Movies Reviewed in 2010

I've reviewed 1,412 movies this century (just counting the ones I actually remembered long enough to review here). All but the ones seen this year on the alphabetical links above. 2010's tumble down this page, in the usual reverse chronological order. In 2006, I reviewed 89; 127 in 2007; 106 - 2008; 121 - 2009, and so far in 2010, I've reviewed 93, only 3 of which I'd seen before.

Watching and thinking about movies restarts my creativity — or lets me escape from it, and lets my mind wander from art, birds, photography and life [Hmmm. No link to that, yet, unless you count ThEdblog]. I write about them quickly, maybe coherently, and sometimes after I've thought about them more, I go back and change opinions.

Movies I want to see: M Night Shayaman's Devil and The Last Airbender (even if it's awful), The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Legend of the Guardians, Life During Wartime, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network, The Radiant Child, Get Low, The American, Beautiful Islands, RED,

2010

Hard to believe a movie with incorporating so many really gross, stupid and bad ideas, shot through with time travel and its many wonders, could be such a hoot. Hot Tub Time Travel**** is too good to be true. A guy flick, no doubt, stupid runs deep through it and out the other side. But funny and a little human even, but not much. Great.

Green Zone***/ is a great name for a movie, even if it has almost nothing to do with the Green Zone, although that's where the political intrigue part is. Bagdad is where the action intrigue almost all is. Exciting, fast moving, intelligent, telling the truth with fiction. Good politics, good spy flick. Great message: We lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction, so we could start a war there and kill a quarter of a million Iraqi's just to show we are the biggest and baddest country in the world. The world knows no terror like American terror. We are the great Satan.

I hadn't seen On The Beach*** in 40 years. Hope it'll be another 40 before I see it again. Grim tale of nuclear warfare till the world was enveloped in radiation and what the last humans left did with their time. Gregory Peck was implacable. Fred Astaire is a much better actor than Ava Gardner. The Young Anthony Perkins was superbly grim. Intended as an intelligent warning against nuclear war, but nobody paid much attention.

Poerrepoint*** was chief executioner and hanged 608 English persons from 1933 to 1955. He was kind, gentle even, and mercifully quick. Until he executed his best friend, he was not altogether bothered by his job. Then he did and was. Serious, sad tale, a Masterpiece Theatre production.

I thought surely I'd seen it before, but now I know I hadn't. I'd remember glimpses, moment, flashing scenes. I didn't want to see it because I knew I'd been crazy, just as I collect crazy friends, and I didn't want to go there anymore than Sybil***/ wanted to meet her other selves. Took a long time before I could settle in with Sally Field's Sybil self, she looked so young, and this was so far ago. Once in a while, I'd remember the Joanne Woodward I've learned over so many years since. I'm sure a lot of it was psychiatric hokum, but the movie was always real to me, timid as it now seems. I'm sure it scared a lot of people in the 34 years since. Amazing.

I kept thinking this must be fiction but isn't it amazing that a woman painter is portrayed as other than young and beautiful, and her paintings were remarkable. That's what the visiting German art critic thought when he discovered the woman who cleaned his house painted such work. When he could, he showed and sold her paintings. He kept leaving, for World War I and the Depression. But he always came back. Usually gentle, but always a little crazy, and driven like painters sometimes are, Séraphine*** de Senlis achieved success in her own lifetime, but it was never easy.

Netflix called it an underappreciated comedy. I was expecting funny ha-ha, instead I got dark humor, intelligent character development, quirky characters and genuine affection. Gentle movie, deeply funny and human. A surprising little miracle directed by Christine Lahti. My First Mister***/

I still think 9/11 was a U.S. Government conspiracy. That George W. Bush's Presidency was a lie. I am convinced that the United States of America is the world's biggest and worst terrorist. So a movie like Reflecting Pool*** is right up my alley. It presents facts in evidence and not about the fall of the Twin and other towers. It's scary. It could have used better actors and better scenarios, which would have lent it more credibility. But it scares me, because it's true.

I watched as much as I could of Jeff Dunham: Arguing with Myself**/ but there was a limit. Kinda funny for a comedy TV show, but the hilarity doesn't hold up, the dummies are innane, and I could almost always see his mouth and throat moving.

Did not plan it, but here's another Danish movie, another winner. This one quiet, not so gentle, a woman who's married the wrong guy — he beats her, is unfaithful and a bully — finds a kindred spirit when she tries to hock a camera she'd won before she was married to Sigfried. He paid the ticket, she won the camera. If he wanted the camera, he'd have to marry her. They did, and years later she found it and tried to hock it. But the kindly photographer insisted, instead, she takes pictures with it, and it changes her life, eventually becoming a portrait photographer of some note. It ends happily enough, but there's enough strife and not nearly enough picture-taking. Everlasting Moments***.

Another real-father-comes-back movie. A much better one, whose plot lines are never so clear, whose realities are more complex and whose characters are far more interesting and human. After The Wedding***/ is superb, beautiful, rich and deep. This time the returning Dad has more character and responsibility. The story twists without Hollywoodian clarifications, because there aren't any of those in real life, and death.

Lemme see if I got this right: Two kids of two lesbian moms want to see the sperm donator for each of their births, contact him, find a nice-enough guy who's made something of himself since selling the sperm, though not academically. He falls for one of the moms, and she for him, so they have an affair. Just as the other mom is falling for the sperm donor, they are overheard fighting about it, and everybody's mad at Dad but mostly okay with the mom in the affair. Then the family takes the daughter who initiated contact to college, and they all decide to keep Dad out of their lives forever and ever. But at least The Kids Are All Right***, and it's nobody's fault but his. Right?

Another quirksome movie, this time about two mentally challenged Norwegian men, just out from the asylum, trying to make it on their own, despite many challenges. Elling***/ was difficult to watch, mostly because of Elling — the smarter of the two — 's maddening mama's boy attitudes and deep self-unconfidence. Over and over I'd get mad at his sniveling manners and pause the movie. But I kept coming back. Different from most make-it-on-their-own movies, but in some charming ways, the same as all of us making it on our own, despite and because of, our friends. Mostly gentle, largely credible, deeply human, hilarious when it's not maddening.

Some serious quirk at work here, too. The Hairdresser's Husband***/ is erotic without approaching porn. It's about love and not at all about growing up, although we see the husband of the title as a young boy and learn of his early obsession for hairdressers and his marriage to one much later. Gentle, funny, I don't mind repeating, erotic and loving. A sweet movie.

Love a good angel movie. Haven't seen one for years, maybe decades.This time the sinner's a short, little-minded lying thief, and the angel who saves him (or is it him saving her) after they both jump in the river has acquired a sexy bitch costume for this assignment. Great casting, great little story shot in gorgeous, subtle black & white in Paris. Superb filming, always coming back to one bridge or another they're walking over, a consistently marvelous transition. Bridges into sensible-ness, sensitivity, actual love instead of using, telling the truth, but I'm getting ahead of ourselves. Quirk as all get out of. Amazing chemistry between the gutter rat and the sexy angel. French. Wonderful. Angel A***/

Lyrical movies that only slowly make sense can be beautiful. The Caller***/ is like that. Takes some time to put the pieces together. Not that it's a great revelation. It's a different sort of murder mystery. We know who's doing it, and mostly why. The mysteries are more real than that, and it's a gentle movie for it. It's about friends and family and watching birds. Beautiful cinematography, lovely music, much of it Old Country accordion. Exquisite little movie with Elliot Gould and Frank Largella.

I wasn't as enthusiastic about Mary & Max**** as Anna who highly recommended it to me, but it grew on me. Not unlike a familiar wart, I suppose. Droll, dark, human — despite that everything was clay-mationed — loving, friendly, odder than almost anything else I'd ever seen. There's serious quirk here, from both main characters. In fact, it's a world of quirk. Yet perfect unto itself. Psychological and psycho-illogical all rolled up. Sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, but usually deeper and stranger. The clay-mation is superb, I kept forgetting I wasn't watching actual humans interact.

I usually reserve five stars — asterisks — ratings for movies that do something new, distinctly different and superbly. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo***** is just such a movie. A thriller, violent, sometimes sadistic. Diverse characters brought together to solve a mystery, yes but deeply psychological and amazing underneath all of it, and it all ties together in the end. The book must be a literary masterpiece. So's the movie.

Each new Sherlock I just know I won't like as well as the last. From Basil Rathbone to, well, Robert Downey, Jr. Wouldn't see seeing it on the big screen. Kinda glad I waited it till the littler screen, wonder now if he'll show up near midnight on Channel 13. Rousing good time, lots of the usual tricks and a couple new ones. I would like to see another and another with him, don't know how likely that. But this was darned good. Sherlock Holmes***/.

Started to say it didn't count, but I checked. It's not on these lists, so seeing Jaws**** again after all these years does count. What a rip-roaring movie. Oooof!

I blew it. I had the chance to go see Julie & Julia**** with dear friends soon after it came out, and I didn't go, because I imagined an entirely different kind of movie than what I've just watched and joyed all the way through. Corny to call it delightful after probably every other movie reviewer in the known universe probably did, too, but it was. It still lingers. The mingling of the two characters in the two time periods and all their friends and lovers was magnificent.

I feel like I've seen it before, long ago. But then I've rated more than a thousand films on Netflix, and remember — vaguely — many more as time goes on, but Enchanted April***/ was a delight. British ladies on a holiday in Italy, away from London into a natural paradise with a castle. Lovely altogether.

Netflix gave it fewer than three stars, so I should have known better, but I rented the 2000 flick The 6th Day** about cloning and gangsters and bad guys and two Arnold Schwartzeneggers and even Robert Duvall in an incredibly stupid sci fi thriller that was not worth watching, even if I did.

I wanted to, but I never did believe that a mediocre national team rose to be an international winner by wanting to. Even if the whole country was behind them, we never saw the players learn to be better, we just saw them want to and hope to. Meanwhile the movie played every emotional trick, and of course they won. Ho hum Invictus***.

The Escape Artist*** had its moments, then got mired in goofy surrealism and stupid, almost slapstick politics with none other than Dezi Arnez as the mayor/bad guy, though not as bad as his crazy, malevolent kid. Probably more realism in the corrupt mayor routine than anyone still would expect, but poignant as this movie almost is sometimes, it never rose to what it could have been. It almost had heart, almost had spirit, but ended up with neither and was a little too evil.

My theory is that the best movies involve a new way of telling. Not technology, but use of the tools at hand to relate what can only be related in words and moving pictures. The Secret Life of Words**** does that. Surprisingly well. The story is told in words, and they are telling, and the story is told in a deeply emotional manner. Achingly long and slow and deep.

Oh, Lard! I've finally seen one of The Twilight Saga: New Moon***. I'd hoped to catch the first one, but it musta got confused in my Netflix Queue. But it hardly matters. Now I've seen one, I don't have to see more, and that, to strain a pun, is a blessing. Vampires vs. Wherewolves, Indian and old White Guys, lots of goofy symbolism. I love a good scare, but there's hardly any there.

Art & Copy*** is another one of those documentaries about the ad biz. The really good ones come along every once in a while, and the bad ones more often than that. They are all mostly the same. Creative people talking about being creative in service to industry. They're like listening to somebody talking in an otherwise dark room. I get ideas. That's enough reason to watch the next one, too. This one is rather ordinary. Nice enough examples. Very ordinarily put together, but nothing as interesting nor as creative as Helvetica.

Studio Ghibli has produced many magic-infused (in one way or several) anime movies, this was a little stranger than some, with a more spiritual (and over my head) theme, but still delightful, especially in the details of annimation and stuff going on in the backgrounds. Ponyo***/ is lovely, but maybe a little too stupided down.

I saw It Happened One Night***/ so long ago, I must have been a kid then, and it had to have been on TV, and I ain't been a kid for fifty some odd years. Nice to see it again. Goofy. Stupid. Wildly romantic. Clarke Gable and Caludette Colbert. Classist as well as classic. Fun.

Jesse Stone - Thin Ice*** with Tom Seleck as the gentle, kind police chief is another one of those movies I know what to expect, and get it every time. Has to have been a made for some cable channel TV movie, and it was delicious.

Michael Caine in anything is worth watching. There's something about his little movies that's expected. I expected, and I was rewarded. Curmugeonly at first, then kind-hearted, doddering and. And there's this little boy who's ghost-obsessed since he lives where old people go to die. The two get together, get apart, back together, back apart. You know the drill. Heart-wearming, even a bit sad but happy at the end. What I expected. Is There Anybody There***

Four Minutes***/ is about passion. Our heroine, if we can call her that, has more than she or anybody else, can handle. Her teacher, has but a little, and she hides that so well. In the end, of course, it all comes tumbling out. Those are the four minutes in the title. All hang out piano playing, her passion, released. For a change without hurting anybody. Beautiful movie in strange ways, the timing for one instance, is impeccable throughout. Like a 30s farce or a choreographed footbal movie, ballet-like, with fisticuffs and screaming, crashing fits. Passion overabundant, if not triumphant.

1,000 Journals***/ inspired me to start another of my journals. Not entirely unlike the ones in this journal, mine were words written, art cut and pasted, streaks, original art, stolen art, borrowed art, pieces of stuff glued, taped, nailed, drilled, etc. in. Mine were of travels, and so are these. Mine will stay mine; these were variously shared.

They were sent out via 1000journals.com, which I never heard of till I saw the movie, but I'm glad I saw the movie, of the making of a 21st Century community established by sending 1,000 journals out to people who wanted them, leaving them at bus stops, on benches, tables, in bathrooms, all over the world, then seeing some of them come back decorated, written, drawn, etc.

Crazy Heart*** is pretty cornball country, but then that's always been my favorite kind. Like any "good Country & Western song, You can sing along Never having heard the words Before"... [Guess I'm old enough to start quoting myself now], although at least it doesn't end happily every after. Not a great movie, but kinda sweet and sour in unexpected moments.

Inglorious Basterds**/ is mostly stupid, but I'll give it an extra half an asterisk (/) for rewriting World War II, but it's still mostly stupid with scads of gratuitous violence.

Gustave Courbet** gives hints as to who this artist was, shows his work, tells a once over lightly version of his story for TV audiences, misses a lot, is kinda stupid.

Warning: this is the whole story: Lars van Trier movies are difficult to watch sometimes. Other times to understand. I am not even trying to comprehend here, just soaking in the senses in this. I am watching Antichrist**** as I type. It is visually beutiful but interiorly grisly. Frightening without visual traces of that eeriness, of the fear that grips as I experience its dark shadows and strange but real, natural sounds. It is comforting that I can stop it — as it plays on my computer, fed by Netflix. Rich and exquisite nightmare. Ah, there's a memorable bit of surreality. Trip scene. A moment of strange psychedelia. Haunting. Like when the devil transfers person to person in Fallen. She says she's fine now. He has been, but we now see he's acquired the fear, even he's not sure yet, but we know. A palpable fear, made real before our eyes, he is coming upon it. Spooky whoosh of wind. Geez, a bit of fearsome horror. The antichrist speaks the only time. I want to finish the movie, then sleep, but I am afraid. Not surprising. Lars is amazing. This may be his most accessible film yet, but deeply disturbing. Any movie I can get to forty minutes to the end, I will finish. Witch burning imagery now, in the attic, someone or some thing's rogue gallery, long ago thesis. Dark brooding music now. And bookmarked books, handwriting into dindecipherability writ large. Trees falling. Vivid psychological scary. Her grief consumes. She wants pain instead. He won't. They are controlled by something outside themselves that is growing into them. Their fear becomes our fear. Is made into sex, the ultimate film prohibition. She sucks him into her fear. He succombs. They are fucking in dark hell. He, the therapist. Telling her people cannot be hypnotized to do something against their nature, while he has just done those things. Spooky fog as their history with the child who died, almost suicide in the tragic first moments of this dark film. Violence now. Sexual violence. She on him. Bloody ejaculation. Slow, turning violence against his prostate, perhaps dead form. Gruesome. He comes to, in pain and horror. She axles heavy millsone to his shin. Refracting her torturing their child in Left and Right wrong shoes. Her fear, his excruciation, mix in our minds. We watched those altogether too familiar dark women in witch trial reports we've all seen too many times, as they descend into hell, she fears he'll leave her, he decending still, into the dirt she dug under real ground. Where he is discovering evidence ... Hatred now. She's screaming. Running through dark fog, back to bury him. I am shaking. Wish I hadn't started this. It may haunt me too long. Trier's movies are too often deeply affecting. This is one affecting me. Scary. Dark. She unearths him, not dead. More implements of torture. He's been torturing her to experience the fear by therapizing her. They are alone in the darkness. Tweny minutes to the end. "Did you want to kill me?" he asks. "Oh, yes." How I wish subtitles were available here. Inaudible rhymes like witches' chant. She to him in intimate whisper. Scissors and a vagina. Screa., and she is alone in the dark night woods. He wakes, sees stars patterning the Three Beggars Constellation she denies the existence of. More screams and hail on the tin roof. A fox enters their night cabin woods. The writhing crow trapped under the floor. He finds the wrench, unwrenches his grindstone, slow with great pain, we see blood and blood and deep shadows. She stabs him with scissors. More blood spatters. He wrenches the stone from his leg, strangles her. Her writhing, eyes fall back. She falls limp. A fire in the woods. He limps slow motion through the Dantean hell like she did to enter it before. Epilog, it says. He limps back in soft maybe infrared black and white, sees all last night's dead creatures in dawn's light, living, looking back at him, people coming in, faceless women everywhere, mobbing the graytone woods. Fade to black. Dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky 1932-1986. End credits in slow crawl, fine print over the hand-written title. Of body doubles and set runners, medical service, script consultants and on. Brief music fades into dark gutteral sound. I've been movied. Hope you don't mind this, but I doubt anybody would want to subject themselves to this. Deeply affecting. Horror film. Dark music again, slowed. Another minute and a half of slow crawl credits. "All animals in this film were handled by professionals or computerized." Fade to black. I put the requisite asterisks on the title above and wonder whether anybody reads these words. First time I've seen a movie not DVD released yet on my computer screen. Might not want to again. But's amazing dark. Gloom-filled. Not so sure about the Antichrist, but truly dark.

Yesterday***/ was beautifully filmed, slow-paced, careful about a woman learning she is dying of AIDS, her husband comes back from working in the mines in Johanisburg, and their child, Beauty, goes to her first day of school. Yesterday says she is not brave, it's just the way it is.

Departures**** was beautiful, magical and telling in so many visual ways. Simple story, people the fates gathered, family and transitions. Eloquently told.

Avatar*** was okay. Big, comic book story and execution. I knew soon as the characters were established how it would end. There was never any mystery or magic. It just plodded along and eventually it finished.

Nice to know that it's still even possible, but seeing Close Encounters of the Third Kind**** thrilled me all over again. Maybe not as much as the first time I saw it in a theatre when it was brand new and it wasn't possible to Netflix it, but wow. Still gots its magic, and I'm still willing to let it.

Iron Man 2** sexist, racist, violent and stupid with no redeeming social value. Aimed at 13-year-old boys, who will love it.

A Very Long Engagement***/ is a big story of love lost and sought through many other stories in war. A detective story putting all the pieces together, so she could find him. Long — 2 hours and 13 minutes, winding story of visual poetry and hope. French 2004

It's really too bad they couldn't come up with a better title than The Thirteenth Floor***/. That very nearly wrecks it, although there is a flair in the name. The movie is part immersive digital life/game, part time-travel, part a complicated interdimensional Thugs vs. The Good Guys in Computerland — On Beyond Tron. Intriguing mix. Some of it is smart; too much is dimwitted. Overall, not terrible and certainly not great, but watchable and even better, ponderable. 1999

I had no idea that The Invention of Lying***/ could possibly be as charming and honest and real as it was. Or that it would be deep down interesting and entertaining. Made me laugh out loud often. Even made me think several times running.

Liam Neeson as the grizled ex-spy whose daughter is Taken*** for the White Slavery trade in Paris, and he goes to get her back. Pretty strenuous for an old man, but exciting, fun and a little tear-jerky at the end, though hardly ever credible. The worst part was when he shot his friend's wife just to make a point. Other than that, the flick was fun.

Fire in the Sky*** has been in my Netflix queue for several years. Last week it finally made it back up to the top again, and I didn't push it back down. First movie in awhile, I just watched all the way through. Didn't check the clock, didn't wander off for a couple days. About an alien encounter and the guys who were with the man who was abducted. First they were accused of murdur, then when the abductee came back, for making it all up to get attention. Not sure who'd want that kind of attention, except maybe the people who were accusing. Jim Garner plays a very credible cocky lawman asshole. Everybody else is at least credible. Solid story. Based on a true story. Every part of it fascinating. Who believed who. Who did not. Who went a little crazy.

A Serious Man***/ is a fable about a man who does not know who he is or who are the people living with him whom he supposedly loves. It's not a great movie, but it is interesting, Jewish, truly Coen Brothers strange and a deeply black comedy.

Vanishing Point* is promoted as the classic chase movie, although of course, it is not. It's just Kowalksi racing across the desert west with a bunch of state cops chasing him from time to time with loud music playing and an uncool Black DJ telling us it's about The Last American Hero. Mostly it's just a stupid chase more like O.J. in his Bronco on the LA Freeway, with slight hippie and dumb cop variations. Boring. Silly. Stupid.

Maybe it is that every once in awhile I need to see Suspect Zero**** again. It's a dark thriller. Ben Kingsley is amazing as the anti- anti-hero. The one who sees. Who sees remotely what no one should ever have to see. And the tracks down the ones the FBI guy should have been tracking down all that time. But they can't see what he can see, and they do not believe.

This is a movie of the heart, about a community that moves and grows under the deft but unknowing leadership of a member of that community. That learns to know itself and each member learns who they are and what their voice is. The community is a choir and a town and people. The story builds slowly, and its beauty in interior. Its truths real. Its people human. Its metaphor is its music, sadly unavailable except here. It grows like a symphony. As It Is In Heaven***** is amazing, beautiful, joyous and sad. Triumphant. in Swedish.

The Blind Side*** is a cute little weeper with heart, a decent story, nice good characters and a lot of smarm. Not sure how it came up with an Academy Award, but those politics are thicker than any in Memphis. The feel-good movie of the week.

I'm a major fan of Terry Gilliam movies but The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus*** seems weak-hearted and unneccessarily dark, without ever going anywhere. This is probably a lot like everybody else thought The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was, only I loved that movie and saw it several times. Anna suggested it was great on the big screen, but as much as I like watching movies on the big screen, I don't like sharing the space with all those idiot people who talk, talk on the cell phones, play video games, etc., so I far prefer seeing movies on my little screen at home. And there, this one don't make it. Maybe I should rent it again in six months when I calm down.

I haven't had as much pure, raw fun watching a movie as I have watching The Transformers***/ in a long, long, time. The plot is riddiculous, the acting suspect, the dialog often borrowed from other movies and popular culture is sometimes surprising and often hilarious. If it weren't having so much fun making fun of itself and its whole teen monster, save-the-world gesnre, this might be a lesser movie. But it's not. Everyone we've told about it, have turned their noses up at the very idea, much like I did before I saw it. Now I know better.

The Beautiful Country***/ tells the long, arduous odyssey of a young Vietnamese man born of an American father finding his father in America. It's a beautiful film in many ways. Superb acting, script, cinematography. But it's also human beautiful albeit with elements of brutality and evil. It's a big movie about a tiny minority, but a fascinating and in the end, heart-warming.

I'm always leery of a new sci fi movie I've never heard of. Sleep Dealer***/ did that to me, again. But once I settled into — and that worked quickly, lots of human emotion, feelings, a a credible sense of reality, along with fascinating technology, not out of place in an imagined near future — it, I liked it, and never once thought of pausing it or coming back later. It's a quick 90 minutes, but very well done, good everything, great tech and story. Admirable job.

Not so much laugh out loud ha-ha funny about this movie, but lots of deep, quiet chorteling and knowing that's how we humans really are. The Men Who Stare At Goats*** is humanly hilarious, and toward the end of the movie, it all gets funnier and funnier. This is how wars should be.

Spent a long time and many stops and restarts seriously disliking Where The Wild Things Are**** for not being understood by me, then suddenly near the end I figured something out and loved it. Seriously different from any other movie ever. Gently serious in several crazy ways, it makes sense without a lick of linear progression. Goofy, maddening, wonderful.

Mr. Bing and L'Art Nouveau** is about a fascinating turn of art and the guy who gave it its name and who shoved it in most of the right directions and gave a bunch of later famous artists enough to go on for awhile and the impetus to be a serious worldwide moviement, and lots of intriguing art, but — and I'm not sure what it is — something major missing. Soul?

I stayed angry with the 'hero' of Breaking and Entering***/ nearly the whole movie, relenting only at the end, when I finally saw the points of this cinematic exercize and began to appreciate not so much what happened here, but how it was put together and what its lasting effect was. Looking back, it's quite a trip. Remarkable actors, superb story, involving characters.

I almost quit The Importance of Being Earnest*** about two-thirds through this silly farce, then came back and finished it. If I'd known Judi Dench was in it, I might have liked it more immediately. All those other stars don't hurt much, either.

I never expected The Informant*** himself would be a bigger nightmare than Archer Daniels Midland, whom he schemed for. This movie is a lark. It's not deeply funny, it's deeply stupid, and I feel taken for watching it and about half of the dozen or so previews it came with, and in another tweny years, I might like feeling duped again to watch it.

How sweet. Surrogates***/ with Bruce Wilis is a new classic science fiction story. Not a long one, but long enough to thoroughly tell an intelligent story about being human. Updating The Twilight Zone. Sharp. Solid story. Big smile on my face at the ending. Sweet.

I want to tell you that Tim Burton's new Alice in Wonderland***/ is wonderful, but all I saw was fuzz. In the bathroom later, I overlistened to someone telling his friend the same thing. I wasn't the only one. Some of us can't see the latest 3-D technology, all we see is fuzz. I'm looking forward to seeing the 2-D version. I think it'll be really good.

I hadn't seen Imagine: John Lennon*** though I've meant to for a long time. Now I have seen it and I think I've been seeing it on public tv for years. I thought he was amazing, but the movie's just plugs along.

The Counterfitters***/ is a heist movie set in a German Concentration Camp. It is a superb movie, because of its story, which apparently is true, and because of the characters, mostly jewish with a few camp officials, all bad. It's all very dark, most of the color washed out of it, moody and deeply, chillingly ironic. The camera moves often adding to the discomfort. What is evil?

The Ricthie Boys***/ were Germans and Jews who left Germany for America before World War II, then went back to infiltrate so they could interrogate German Prisoners of War and anybody else with information that could save Americans. This reverse espionage was dangerous and fascinating and often funny. Lots of talking heads, some in action, reminiscing, painting feelings from back then. Very well put together.

City Island**/ is a seriously flawed move. It starts out with a colorful Prince of Tides home-town narrative about the island and its inhabitants, then that goes nowhere. It's quirky, but the quirk doesn't add to the story, it only detracts. It's about a disfunctional family that lies to each other every chance they get. Hardly new territory. And the Dad who's taking acting classes on the sly, but his wife assumes he's having an affair. Nothing new there, either. Nothing new, nothing fits, nothing goes together. It's still a smarmy little heart-tugger but most of what pulls us in are tricks, and it's not smart.

It says F**k: A Documentary" on the Netflix wrapper for this film. The film itself uses a star instead of an asterisk, as in "F*CK," but when it shows up on my desktop is full-fledged "FUCK***," so it's difficult to tell what the actual film's title is, but that's what it's all about. Oh, there's some knowledge in the Biblical sense. In fact The Bible gets mentioned a lot, even though the word is neither there nor prohibited there. Certainly some direct references to sex. But mostly the movie's about saying that word. How it's bad when some people say it, but okay when others say it, although either of those can change at any moment. I like words, and fuck is one I don't say nearly enough, and after seeing this movie, it seems just a little more revolutionary to say it.

Up in the Air*** was a lot better and deeper than I thought it would be. Less than wonderful people making character transitions into actual human beings, and visa versa. Think-worthy, gentle, humanly funny, almost deep.

Plymptoons* - tedious.

I haven't even started with The Time Traveler's Wife***, but I'm already angry with it, because it won't let me skip the interminable previews and go to the movie, which oddly enough is why I rented this DVD. I get "Not Permitted" every time I attempt to watch the movie. And that's just wrong. Luckily, my iMac remembers how far I'd got the last time and returns me to that point every time I restart it. But this is really a nuisance.

Okay. I saw it. I've thought about it. I liked it. Time travel is one of my favorite flick genres. I'll probably rent this one again in a couple years. It's smarmy and intelligent, warm and cuddly and starkly unreal. It's pretty to look at, but really very so-what? We loved it as an audio book all the way to Colorado, but as a move, nyeah.

Had low to no expectations of 2012***, just looking for some big escape, and I love science fiction, so have at. Only after this end-of-the-world disaster film started did I realize John Cusack and a bunch of other famous actors were in it. Him alone woulda done it. Lots of high adventure excitement separated by slow scenes I mostly fast-forwarded through, going for the thrill. Yee-ha! Loved it.

In 1968, I had the opportunity to participate in a war. Called Vietnam. It was strange and stupid enough to run screaming from any notion of war since. Iraq baffled me. Afghanistan, too. The Hurt Locker**** scared the bejesus out of me. I believe there are people who are so good at something so necessary that they can do it in life and death circumstances of total chaos. This is a movie about one such man. Beautiful, strange, surreal, violent, vicious and stupid. The movie is amazing, but I don't want to be there.

Hadn't seen The Ghost and Mrs. Muir*** for at least 40 years. Minutes after the wildly romantic movie started I forgot it was in black & white, let myself back into the story of the sea captain and the widow. Smarmy and absurdist, yet warmly comfortable and comforting.

Using apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes as examples, The Botany of Desire*** uses the sometimes strained metaphor of understanding how plants adapt to our world and what that can do for and to us. It's pretty. Very well organized. Fascinating and has several important points.

Netflix keeps wanting to sell me a player, recorder, set top box, thingy. Never once told me I can play movies on my iMac. Never even mentions it. Plug into the net, pick one, watch kind of easy. No switches, no dials, engage brain, watch. Just thought somebody ought to say that.

Dark, suicide dark, comedy, yeah, why not? But dark and sneaky-up funny human. Shrink****

Mostly, Me and You and Everyone We Know***/ is quirky and deeply and humanely funny. There's an ongoing undercurrent about art and several others about romance and growing old and being a kid and more sex than you'd normally expect in a movie with so many cute kids — everything else.

Though incredibly stupid in many places, especially the beginning, Star Trek***/ is a good TV show pilot. I can't wait for the series.

Vitus**** is utterly charming. The story of a boy prodigy, who just wants to be a boy. But his parents, especially his mother, is too caught up in him being altogether special. His grandfather is the hero for our little hero. Grandpa treats him in immediacy, sparks his interests, plays with him. Superb film with outstanding characters, fine acting and an excellent story and plot.

11 Minutes Ago***/ has the feeling of a student film. Only a few of the actors — and nearly none of the ones who star — look like actors, but the story has been crafted carefully, and time-travel though it crosses with first-meeting of the romantic kind, catches it in 11-minute segments, which is as long as he can stay each discontinuous time through the evening of somebody else's wedding, during when we get to meet the characters. A delight of genuine human actions and reactions, even if you don't believe the time-travel bit.

Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens*** is a credible documentary about one of the most credible photo portraitists of our time. Her story is more interesting than three asterisks, but the movie has a sameness about it.

Bright Star*** is the romance — perhaps entirely ficticious — between poet John Keats and Fannie Brawne. Fans of Brit period pieces will enjoy the ambiance. I just never quite believed it, kept checking internet sites for the facts through it. Lilting, pleasant, keep wondering if I've learned anything aobut the real people portrayed.

I accidentally re-rented The Nines thinking I was getting another of the recent spate of 9 movies. I saw the alien-contact race-relations turnabout Project 9, had seen the enigmatic The Nines, now have seen 9**** and loved it enough to watch all the bonus features. I think yet another of the recent 9s is a musical, so that'll eventually stir into the mix.

9, however, is the best of them so far, and though none of its actors are human it is ultimately very human and science fiction at its best also. Man — in the form of a series of animated rag dolls — versus machines that have taken over. Each rag doll is a part of a human, and each plays its part against the machines. Very poetic, cinnematically beautiful, intelligent and deeply human.

I met I.M. Pei**/ when he was designing our bent city hall, so seeing him and some of his projects and a lot of his thinking and designing in this movie was pleasant.

Against Time**/ is a sloppy, sentimental claptrap movie that borrows time travel without really ever engaging it and at the end, blows all sense, smarts or character progression out the window. Stupid. Disappointing. Like a made-for-TV movie.

Tickets***/ is a lilting, lovely slice of life. Three directors. Three stories. Not sure I could tell you when one started or another ended. They intertwined without the obvious tricks Hollywood would have suckered us with. Gentle. Mean-spirited. Positive. Negative. Like real life. Connected by a train going to Rome. Beautiful along the way. Odd, quirky pacing. Italian. Very differing sorts of people. Dreamy, too real, a little pain, a little pathos, some bathos. Fine little film, despite English subtitles I had to pay attention to rather than the visual subtleties, but I guess I caught enough of those. Sweet.

Moon***/ is set on a sound stage with all "moon" activity as obvious models, though everything else seen is mostly credible. It's about cloning, especially illicit cloning of human beings as workers in far-flung places and what happens when the clones find out. The movie is smart, sometimes exciting and often intellectually challenging.

Open Your Eyes*** seems like a lurid psychodrama in which a narcissist can't match his reality with his lover, so he kills her. All the way through I kept waiting for the cheap trick at the end that'd explain everything. Only it wasn't all that cheap. Like Sixth Sense, the movie actually followed its own rules, turning plot twists into a genuine story as our hero flashes in and out of reality. This is the Spanish original for Vanilla Sky. (There's a little time travel in it, too.)

Spooky. A little frightening. Smart story. Decent acting. A chilling love story. The Mothman Prophecies***

Brilliant. Deeply, darkly hilarious. Superbly well thought-through science fiction of the first order. Bizarre. Amazing. Intelligent. Exciting. Mind-bending. District 9**** is first contact with an alien species, in which humans are our usual insipid, insanely greedy, stupid, war-mongering selves, and the aliens — some of them at least — are human and better. Fun rooting for the good guys again.

2009

I was offerred two free tickets to some movie for mentioning it in this blog. C'mon, guys. If I'm gonna sell my soul, the price should be a little more substantial than two free tickets. Of course, if I am bribed to mention a flick here, I'll let my readers know the makers and the value of the bribe. It's the law now.

There's a bunch of vids I saw at last year's Dallas Video Festival that I should write about here, several that inspired me, and I should go to that thing more often than I go to the Fair.

I've been watching TV shows on and via Netflix and being alternately fascinated by their intelligence and appalled by their stupidity. The Brit crime series, Wire in the Blood***, about a psychiatrist working with the police to solve heinous crimes, is fascinating, though dark. Burn Notice**, exciting at first, has become tedious — there's story and interesting characters aplenty, but it's painfully bereft of plot or character development. And I've caught up with the last season of Dexter***/ and still find his story delicious, intelligent and wicked funny.

I been diggin' Instant Viewing flicks on Netflix. Never tried it before, because I thought I had to have some expensive Blu-Ray player, but it works on my elderly Mac just fine. Not everything's available, but plenty.