WAR HORSE [2011] movie review
January 28, 2012
If you do not think a person can believe in something so strongly that no matter how astronomically improbably it is, it can still happen, then you need not see WAR HORSE. If you are, however, a person who does, as I am, then you will find WAR HORSE inspiring and raising your own confidence that what you are trying to believe in can be done.
A BETTER LIFE [2011] movie review
January 28, 2012
If not for Demian Bichir getting nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, and deservedly so, I may never have watched A BETTER LIFE because up until then I had not even heard of it. I hope this review helps people find this movie about a father wanting for his son exactly what the title says. This movie is incredibly sincere and real, and therefore on those accounts alone, one of the ten best movies of 2011.
THE DESCENDANTS [2011] movie review
January 27, 2012
I feel like the main character of THE DESCENDANTS is Hawaii itself. For a number of reasons, this movie could not have worked anywhere else. Alexander Payne directs a film that makes Hawaii seem as much like the paradise everyone thinks it is, as well as a real place with the same problems life on the mainland has.
ANOTHER EARTH [2011] movie review
January 22, 2012
It amazes me how in some many individual calendar years two movies of the same small niche come out (think Armageddon/Deep Impact, Dante’s Peak/Volcano). For 2011 it was movies about large planetary objects approaching Earth in small, ordinary person films. Exactly two weeks ago I saw MELANCHOLIA and tonight I saw the perhaps superior ANOTHER EARTH.
MALCOLM X [1992] movie review
January 17, 2012
It might be somehow odd to watch MALCOLM X on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but having earlier listened to King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, X seemed like an appropriate companion movie for the evening as I could not think of any King movie existing. A search of IMDB confirmed that, very surprisingly, there is no King biography movie, how has one never been made? Perhaps because there is no actor that can play the part and be as uncannily in resemblance to King as Denzel Washington is to Malcolm X. Additionally, I cannot think of any greater character arc covering more ground than Malcolm’s. That was the biggest thing I got out of viewing X, just how far and how many times Malcolm changed as he expanded his world view.
A SEPARATION [2011] movie review
January 14, 2012
Roger Ebert chose A SEPARATION as his favorite film of 2011. I would not put it that high, but it is definitely in my top ten for 2011 and absolutely a unique movie. I have been interested in seeing court drama movies lately, and to my surprise A SEPARATION was an amazing one. I now know that being a judge in Iran is one of the hardest jobs in the world!
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY [2011] movie review
January 13, 2012
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY [2011] is a proper adult’s movie. The frames of the film seem to move very slowly because the story behind them is so dense. You have to think and concentrate very carefully to keep up with TINKER, and I really like having to do that while watching a movie. My expectations for TINKER were actually muted because listening to a so called culture podcast I heard some critics say they could not understand it and that it was possibly meant not to be understood. They should be fired. Although I could not repeat all the plot developments to you verbatim nor name the characters exactly, the whole picture resides in my mind in clarity, but slightly out of focus. This is one of the ten best movies of 2011.
I SAW THE DEVIL [2010] movie review
January 11, 2012
I took a risk watching I SAW THE DEVIL and although I do not entirely regret it, there really is no reason to see a movie like this. Right from the opening scenes I thought, “I am going to turn this off.” Why would I think that? Because I have no need to see people graphically tortured on screen, and I have no stomach for gore of any kind, never mind this kind. Not that I would know, but this is not like one of those torture based movies that are the new kind of popular horror now. It is still mostly a hardcore thriller, just the violence the characters do to each other strays into torture with gore.
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