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The Girlfriend Experience 2009
Gotta admit, I loved this one. It’s a people film, not a plot film. Specific people, not symbols. How they manage their own fictions. I read a lot of negative reviews after watching, and it seems that many folks were 1) hoping/expecting this movie to be about something else or 2) didn’t like the way it was about what it was about. Watch it and draw your own conclusions. Definitely thought-provoking for me.
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Star Trek 2009
This is more space opera than intellectual scifi salon, for better or worse. The best comparison I can think of is Rise of the Planet of the Apes: It’s not an all-time great movie, not really even close, but it’s great at what it does. Silly adventure that’s nice to look at. I do hope that movies following this reboot are a little more nerdy.
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Fast & Furious 2009
Decent. Most franchises don’t stay strong after three movies. It’s definitely grown up: multi-national settings, gratuitous helicopter flyover shots, fancier locations, and pretty fireball explosions among the big-budget must-haves. The obvious CGI in the tunnel scenes was a bit of a letdown. The races more frenetic and choppy; the crashes were definitely more… comprehensive. I was also thinking this is first in the series that’s felt wholly like a work of the 2000s. Even has teal and orange in full…
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Hunger 2008
Not sure how I feel about this one overall. I was glad Bobby Sands wasn’t really portrayed as martyr-hero or villain-fool, just a really committed guy. Much more about the choices of a life than the politics that motivate them. I wish the dreamy bits at the end had been chopped down a bit, maybe a better balance with the first two acts that way.
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Louis C.K.: Chewed Up 2008
Good stuff. A few of my favorite bits are in this one.
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Gone Baby Gone 2007
I kinda wish the movie had stopped after the second voiceover. It would have been amazing (if maybe predictable in an ambiguous, artsy way). But it’s a genre film, so it kept going, and while the second, twisty act was a little mystery-novel page-turner-y, Ben Affleck does a great job with it. I assume he was being more or less faithful to the source. Great, great cast. The end offers an interesting tension between Monaghan’s ethic-of-care/consequentialist perspective and Casey Affleck’s…
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Casino Royale 2006
I admitted on Twitter that I’d never seen a post-Dalton Bond film and asked for recommendations. This was the clear favorite. I like this reboot. Craig is excellent. The movie is kinda Bourne-y, and therefore great as an action film. It’s kinda eehhhhh if you’re looking for clever spy things. (Chasing baddies by text messages they leave behind on cellphones? Surely it’s harder than that…) It has basically no sense of humor. It’s a bit too long. Appropriately glamorous photography.…
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The Prestige 2006
Themes: obsession, sacrifice, craft, identity, showmanship, revenge, deceit, science as magic, etc. It’s a little mechanical and maybe overstuffed, but always interesting. Jackman and Bale are excellent. I expect viewers would either love or hate the ending, in which the inevitable is delayed while the story is re-told and all is explained. I kinda hate that, but I should have expected as much. I guess that’s Nolan’s own prestige moment? I get really annoyed when you watch a movie and…
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The Fountain 2006
The score is such a big part of the effectiveness of the emotions here that it almost hurts the movie’s case. In other words, I found it distracting. Absolutely beautiful to look at, though. I like Aronofsky’s restrained sepia/golden/silver palettes, and smart use of the macro lenses. I wonder how it would have turned out if the first, fully-budgeted version had gone to completion. I liked Black Swan just a bit more. Pi and Requiem for a Dream are also…
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The Aura 2006
Too bad Fabián Bielinsky is no longer with us. I think he was on to something here. This one meanders ever so slightly, but still pretty solid. I love the rural photography; the pace; the way it doesn’t prepare you for anything, but makes you wait and watch this guy get in over his head. Ricardo Darín is so awesome. I really liked him in El Secreto de Sus Ojos, too.
