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

December 2010

December 2010

I Am Love (Guadagnino, 2010)||||||7.5
Precious (Daniels, 2009)||||||5
* Christmas Evil (Jackson, 1980)||||||5.5
Burnt Offerings (Curtis, 1976)||||||5.5
The Last Airbender (Shyamalan, 2010)||||||5
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Wright, 2010)||||||7
Devil (Dowdle, 2010)||||||4
Kill Baby, Kill (Bava, 1966)||||||7.5
Everyone Else (Ade, 2010)||||||8
* Birth (Glazer, 2004)||||||8
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Yates, 2009)||||||4.5
The Forest from the Trees (Ade, 2002)||||||6.5
Cringe-inducing movie, but in the good way.
Femme Fatale (De Palma, 2002)||||||8
How to Train Your Dragon (Deblois & Sanders, 2010)||||||6
Altered States (Russell, 1980)||||||6
* The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1957)||||||7.5

TOP 10 OF NOVEMBER

1. Through a Glass Darkly
2. Stardust Memories
3. Dead of Night
4. The Black Cat
5. Murders in the Rue Morgue
6. The Girl Who Knew Too Much
7. The Limits of Control
8. Inception
9. Session 9
10. Watchmen

November 2010

November 2010

* Inception (Nolan, 2010)|||||6
* Dead of Night (Cavalcanti et al., 1945)|||||8
Watchmen (Snyder, 2009)|||||5
* Session 9 (Anderson, 2001)|||||5.5
* Through A Glass Darkly (Bergman, 1961)|||||8.5
The Limits of Control (Jarmusch, 2009)|||||6
Stardust Memories (Allen, 1980)|||||8
Oklahoma! (Zinnemann, 1955)|||||4
The Raven (Friedlander, 1935)|||||5
Murder in the Rue Morgue (Foley, 1932)|||||7.5
The Black Cat (Ulmer, 1934)|||||7.5
Josh Vasquez (SLANT MAGAZINE) on The Black Cat
The Girl Who Knew Too Much (Bava, 1964)|||||7

TOP 10 OF OCTOBER

1. Bigger Than Life
2. Martin
3. Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
4. The Social Network
5. Planet of the Vampires
6. Night Tide
7. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
8. Masters of Horror: Dance of the Dead
9. The Plague of the Zombies
10. Tales from the Hood