When You're Strange

I truly riveting documentary about The Doors. The film mixes archival footage, Johnny Depp's laidback and simplistic narration and, of course, the band's music. The narration is exception. It's very spare. Almost as if it were the notes the author worked off. Yet it tells the story so well. Details that i had never heard of (and I thought of myself as a failry big fan) came out and were explored. There's a particularly mesmerizing sequence where the band plays "The End" at the Isle of Wight festival. Their performance is intercut with iconic images from the tumultuous years they were popular. The behind the scenes footage of the band is fantastic and the dteail of the storytelling was exceptional. A very simple, but wonderful film.

Land of the Lost

This movie is stupid and nonsensical, but it's some of the best goofing around I've seen Will Ferrell do in a long time. Danny McBride is also funny. Unfortunately, this movie was so hellbent on being a big budget movie that there's all kinds of effects and random images that just kinda leave a clutter. The story is, predictably stupid, but a nice homage to the series. In short, it was a lot more fun than I was expecting.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

This settles it for me. Seth Rogen is not meant to be the lead in a film. He can be a wonderful spice to a funny movie, but not the main dish. He just fell so flat here. Kevin Smith can write some funny lines, but he's so bad at directing. It always feels like people are just reading the words, not believing them. And he's so in love with his dialogue that the scene stagger on for minutes longer than it needs to be. That being said there were some moments here that made me laugh and Elizabeth Banks was really good. It just felt as amateurish as the film within the film.

The Proposal

I can't believe I didn't hate this. It looked so awful. Don't get me wrong, it was bad. But it was... watchable. I do like Ryan Reynolds and how can you not like Sandra Bullock. She's so bubbly! There were a lot of forced comedy sequences that are pretty terrible, but they usually can charm past them. When it isn't shoehorning itself into contrived segments it's okay. The high concept thing doesn't really make sense and once they fall for each other it goes on for waaay too long. Like I said... this is bad. I was just surprised that it didn't completely fall flat.

The 16th Man

An ESPN documentary about the 1995 South African Rugby team which won the World Cup and more importantly inspired a Clint Eastwood film. This is pretty dull and and by the numbers story telling here. There was no human element, I felt. The stuff about the rebirth of South Africa felt really simplistic and didactic. It just never came together.

Broadstreet Bullies

An HBO documentary of the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1970s. I really thought they did a great job of telling the story. As someone who doesn't follow the sport, I found it accessible and really fun. The interviews were all right to the point and the footage was great. It had a kind of sweeping storyline, but it also was very human. I can't wait to see the scripted version.

Transporter 3

Shame on me for trying this franchise yet again. God help me, but I like Jason Statham. For my fanhood he rewards me with six or seven unwatchable action films a year and every five years or so he makes "The Bank Job" or some bearable film. This movie... even by the standards of the "Transporter" franchise... is horrendous. The action is just plain bad. The plot isn't muddled... it just isn't there. But most perplexing is the casting of his love interest. I'll let them get away with casting someone who can't act. But can't act and isn't good looking? Come on. Horrible.

Zombieland

This was fun and silly. The gore wasn't so over the top that it turned me off and the characters were likable enough. A couple of things bother me. 1) Jesse Eisenberg. What must be do to end this scourge? This kid has ZERO charisma, one-note in his acting arsenal and isn't even good looking. I just don't get it. 2) Oh my God that fucking voice-over narration. It was endless, moronic and repetitive. It's a decent flick, but it mostly played like the inflated TV pilot that it is.

Guru of Go / Run Ricky Run

Two more chapters in ESPN's "30 For 30". These are two of the strongest to date. "Guru" is about Paul Westhead. It covers his entire career and I learned a lot about him (didn't know he'd won a WNBA title), but primarily focusses on the LMU team. It's just simply one of the most amazing sports stories EVER. Unfortunately the pace of the film accelerated right at the point in the story where Gather's team made a run in the tourney after his death. It felt like there were some critical details left out and then the WNBA chapter felt like an unrelated coda. But the emotional impact of the story of Gathers and Kimble was resonant.
"Run Ricky Run" is about Ricky Williams fall and return to grace in the NFL. It is a remarkable film, with incredible access to Williams and everything he was going through in that time. It changed my perspective on him and impressed me that he is truly one of the most interesting people in professional sports. A great film.

You Don't Know Jack

HBO's engaging biopic about Jack Kervorkian. It let's the story tell itself without too many bells and whistles. It is an interesting story. Somewhat analagous to "The People Vs. Larry Flynt", but not quite as epic in scope. Kervorkian is an exciting figure and Pacino's performance is (as usual) overly mannered, but subdued enough by his standards that it's engaging. He never quite vanishes into the character however. There's not much more going on than the central character. Still, it's a story I did not know all the details to that worked really great.

Four Christmases

That title is really more of a table of contents. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon each have divorced parents. They have to go to all four on Christmas. Simple. And it mostly works. Vince and Reese are both charming and funny. Not all the gags work, but enough of them do. And the format of the film made it so it was basically four short films. When I got bored of one, I didn't tune out because I knew we'd be moving on soon. It was paced well and there was enough funny. It's not great film, but it was made well and moved along.

Zoolander

I don't know why it took me ten years to see this movie. I like so many people who made it. It's not a comedy "classic", but there are a lot of good laughs. Owen Wilson and Stiller are great together. Will Ferrel is great as a demented fashion designer. Vince Vaughn is weirdly fun in a wordless part. It's goofy and the story is rudimentary and predictable. But the funny stars are given chances to be funny. Stiller's character, however, if a vain, dumb model. There wasn't a way to take that character into new areas as the film wore on. It seems like Wilson's character would have been a more intriguing lead. But it made me laugh.

Silly Little Game

Another one from ESPN's "30 for 30" series. It documents the first ever fantasy baseball league. This film tells the story of a historic sports moment that is, frankly, not all that well documented. The characters who invented the league are colorful and funny. However, the filmmakers elected to stage re-enactments of the pivotal early days of the league. It's off-putting and made the thing feel like old school History Channel. Worse, they conspicously do stylish things like having the re-enactment actors mouth the words of the real person's interview as the audio overlaps. It was just too much cheese and the whole thing felt cheap and underproduced.

W.

It was a struggle to get to the end of the abysmal pile of shit. It's hard to believe that Oliver Stone was once a relevant film maker, let alone arguably the most important director of a decade. This movie fails in so many ways. It starts with the writing. The effort to shoehorn in ever catchphrase and awkward moment and Bush-bashing antecdote into the script was handled so ham-handedly and conspicuously that it was impossible to treat the film as believable. It's like they were winking at the camera the whole time. This film is largely about the build-up to the Iraq war, but it takes detours all over Bush's life. But the shifts in time are completely arbitrary and leave the entire film meandering and muddled. The performances are uniformly awful, but there should be special distinction for Thandie Newton as Condeleeza Rice. It's hard to believe that she was able to commit to such a garish, cartoony performance for the entire run of the movie, but she did. This movie was so bad I think I would have preferred to see Bush in office again.

Where the Wild Things Are

Completing my Spike Jonze marathon. I was always unimpressed by the book that this film is "adapted" from. I put "adapted" in quotes because it has so much more going on than the book... yet so much less. Like the book the visuals are striking, perhaps even haunting. But... like the book... the story is simplistic and well... trite. The boy who plays Max did a really strong job and the "Wild Thing" suits are excellent. The color palate is a bit one note throughout, but it is always beautiful. But the film is dull... 94 minutes seemed to drag... and the plot seems pretentiously heavy-handed. I think this probably could have worked as a short film. There's a lot here that's interesting, but being in this fantasy world for so long wore me out.

I'm Here

This one also may not "count", but...

An internet short for around 45 minutes that was directed by Spike Jonze. It's a story about a world where robots live and work among us as virtual slaves to humans. Yet somehow a romance blooms between an uptight male robot and a quirky female who is determined to let the world know she's "here." It's visually interesting because the robots have a funky, found-art feeling to them. The voice performances are casual and engaging. The meeting and intitial flirtation is a lot of fun and although the "message" about minorities, etc. is heavy-handed, it was still an interesting exercise in perspective shifting. The second half of the movie devolves into a demented version of Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree." That got a little repetitive and the ending left me unmoved. Still, it's an interesting exercise and I thought it was inventive in the way Jonze literally brings the robots to "life."

No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson

This is probably pushing it to describe this as a film, but it's 90 minutes on TV. So I'll count it. Steve James, who famously directed "Hoop Dreams" - one of the best sports documentaries in history - tells the tale of Allen Iverson's notorious upbringing in Hampton, VA which, coincidentially, is also James's hometown. While a prep phenom, Iverson was involved in a riot in a bowling alley. The racial overtones to the fight divided an already racially tense community and Iverson eventually went to prison for nearly a year before having his sentence commuted by Virginia's first black governor. It's an interesting story and while it's told in more detail than I've ever heard before, this movie misses by a long shot. James was unable to speak to Iverson or any of the principal characters of this narrative. He returns to his hometown and although this is the biggest thing to have happened there in this lifetime, no one will talk to him. Except for his own mother. He gets some accounts which give a perspective of the community, but the heart of the story is completely unexplored. Frankly, I don't know why this film even got made without access to Iverson. Also, James failed to really give much of a bio for Iverson after high school. It seems like an interesting story that remains untold.

2012

Roland Emmerich made "Independence Day" and is a disaster movie auteur, so you would think he would have seen in the middle of this one the essential problem. What makes disaster movies work is some kind of flaw in humanity that nature or some outside force is correcting. Here, however, it's just the Earth is going ot blow up. So if they story isn't going to work, the visuals had to be spectacular. Unfortunatley, I think the filmmakers over-reached their budget. You can see that the visuals were SUPPOSED to be spectacular, but they just don't get there. They look low-rent and not finished. Like a first draft of digital effects. There's also an overdose of exposition via news reports, always a warning sign that you're watching a sloppily made film. I had hoped to see John Cusak infuse this with a little charm or wit, but he's really hamstrung by an unlikeable character with no discernible arc. There were few moments where he had scenes with Woodey Harrelson (in an inspired, if inspid cameo) that were fun to watch. But they were crushed under the weight of the uninteresting exposition.

Angels & Demons

I'll say this. The significantly improved upon "The DaVinci Code." Hanks' hair is almost contained and more importantly there's a lot less talking about arcane historical trivia. There's less, but that's not to say there's not still too much. It's a LOT of talking. And people explaining things to people who already seem to know the things being explained to them. So it's just for our benefit that we understand the historical context of the boring and predictable plot. Like the book, the third act "twist" which reveals Ewan McGregor's villany is first seen from miles. There's virtually no coherence to the story as motivations shift arbitrarily merely to get us to the next "shocking" "reveal." It's preposterously bad and the acting is specifically terrible. Not a shock given the stilted, expository dialogue. Yes, it's better than the "DaVinci Code." But that's an awfully low bar.

Inglorious Basterds

Goddamn it's nice to see Tarantino back in form. This movie was a helluva a lot of fun. It's also good to see a performance that received so much hype before I saw it, but still impressed me. Christoph Waltz probably should be billed as the lead. He dominates the film. Brad Pitt is having a lot of fun here too. The story is more of a piecemeal of scenes that have been expanded in key moments of the story. Much of the action of the story takes place off screen or is simply presumed to have happened. There are a number of scene of incredible intensity and tension. The climax was particularly vivid and exciting. My only qualm is that while there are some great performances (Pitt, Waltz, Til Schweiger) there are some real clunkers in here too. Particularly the women. But this is such a fun ride that's hardly an issue.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Completing my recent disappointing films of Ewan McGregor festival. This is about the Army's allegedly true adventures with New Age mysticism and telekinetic powers. More accurately it's about a talky reporter, McGregor, covering the history of the group as he joins one of it's veterans, George Clooney, on a nebulous "mission" in the opening days of the current Iraq war. McGregor's narration is pervasive, banal and oppressive. It dominates the film, leaving little room for the story to unfold without it being literally explained to us. His journey and even the connection to the present day story seemed unimportant to the film. Any magic in this picture is contained in the flashbacks to the origins of this program. Those scenes are George Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey using their considerable talent to overcome this over-written mess. The humor is off throughout, but in those moments it shines through. As a midwester aw-shucks kid, McGregor seems completley miscast. He's too old, too handsome and too British. His accent doesn't really hold water. It seemed like the only reason he was cast was because of the films many references to the "Jedi" (the program's own name for it's soldiers). I thought the first of these winks to the camera was a little funny, but repeated exposure beat that out of me. The final act finds Spacey running a 2.0 version of the program with a braindead Daniels and washed out Clooney crashing the party. This is where the film suddenly dives into issues like Guantanmo type torture and American renditioning. It's an abrupt turn from the earlier attempted lightness of the movie. It's an interesting premised, gone horribly awry. I did think Spacey, Clooney and Daniels were all fun to watch, however.

The Ghost Writer

A purported "thriller" about Ewan McGregor who is tasked as the ghost writer on former British Prime Minister Pierce Brosnan's memoirs. He takes over the job for a man who was mysteriously killed. As he starts the job a controversy envelops Brosnan's character as he is accused of okaying the abduction of British citizens for CIA renditions. McGregor gets involved with Brosnan's wife and starts to wonder if is simple job is more complicated that it seems. The ultimate "conspiracy" is that Brosnan's wife is actually a CIA mole. It takes the movie about an hour and a half to suggest that maybe the British PM was a CIA mole, which is too long to get there. Until that point it's a lot of "mystery" but nothing we really understand. And when the reveal comes that the wife is the actual CIA connection I was left wondring, "So what?" Brosnan and Tom Wilkinson are both good, but not in major roles. McGregor seems like a cypher throughout. And there were simply no tense scenes. Information is repeated three, even four times. McGregor characters is never named and it's painfully obvious that they thought this was a clever idea. I will say that the final shot of the film was masterfully done. McGregor walks off screen with the manuscript in his hand and is run over by a car - offscreen. The pages of the manuscript float down the road as the bystanders react to the accident. Other than that it was a bleak, slow, dull movie.

Millions

A sweet little fable that comes out of the gate really strong, but kinda unravels trying to keep the sense of wonder alive. It's about a young boy who finds a bag of stolen money. He and his brother struggle with the sudden wealth. Their mother is dead and the young brother has visions of saints, urging him to give the money away in a saintly manner. Danny Boyle's electric style really keeps the story moving. But as the movie goes along there are just too many complications. The father gets into a relationship. The robber comes for the money. The pound is being discontinued for the Euro. And the movie bounces between this kind of fable and a disjointed thriller. I found the ending to be too much and frankly a little confusing. Still, overall it was fun to watch and really slickly produced.

The Informant!

This is a odd and interesting movie. It probably works best as a comedy, but the tone reminded me a lot of "Fargo." Dark comedy where you laugh at the characters, but never so much that you disconnect from the story. Matt Damon is an Archer Daniels Midland executive who turns into an FBI informant, blowing the whistle about a global price-fixing scheme. His moments as a bumbling secret agent are definitely the best part of the film. Scott Bakula is a great straight man foil to his increasing idiosyncratic actions. Eventually, however, the film shifts. We find out that Damon's character has been embezzling from the company. And the depths of his deception slowly unravel everything he's done and eventually take him down. This part of the movie wasn't as compelling to me, in part because it didn't seem to have the same drive as the first act. But it's where Damon's performance really turns into something that's less comic and more intense. And his relationship with Bakula also becomes a lot more intriguing. But there were a number of scenes in the row where we just saw him continuing to lie and while it may have been true to the real story, it felt repetitive here.

Kurt Cobain: About a Son

A muddled disaster of a documentary that could have been quite interesting. The film utilized apparently hours of recorded conversations with Kurt and someone writing a book about him (the film never explains who it is and I don't care enough to look it up). It's shocking and refreshing to hear his voice again after all these years, especially not singing. And although the conversations are wide ranging and intimate, there is little here that is really new or interesting. That might, in part, point to the conclusion that maybe Cobain wasn't that interesting. He seems self-absorbed and pretentious here. This technique could have worked, however, if the materials were given to the right direction. It made me think of "This is Elvis' which the King narrated from beyond the grave. That film mixed the audio with footage of Elvis. But here, the director chooses to show us hours of b-roll footage of what could be a really bad tourism video for the Pacific Northwest. Occaisionally the images have some relation to what Kurt is talking about, but often they don't. More irritating is that Kurt's voice over often goes away for long musical interludes... but none of it is Nirvana music. It's a slow, unengaging film about a very interesting subject. Boo.

Alice in Wonderland

This was definitely worth the extra for the IMAX 3D experience. There is a lot of eye-candy here, and it's all done really well. Unlike "Avatar" where it felt like I was just supposed to suck my thumb and look at pretty pictures, in this film all the special effects create a world that make the story work. Johnny Depp is having a lot of fun chewing scenery here and Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway are both really good. I don't know the "Alice" story well enough to understand how they bastardized it, but I thought this story worked. I think the film works in 2D as well.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Cyrstal Skull

What a depressing movie. Such a great franchise allowed to become a dull, limp, pretentious snooze-fest. Harrison Ford looks like he's sleep walking and I don't know who decided they should model the action after "The Da Vinci Code" instead of... Oh... I don't know... maybe... "Raiders of the Lost Fucking Ark"! That was a terrible choise. Indy is now a brainy know-it-all. Shia LeBeuf is an unwelcome intruder, but how they allowed him to be named "Mutt" is beyond me. Even the action scenes, which are few and far between, felt lame and uninspired. Lots of fistfights, mostly. There's one extended car chase that is probably the main set piece, but it looks like it was shot entirely in front of a green screen. And the story, such as it is, doesn't hold a drop of water. This is just a gigantic disaster.

The Boondock Saints

This movie has always been kind of a specter. Something I've heard so much about, but never actually seen. It's almost an afterthought to "Overnight", a great about the douchebag director. The film itself is a total amateur hour. The leads are just not strong enough to carry a movie. There are a number of smaller parts that are clearly part of Troy Duffy's posse. They are uniformly bad performances. And the only real actor in the film, Willem Dafoe, is allowed to unravel before the cameras. Duffy seems to have no way to help actors through scenes. There are numerous faux-Tarantino scenes that are just painful to see. The story is also confusing and convulted. After a prologue that's probably 40 minutes long, it becomes a story about two brothers who accidentially stumble into the role of vigilante kilers of the Russian mob. They aren't really motivated to do this, but they jump in. There are some nicely orchestrated pieces of violence and mayhem (although in those moments the music was notably bad). But they aren't so specatular that they make up for the rest of the dreck.

Observe and Report

This is a hateful, horrible, ugly, unfunny movie. Seth Rogen is stupendously bad as a one note charicature or a bi-polar misfit. It's stunning that this is a movie that could be compared quite unfavorably to "Paul Blart". Rogen is also a mall security guard and he also dreams of becoming a police officer. But instead of being held off the force because of his weight, Rogen is a violent mental health problem. There's a "gag" where he date rapes a girl. There are multiple fights with graphic violence. And there's an extensive foot chase involving a nude man. It's not funny for even a second. The director seems to be going for a Wes Anderson/Farrelly Bros. mash-up, but he's unable to pull off Anderson's style of the Farrelly's tone. It's one of those movies that actually makes you angry that it got made.

Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore's latest diatribe... errr, film. It's about the economic meltdown, although it veers into a lot of strange diversions. It's synopsis tells us that democracy is better than capitalism, but after two hours I still was confused by what he thought the difference was. The saddest thing for me, is that this is a once vibrant filmmaker who now seems content to simply stitch together a few thematically linked newsstories and present them like a warmed-over "60 Minutes". The style and flair that was evident in "Bowling for Columbine" and "Farenheit 9/11" is gone. The energy is missing in this film, as it was in "Sicko." I can't say this wasn't interesting material, but it was presently so flatly it left me feeling empty.

Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. the New York Knicks

A documentary about the rivalry between the New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers in the mid-90's. All I can say is John Starks and Reggie Miller is no Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. I couldn't help but compare it to that film, which had so much going on. This is a well made film, but it's about such a low-rent rivalry. Sure there was intensity, but as a fan of that era of the NBA it's remarkable how much they strayed away from what was really going on in the game. Only in the middle do they hint at the fact that for two seasons it was a window for someone other than Jordan (who had retired) to win a championship. But then it treats the Easter Conference Finals as if that were the championship. The last third of the movie is almost entirely made up of game recaps of the two remarkable playoff series the teams had in '94 and '95. There's some interesting moments there, but every great moment is telegraphed by fourteen talking heads. The filmmakers even make a gimmick out of the fact that all the talking heads use the same words to describe the action. Like that makes it more interesting? No that makes it a cliche. This was a missed opportunity to talk about a really interesting moment in the NBA's history.

The Brothers Warner

A documentary about the actual Warner Bros. who founded the studio. The film is directed by the granddaughter of Harry Warner who is painted as the "soul" of the studio. The one who injected morality into the films they produced. The first half is a largely congratulatory dissertation of the formation and rise of the studio. There are interesting tidbits of trivia, but it's not all that gripping of a story. And the slant of the film is so obvious. The latter part of the movie talks about the schism between Harry and the other brothers and Jack, who ultimately took over the studio. The underhanded way that he bought the place from out for under them is an incredible story of greed and narcissim, even by Hollywood standards. And their grudge which followed them even until death is an epic tale. But while this is very interesting it comes too late in the movie and well after the director has shown her obvious bias towards her grandfather as the "white knight" of the studio. But it did have some interesting historical pieces.

Crazy Love

A very spare documentary about one of the strangest love stories of all time. A man falls in love with a girl in the sixties. Only catch... he's already married. And he lies to her about it, then lies to her about getting a divorce. Then when she dumps him for good, he hires goons who pour acid on her face - blinding her. He goes to prison (and is involved in the Attica uprising) and eventually gets out of jail and... MARRIES HER. And a few years into that marriage he's dragged back into court for allegedly threatening a woman he's having an affair with. But she stands by him. It's very rudimentary filmmaking. A few old pictures and lots of talking heads. But the characters are fascinating. It's probably forty minutes into the movie before the acid attack is brought up. Up until then it's a standard, albeit weird relationship, but even that part of the film is engaging. I was completely absorbed by this movie. A remarkable story told with great craftsmanship.

Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals

I'm not sure this technically counts as a film. It's a 90 minute documentary on television. But I wanted to see it and Liev Schreiber narrates it. Oh, that's right... Liev Schreiber narrates EVERY documentary. It's an interesting picture. Magic and Larry both seem to open up about the dynamic of their relationship. Truth be told, I didn't realize how complex it was on a personal level. That stuff was really interesting. There are several moments where the film delves into the actual games they played. Particularly gripping was a sequence about the first time they met in the Finals of the NBA. However, more often than not I found that they would start talking about something like that, which was interesting, to repeat so generic statement about their relationship. They also glossed over the Red Auerbach/Larry Bird rule section, which I think is a big part of the story. And while they referenced the Black & White part of the rivalry, that also felt like they didn't go as deep as they could have. Still, these are minor grumbles about a comprehensive and compelling documentary. Sequences about their meeting in the NCAA Final and Magic's announcement of testing HIV Positive were, for example, extremely well-done.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

This feels like a movie that started as a soundtrack and built out from there. Michael Cera and Kat Dennings are both really charming actors and they have chemistry here, but the script fell flat. It seemed like there as an arbitrary decision to make this a "Into the Night" type movie that took place in one night. And because of that they felt like they had to spread the "story" out. There are a number of flip-flops where they go from liking one another to not liking one another. It's a cute movie when they're flirting. When they're fighting it's awkward and slow. And the tertiary characters had nothing to do. Boring.

The Damned United

Michael Sheen is the most underrated actor working today. He is so damn good. And I think Peter Morgan is brilliant. This is a movie about fucking soccer. Soccer? Yeah, but it was riveting. Well, not riveting, but damn good. Sheen plays Brian Claugh, apparently one of the greatest managers in the history of English Club Football. The story criss-crosses time between two periods. The main storyline is about when he took over Leeds United, his main rival. It was an ill fit that lasted only 44 days. But that story is intercut with flashbacks to his rise from Division 2 to the national champs. There's an awesome scene where he has to apologize to his best friend and partner. There are a lot of great scenes. There are some plot moves that were underwritten, I thought. But perhaps they're just storylines that are more familiar to fans of the sport. It was a really fun watch.

Shutter Island

Jacob's Ladder with too big of a budget. There were some nice performances and I think the look of the film was really slick. But the story and the experience of watching the movie was painful. It's a movie that hangs on a "surprise", but it telegraphs the surprise over and OVER and OVER again. And once the surprise comes around it explains it OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

Law Abiding Citizen

This is a solid thriller that fizzled out of control in the final act. Gerard Butler is a grieving husband and father seeking vengenance on the killers who slaughtered his family and the flawed system that let one of them go free. The focus of his vengenance and the glaring weak link in the film is Jamie Foxx who was particularly awful in this one... even by his standards. Butler's character manages to carry on his vendetta even from solitary confinement in prison. There are huge gaps in logic about why Jamie Foxx had so much interaction with Butler after he confesses to multiple murders, but I was along for the ride. At a certain point, however, the revenge plot gets even bigger than the thin connection to credibility this film has could support. Butler was very good playing a complex character. F. Gary Gray builds some exciting set pieces and manages to find some tension in Butler & Foxx's face offs even thought Foxx was too smug and smooth to really work.

Gamer

I turned this one off. I think I was about an hour and ten into it... so not much left to do. It is a disaster from start to finish. The direction is non-existent and the horrendous editing makes the cheesey production values even worse. The story is best told in the trailer (which is what suckered me into checking this out). Once the characters start talking about it (and they do talk, there's at least twenty minutes of exposition before this movie starts in earnest) it just falls apart. A hateful waste of time.

A Single Man

I walked into this one (yes, I actually saw it in a theater) expecting to be underwhelmed. Instead it really knocked me out. Colin Firth is getting all of the attention for this film. He gives an extraordinary performance of a character at the end of his rope, but managing to remain charming and fun instead of brooding and dark. I really think the movie is getting shortchanged, however. This is quite simply a beautiful movie. I mean in the physical sense. Tom Ford's eye for images is startling. It was as if every frame of this movie was intended for a coffee table book. But it never felt staged or forced or limiting. The space was still there for the actors to give tremendous performances (Julianne Moore was good, although it felt like she was doing a Madonna impression more than a British accent). I think the lighting was some of the most impressive I've ever seen on film. Every set, every costume, ever detail was perfect, but not enough to distract from the story. And the story itself is simple and not all that appealing. But it's told with such intimacy and power that I found it hypnotic. This is a fantastic movie.

Streets of Fire

This is the first time that I re-watched a film that I'd already seen. But I saw this film when it first came out in 1984 and didn't remember much more than the soundtrack. I saw it in the theater because it was the second film ever given a PG-13 rating and at the time I was committed to seeing every PG-13 film that ever came out. This movie convinced me to give up that dream. It's a terrible movie. Just awful. All the characters talk in sarcastic, condescending scowls. Only Rick Moranis comes close to making that attitude feel real. I think Willem Dafoe and Diane Lane should be reminded that they made this film at every opportunity. There is a lot of awfulness to go around, but the thing that really stood out is how bad the clothes were. From Diane Lane's space hooker get up, to Willem Dafoe walking around in vinyl waders to Michael Pare in corduroys and suspenders like he's a grown up Spanky from "The Little Rascals." It's worth pointing out that Michael Pare is the worst actor ever to be cast in the lead in a major studio feature film.

Moon

I really liked this one. Sam Rockwell plays a man on a three year contract to mine on the dark side of the moon all by himself. The beginning was slow and played like a light comic version of "The Shining", but as the story unfolded I realized all of the boredom was there to set up later developments. So he gets injured and then he gets rescued by the robot running the place (Kevin Spacey doing a creepy, but more humanistic HAL). But it turns out this is not the first Sam. This is a clone. And he rescues the original Sam. But each one thinks the other is Sam. Eventually it dawns on them that it is more likely that they are both clones. They are genetically designed to live for a three year contract and then they are euthanized. They have synthetic memories about a woman who is long dead that they believe is their wife. And they are driven by the belief that they are going home one day. Rockwell is simply magnificent in the dual role. The film explores a lot of interesting themes - what is self, how do we deal with the inevitability of death, what are memories, what does it mean to go home. And a lot of this is done in subtle, very nuanced scenes where what is really going on isn't discussed, but the pace of the film leaves time to ponder these concepts. I also thought it was masterfully done to have Rockwell in a dual role without it ever feeling "Patty Duke"-esque. It's a spartan production that really packs a wallop. My only quibble is that it felt as if the evil corporation had gone to a lot of work to set up this cloning thing, but it wasn't entirely clear what they needed a human out there for at all. But once I let that go, I thought it was a great film.

Temple Grandin

An interesting bio film on HBO. TG is an autistic woman who has helped to redesign slaughter yards for the cattle industry because of her unique empathy of cows. Claire Danes's performance reminded me a little bit of Jodie Foster's "Nell". It was mannered and hammy. Julia Ormand on the other hand was really fucking good. It's not a terribly interesting story, but I found it really entertaining. That's particularly impressive given the fact that the lead actress was annoying the fuck out of me in every scene. The finale was beyond overwrought, but up until that point I thought it was a well-executed film about a simple story.

Sugar

A film about a young Dominican Republic ball player that gets a chance to come to the States and play in the minor leagues. I really liked this film. The acting was amateurish, but it gave the film I kind of documentary feel. I thought the direction was excellent. They took great pains to make the baseball feel realistic, while at the same time transmitting the emotion the character was experiencing on the field. This is as much about the immigrant experience as it is about baseball. He eventually leaves the team and goes to New York to find work. It's a bleak, yet somehow uplifting film. I thought it was stylistically very interesting and although the pace was slow, it had a nice rhythm.

The Outrage

This 1964 movie is a "remake" of Roshomon. They call it a remake, but the onscreen credit saying that it is based on the film is so tiny it's almost illegible. They transplanted the story to the American west. The film is notable for two reasons. Number one is that Paul Newman plays a Mexican bandito. Complete with brown face and Speedy Gonzales accent. It's distracting at first, but once I got used to it, I found it to be a (not suprisingly) tremendous performance. Because of the literary conceit, he played the same scene four different ways. Each time more compelling. The second reason it's noteworthy is that William Shatner is in it. Shatner - Newman. Do I have to say anything else? They share very little screen time and never really interact with one another. It's a surprisingly understated performance from Kirk. I struggled to grasp the original, so I suppose this is a perfect version for me. It's dumbed down and because the cultural symbolism is easier for me to reference I was able to follow it a lot better. One annoying aspect is that the director seemed to feel it was necessary to match Kurosawa's visual flair. So there's a lot of "dutch" angles and "signficant" transition shots. Much of that was just distracting and some of the moving camera shots during the fight scenes were actually in the way of the story. Overall, however, it's worth seeing for the acting and the use of the Roshomon techinique

12 Rounds

Don't get me wrong, this is a dumb, dumb, dumb action movie. Complete with terrible performances and an director trying waaaay too hard to make it look like a lot of money was spent on this film. That being said, it kinda works. Aidan Gillen is a decent sneering kind of villan. John Cena is a block of wood, but he can run and fight well on camera. The story is thin at best, but it does a good job of moving from action sequence to action sequence. There are sections where it is painfully obvious that corners were cut in the comission of this picture. But that adds a campy element that made kinda fun. Again, this is a dumb movie, but it played the shitty hand it was dealt extremely well.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days

A film about a college student helping her friend get and abortion in communist Romania where it is very, very illegal. This is one of the most harrowing, nausea-inducing, gut-wrenching films I've ever seen. The director is very spare, letting the camera sit unmolested for long periods. The acting isn't stellar, but highly effective, particularly the lead. I basically want to throw up and take a Silkwood shower now.

Bottle Shock

An enjoyable, if not memorable film about the events leading up to a historic blind taste competition between French and Californian wines. Alan Rickman is stupendous as Brit living in Paris who organizes the event as a way to drum up business for his fading wine emporium. Most of the action takes place in Napa where an eccentric mix of societal drop-outs have taken to becoming vintners. Bill Pullman is also very good as the head of the main vineyard. The parts of the film about wine and winemaking were pretty interesting and I enjoyed nearly everything that Rickman and Pullman did in the movie. Most of the screentime, however, goes to Chris Pine. In a bad wig and playing an uninspired post-hippie loser. The arc for his character is LITERALLY trying to not be a loser. There is a perfunctory love triangle story with him and Freddy Rodriguez that seems to go nowhere. It just seems like stuff they threw in because the wine part wasn't long enough.

Twilight

I felt like I need to see what the hoopla is about. This is a preposterously boring film. If you didn't know it was about vampires when you walked into the movie, you'd punch a hole in the screen by about thirty minutes in. It's just so faux-angsty. But as ridiculous as the story is, I actually really like Kristen Steward and Robert Pattison. I thought they were just models who looked right for the part. They have some chops. I also thought Catherine Hardwicke did a really nice job directing. It's a serious step up for her from "Thirteen". Worth watching, but I'm not going to line up for the sequels.

The Fountainhead

Wow. What an astouding film. Directed by King Vidor and written by Ayn Rand (from her book). Gary Cooper is amazing. Patricia Neal is stunning. The cinematography is brilliant. Vidor also uses his limited resources for visual effects in a creative manner that suggests the breadth of great archtectural achievements the story speaks of. The story is of an architect who is driven by his zeal to stand out as an idealist. The battle of whether architecture should exist for a common good or as an inspired art form is a way to bracket a bigger conversation of whether or not human beings exist to be individuals or if self-sacrifice is the only way to contribute to a society. The screenplay does suffer from a lot of "speeches" and incredibly pretentious dialogue, but I loved it.

Rio Grande

I don't get John Wayne movies. Or rather, why people still watch them. He's a wooden, physically awkward actor. The characters he played were uninteresting. The films are slow and boring. I mean there was interesting filmmaking being done in this era, but none of it on display today.

Adventureland

I had heard good things about this comedy, but I was disappointed. Jesse Eisenberg stars as a college kid with a summer between college and grad school. He's a virgin, because that's apparently mandatory for the lead in coming of age movies to be a virgin. He starts seeming Kristen Stewart who is secretly fucking Ryan Reynolds who is married. Their relationship hits a few snags, but ultimately they wind up having sex. I give it points for feeling authentic. It captured the particular hell of having a really shitty summer job. It was so short on laughs, however. And the story isn't strong enough to just carry it as a compelling character piece. I think Stewart is a really interesting actress and Matt Bush from "Party Down" and Matt Bush were really good too. I liked Bill Hader and Kirsten Wiig, but they are barely in this. I suppose I'm bitter because they were the main reason I wanted to check this out. I do not really understand how Jesse Eisenberg continues to work so much. He's not a strong actor, he's goofy looking and he's got a lot of ticks that are annoying on camera.

Sunshine Cleaning

This movie stars Amy Adams and Emily Blunt as sisters who stumble into job cleaning up after crime scenes. This is a not so subtle reminder to the two of them of when they were young children and discovered their mother after a suicide. The overall millieu of the film is very depressing. Money is tight. Adams is in a relationship with a married man who was once her high school sweetheart. Her son has behavior problems and gets bounced out of school. Blunt is detached and irresponsible. She strikes up a pseudo-lesbian relationship with the daughter of a woman who's home they clean after she's disovered dead. There are a lot of dark strands of story-like materials, but no connecting tissues or themes beyond "life's a bitch." This is an indie chick flick with lots of people talking about feelings and revealing deep secrets. It's not my cup of tea, but the acting is pretty stellar. I'm a fan of Blunt and Adams and they are great here. Truly believable sisters. Adam Arkin appears in essentially the same part as "Little Miss Sunshine" and is fine. This is not insufferable, but it doesn't hold together.

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I'm not going to try to pretend this is a good movie. The story is hysterically convoluted. This is only accentuated by the films use of random, nearly indecipherable flashbacks to elaborate backstories for the myriad characters. There are a seemingly infinite number of characters in this, none of them developed past "awesome" or "evil." When Channing Tatum is your lead, it becomes unnecessary to say the acting is awful. Most hilarious is the final twenty minutes of the film which seem to be solely designed to set the film up as a "franchise" (as if the title wasn't enough of a tip-off).

But I'll say this. There's a lot of action and most of it is choreographed pretty well. There were a few moments where I felt it had crossed over into pure cartoon territory, but overall it packed a lot of excitement and the films one strength is some snazzy art design that made the non-stop stream of gadgets and weapons look and feel unique.

So no, it's not good. But it's a lot better than I expected.

The Slaughter Rule

This indie film stars Ryan Gosling who is always incredible. He plays Roy, a high school kid who suffers the twin traumas of his father's suicide and being cut from the school football team. A local man who is a disgraced former high school coach recruits him to quarterback a six-man team. The coach, David Morse, is a wounded soul with intimacy problems who is a pedophile. He makes a couple of abortive, awkward advances on Roy, but they continue to have a relationship. The plot is more of a series of emotional kicks in the stones to Roy. The filmmaking is really amateurish. Bad lighting, sloppy camerawork. And aside from Gosling, Morse and Clea Duvall the acting is pretty awful. Amy Adams has a brief appearance, but doesn't have much to do. It's worth watching if only for Gosling and Morse scenes together. They are two actors that have a lot of intensity, yet they remain grounded in character.

The Castle

A super low-budget film from the 90s out of Australia. It has probably stayed in rotation because of a bit part by a ridiculously young Eric Bana. It's the story of an idiosyncratic WT family living in the outskirts of an airport who are served notice that they are expected to leave so the airport can expand. The patriarch, Darryl, thinks that's not right and fights the bureaucracy and corporations who are trying to evict him. He enlists the help of the hapless barrister that attempted to defend his son who is currently in prison. Eventually his story strikes a cord with a retired attorney who takes the case to the Australian high court. The story is loosely an allegory for the forced migration of the Aborigines. This point is hammered home a bit too overtly in the final act, but adds a layer to the drama. It's a slow moving story, but it's charming and has some funny moments. Technically the film is a disaster. The lighting and editing are cheap and most of the performances are pretty weak. Most notably the youngest son is chosen as our "eyes" and narrates the film. The narration is overdone and incessant and takes away from some of the more subtle aspects of the story. But overall it's fun to watch.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle

A 1973 Robert Mitchum picture directed by Peter Yates (I have always found him intriguing because he directed "Bullitt" and "Breaking Away" - two awesome, but very different films). Mitchum is a low-level hood about to go to prison, leaving his family on welfare. He turns informant to try to reduce his sentence. Eventually he's murdered when bank robbers get busted and assume he sold them out. Great performances throughout. Especially Mitchum and Robert Jordan, his contact in the treasury department. There's a bank heist that plays out in elaborate detail and is very well done. Also just lots of good scenes of crooks doing business. Not the most exciting film, but very compelling.

The Princess and The Frog

I took Anina to see this in the theater, so it holds a special distinction as being the first film of 2010 that I watched on a proper movie screen. It's a cute movie with a clever story about what happens if the girl who kisses the frog isn't a REAL princess (he's mistaken because it's a costume ball). The tertiary characters were amusing, if a bit stock. The animation and music were both pretty flat. To be fair, Anina wanted to leave a few minutes before the end, but I'm pretty sure I figured out where it was going. She enjoyed it, but I think it's telling that she was ready to go before it was over.

I Love You, Man

Paul Rudd has become the king of movies that are funny enough to check out on cable. I laughed a lot at this movie. I think there were a few too many of the same jokes. Paul Rudd learning to be comfortable around other men was done over and over. And they played Jason Siegel too cool for his character to really make sense. The tertiary characters are all fun adn there are some great back and forth conversations. A few times the movie descended into slapstick and it didn't really work, but not often enough to take away from the overall charm.

The World is not Enough

A Pierce Brosnan James Bond flick. The first fifteen minutes is a non-stop action movie with some fairly nice stunts and well-choreographed action. Even throughout this, however, the plot is confused. I honestly don't think they ever explained what the fuck the villans are trying to do. The highlight is probably when Denise Richards shows up as a nuclear physicist. Sophie Marcheau is also in this looking lobotomized. A confusing, boring trainwreck.

In the Loop

A satirical look at the bureacracy that goes into the build up to war. This thinly veiled stab at the origins of the Iraq war shows politicians from Britain and America jockeying to decide whether to go to war and if so, whom to give the credit to. This is a movie that is intermittently amusing, but noteworthy for the lead actor Peter Capaldi who steals virtually every scene he is in. He is a foul-mouthed director of communications for the UK's PM. He is vicious, filthy and hilarious. No one else really distinguished themselves. And while the film stays pretty close to the path of war for Iraq, it doesn't bring any characters to life and is quite dull at times. Still there are truly funny moments throughout.

Behind Enemy Lines

The story of a Navy pilot (navigator, actually - not sure who made that choice) who is shot down in Bosnia during the NATO police action. It reduces one of the most complex and confusing conflicts in recent memory to a simplistic chase movie. This was Owen Wilson's stab at being an action star. It's not a role he's terribly good at, but he certainly didn't embarrass himself. This is not a good movie, but there are some solid action set pieces. Particularly in the beginning of the film when he's shot down... behind enemy lines. Gene Hackman is his commander. His participation can only be described as "slumming."

The Terrorists

A 1975 film starring Sean Connery and an unbelievably young-looking Ian McShane. Terrorists have abducted the British ambassador and the Brits want him back. They terrorists hi-jack a plane to get their co-horts to safety with the ambassador. Connery is the head of security for... Norway... I didn't follow which country we were supposed to be in... He tries to get the terrorists without killing anyone. About an hour before Sean Connery I figured out that the Brits had staged the hi-jacking to get the ambassador back. It's a muddled plot that's pretty low on thrills and any kind of action. Connery is good and McShane is fun. Seems like the type of movie that would get a remake by like a Tony Scott and become an unwatchable mess. Instead it's just a pedestrian, 70's thriller.

The Seventh Cross

This 1944 Spencer Tracy film is pretty dull, but worth a look if only for a historical perspective. This film was made during WWII and tells the story of a prison break from a concentration camp. Seven men escape (only one is a Jew, the rest seem to be dissidents). The Gestapo methodically catches all but one, Spencer Tracy. The film is narrated by the prison break's leader, who dies in the first scene. That's an interesting hook, but the narration is incessent and overwrought. The action is dull and the story is more a series of vignettes than a real plot. Eventually he escapes, but the message of the film is that it takes small actions by many normal German citizens to make it happen. That is the compelling aspect of the film. The Germany portrayed here is deeply paranoid, but filled with good-hearted people who want a just soceity and are afraid of the government they have. Obviously it is wildly optimistic in its assessment of Germans, but I think it's an interesting time capsule movie. Tracy is great in a part where he speaks very rarely. The movie also features Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy whom I know only from their Cocoon ages. Nice to see them young and hot.

The Killer Elite

A Sam Peckinpah film that I was drawn to because it stars James Caan and Robert Duvall. I liked the idea of Sonny and Tom Hagen playing mercenaries working for a shell corporation run by the CIA. The first twenty minutes of the film are just that and it was mildly entertaining. Then Duvall betrays Caan. Duvall virtually dissappears from the film. Caan spends close to an hour rehabbing from his bullet wounds. Then he is thrust back to work to protect an agency contact that Duvall is trying to kill. The layer upon layer of conspiracy within the corporation was unintelligible to me and the actual mission Caan is sent on baffled me at every turn. Most upsetting is the fact that the action was so stilted and uninspired and confusingly shot. I haven't seen a lot of Peckinpah's films, but I expected a higher level of slickness.

Cornbread, Earl and Me

I have heard this film referenced from time to time, but really didn't know anything about it. It's a meandering, muddled film that was probably revelatory at the time because it's set in a primarily black, inner-city neighborhood. Cornbread is a young star basketball player that is about to be the first young man to leave his rough neighborhood for college. The community is proud of Cornbread and look out for him. There a lot of ways for Cornbread to get in trouble and there must have been five times that someone said "We don't want something bad to happen to you before you go away to college." Of course this is heavy-handed foreshadowing. Two cops shoot Cornbread in the back, thinking he's a rapist they've been chasing, but lost sight of. The story then turns to an inquest the family requests to prove that Cornbread was not a criminal. The neighborhood is bullied by the cops into not talking, but a young man (the "Me" in the title) tells the truth on the stand and convinces the cop that shot Cornbread that perhaps he did shoot the wrong man. It's a flat, uninspired movied that touches on some complex and interesting subjects, but ultimately never follows through. It is only worth watching for the debut performance of "Lawrence Fishburn III" in the "Me" roll. He was quite good. Even at age twelve you can tell he's an actor to watch.

It's Complicated

I liked this a lot more than I expected. Meryl Streep was great with Alec Baldwin, but my favorite moments were with Steve Martin. Especially an extended sequence where they got high together. Nancy Myers is waaaaay too fond of the Better Homes & Garden camera shots. And there were a lot of people in the ensemble (the kids) that didn't seem to have anything to do. When the actors were clicking it was a fun picture, but there were at least as many scenes that felt flat or contrived. Most notably it seemed to end about five times. A fun, but imperfect film.

The Night of the Hunter

Robert Mitchum plays a demented preacher who is locked up with a bank robber sentenced to death. His cellmate talks in his sleep and Mitchum realizes the money from the bank robbery is hidden with the man's children. He leaves prison and finds the man's family. He courts the mother and marries her. And quickly kills her and torments the children to tell him where the money is.

This is a SERIOUSLY creepy movie. It has an overwhelming sense of dread throughout. Mitchum is just fucking scary. No other word for it. His performance is stunning.

It was directed by Charles Laughton who is primarily known as an actor, but this is a tremendous effort. Although some of the camera work was self-conscious, it was effective. He particularly did a nice job of using shadows to create a sense of mystery and dread. I'm using that word a lot, but that's what this movie is all about. I also liked the art direction. There were a lot of scenes clearly shot on sound stages, but it made them look surreal and something out of a kid's nightmare.

Mitchum has LOVE tattooed on his right hand and HATE on the left. This is something Spike Lee lifted for Radio Raheem in "Do the Right Thing". Mitchum gives a speech similar to the one Raheem gives in this film. Except it's a lot creepier and fucking awesome.

The final act loses some of the momentum and there are some leaps in logic that I didn't follow. But it's a great film.

Kissing Cousins

Every year on Elvismas or the anniversary of his death I somehow delude myself into thinking that because I am a huge Elvis fan, I should watch an Elvis movie. And they never fail to disappoint. Kissing Cousins "distinguishes" itself amongst Elvis movies because it features Elvis in a dual role. He plays an Air Force Lieutenant assigned to talk mountain folk into letting SAC built an ICBM base in the side of their mountain. Brunette Elvis is a distant relation of these hillbillies and meets Blonde Elvis. They are some kind of cousins, but that's never fully explained. Hopefully they are distant, however, because Brunette Elvis almost immediately begins to work Blonde Elvis's sister (eventually picking the brunette over the blonde in what is surely a subliminal statement about mixed race marriage). What always amazes me about Elvis movies is how terrible the music is. Every now and then there's a good song that sneaks in, but they invariably make Elvis - described by many as the most dynamic performer ever - seem downright boring.

I was so uninterested in this movie that I started IMDBing it while I was watching. I find it interesting that it was released in 1964. So Vietnam is really heating up and here's Elvis playing a military guy chasing hillbilly tail in the Smokey mountains. It's also the same year that "A Hard Day's Night" was released. So the Beatles were making an immortal document that would change not just music, but film forever while Elvis was wrestling himself in a blonde wig. Sigh.

Revolutionary Road

This movie starts off promisingly enough. Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio flirt at a party and then we see them married with two kids. It's the 60s. He works a job he hates, she's miserable in suburbia. Then he has an affair and she coincidentially decides they should leave the dread suburbs behind and move to Paris. I thought this was an intriguing concept. A couple taking their family on such an unorthodox path.

But that's just a smoke screen to set up a long, tedious look at a failed marriage. They fight. They fuck other people. They fight some more. I yawn. They're great actors and Sam Mendes is a talented director, but this was not a good script. Scenes start with characters declaring a kind of thesis statement and then the arguments start. The speeches are too long and it all just seemed like a stage play.

Harvard Beats Yale 29-29

A documentary about the 1968 Harvard-Yale football game which pitted two undefeated teamns. Yale was vastly favored for this game I had never heard of, which was an extremely exciting match. Despite the fact that you're aware of the end score, thanks to the title, it's a compelling game to see. The film intercuts broadcast footage of the game with talking head interviews of the players today (who recall the game with amazing clarity). The first half of the film self-consciously sets up the time and place. A lot is made of the fact that several teammates are Vietnam vets and others are anti-War protestors. There's a lot of effort to include the celebrities near the two school. Tommy Lee Jones gives one of his least mannered performances in years by recounting his time as a Harvard Guard (and of course some stories about Al Gore). Yalies mentions George W., one player was dating Meryl Streep at the time and Gary Trudeau's "Doonesbury" started in the Yale school paper and many of the early characters were inspired by the players on the Yale squad. Eventually the "cultural impact" of the game gives way to the football game and although it probably takes ten times as long as the actual last four minutes of the game took, it was interesting to watch. This is not a well-thought-out production. The interviews are static with ugly and uninteresting backgrounds. The back and forth cutting with the game footage gets old and redundant.

The Soloist

I DVR'd this, but I'm not sure why. When it was in theaters I thought it looked like a treachly, predictable movie-of the week. It is all that, but I liked this much more than I expected. Mostly because of Robert Downey Jr. who gives a seemingly effortless portrayal of journalist Steve Lopez. He strikes up an interesting relationship with Neal Ayres Jr (Jamie Foxx). A homeless musician. I think it is impossible to watch the scenes Downey shares with Foxx and no think of the "Full retard" speech from "Tropic Thunder." Foxx is working so hard you can see fumes coming out of his ears. I can't say why, but I found the relationship interesting and stuck with the film to the end. The film touches on social issues like local LA politics, society's treatment of the homeless and the contraction of newspapers. I thought it was notable that Jena Malone has basically a four line cameo. I don't know why she hasn't been more successful, I like her a lot.

College

A 1927 silent Buster Keaton movie about an egghead who takes up athletics to impress the girl of his dreams. This is more a series of vignettes designed to allow Keaton to generate comedic set pieces than a coherent storyline. Some of the pieces are quite funny. Parts of it feel dated - I'm thinking particularly about a sequence where he poses as a "colored waiter" (yikes). Overall I was stunned by the artistry Keaton brings to physical comedy. There is a perfectionism to his timing and movements that speak of countless hours of rehearsal and consideration. It's frankly more effort that any modern comedian I can think of puts into his/her work. Although it sags in spots it's a truly funny movie.

World's Greatest Dad

Bobcat Goldthwait wrote and directed this minor film with Robin Williams in the lead. It is miles better than "Shakes the Clown". Williams is a nebbishy poetry teacher (no echos of "Dead Poet's Society"). His girlfriend keeps their relationship a secret from their co-workers. He is a single father raising a teenage son who is an asshole. The son is obsessed with pornography, has only one friend, gets in fights and is a terrible student. He's also surly and combativie with Williams and generally a pain in the ass. When Williams comes home to discover his son has killed himself by auto-erotic asphyxiation, he decides to shade the truth. He writes a suicide note and makes it look like an intentional suicide. The letter gets published and becomes a motivational missive to the students in school. Williams is suddenly popular, the girlfriend more responsive. His life is turned around, but he's haunted by a secret he can't share with anyone. He creates a journal for his dead son and uses excerpts of it to influence people in the thrall of the dead boy. This is particularly ironic because he is a failed author who generates a lot of material that no one ever read before now. Untimately the weight of it all is too much and he reveals that he concocted the writings on his own. He is dirt to his friends and colleagues, but freed from the weight of his guilt.

I feel I have to mention that Robin Williams strips nude for the ending.

Meet John Doe

A 1941 film by Frank Capra with Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper. Stanwyck is a reporter about to get laid off when she invents a voice for the pre-war everyman (John Doe) who threatens to leap from City Hall on Christmas Eve to protest corruption in local politics. His fictious letter strikes a chord and Babs conspires with her editor to cast a rube to play the part and string the story along. Cooper is a down-on-his-luck broken down pitcher too naive to realize the consequences of going along for this ride. The paper's publisher takes an interest in this folk hero and promotes him until he is a national phenomenon. The publisher, however, has nefarious motivations for doing this. There are a number of extremely long speeches in this film. The kind you just don't see anymore. People tell stories about off-screen action (again something that you rarely see). There's also a lot of very pedantic political pushing in there. It's an interesting movie as a kind of look back in time. After the film Robert Osbourne explained that Capra filmed five different endings which screened in different parts of the country until they settled on "the ending". I would like to see the others because this version was a happy ending where he gets the girl, doesn't kill himself and triumphs over evil.

Crazy Heart

This is being pushed as Jeff Bridges Oscar platform. He is, as always, really good. I do think this is not an ideal part for him. He plays a messy, drunk, almost-was coutry singer. I didn't think he was as good as he was in, for example, "The Contender". But he was great as was Maggie Gyllenhaaaalylleal. Robert Duvall and Collin Farrell were good in minor roles. I thought Farrell and Bridges did a nice job doing their own singing, although I'm sure they auto-tuned the shit out of it. I just don't think the world needs anymore movies about drunks who can't give up the bottle. It's an uninteresting subject matter. This film distinguishes itself in that genre for a couple reasons. First of all, the character sobers up and isn't tormented (as much). Also there's no happy ending to his relationship with the girl. The biggest problem I had was that it felt like a carbon copy of "The Wrestler" with a new venue. This was a more entertaining film, however.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

I rang in the New Year by watching the top grossing film of 2009. I had pretty low expectations because the first film was weak and it's Michael Bay, afterall. But I tend to think he does make beautiful messes. This was not the case. Put aside the muddled plot, terrible dialogue and horrendous acting. That I expected. But the "spectacle" of really expensive special effects wall-to-wall is what shocked me. I just think it all looked terrible. Like the first film, I found it annoying that is takes seven to eight minutes for the Transformers to "transform". I also still can't tell one giant robot from another. I was hoping for a diverting, turn-off-your-brain action flick. Instead it was a loud, annoying, confusing, headache-inducing catastrophe.