Today's update is a little overdue, but I managed to see some great films over the past couple of weeks.  Here are my thoughts: The Hurt Locker - I really enjoyed this movie and hate that I had to wait so long to see it.  I'd love for Kathryn Bigelow to win the Best Direction Oscar for this.  The way she builds and uses tension in the story is amazing.

It's a little late, but here is my latest round-up of recently seen movies. Youth In Revolt - Michael Cera builds on his teenage virgin persona with a slightly darker turn.  It's not exactly a giant leap forward for him, but you can see some maturity here.  It's got a nice cast and does a good job of expressing the feeling of being young and wanting more out of your life. 500 Days of Summer - I'm so late to the game on this one, but I really enjoyed it.  Zooey Deschanel is so freaking lovable here, despite her flaws.  It's a good story (especially for people who get bored with a typical love story), and the leads have a lot of charm. Terminator Salvation - After months of hearing bad things about this movie, I had to give it a chance myself.  I didn't love it.  While the dark, apocolyptic tone was fitting, all of the characters were a bunch of super soldiers who lost their humanity and were difficult to care about.  In addition to this, the rapid paced MTV style editing was distracting and took me out of the story. The Fire Within - Another classic by Louis Malle.  The film tells the story of a recovering alcoholic who spends a day visiting various old friends in Paris in an attempt to find a reason to continue living.  Not one of my favorites by Malle, but it's strong and engaging. More film reviews

Over New Years (and its requisite recovery time) I didn't make time to watch as many movies as I normally do in a given week.  Hopefully things will pick back up as life gets back to normal now that the holidays are over. Sherlock Holmes - As a 'Sherlock Holmes' movie, this worked much better than I thought it would.  As a 'Robert Downy, Jr' movie, it also works great.  RDJ is a fine actor and puts in a great performance here.  As a 'Guy Ritchie' movie, it's good; not great.  You can see shadows of Ritchie's gritty style, particularly in fight and action scenes, but it doesn't have quite the personality of some of his earlier work.  However, I applaud Ritchie for stretching out of his comfort zone and trying a film with a grander scale.  The lowlight of this film is Rachel McAdams.  I have nothing against her, but she could have been swapped out with any equivalent Hollywood actress and would have had the same affect.  An actress with stronger acting chops could have really added something here.

It was a busy week with Christmas, but here's a rundown of the movies I've seen recently: Up In the Air - Easily Jason Reitman's best film yet.  After seeing it, it's no surprise that so many critics have called this their favorite movie of 2009.  It's a very original story with fully-dimensional characters that never feel overwritten or overplayed.  It's timely, sincere and perfectly-cast, and it's one of my favorites of the year.  I'd recommend this film to everyone.

With the cold, wet weather last week, I spent a lot of time indoors and managed to catch several movies. I did venture out over the weekend, however, to catch what was probably the most anticipated movie of the year. See my thoughts below:

Avatar - Along with pretty much everyone in the world, I saw this over the weekend. Caught it in 3D, and have to say that it is absolutely beautiful. This really moves how science fiction/fantasy movies are made forward. Sigourney Weaver and Sam Worthington are both great. The story is engaging, but much of it is predictable. It's not perfect, but the pros easily outweigh the cons.

Amarcord - Fellini's 1974 film tells the story of a small Italian town in the thirties. The characters are loud and colorful and fun to watch.

Grace - After a woman loses her unborn child, she continues to carry full-term. She's surprised to find out after delivering that the child survived, but has a taste for human blood. The film is beautifully shot with great use of color, but I would have liked a little more story.

Friday the 13th (2009) - This remake was pure crap and I don't have much else to say about it.

Black Christmas - The Christmas horror classic where sorority girls are terrorized by a prank-calling killer. It's hard to believe this is from the same director who brought us A Christmas Story, Bob Clark.

Image courtesy of Sci Fi Scoop.

Super Quick Movie Reviews #2

Super Quick Movie Reviews #1

Time for my second installment of quick and painless movie reviews.  Saw a group of varied films this week. Check them out below: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - Director Werner Herzog teams up with original writer Victor Argo for a sequel to 1991's Bad Lieutenant starring Harvey Keitel.  This time around we follow Nicolas Cage as Terance McDonagh, a faulted (and faulty) cop who's earning professional accolades while resorting to some drastic measures to conceal his deranged methods and debilitating addictions.  Cage plays pretty much the same character he does in every movie, but here, it works.  Watch out for Eva Mendes, who aside from looking gorgeous, helps to provide a sense of depth and even purity (despite playing a prostitute).  I was a big fan of this film and would recommend this to anyone who loves gritty crime dramas. Silent Night, Deadly Night - This is a delightfully awful movie, and is really fun in spite of its 80's cheesiness.  It's hard to believe how much controversy this film caused in it's initial release.  This was the first film to introduce a weekly series from Theatre Downtown beginning in January. Overnight - The story of Troy Duffy, a Boston bartender who wrote (and went on to direct) Boondock Saints in a bizarre case of rags to riches, back to rags (if you'll pardon the bad expression).  I hated Boondock Saints, and after seeing Duffy in action, I think I hated Boondock Saints even more.  Duffy is an over-confident blowhard who focuses most of his time telling people how great he is while slamming anyone with any real experience in the film business.  On display in this doc is Duffy treating his friends and family badly, and essentially throwing away an amazing film/record deal basically by behaving like an ass at every turn.  Duffy makes it easy to dislike him, and while this documentary seems a bit uneven and pieced together, it's interesting to see his inevitable downfall. Alpha Dog - Directed by Nick Cassavetes, Alpha Dog tells the story of a young drug dealer (Emile Hirsch) who builds a small empire before kidnapping an adversary's 15 year old brother.  I'm a big fan of Hirsch, but don't feel this is one of his more impressive performances.  It's an interesting story, but has a few over-the-top scenes that interrupt the flow of the film.  The most notable example of this is a scene where Ben Foster launches into a kung fu tirade in the middle of a house party that is so excessive and out of place, it may as well be animated. Hedwig and the Angry Inch - Here we have the story of a transexual punk rock singer who leaves East Berlin to pursue a career and love in the US.  Much of Hedwig's story is told in song through her band's performances, but I felt like at times story was sacrificed to make room for a song that didn't have enough function.  Regardless, the characters are likable and their story is engaging. Super Quick Movie Reviews #1

I watch a LOT of movies, so rather than doing a full review for all of them, I'm going to list each movie I've seen over the past few days and give a few thoughts on each one. I'll try to do this periodically to show a good sample of the types of movies that interest me or that have come highly recommended by friends of mine. Fantastic Mr. Fox - I've heard several people say this is Wes Anderson's best film since The Royal Tenenbaums. I've got to agree. It's creative and unique filmmaking without losing any of Anderson's quirky sense of humor. Wonder Boys - I hadn't seen this since its original release, so I decided to watch it again. It's really a fun movie, and has a great Robert Downey, Jr. performance, from when he was trying to prove that he still had it in him.  It's inspired me to go back and read the book (or at the very least, add it to my list of books to read). The Girlfriend Experience - A very nice looking movie, but it didn't really win me over.  I'm not a big Soderbergh fan anyway, but I gave it a shot. Kicking and Screaming (the 1995 Noah Baumbach film, not the Will Ferrell one) - While some of the dialogue is appallingly pretentious (as if Baumbach pondered to himself, "What would cool people say", and then made a heavy-handed attempt to write what he thinks cool people might say, even though he didn't seem to have a clue), the characters and the story itself make this a watchable film that's easy to identify with. (Note that Noah Baumbach also wrote the screenplay to Fantastic Mr. Fox with Wes Anderson.) Solo Con Tu Pareja - an early film from one of my favorite directors, Alfonso Cuarón. A story of relationships, sex, and ego. Perhaps a little over the top, but it's interesting to see Cuarón's style in its early stages.