so much about Cobb's past? And how was he able to fix his problem with just one phonecall? And why did Cobb trust him immediately without question? Because Saito is a projection and he can do whatever Cobb subconcsiously wants him to do.

My last crazy idea is that something happened to Cobb's kids in his reality and that's what he wanted to get away from. Mal was used as a device in the dream world to help him forget, to prevent him from seeing his kids (or the projection of his kids.) The movie is about Cobb's desire to see his kids but not be reminded about what happened to/with them in real life. At some point (and maybe I'll figure it out when I see this for the third time) he was strong enough to either forget or accept what happened and he was finally able to see his kids (or, again, the projection of them) without having to deal with the other baggage. I believe Cobb set up his dreamworld in such a way that he knew he'd eventually forget about the pain, especially if Mal helped him, and at the end he finally reached that point.

So, there. That's what I now think. Maybe after I see it again I'll have a different opinion but this is what I've been thinking about for the past day. It turns out the movie really was a brilliant piece of work top to bottom, it just took me two viewings to get to that conclusion.

Despicable Me

I didn't expect much from this movie, and frankly I might not have seen it if my wife didn't want to go, but I was pleasantly surprised. The film had a lot of the same cliches you see in animated features for kids that are designed to keep adults entertained, but somehow it all worked. Maybe because it was written by a Spanish animator, directed by a French cartoonist and also animated by a French studio, it seemed to have a certain non-American sensibility that you don't see in the dreck churned out over and over again by a certain studio with three initials in the name. There was a lot of well-timed, meaningful slapstick that these days only the French can seem to execute properly. The voice work was pretty good even though it was mostly done by established, non-voiceover actors. Did you ever notice that when you watch a Pixar movie (and no knock on them, I generally like what they do), the characters sound exactly like the actors portraying them? Woody sounds exactly like Tom Hanks. That red car in Cars sounded exactly like Owen Wilson. I could go on about hiring people with no vocal skills for cartoons, but I understand the economics of Hollywood. Somehow in this movie, though, they squeezed a Hungarian-like accent out of Steve Carrel that you'd never guess was him if you hadn't seen the opening credits. I would have guessed Russel Brand's character was voiced by someone 40 years older. What I'm saying is that even though there are big names voicing the characters in this movie, the directors actually got a *performance* out of them and I think that is one thing that made it all work. I saw characters up on the screen, not actors. Who knew Julie Adrews could play an old Hungarian (Jewish?) woman?

Lastly, I have to say the 3D worked in this movie. It had just the right amount of crap flying at your face without going too overboard and there was one particularly well-done set piece that I bet was a blast for the animators to produce. I've seen a good amount of 3D movies the past couple years and this is one of two I can think of off the top of my head where I walked out thinking the extra cost for a ticket was worth it (the other being the too-often-talked-about-on-this-website Coraline.)

The Kids Are All Right

All the buzz around this movie is founded, but it just didn't do it for me. It wasn't my bag. It was a well made, well acted, well directed and well written family-centered drama with comic tinges, but as a 39 year-old man it just wasn't enough. I prefer the more slapsticky, quirky (yes, I used the word 'quirky') movies of this ilk like Little Miss Sunshine and Sunshine Cleaning. Anything with 'Sunshine' in the title, really. Good movie, but I was a bad audience for it.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Yeah, I saw it. What of it? I offered to see this with my wife and she took me up on it. I made her see Winter's Bone in exchange but I would have gone with her anyway. Part of me was curious about it and part of me wanted her to see it in the theater, and she is not wont to go see movies by herself.

Anyway, it wasn't half bad. I haven't seen any of the other movies and I only know what it's about because, MY GOD YOU CAN'T READ AN ONLINE NEWSPAPER WITHOUT SEEING JACOB THIS, BELLA THAT, BLAH BLAH BLAH. Anyway, hard to escape the hype machine.

This movie pretty much spelled the plot out for you, so in the end I didn't miss anything and really didn't need to know any of the backstory. I didn't even have to be bothered that one actress was replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard.

As simple as the plot was, the director kept it moving. I don't know how long the movie was but it didn't seem very long, which is to say there were not too many dead spots. The acting was good, especially from the guy that plays Bella's dad. There wasn't too much brooding, just verbal fighting between the dreamy Jacob and the regal Edward. There were a couple good laughs, too.

The CG was well above average. The werewolves were convincing and had good hair. There were a few small movement herky-jerky problems here and there but overall it looked good. The slower the animals moved the better they looked. Though the climactic fight scene where the wolves thrash some youngling vampire ass was very well done. I'd have liked more blood and violence but they have to cater to the PG-13 crowd.

My only complaint about the technical part of the filming was that there were a lot of scenes that were supposed to take place outdoors but were clearly shot on a stage. Whoever was in charge of lighting should be fired or sent to work at the photo studio at JC Penny. It was laughably bad in a few scenes.

I'll probably go back and watch the first two just to say I saw them, and it will probably be easy for my wife to convince me to go see the remaining movies. After the last two Harry Potter movies come out, what the hell else am I going to watch?

Winter's Bone

This was a magnificent little indie flick that will barely see the light of day, but is certainly a star-maker for the lead actress, Jennifer Lawrence. We'll be seeing a lot more of her in the future. The comparisons of this movie to Frozen River are not without merit but as much as I liked Frozen River, I liked this better. Frozen River seemed more realistic and plausible, but the slight exaggeration of character and plot gave Winter's Bone a tragic dimension that really worked. It's like an American backwoods gothic tragedy. It's been a long time since I saw a movie that so well presented the place and community enveloping the story. It's a tough movie to get through but is worth it if you want to see a true work of art on the screen.

I purposely waited over a week before writing this review because at the time I saw the movie I wasn't sure what to think. I had heard about this movie a couple months ago and have been waiting for it to come out. There was a certain amount of hype about it in the circles I run in (ha ha) and I was thinking that perhaps the hype underwhelmed my expectations of the movie. Or overwhelmed. It was whelmed in some measure, that's for sure. So anyway, after reflecting on it about 10 days later there are certain indelible images, and in particular one character, that still stand out in my memory of the movie. This is the hallmark of a truly effective piece of art and I grow fonder of this movie as time passes. (Lame, but true.)

Speaking of art, I was shocked to learn that this movie was shot on a Red One digital camera. In the wrong hands, digitally shot movies can look like you're watching a giant TV, which is no good in a darkened room. People, Americans in particular, have been conditioned to relate sharp, brightly lit scenes with the immediacy of TV. This just doesn't work in movies. The quality of light, depth of field and harsh coloration subconsciously makes you feel like you are watching someone filming a live scene on a set, rather than being immersed in the story as if you are an anonymous observer of the events as they unfold. The qualities of the picture (not necessarily picture quality) really makes a difference, and sadly, most Hollywood directors get it wrong and end up with terrible movies (see Michael Mann and Dillinger.) I'm happy to report that the director, Debra Granik, did an incredible job with the new technology. Granted, the Ozarks in winter do not lend themselves to lush color or vibrant light, but the softness of the picture and shooting style looked like film to me. Her DP deserves Oscar consideration, in hindsight it was just that good.

Toy Story 3

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at this one. The reviews are for reals, yo. This is certainly in my top five Pixar titles now (Up and Ratatoullie are better.) The story this time involves Andy going off to college and what happens to toys that are no longer played with (they go to the day care center.) I liked the way they cerated peril for the toys in the story and gently introduced new characters, it all seemed to fit. There are a few adult allusions and one actually kinda scary moment that I'm surprised made it through with a G rating. Without giving anything away, I saw a little girl in the lobby with a stuffed toy of one of the new characters and after the movie I was wondering why the hell any little kid would want that stuffed toy, he was really evil in the movie.

Speaking of evil, I will never look at a tortilla the same way again. Goddamn that thing creeped me out. It reminded me of the old comedy sketch or cartoon cliche where a witch casts a spell on someone and it only halfway works, and the character just says 'Kill me. Kiiiillllll meeeee! Stop my suffering!' Anyway, you'll know what I mean if you see the movie.

I'm on the fence about the 3D. It was well done and not intrusive, but it was so unintrusive that I almost thought we shouldn't have bothered. But then I talked to someone at work that saw it both ways this past weekend and she said that the 3D was definitely worth it. So maybe it was just so good that I didn't notice, and maybe that's the way 3D should be.

Animal Kingdom

This was the third and final film we saw from the LA Film Festival (North) and it was almost a great movie. Ever so close, but it had a major flaw holding it back from greatness.

The story centers around an Australian teenager who's mother dies of an OD. He is taken in by his grandmother and indoctrinated into the world of crime his uncles live in. The major flaw of the story is that the second act was paced too slow, almost to the point where they could have cut the whole thing out and the movie would have been no better or worse. The bookends on the film were also paced slowly, but the character development and the way the story unfolded kept me involved and wanting to know what happened next. The lull in the middle was so severe as to really take the wind out of the movie before it picked up again toward the end.

My wife and I agree that the story, and probably the script, was exceptional, but the director (who is also the writer) just couldn't translate it (or perhaps cut it together) properly on-screen. It's a shame, too, as in the hands of a more seasoned directory (or editor) this movie could have been remarkable, but instead it falls into the 'pretty good' category. I see this as the sort of script/story that Clint Eastwood could direct and get an Oscar for, the writing was just that strong.

Cyrus

This was another movie from the LA Film Festival (North.) I think it's actually coming to some theaters this week, but I'd just like to say: DID NOT LIKE!

It wasn't terrible but during the whole middle of the movie I was thinking 'Why am I sitting here watching two incredibly mentally ill people? This isn't funny any more.' Believe it or not, John C. Reilly was the only person in this movie worth watching, and I HATE that guy. So unfunny. Maybe because he was playing the straight man and not hamming it up, I was able to tolerate him and maybe have a little bit of sympathy for his character, but Jonah Hill's terrible acting abilities did a good job of canceling out his performance. The normally reliable Marisa Tomei wasn't very convincing, either. She was way better in The Wrestler last year.

If you are reading this blog, don't see this movie. You will not like it.

Ride the Divide

Over the past couple years my wife and I have been turned on to a series of movies and TV shows that I want to call 'endurance adventureism'. It started with discovering 'Long Way Round', a BBC TV series where Ewan MacGregor and his friend Charlie Borman ride motorcycles around the world. Amazing. Then they followed that up with 'Long Way Down' where they rode from Ireland to the tip of Africa. Then Charlie ventured out on his own to attempt to finish the Dakkar rally. The preparation and mental state of people attempting these feats of endurance are pretty entertaining. Hell, I supported a friend of mine on his attempt at riding his bicycle 508 miles in a weekend through Death Valley, and it was awesome.

So along comes 'Ride the Divide', a documentary about the world's toughest bike race, a mountain bike race along the Continental Divide in North America that starts in Canada and ends at the Mexican border. It's actually less of a race and more of a test of will against yourself and other riders. There is no entry fee, no prizes and only a small team of people that monitor the race. The main rule is that you have to be self sufficient and can only use resources along the route that are available to all the riders: public bike shops, motels, grocery stores, etc. No support vehicles. No friends. No family. Just you and the bike.

It was interesting to meet some of the competitors before the race started and find that some of them really had no clue why they wanted to attempt this ride. Nobody really seemed bent on winning it and the whole experience was really one of camaraderie more than competition. Other riders seemed truly disappointed when someone would drop out of the race.

Another thing that was interesting was some of the people they met along the route. There's a whole world of people out there living in the mountains that you'd never know about and each of them had an interesting story to tell or comment to make.

This movie was made during the 2008 race where only eight people finished. Actually nine, but one was disqualified because of a rules violation. He borrowed a wheel from a friend in New Mexico which broke the 'self sufficiency' rule. They didn't mention this in the movie, though.

The race starts on the first Friday of each June and is actually running right now. The website has a pretty cool GPS tracker where you can see where the riders are in real time, as well as audio feeds of the riders' call-ins. (To help track the riders, they periodically call into an 800 number and leave a voice mail. Some of them are pretty entertaining.)

This movie was entirely entertaining and enjoyable. I doubt it will get a wide release but it is well worth seeking out.

Waiting for Superman

It's Los Angeles Film Festival (North) time again! Where we get to see movies at work that are not released yet, and may never get released. These are usually hit-or-miss but there's usually one gem in the bunch. I think this movie was it.

This is a documentary from Davis Guggenheim, the man who brought us the amazing 'It Might Get Loud' from a year ago. I like this guy's style. This isn't a documentary made in a style we're used to. It's not telling us a story from the past that was culled from all manner of pre-existing media. The point of view of the movie is from inside the story and we get an intimate portrait of a segment of our society that most people (people that don't have kids currently in grade school) never see.

The film is about the state of our educational system in the US, and it really was an eye-opener. I know it's bad but the movie outlines exactly why that is and it's a little bit scary. It may have been overly simplified but the two main problems are 1) the system is geared toward jobs that existed in the 50's and 2) the teacher's union. Honestly, I had never heard of the concept of 'tenure' at the grade school level and it scares me that there are people out there 'teaching' that are nearly impossible to fire, no matter how poorly they do their job. They're more or less locked in for life simply because they were able to fake it for two years to attain tenure. I'm positive that there are some fine teachers out there but the system views them as equals, with no incentive to improve or make a difference. The machine just chews them up and spits them out. Scary.

The latter half of the movie showcases some people that are trying to do something about it and it was rather inspiring. It showed some pretty radical situations where one person really did make a difference in a lot of people's lives.

Anyway, good movie. One of the best I've seen this year so far.

El Secreto de sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes)

This movie won the Oscar in the foreign language category for 2009, which makes me wonder what the rest of the field was like. It must have been pretty weak. This was half of a good movie but it took a ridiculous turn in the middle, as if the director died halfway through and they hired a new one that only had experience in crappy American sit-coms from the 80's. And that new guy re-wrote the entire second half.

The first half was a pretty good crime procedural. The acting, writing and pacing was good and I felt involved and interested in the outcome of the story. It's rare that you can pinpoint the exact scene, the exact moment when a movie goes south but there was a clear signpost in this one. They literally whipped out the plot device of the police interrogator insulting the suspect (e.g. 'This guy couldn't possible have committed this crime because he is not clever enough.') to the point where, out of pride, presumably, he blurts out his guilt. Except with this movie we get some male full-frontal (don't ask.) Aside from the nudity this was straight out of Happy Days or the Brady Bunch. The movie continued along this way with coincidences, zero tension and no cleverness whatsoever, though how hard they tried. The final resolution of the story was stupid in the first place, but they even attempted the old (what I'm going to call) internal verbal flashback montage where the protagonist figures out the antagonists story in his mind and has a big revelation (ala The Sixth Sense) except the flashback quotes made no sense and the payoff was weak. Instead of wanting to see the movie again to pick up on the clues, I was sad that I wasted my time with this thing in the first place.

Critics seem to have liked this movie, too, and it's another case where I wonder what's going on in that business. I find it hard to believe that there was not a better film produced in the world in 2009 that happened to not use English as the primary language.

I do have to give one thumbs up to one particular shot in the movie. It was obviously not a single shot but this sequence was stitched together seamlessly and was pretty amazing. The shot started by hovering over a soccer stadium, swooping down over the action and following it for a moment, the zeroing in on some folks in the stands and following them around the bowels of the stadium during a foot chase. That was one of the best scenes in the movie but it was not near enough to save it.

Robin Hood

Snooooooore. What a snoozefest, which is surprising considering it was directed by Ridley Scott. Actually, it's not the direction that made it bad it was the writing. The story was terrible, had pacing problems, included plot points at the beginning that you assumed were important but were never mentioned again, plus a main plot point hinged on an incredible coincidence that coincided with the fact that Robin Hood forgot what home town he was from. The look of the film was pretty magnificent, though. The cinematography was very good, the color was good, the settings, the costumes, even the special effects. One main quibble is the use of handheld cameras on the ground in some of the battle scenes. I've had enough of that shit since the first Bourne movie. Enough already. The final battle scene started really majestically with sweeping aerial shots and great steadi-cam work, but then degenerated to the same shaky handheld bullshit from earlier in the film.

This film has been in production for over three years, at least that's when I heard about it. The original script was written from a point of view that was sympathetic to the Sheriff of Nottingham, casting Robin Hood as more of a petty criminal. That sounds like a movie I'd like to have seen. Word on the street is that it then morphed into a Fight Club-esque parable where Russel Crowe played both Robin and the Sheriff. That sounds like something I might want to have seen, too. What we ended up with was a weak origin story that largely made no sense where the Sheriff of Nottingham was on-screen for a total of about 30 seconds (not an exaggeration.) WEAK.

Iron man 2: The IMAX Experience

Meh. This sequel was okay but not that good. It seemed too self-aware and there were (by my count) three major plotlines that only marginally intersected. Plus, the 'You complete me!' line/scene they showed in the commercial and trailers was cut. I got the feeling from that scene that Stark and Pepper were romantically involved but this was barely touched on in the movie. I'm guessing they originally had a fourth major plotline and decided to cut it at the last minute. They should have kept cutting.

Best Worst Movie

I was 'lucky' enough to see this one at work last week, with a director Q&A afterward. The movie centers around a phenomenon nobody has heard about except for those of the hipster douche ilk. The alleged story centers around the recent resurgence of 'Troll 2' as 'the worst movie ever made.'

The first third of the movie basically shows hipster douches all around the nation telling the camera 'Wooooooo! Troll 2! Best movie ever!' without the least hint of irony, which is not the norm for hipster douches. We even get to hear from some theater managers talking about how Troll 2 is so good. Except what we don't get is anyone telling us *why* they think it's good. Or why they think it's so bad it's good. Or why they're up at midnight watching a terrible movie. I can understand maybe seeing it once to witness the spectacle, but they talked to people that have seen it dozens of times for no apparent reason, or at least for any reason they could articulate. I think the problem was that they all were seeing it for the same reason hipster douches do anything, because someone said it was ironically cool and they just exist to follow the trends that they themselves make up. After about 20 minutes of this I was ready to walk out, until ...

The Italian director of the movie, Claudio Fragasso, shows up. The entire movie should have been about him. He was awesome. In his head, Troll 2 (which was called 'Goblin' when he was making it, and he still referred to it as 'Goblin') was a great film and nothing bad happened while he was making it. He had such an earnest attitude about it that it was hard not to love the guy. He knew full well that he was in a country where he couldn't speak the language, making a low-budget film with local talent, yet if you were to believe him it was all planned out this way and the movie turned out exactly the way he intended. His IMDB entry lists a litany of similarly low-budget movies. This seems to be his lot in life and he was 100% fine with it, even proud of it. The best parts of the documentary always involved Claudio. He had one particularly hilarious moment when he heckled a panel of Troll 2 actors (why he wasn't up on stage, I don't know) at some showing of Troll 2, calling his actors 'dogs'. Everything that everyone else said went wrong were exactly the reasons Claudio said his movie went right.

The last part of the film focused mostly on George Hardy, the small-town dentist that was cast as the adult male lead in the movie. His story was mostly told vicariously, with him talking to the camera whenever he felt like it, as he traveled around the world going to Troll 2 screenings and conventions where he'd attempt to sign autographs, etc. After a while he developed a contempt for 'these people' (at the horror conventions) and seemed sickened by the other, more serious comic books, movies and posters surrounding him. He obviously craved some level of fame but what he didn't count on is that hipster douches only comprise a small segment of the American population. His visit to the UK was disastrous for reasons that were more than obvious to me: there are no hipster douches in England. The problem with this last third of the movie was, again, that nobody really asked anyone what they were thinking or what was motivating him. This is the kind of 'story' that can't be told simply by observation. There were very few personal interviews in the documentary and I was constantly wishing that the film maker would sit down with George and interview him. George is dull (unlike Claudio) and it was boring following him around without knowing what he wanted to accomplish or what he was hoping for when he got to these various events.

Throughout the entire movie I thought that there actually was a story in there somewhere, but another big problem was that the director (who was the child star of the movie) is a hipster douche himself and doesn't know how to make movies. His affection for Troll 2 was doubly high because of the hipster douche quotient, but also because he starred in it when he was 10 years old. You barely get a whif of this in the movie, except for at the beginning when he tells you who he is. But again, he doesn't give much insight about what it was like to work on the movie when he was a kid. That's the perspective I was really looking for, aside from answering the question 'Why do you like this movie? What does it mean to you?' I was hoping to get more of an inside scoop regarding these movies that exist on the fringe of Hollywood. How do they get made? Who pays for them? Why did Claudio have to come to Utah to make Troll 2? Instead, we get what felt like three different short films stitched together back-to-back, with only the middle one having any substance or character.

In the Q&A following the film I finally realized what the grand overreaching problem with the movie was: bad editing. The director said that they shot over 400 hours of footage for the documentary, over the course of 2-3 years. He then seemed proud of how it was edited, or more specifically *who* edited it. He said that he was at a Troll 2 showing in New York and someone sent him a video they had made of a Troll 2 mashup that made it look like a classic American Epic, like Gone With The Wind. He was so tickled by the irony that he hired the two people that made the parody to edit his documentary. And it really shows. There was just no narrative, no story, no common thread holding the film together.

When I saw this movie last week I didn't dislike it so much, but as time goes on and the days pass I find myself developing a lot of contempt for this thing. If this ever gets released to a wider audience you'll see a bunch of stuff about how it's the darling of the film festival circuit, but you have to ask yourself "Who attends these film festivals?" That's right, hipster douches. If you are a hipster douche or you like things that hipster douches like then perhaps this is the documentary for you, but the rest of us will be much better off seeing something certifiably good, like the below-mentioned "Exit Through the Gift Shop."

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Going into this movie I thought I was going to see some sort of biopic about the prolific, famous but still very underground street artist known as Banksy. It is likely that everyone on Earth with a TV has seen his work in some capacity. If you live in London or Los Angeles it is likely that you've seen his work firsthand. Surprisingly, this documentary did not turn out that way at all and at the end I wasn't the slightest bit disappointed that the true star of the movie was the man behind the camera for the first two acts (weird that I describe a documentary as having acts but there is certainly a twist toward the end that was unexpected.) The film mostly focuses on Thierry Guetta, a Frenchman of dubious sanity who happened to be cousins with famed street artist (Space) Invader. Through that connection he was able to befriend and film this culture of clandestine street artists, including Banksy, first hand for the better part of a decade. When it came to assembling a movie out of the footage, Thierry proved to be a better cameraman than editor. At this point Banksy himself turns the camera on Thierry and the whole movie was turned on its head. Instead of asking what I thought was going to be the original question: "Is street art art or vandalism?" I found myself questioning what art really is and whether or not it can be manufactured.

There is speculation that the whole movie itself is a put-on, some sort of filmic street art, but frankly that doesn't matter. I personally feel like it was too well put together, there were too many characters involved for it to be made up. But even if it was an experiment, a fakery, the same questions remain and somehow the entertainment value would not be diminished. This will certainly be a contender for my favorite film this year. It is worth seeking out.

Hot Tub Time Machine

I was originally going to skip this one, but this puppy has legs so I thought I'd force my wife to see it with me. We were both pleasantly surprised. This movie revolves around, well, a time machine housed in a hot tub. The three main characters find themselves back in 1986 (along with one of their present-day nephews) cavorting around a ski resort as their younger selves. They meet up with ex-girlfriends, a creepy bell hop and the ski patrol. It was like a modern-day Better Off Dead but with time travel. The humor was rather sophomoric and the plot was thin, but I laughed quite a bit.

Kick-Ass

I felt like writing a full review for this one, so that's what I did. Here we go ...

I have once again taken advantage of my employment and attended an early screening of Kick-Ass, the new action/comedy flick based on a comic book written by Mark Millar and illustrated by John Romita, Jr. Millar was also responsible for writing the comic book behind the 2008 Angelina Jolie vehicle Wanted. I had to look all that up on Wikipedia because I'm not a comic book nerd, I'm a movie nerd, and this review will (as always) be coming from that perspective.

Kick-Ass tells the story of Dave Lizewski and his alter ego, Kick-Ass, who was borne of a conversation he has with his two best friends at the comic book store. With the millions of people that have loved comic books throughout their history, why has not one of them attempted to become a real-life superhero?

We soon find out as Lizewski dons a green body suit and mask then sets out to the streets of New York City (which sometimes looks suspiciously like Toronto) to fight crime and otherwise serve those in need. Kick-Ass's fame grows as he shows up on the evening news, YouTube and starts soliciting jobs from people through MySpace (MySpace still exists? Is their entire business model now just product placement in movies?) As he gets more famous he crosses paths with another pair of self-made superheroes who shun the limelight in service to the task at hand: revenge.

Nic Cage plays Big Daddy, the alter ego of Damon Macready. Chloe Moretz plays Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl, his daughter, in a surprising performance littered with wit, charm, poignancy and a physical presence one would not expect of an 11 year old. She is clearly the star of this movie. A precocious child that swears a lot and Nic Cage, either one of those things alone would normally have me avoiding that movie like I avoid vegetables. But somehow, together, they manage to pull out a great, singular performance that really draws you in emotionally. I'm not embarrassed to admit that I almost choked up a little at one particular line Hit Girl says to Big Daddy late in the movie. Or maybe I just had some dust in my eye.

The intersecting and eventual merging paths of these very differently motivated superheroes was well written and fleshed out and kept the pacing of the movie going at a steady clip. Add in Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Chris D'Amico/Red Mist and you have yourself a movie. The masterful balance between comedy and action made it easy to overlook the clichéd mafia stereotypes and side-plot regarding Lizewski and his sexuality, perhaps the only two things I can nitpick about Kick-Ass.

The movie asks some interesting questions about the nature, motivations for and costs of fame. It doesn't necessarily answer any of those questions but exploring them from opposite ends of the spectrum at the same time made for a thoroughly entertaining movie.

What with all the hype around Kick-Ass I was expecting it to be somewhat mediocre but I was pleasantly surprised. I had lowish expectations and was not expecting to be so engaged from start to finish. We were not allowed to bring guests to the movie and I will be more than happy to pay to sit through this one again with my wife when it is released to theaters. This movie deserves to be a hit.

Grade: A

Some additional notes:

Aaron Johnson is British? Really? Damn, great American accent. The acting all around was good. Nic Cage's real-life bat-shit crazy persona translates well to a make-believe bat-shit crazy persona.

The comedy to action balance was weighted toward action way more than I expected. The movie was funny, but it is essentially not a comedy. More of a comic book action thriller.

There is a lot of cartoon violence in the movie, it might not be for everyone. 90% of it comes at the hands of Hit Girl and people of weak constitution might take offense to that.

The action sequences were very well done. Although there were a lot of quick cuts I thought they were very well edited. I hate to sound lame and describe it as 'kenetic', but there was a certain energy to them that translated well from screen to eye. I most appreciated the smooth camera motion and lack of shake (I'm looking at you, Jason Bourne) which provided good flow to the action. The start of the final battle sequence in the movie used a particularly clever device that I've never seen used before, and will probably never be used again lest a director get accused of making a cheap Kick-Ass knockoff. I'll refrain from ruining the surprise here.

Kudos to the people that put together the trailers and commercials, they ruin nothing. There were a couple genuine surprises in the movie that could have easily been revealed by even the smallest clips.

UPDATE:

I saw this one again last week, except this time I paid for it. It seemed more violent and bloody this time, but it was still cartoony, etc. Didn't bother me in the least. I still liked it just about as much as I did the first time I saw it. I can't explain why it's getting such bad reviews, nor why it's doing so poorly at the box office. After the first weekend the commercials all but disappeared from TV.

It makes me wonder what the problem is, why the studio is not pushing it more. There were just enough good reviews to have some choice quotes for the post-release-weekend commercials so I think Kick-Ass should have been able to gain a little momentum.

I also wonder if there was another name, say Tarantino, associated with it if maybe it would have fared better. There was nothing in there that was any worse than anything in Pulp Fiction or the Kill Bills.

Most people that don't like it seem squeamish about Hit Girl, who was the source of most of the entertainment in the movie. A common thread throughout the bad reviews is that Hit Girl had no remorse, and there were no consequences to all the killing she did. To me, it doesn't matter what the age of the killer is in a movie, mindless violence is mindless violence and in a lot of circumstances that can be fun to watch. In fact, I think a lot of reviewers missed the point with Hit Girl. She was *supposed* to be a ruthless killing machine because that's how she was brought up by her father after he got out of jail. She wasn't killing for the sake of killing, she clearly had a goal, an objective and that was a means to that end. I found her character to be rather deliberate and it was clear to me, anyway, why she was like that. Besides, what kind of consequences should a comic-boox pre-pubecent girl murderer get? Should she have died? Gone to juvie? Are people afraid young kids are going to see this and think they can chop people to pieces with no consequences? It is a movie based on a comic book and I personally give even the dumbest kids more credit than that.

And anyway, after Hit Girl (mild spoiler) achieved her objective, it was clear that she intended to leave that life behind as the movie closed. Her skills as an assassin and all around asskicker had served their purpose and she was done with it. I found her character's motivations fit into the story quite well and it made sense to me. I'm almost 40 and I'm not too old to understand it and it makes me wonder what drugs other professional movie critics around my own age are smoking.

Remembering Playland

Remembering Playland is a movie that would only be of interest to a very local population, and especially a local population that lives in the neighborhood I currently reside in. There is a grocery store a couple blocks away that used to be ground zero for Playland at the Beach, a San Francisco amusement park similar to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk or Coney Island which existed from the late 20's until the early 70's. The movie was produced by a guy that worked there in the later years and consisted of many interviews of employees and patrons of the park. I'm always fascinated by the question 'what used to be here?' so the information in this movie was like the mother lode to me. I love seeing old tyme photos and films of areas I've been in that no longer look the way they do. Hard to believe that nearly 40 years ago there was a roller coaster just a couple blocks away from where I live. There were a lot of old people in the audience (dare I say my wife and I were the youngest people there) that would 'ohhh' and 'ahhh' and make comments when certain things were shown on the screen. I felt a great nostalgia for a place I've never been but would have liked to have visited.

Gumby Dharma

This was a short biography on Art Clokey, the creator of Gumby, that originally aired locally on a PBS station. It was actually pretty interesting as Art was a pretty interesting and singularly talented fellow. He died earlier this year and even in the movie, most of which was recorded over five years ago, he seemed a little frail. The mind was still working pretty well and it was interesting to hear the history of Gumby in his own words, as well as in the words of others who had worked with him. There was a short panel discussion after the movie which included people that had worked mostly on the Gumby Movie that came out in 1995. It's probably no coincidence that they all work at Pixar now. If this airs on TV again it's worth a look.

Waking Sleeping Beauty

This was an excellent documentary about the renaissance Disney Animation went through from the mid-80's to the mid-90's, from the perspective of one of the animators (who still works there.) I didn't pay attention to Disney animation (still don't, much) back at the time but it was interesting to learn what they were going through, the creative vacuum they fell into, how they became second-class citizens at Disney, and how they got out of it to produce such classics as Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. Anyone who likes movies and especially Disney animated movies will enjoy this one.

The Art of the Steal

This was a very interesting and engrossing documentary about a priceless art collection that was lorded over by a rich guy just outside of Philadelphia (it's been a week, too lazy to look up his name.) After he dies in 1951 it is revealed that his trust outlines that the art should not be moved, sold or loaned, but used in the same way as before he died, as an educational tool. Every so often someone comes along who has a truly singular vision, and this movie explores what happens when that person dies and nobody else is capable of carrying through on that vision. It sparked an interesting debate between my wife and I about works of art, ownership of culture and the obligation of someone in that position of ownership to society at large. The movie was clearly biased toward one side of the debate and it played much like a propaganda film, but the underlying story was fascinating and spawned a discussion in my head, as well as with my wife, the likes of which I haven't seen in a long time.

Sweetgrass

This is one of those movies that on paper sound completely boring, but it turns out to be an incredibly interesting subject about a dying (now dead) way of life in America. This documentary centers on a sheep drive (like a cattle drive, except with sheep) over three seasons where ranchers drive their sheep to grasslands in Montana for a spring grazing. It's a tradition that has been going for over a century and this movie documents the last (well, last three) drives of the last farm/family to be making the trek. It was a quietly mesmerizing look into the life real American cowboys. The film was basically made from the perspective of an outside, but onsite, observer. No narration. No explanation of what is going on (until the final credits.) Just pure, unadulterated sheep herding. You just have no idea about things until you see something like this. We were fortunate enough to get into a screening where one of the filmmakers was on hand to do a little Q&A after the showing. It was even more interesting and thought-provoking listening to her talk about some of the behind-the-scenes things that didn't make it into the movie. It was also cool to hear her subtly dress down an environmental jackass that asked a semi-hostile question during the Q&A. Cattle are not sheep, assmonkey. Anyway, I digress. This movie, as well as the previously reviewed A Town Called Panic, will certainly provide a couple of the indelible images from movies this year. Sweetgrass is in extremely limited release but it is worth seeking out.

A Town Called Panic

I believe this is the first subtitled, Belgian stop-motion movie I've ever seen. And if they make movies like this over there, I hope it isn't the last. It's difficult to describe why this movie was entertaining. It's basically a cartoon about three toys, Cowboy, Indian and Horse, that live in a house and have a lot of seemingly random ideas. I think one thing I was struck by was the 'slapstickyness' of some of the jokes, and the interesting wordplay. The pacing was frantic so it held my attention for the whole duration, though it did have a bit of a surreal turn to the story in the middle. Which sounds stupid because the whole thing was surreal, but in the context of the characters, it really was an odd twist. Add 'Who wants some waffles?' to the list of phrases that will secretly crack me up every time I hear it. If you're in the mood for something completely different, you should seek this one out. It's a little gem of a movie.

A Single Man

Believe all you heard about Colin Firth's performance in this one, but it's not enough to go out of your way to see it. I found the plot/story to be very superficial, which may be expected from first time director Tom Ford. The look of the movie, the style, the cinematography, etc. was very good and it was pleasant to look at, but there was a severe lack of substance.

The Ghost Writer

I'd see just about anything with Ewan McGregor in it, even Star Wars. Ha ha. Despite being directed by the sleazy Roman Polanski, I agreed to see this movie. It was pretty good. Excellent story. Excellent pacing. Excellent acting. I can't talk too much about it without ruining the resolution at the end but it was very well presented and actually was done in such a way as you were not even tempted to guess what was going on, if that makes sense. The main negative thing I can say about it is that it looks like it was done on the cheap. Funny since the budget was reported to be $40 million, but they didn't spend that dough on special effects. The extensive green-screen was poorly done, the digital effects were of a quality you might see on a weekly SciFi (ahem, SyFy) channel TV show. I wanted to cringe every time they showed the outside of the main set (house) from out a window. Terrible. One of the main plot points pertained to 30 year-old pictures of two of the main characters, and the 'reverse aging' pictures/props of the actors looked like they were done in Photoshop by a fifth grader. Perhaps the budget was mostly eaten up by actor salaries because in the effects industry you generally get what you pay for.

Shutter Island

Meh. This entry from Marty was good, not great. Honestly, the material seemed below him. I think in different hands (the previously attached Fincher or the never-mentioned M.Night) could have made a better run at it. I had a preconceived notion of what the twist was going to be, and it turns out (as my wife can attest) that I was completely right. So for most of the movie I was just trying to pick out the things that would give you a clue, the things you pick up on when you watch the movie a second time. I noticed a few things but of course they didn't make sense until the end. So from that perspective it was interesting but overall this isn't game-changing work along the lines of Casino or Taxi Driver. The acting was typically brilliant and the cinematography and set designs were pretty awesome to look at, but still not really worth going out of your way to see.

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

What an excellent, excellent documentary. The 'Nixon thing' happened around the time I was born so I never really had a handle on it, especially as it pertained to Viet Nam. This was a very eye-opening documentary on Daniel Ellsberg, a man I had never even heard of. He was a government researcher and pro-administration man who slowly turned against the misguided regime and single-handedly exposed the Nixon administration for what it was. Many would argue that he was directly responsible for bringing Nixon down and ending the Viet Nam war, but the path to that end is pretty harrowing and amazing. Great history lesson with plenty of current parallels. Highly, highly recommended

An Education

The year is getting off to a slow start. It's already the 24th of January and we're just now getting to our first movie.

This one was pretty good, but a little simplistic plot-wise. I like Peter Saaaaaarsgaaaaaard and he has a convincing British accent. Alfred Molina was really good. Great acting, directing and especially production design all around. It was difficult to guess Saaaaaaarsgaaaaard's character's angle and when the resolution came it wasn't a surprise or shocking in any way. In any case, a well put-together movie that was fun to look at.

Contents

1 The King's Speech
2 True Grit
3 The Fighter
4 Tron: Legacy
5 Black Swan
6 Love and Other Drugs
7 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
8 Due Date
9 Jackass 3D
10 RED
11 Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone
12 Let Me In
13 The Social Network
14 The Town
15 Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
16 Easy A
17 A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop
18 Machete
19 Mesrine: Killer Instinct
20 Scott Pilgrim vs The World
21 Get Low
22 Salt
23 Inception [UPDATE!!!]
24 Despicable Me
25 The Kids Are All Right
26 The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
27 Winter's Bone
28 Toy Story 3
29 Animal Kingdom
30 Cyrus
31 Ride the Divide
32 Waiting for Superman
33 El Secreto de sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes)
34 Robin Hood
35 Iron man 2: The IMAX Experience
36 Best Worst Movie
37 Exit Through the Gift Shop
38 Hot Tub Time Machine
39 Kick-Ass
40 Remembering Playland
41 Gumby Dharma
42 Waking Sleeping Beauty
43 The Art of the Steal
44 Sweetgrass
45 A Town Called Panic
46 A Single Man
47 The Ghost Writer
48 Shutter Island
49 The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
50 An Education

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