The Women (1939): B+
So much fun! I really loved it and laughed a lot, my only complaint is that it was a bit too long.

Street Kings

God, what was worse? The screenplay, the cast or the direction? It's another sort of corrupt cop movie where the good guys turn into bad guys and the bad guys turn into good guys.

But despite everything, I liked it. How much you like "Street Kings" depends on how much you enjoy Keanu Reeves. There's nothing more to it. Despite all its flaws, if you like Keanu enough, you'll like this movie. If you don't like him, you'll laugh at all the banal cop-movie dialogue like half the audience did.

Python

No Country for Old Men (2007)

A well-made thriller, featuring excellent cinematography (by Roger Deakins), editing, sound, direction, etc. etc. and of course, acting. Perhaps not a "great" film but it approaches greatness in certain aspects and in some bravura sequences. I think its biggest fault is that the Coens know the story is a little bit country i.e., cornball, and they cannot resist the urge to tell us they are in on the joke. Yet there are signs of maturity (oh oh!) seen in stripping their style down to its essential elements, in the process becoming better filmmakers.

It comes as no surprise given his previous work that Javier Bardem earned an Oscar for his performance here.

Highly recommended.

Grade: A

Round two for the Coen Brothers continues....

"Miller's Crossing" 1990

An early work from the Coen Brothers and possibly the most underrated. By no means great, John Tuturro was close to it, this gangster flim is told with humor, style, and flair. Derivative at times but enjoyable for its smart aleck sensibilities.

C+

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FishBiscuit,

Dan in Real Life: B+

I really liked this one. I thought the cast worked very well together. I think I like Carell even more in his quieter mode. He was excellent.

The only thing that sort of confused me was why Emily Blunt was cast as Dan's high school classmate. Seriously, they couldn't find an actress closer to Carell's age?!

quote:

Originally posted by tomk:
No Country for Old Men (2007)
I think its biggest fault is that the Coens know the story is a little bit country i.e., cornball, and they cannot resist the urge to tell us they are in on the joke.

Grade: A

I very much agree with that. While I really liked most all of the movie, I really wish the doofy, oafish deputy and the sheriff who can't resist an opportunity to crack wise would have been toned down quite a lot. Jones's character gets rounded out as the movie goes on, but the deputy remains a simple punchline.

Walk Hard (2007): C-
Even for its genre, quite bad. The only highlights for me were the Beatles and Bob Dylan sequences.

THE COUNTERFEITERS (2007)

So much has been made of the foreign language film category this year -- what was snubbed, the field without the frontrunners, and the inevitable winner, but "The Counterfeiters" is a stunning film, and judged on its own merits, I can easily see why it won the Oscar. It had all of those Academy wheelhouse ingredients that equals winners -- World War II/Holocaust film, lots of grotesque imagery, survival against all odds, bleak and drowned out cinematography (which was stellar by the way from Benedict Neuenfels), and this absorbing true-life story of how the Nazis perpetrated the largest money counterfeiting operation in history. The central performance from Karl Markovics was wonderfully complex as Salomon Sorowitsch -- these kind of performances hardly ever get nominated for Oscars, but they should. The supporting cast did an excellent job here, and for a story that I had never heard of before, I couldn't take my eyes off of it for a second, and I cared about characters that I never thought I would have an ounce of sympathy for (yes, including the big, bad Nazis). The only elements that weren't strong were the "present" bookend scenes, but the heart of the film was with the concentration camp sequences, so it makes up for that. See this film as soon as possible.

Grade for "The Counterfeiters": A-

SMART PEOPLE (2008)

This was one of those films that I was anticipating based on the premise and outstanding cast, but at almost every turn, there was something there that was either disappointing or not as sharp as it could have been. The screenplay could have been a great one in that incisive kind of dramedy vein, but it wasn't. As for the cast, I think that each of the actors playing main characters have played this kind of character better someplace else -- Dennis Quaid, Thomas Haden Church, Ellen Page, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Ashton Holmes. I didn't mind the plot twists and turns, b/c that at least kept the film moving and somewhat engaging, and I did like the ending at least. It's still worth the view for something pleasant with some laughs that's geared toward a literate adult crowd, but keep your expectations in check, b/c you constantly think what could have been with some tweaks to the screenplay throughout the duration of the film.

Grade for "Smart People": B-

MOONSTRUCK (1987)

It's weird seeing Cher like this, and even weirder to realize that she has the Oscar over Glenn Close, but still, I can see why people fell for it. It's a swoony and engaging romantic comedy with very broad strokes throughout -- the way they painted Italian-American life as this romantic fablesque journey of sorts felt like a bad "SNL" sketch most of the time with the comedy too punctuated throughout, and the score here was ridiculous. But the cast grounds things for the most part even when they're given the clunkiest of dialogues (I'm most surprised that John Patrick Shanley won a screenplay Oscar for this -- I'm glad he redeemed himself with "Doubt"). Cher really is the grounding force that moves things along. I was expecting Olympia Dukakis to be a bit livelier than what she was. I always had the impression that her Oscar-winning role would have been something different than this. Vincent Gardenia was funny in places, but it didn't scream nomination-worthy to me. I thought that Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, and John Mahoney were better in that respect. The ending was cute though, so an added plus for that.

Grade for "Moonstruck": C+

Road Games...a low budget classic 1980's thriller.

Lie With Me (2005, directed by Clement Virgo) - D-

Paranoid Park (2007, directed by Gus van Sant) - B+

Elizabeth - The Golden Age (2007, directed by Shekhar Kapur) - C+

In The Bedroom (2001, directed by Todd Field)

Nice direction by Todd Field, wonderful screenplay by Field and Rob Festinger, and knock out performances make this movie one of the best of 2001.

Spacek and Tomei are at the top of their game, but the MVP for me was Tom Wilkinson.

Very well done.

A-

quote:

Originally posted by jdb1131978:
In The Bedroom (2001, directed by Todd Field)

Nice direction by Todd Field, wonderful screenplay by Field and Rob Festinger, and knock out performances make this movie one of the best of 2001.

Spacek and Tomei are at the top of their game, but the MVP for me was Tom Wilkinson.

Very well done.

A-

I love Tomei's performance in that movie so much. The fact that her character isn't resolved still haunts me...which might have been the reason they left her unresolved.

quote:

Originally posted by Atypical:
MOONSTRUCK (1987)

It's weird seeing Cher like this, and even weirder to realize that she has the Oscar over Glenn Close, but still, I can see why people fell for it. It's a swoony and engaging romantic comedy with very broad strokes throughout -- the way they painted Italian-American life as this romantic fablesque journey of sorts felt like a bad "SNL" sketch most of the time with the comedy too punctuated throughout, and the score here was ridiculous. But the cast grounds things for the most part even when they're given the clunkiest of dialogues (I'm most surprised that John Patrick Shanley won a screenplay Oscar for this -- I'm glad he redeemed himself with "Doubt"). Cher really is the grounding force that moves things along. I was expecting Olympia Dukakis to be a bit livelier than what she was. I always had the impression that her Oscar-winning role would have been something different than this. Vincent Gardenia was funny in places, but it didn't scream nomination-worthy to me. I thought that Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, and John Mahoney were better in that respect. The ending was cute though, so an added plus for that.

Grade for "Moonstruck": C+

Weird. I just watched this movie today too. A friend lent it to me.
I liked it very much. This felt like the better written and acted version of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". I agree that neither Cher or Dukakis SCREAMED Oscar, but I can see the circumstances of why they won. They are both wonderful and refreshing. And the film is very surprising in the turns it takes and how individual scenes develop. It's a lot of fun to watch. And yeah, the end sequence is wonderful and completely surprising in its construction.
[b]B{/b]

quote:

Originally posted by jdb1131978:
In The Bedroom (2001, directed by Todd Field)

Nice direction by Todd Field, wonderful screenplay by Field and Rob Festinger, and knock out performances make this movie one of the best of 2001.

Spacek and Tomei are at the top of their game, but the MVP for me was Tom Wilkinson.

Very well done.

A-

My favorite movie of the 2000's so far..

A dissenting view - an unsubtle, overacted and way overlong movie, not as awful as Fields' later Little Children, but still full of caricatures rather than characters, self-indulgent scenes and a sense of someone who had watched a lot of Kubrick films without understanding what he was trying to do.

Wilkinson came off best under the circumstances.

Counter to the dissent:

Deeply personal film. Everyone was good and it went places most audiences shy away from. Wilkinson more than "came off" as best, he was the best in a film that excellent on all fronts.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FishBiscuit,

There Will Be Blood (2007): A
My second viewing -- I still don't get the ending, but the monumental first 2 hours and ten or so minutes more than make up for it.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

Upon a second viewing, and especially during Plainview's final monologue, I'm now convinced that Eli and Paul were the same person and that Plainview knew this from the very beginning and was playing on Eli's weakness with the story about the $10,000. It is such a shame that Dano's performance was overlooked by most critics -- it is as well-crafted and interpreted as D-Day's. But let's keep it real, D-Day is phenomenal from beginning to end. I'm still in awe. The final scene with H.W. was even more powerful this time around...I almost wish the film had ended with that heart-breaking loss (accompanied by one of the most beautiful and perfectly-timed flashbacks I've ever seen).

Still, this film is leaps and bounds ahead of most of last year's releases -- a triumph.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: cinevita,

quote:

Originally posted by seanflynn:
A dissenting view - an unsubtle, overacted and way overlong movie, not as awful as Fields' later Little Children, but still full of caricatures rather than characters, self-indulgent scenes and a sense of someone who had watched a lot of Kubrick films without understanding what he was trying to do.

Wilkinson came off best under the circumstances.

Its interesting that you say 'overacting'.. Aside from Spacek in one scene I found the performances to be quite subtle and realistic. I've heard boring, or they didn't agree with what happened in the end, but 'overacted' and 'unsubtle' is certainly a new one!

Prom Night (1980)

Love the classic 70's and 80's slasher movie's. Prom Night is actually sad in many parts and the end makes me tear up.