December 2011

December 2011

* The Muppets (Bobin, 2011)|||||5.5
It only took me sitting through it a second time, but I now like Jason Segel's Muppet movie. But I can't ignore how miserable that first viewing was. I think I could pinpoint my annoyance with the film to two major things: 1) The "faux-musical" schtick. Musical numbers filmed like ironic jokes, and the whole (500) Days of Summer, "half-assed-musical" aesthetic that needs to die slowly and painfully. This said, I now want to own "Life's a Happy Song." And 2), the scope of this thing is just so damn small. It is firmly of the age of the internet video, and the movie just feels like a long, Muppets spin-off Funny or Die video. Has the art of puppetry died, or is the never-ending stream of Muppet-high medium shots an aesthetic choice?
Now that I knew the film had nothing more to offer the Muppets universe in terms of scale other than hipster humor, I was able to sit back and process the jokes, the narrative arcs (that I felt were non-existent the first time around, although of course they're about a man-child, and "fitting in"), and the detail of Segel, Bobin and co.'s loving & comprehensive recreation of the Muppets and allusions to their most endearing bits.
But the scope thing really boils it down. There isn't a real movie around this thing. It's a lip service movie through and through, and you can analogize it to an SNL sketch spin-off movie that fails to make it movie-sized. It's all cute jokes and tribute, no narrative edge, and so it manages to have too much story and too little story at the same time. It's watching the 70s-originating Muppets in this somewhat-acceptable 2000s Muppet movie (with the lamest cameos ever) that really makes one miss the dirty, decrepit 70s.
Hugo (Scorsese, 2011)|||||6.5
The Last Laugh (Murnau, 1924)|||||8
The Adventures of Tintin (Spielberg, 2011)|||||5.5
Puss in Boots (Miller, 2011)|||||5
Attack the Block (Cornish, 2011)|||||6.5
Wings of Desire (Wenders, 1987)|||||8
Last Tango in Paris (Bertolucci, 1972)|||||8
The Sitter (Green, 2011)|||||4.5
'The Sitter' is about the same level of inspirations and idiocies as 'Your Highness,' but while Your Highness at least had the conviction of its homage and production scope, The Sitter is a through-and-through lark and pretty throwaway of a project. Green's thing is throwing things at the screen and hoping it sticks, is funny, and perhaps is even resonant and interesting, and as per usual, it's hit, miss, and "Why are you making this movie???"
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (Bird, 2011)|||||7
Rubber (Dupieux, 2010)|||||6.5
Tentacles (Assonitis, 1977)|||||4
1/3 inept/occasionally risible (the movie has an hilariously negative-trajectory moral sense), 1/3 kinda delightful/"Whoa-surprise-graceful-camera-work," and then 1/3 pretty cool creature work. Which I guess makes it two-thirds "I am charmed." over one-third "This is mind-numbing and moronic."

Despite its reputation of simply being a turd (and with the occasional permission to check out of the film when it's being tedious), I'm solidly cataloging this in my "So bad it's good" file.

TrollHunter (Øvredal, 2010)|||||4
Hunger (McQueen, 2008)|||||7.5
Winter's Bone (Granik, 2010)|||||5.5
The Muppets (Bobin, 2011)|||||4.5
Recessive (Kibens, 2011) (short)|||||++ / 6.5
The Haircut (Choi, 2009) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
The Call to the Post (Higdon, 2009) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
Sundown (Rentis, 2009) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
The Crime of Monsieur Lange (Renoir, 1936)|||||8
A Day in the Country (Renoir, 1936) (short)|||||7.5
Thompson (Tippet, 2009) (short)|||||+ / 6
Finish Line (Chen, 2010) (short)|||||++ / 7
Andy (Ahn, 2010) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
Dos, Por Favor (Two Please) (Euresti, 2010) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
17 Meters (Schoenbaum, 2011) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
Light Escapes Through the Intervals (Tasaka, 2011) (short)|||||+ / 6
Nancy and the Dapper Toad (Samuels, 2010) (short)|||||++ / 7
Sully (Gupta, 2010) (short)|||||++ / 6.5
Forever's Gonna Start Tonight (Hittman, 2011) (short)|||||+ / 6.5
Storm Tiger Mountain (Cummings, 2009) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
Bygone Behemoth (Chaskin, 2010) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
A Serbian Film (Spasojevic, 2010)|||||5
Scarface (Hawks, 1930)|||||8
Bomb It (Reiss, 2007)|||||6.5
A Bitter Message of Hopeless Grief (Reiss, 1988)|||||5

November 2011

November 2011

Skhizein (Clapin, 2008) (short)|||||+++ / 7.5
Dog (Templeton, 2001) (short)|||||+++
Peter and the Wolf (Templeton, 2006) (short)|||||+++ / 7.5
Anna & Bella (Ring, 1984) (short)|||||++ / 7
The Cathedral (Baginsky, 2002) (short)|||||+
Dreams and Desires: Family Ties (Quinn, 2006) (short)|||||+++ / 7.5
Food (Svankmajer, 1993) (short)|||||+++ / 8
Tower Heist (Ratner, 2011)|||||4
* Kung Fu Panda (Osborne, 2009)|||||5.5
Monsters vs Aliens (Letterman & Vernon, 2009)|||||4.5
* Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Hand, 1937)|||||7
Melancholia (von Trier, 2011)|||||8
A welcome return by Trier to his Dogme vivacity (over Antichrist's aimless formalist portent). I've long held high-nosed, negative opinions about ceremonies, from graduations to weddings (told myself I had to see this in preparation for the holiday), so the film being prominently an evisceration of any and all worldly contrivances and trivial sentimentality makes von Trier's screenplay an incredibly satisfying work of deep snark. A movie about the Death of Bullshit (i.e. the world).
Gap-Toothed Women (Blank, et al., 1987) (short)|||||++
God's Angry Man (Herzog, 1980) (short)|||||++ / 7
Happy Feet Two (Miller, 2011)|||||8
Mimic: Sentinel (Petty, 2003)|||||5.5
Mimic: Sentinel, aka Mimic 3, is very low-budg and inadequate, with a script that hardly comes together (very little narrative pay-offs in the end), spurts of questionable performing, and some disappointing fumbled build-up, but ultimately, this J.T. Petty guy is a marvelous filmmaker. The first half of the film is fantastic, it's only when the horror sets in that he and the film begin missing marks.
L'Atalante (Vigo, 1934) (short)|||||7.5
Zero for Conduct (Vigo, 1933) (short)|||||++ / 7
Bullhead (Roskam, 2011)|||||5
Lola (Fassbinder, 1981)|||||8
Bush Mama (Gerima, 1979)|||||7.5
Snake Feed (Granik, 1997) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
Nocturne (Von Trier, 1980) (short)|||||++ / 6
Feelings (Solondz, 1984) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
Carmen (Payne, 1984) (short)|||||++ / 6.5
Doodlebug (Nolan, 1997) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
Barn (Mangold, 198?) (short)|||||+ / 6
Russian Ark (Sokurov, 2002)|||||8
The Fly II (Walas, 1989)|||||3
Martha (Fassbinder, 1976)|||||7.5
Sisters of the Gion (Mizoguchi, 1936)|||||7.5
I'm Here (Jonze, 2010) (short)|||||+ / 5.5
Lost Highway (Lynch, 1997)|||||7.5
* M (Lang, 1931)|||||8.5
Lucifer Rising (Anger, 1972) (short)|||||++
The Red Balloon (Lamorisse, 1956) (short)|||||+ / 6.5

October 2011

October 2011

Lake Mungo (Anderson, 2008)|||||5.5
Soft for Digging (Petty, 2001)|||||7
Burn, Witch, Burn (Hayers, 1962)|||||6
Meet Me in St. Louis (Minnelli, 1946)|||||7.5
* Land Without Bread (Buñuel, 1933) (short)|||||++
Ménilmontant (Kirsanoff, 1926) (short)|||||++
The Smiling Madame Beudet (Dulac, 1923) (short)|||||++
At Land (Deren, 1944) (short)|||||++
* Un Chien Andalou (Buñuel, 1929) (short)|||||+
The Innkeepers (West, 2011)|||||6
A frustrating film. Ti West, one of the most promising young makers of horror films, has a crutch in his rather quaint love of horror, and it shows in his films that are alternately fascinating and self-realized, and complacent and middling. The best scene in this film is utterly fascinating, and involves a non-mutual ghost encounter seen through a dominant female, imposing both the ghost and herself on a passive male and passive audience (both male character and us never shown the ghost), and it acts as a brilliant culminating encapsulation of these characters and of emotional texture up to this point, now absolutely locked in the thick of this story about the vying attraction and dread of the extra-ordinary as manifested in two anti-extraordinary people. But this great height of symbolically evocative film-making is an oasis in a sorely temperate film - not a desert, as it is somewhat verdant with personality and cinematic life, but still mostly dry, as the film marches lockstep along stock-creepy painted lines, resisting any bold statements in favor of almost indulgent subtlety (problematic even in West's occasionally shining, abundant investment in buoyant character exploration, which is lovely but excessive and diluting), and the aforementioned quaint horror geekery that is lulling instead of demanding, asking for vague and non-committal familiarity with West's worlds of the creepy supernatural and the banal dead-end worker, but never pushing statements of milieu and emotion beyond lip service and drollery.
This is most clear and damning in an epilogue that should feel absolutely necessary - that should be inherently wrought with catharsis or, if limiting to ask of that, at least implication - yet somehow manages to force feed us pointlessness. It ends with a final shot that is maddening in its almost smug insistence on West's debilitating love of modesty.
The Skin I Live In (Almodovar, 2011)|||||7
Reverse Shot review
Coup d'etat (Yoshida, 1973)|||||8.5
Trigger Man (West, 2007)|||||5
The Baby of Mâcon (Greenaway, 1993)|||||8.5
Le Havre (Kaurismaki, 2011)|||||6.5
Husbands (Cassavetes, 1970)|||||7
I've seen and loved Cassavetes films, he always has a level of abstractness to his films, and in regards to basic plotline, this film seems the most straightforward - but it's weird (the drunken actions and ramblings of the characters), meandering, and avoided context constantly, almost to a point of borderline incoherence. Its commitment to presenting a stretch of time of complete drunkenness and emotional/perceptual chaos is surreal and disorienting enough it rivals Fellini's Satyricon. Admirable film, but it was way too wild for me.
* The General (Keaton, 1926)|||||6.5
* The Kid (Chaplin, 1921) (short)|||||6.5
The Wayward Cloud (Tsai, 2007)|||||7
* Cat's Cradle (Brakhage, 1959) (short)|||||~
* Window Water Baby Moving (Brakhage, 1962) (short)|||||+
Time Piece (Jim Henson, 1965) (short)|||||++
* A Movie (Bruce Connor, 1958) (short)|||||++
Grizzly (Girdler, 1976)|||||3.5
À nos amours (Pialat, 1983)|||||8
Bed and Sofa (Room, 1927) (short) (w/ live score)|||||7
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai, 2003)|||||7
The Palm Beach Story (Sturges, 1942)|||||7.5
Daughters of the Dust (Dash, 1991)|||||6
Possession (Zulawski, 1981)|||||8
The Woman (McKee, 2010)|||||6.5
Faust (Murnau, 1926) (w/ live score)|||||8
Revolutionary Road (Mendes, 2008)|||||5
* La Bete Humaine (Renoir, 1938)|||||8
The Amateurist (July, 1998) (short)|||||+++
Sissy Boy Slap Party (Maddin, 1995) (short)|||||+
Kitchen Sink (Maclean, 1989) (short)|||||+
Meek's Cutoff (Reichardt, 2010)|||||7.5

September 2011

September 2011

Drive (Refn, 2011)|||||7
Valuable, artful meditation on the consequences of battle-filled, masculine lives. Unabashedly romantic and mythopoeic, with its avenging hand taking in vast criminality in a beautiful, neon LA purgatory. Very much the same strengths and weaknesses and attributes of Valhalla Rising.
Abduction (Singleton, 2011)|||||3
A Corner in Wheat (Griffith, 1909) (short)|||||++
Littlerock (Ott, 2010)|||||7.5
A pointed and unyielding tapestry of really useless people, who then go on to represent greater national frameworks and their dissolubility, their clashes, their inadequacy.
Eros Plus Massacre (Yoshida, 1969)|||||8
* Marie Antoinette (Coppola, 2006)|||||7
Afterschool (Campos, 2008)|||||6.5
Mouchette (Bresson, 1967)|||||8
The Heart of the World (Maddin, 2000) (short)|||||++
Road to Nowhere (Hellman, 2010)|||||6
Paisan (Rossellini, 1946)|||||7
* Seconds (Frankenheimer, 1966)|||||7
The Diary of a Chambermaid (Renoir, 1946)|||||8
Gigi (Minnelli, 1958)|||||6.5
My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946)|||||7
* The Shooting (Hellman, 1966)|||||7.5
The Beaver Trilogy (Harris, 2000)|||||8
* Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959)|||||7
* The Lady Eve (Sturges, 1941)|||||8
Crawlspace (Schmoeller, 1986)|||||4.5
White Material (Denis, 2009)|||||7
Benny's Video (Haneke, 1992)|||||6.5
The Ward (Carpenter, 2010)|||||5

August 2011

August 2011

Our Idiot Brother (Peretz, 2011)|||||5.5
Close-Up (Kiarostami, 1990)|||||7
* Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky, 1966)|||||8
Nightjohn (Burnett, 1996) (TV)|||||7
* Fright Night (Gillespie, 2011)|||||6
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (Nixey, 2011)|||||4
Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr, Hranitzky, 2000)|||||8
* One, Two, Three (Wilder, 1961)|||||6
Kiss Me, Stupid (Wilder, 1964)|||||6.5
* All About Eve (Mankiewicz, 1950)|||||7
A Woman Is a Woman (Godard, 1961)|||||6
Valhalla Rising (Refn, 2009)|||||5.5
Ten (Kiarostami, 2000)|||||7
* Alphaville (Godard, 1965)|||||8
* The Servant (Losey, 1963)|||||8
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pasolini, 1964)|||||7.5
* The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973)|||||5.5
Network (Lumet, 1976)|||||6
Ossos (Costa, 1997)|||||5.5
The Phantom of the Opera (Argento, 1998)|||||4
Twin Peaks, Season 2 (Lynch, et al., 1990)|||||+
In a Year With 13 Moons (Fassbinder, 1978)|||||7.5
* The Prowler (Zito, 1981)|||||3.5
Performance (Cammell, Roeg, 1970)|||||7.5
Friends With Benefits (Gluck, 2011)|||||3.5
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Wyatt, 2011)|||||4.5
Muriel, or The Time of Return (Resnais, 1963)|||||8.5
Taken (Morel, 2009)|||||3.5

July 2011

July 2011

Twin Peaks, Season 1 (Lynch, et al., 1990)|||||+++
La Ronde (Ophuls, 1950)|||||7.5La Ronde is formally exquisite, but the film's conceit, while finely observed, is just barely interesting. Also, rather like a (500) Days of Summer of the day - too cleverly unequivocal about romance.
* The Woods (McKee, 2006)|||||6
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Weerasethakul, 2010)|||||7
Evening Primrose (ABC Stage 67 Episode) (Bogart, 1966)|||||+
The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011)|||||7.5
I prefer all other Malick films, with their sturdier narratives and bolder technique less dependent on fragmentary graphical saturation (nothing quite like Thin Red Line's battle scenes here), but this is certainly a wonderful creation. Talk about recapturing childhood textures. It's the film's biggest boon, how closely it recounts, almost methodically, encyclopedically, all the feelings of childhood.
New Year's Evil (Alston, 1980)|||||3.5
* 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)|||||9
Boarding Gate (Assayas, 2007)|||||7.5
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II (Yates, 2011)|||||5.5
Super 8 (Abrams, 2011)|||||6
Supreme entertainment. If anything, Abrams has guaranteed my butt in a seat for all his movies, just for his lightning-fast filmmaking instincts, creating absolutely dynamic, exciting, and dramatically strong movies and effectively becoming the (if undeniably regressed) heir to the Spielberg mantle by sheer extent of visual adeptness. In matters of substance, Super 8 manages to beguile in a number of ways, mostly fall-out from all the indulgences and personal emotional places Abrams readily throws into his admirably ambitious coming-of-age/family drama/action romp/sentimental tapestry/monster flick melange of a screenplay. Ambition does not mean audaciousness, and Abrams's script and directorial appetites prove first-class escapism and juvenilia and not much more (I'll readily concede, what pizazz it has, though!). Meanwhile, Abrams's sprawling concoction of a story flirts with richness, so that, even if the story kind of disintegrates in the weak final stretch, the soaringly emotional and suddenly the-utmost-ridiculous finale works as an absurdly beatific, beatifically absurd, and vaguely knowing encapsulation of the worth of high sentimentality in escapist cinema, fantastically merging a double-reconciliation of families with a judgmental monster's divinely-tinged magnetic swiping of humanity's petty articles (consumer items, a memento mori, and soldiers' guns - one soldier even clinging to it so desperately he gets served with a moment of small humiliation), all into the ultimate Spielbergian finale and a be-all, end-all of beautiful final fade-outs.
Window Water Baby Moving (Brakhage, 1962) (short)|||||+
Let Me In (Reeves, 2010)|||||5.5
* Being John Malkovich (Jonze, 1999)|||||7.5
35 Shots of Rum (Denis, 2008)|||||7
The Food of the Gods (Gordon, 1976)|||||4
The Earrings of Madame de... (Ophuls, 1953)|||||8
* 8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963)|||||8
* Insidious (Wan, 2010)|||||4
Larry Crowne (Hanks, 2011)|||||2.5
Bridesmaids (Feig, 2011)|||||5.5

June 2011

June 2011

* Antichrist (Von Trier, 2009)|||||7
Sita Sings the Blues (Paley, 2008)|||||7.5
Bad Teacher (Kasdan, 2011)|||||3.5
What a weird, pointless movie. Almost translucently thin in story and real-life-resembling connective tissue. (It's not unenjoyable, though.)
Green Lantern (Campbell, 2011)|||||3.5
Summer Hours (Assayas, 2008)|||||8.5
Source Code (Jones, 2011)|||||6
The Adjustment Bureau (Nolfi, 2011)|||||3
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)|||||8
Kick Ass (Vaughn, 2010)|||||5
Silent Light (Reygadas, 2007)|||||5.5
1941 (Spielberg, 1979)|||||4.5
The Silence (Bergman, 1963)|||||7.5
Nick's Flick Picks review
Kung Fu Panda 2 (Yuh, 2011)|||||7
I think I liked this much better than the first (and I did like the first one). Do away with the conventional, plot-based action and replace it with whimsical, almost metaphorical action. Replace a funny and endearing good guy-vs.-bad guy plot with a not-quite-as-funny, rather dark tale that evokes historical tragedy and world-shaping ancient politics.
And the square-one, anti-any-and-all-technology, pro-inner-peace-and-simple-things message plain and simply trumps every other preaching I've seen in any recent movie in a long time.
* X-Men: First Class (Vaughn, 2011)|||||6
X-Men: First Class (Vaughn, 2011)|||||6.5

May 2011

May 2011

* Schindler's List (Spielberg, 1993)|||||7
Mean Streets (Scorsese, 1973)|||||8
The Hangover Part II (Phillips, 2011)|||||4
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (Craig, 2010) (Incomplete Workprint)|||||4.5
* Dressed to Kill (De Palma, 1978)|||||7.5
* Phantom of the Paradise (De Palma, 1974)|||||7
The Rite (Håfström, 2011)|||||3
A Man Escaped (Bresson, 1956)|||||8
The Dark Night of the Scarecrow (De Filetta, 1981)|||||5
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)|||||8.5
Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini, 1965)|||||8
Thor (Branagh, 2011)|||||5.5
Energetic fun with a good sense of wit and irreverence, and also a well-gauged moral-political backbone.
Though I suspect I don't have proper comparison for superhero movies, as the only one I've seen in the last 3-4 years is The Dark Knight.
Love Unto Death (Resnais, 1984)|||||6.5
Ordet (Dreyer, 1955)|||||7.5
Sweet Home (Kurosawa, 1989)|||||6
It's a nifty Japanese horrorfest, a Poltergeist/Evil Dead/House on Haunted Hill-remake mash-up. The material is weak, but Kurosawa's brilliance is still noticeable, both as a horror film director and as a director of beatific emotion. Unfortunately, a solid first half ultimately gives way to the ho-hum climactic act, trafficking in standard (and boring) maternal angst themes, and mostly saved by slam-bang FX.
* I Walked With a Zombie (Tourneur, 1943)|||||8

April 2011

April 2011

Force of Evil (Polansky, 1948)|||||8
Fast Five (Lin, 2011)|||||4.5
Jane Eyre (Zeffirelli, 1997)|||||6
These Are the Damned (Losey, 1963)|||||6.5
Time of the Wolf (Haneke, 2003)|||||8
A Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami, 1997)|||||6
* Mortuary (Hooper, 2005)|||||5.5
Your Highness (Green, 2011)|||||5
I did not find this horribly odious (though isolated, minor scenes approach the "Not funny, not cool" spectrum) or unpleasant, and I'd say I enjoyed it about as much as Pineapple Express. I'd say Green and writer Danny McBride's spoof/gag film comedy benefits from having the structure of fantasy film's formula and action set-pieces, and provides a clearer path for [half-assed] satire and lampooning, over Pineapple Express's vague pot proselytizing and vague character-driven dramatizing.
As with Sucker Punch, if you hated the trailer, you'll hate the film. But even McBride's "profanity in a period setting" running joke is handled much better than the critics would lead you to believe, and Green, as in Pineapple Express, does not lack for interesting and idiosyncratic directorial decisions, even though these comedies of his have no interest in being good or of any higher purpose.
Stage Fright (Hitchcock, 1950)|||||7.5
Day of Wrath (Dreyer, 1943)|||||8
Day of Wrath, Church of Cinema by Sam Boone at The House Next Door
Fright Night (Gillespie, 2011) (Preview Cut)|||||5
Passion (Sondheim/Lapine musical, TV broadcast)|||||+++
Jane Eyre (Fukunaga, 2011)|||||5
Bless the Child (Russell, 2000)|||||3
The Lady from Shanghai (Welles, 1947)|||||8
Insidious (Wan, 2010)|||||4
Band of Outsiders (Godard, 1964)|||||7.5

March 2011

March 2011

Fort Apache (Ford, 1948)|||||7
Sucker Punch (Snyder, 2011)|||||4.5
Interesting. Snyder trades in objectifying men and battle for objectifying women and victimhood, and suddenly I'm sympathetic to Snyder's moronic cinema. And he's a-okay with me as a moral person (vis-a-vis as a filmmaker), since, as his first originally written work, it's not a black hole of morals.
I have to admire Sucker Punch for one thing: it baits moviegoers pretending to be a kick-butt-female action-fantasy movie, and then it turns out to be the grimmest of women's pictures, with a surprising deal of compassion for the weakest of the female suffering and a surprise theme that promotes the story of the complex and internal girl over the merely female or kickass.
I can't recommend the film, though, and I mean that in the most non-pretentious, "Is it a good time out to the movies?" way. It's a real chore to sit through. The script itself is a complete misstep: the film's series of systematic action sequences are the definition of redundant and pointless to endure. You need to seriously beware if even the trailers had you rolling your eyes.
Scream 2 (Craven, 1997)|||||5
The Pillow Book (Greenaway, 1996)|||||8
Alamar (Gonzalez -Rubio, 2010)|||||7
Paul (Mottola, 2011)|||||4.5
The Big Store (Reisner, 1941)|||||4.5
Paranormal Activity 2 (Williams, 2010)|||||4
Battle: Los Angeles (Liebesman, 2011)|||||3.5
Queen Christina (Mamoulian, 1933)|||||7.5
Private Fears in Public Places (Resnais, 2006)|||||7
Life is a a Bed of Roses (Resnais, 1983)|||||8.5
Go West (Buzzell, 1940)|||||6
Stray Dog (Kurosawa, 1949)|||||8

February 2011

February 2011

The Lair of the White Worm (Russell, 1988)||||||5.5
Autumn Sonata (Bergman, 1978)||||||8
True Grit (Coen Brothers, 2010)||||||7
This movie drags its feet a lot, with a middle section that seems grossly lackadaisical for the Coens, but it gains its footing again for a rousing - but also unusual - final twenty or so minutes. I also think it has more on its modernist plate than given credit for, as the revelation of the Josh Brolin character and that whirlwind, elegiac final night ride that leaves an ever-growing series of dead or tired out bodies behind it (never again seen in the film) are prime bits of Western deconstruction. Also thought the epilogue was of an exquisite wryness and absolutely integral to the film's gentle poignancy.
127 Hours (Boyle, 2010)||||||6
Has virtues similar to Sean Penn's Into the Wild, but this would be Into the Wild but dumber.
Buried (Cortes, 2010)||||||6
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman, 1975)||||||8
Greenberg (Baumbach, 2010)||||||6.5
Nick's Flick Picks on GREENBERG
Event Horizon (Anderson, 1997)||||||3.5
Vincere (Bellocchio, 2009)||||||7.5
Wild Grass (Resnais, 2009)||||||8
Hairspray (Waters, 1988)||||||7
A Prophet (Audiard, 2009)||||||7.5
Enter the Void (Noé, 2010)||||||5

January 2011

January 2011

Witchboard (Tenney, 1986)||||||4
Despite the apparent rating, Witchboard is shockingly not bad, nor trying to be bad (which was refreshing), with shocking attention to logic and character intelligence. Ultimately stupid, though. Sucky finish.
The King's Speech (Hooper, 2010)||||||5
What Have You Done to Solange? (Dallamano, 1972)||||||6
The Ghost Writer (Polanski, 2010)||||||7.5
Dogtooth (Lanthimos, 2010)||||||7
The Oath (Poitras, 2010)||||||7.5
Mother (Bong, 2009)||||||7.5
Trash Humpers (Korine, 2009)||||||4.5
* Fiend Without a Face (Crabtree, 1958)||||||5
Raising Cain (De Palma, 1992)||||||7
The Crazies (Eisner, 2010)||||||4.5
Season of the Witch (Sena, 2011)||||||3.5
Tangled (Greno & Howard, 2010)||||||5.5
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I (Yates, 2010)||||||6.5
I'm Still Here (Affleck, 2010)||||||4.5
Black Swan (Aronofsky, 2010)||||||6