Bad Teacher

Bad Movie.

Brand New Day

Though I am a sucker for Australian antics, and there were some awesome laugh out loud or cheer the underdog moments, here, there were far too many dull and draggy bits in between, and far too little depth.

Cars 2

is better than one.

Tree of Life

May be the most depressing movie in recent history.

Priest

The most uninteresting vampires. Ever.

Chloe

surprised me by being better than Nathalie.

Something Borrowed

Clearly, I'm just a sucker for sentiment.

Le Premier Cercle

Jean Reno is still The Man, even in a throwaway heist movie.

Paul

is funny, in that (excuse me while I get literal) Seth-Rogen-meets-Shaun-of-the-Dead-at-Comic-Con-near-Area-51 sort of way.

Hereafter

Warner Bros must have grimaced as they wrote the check for this good but very slow, very personal, very idiosyncratic meditation on death. Although we might never have expected it, it makes sense that only the grand patriarch of the studio could have put such large resources together for such an unexpected project.

Thor

Not bad at all for a comic book movie, and a reminder from Mr. Branagh that the gap between Marvel and Shakespeare is a lot narrower than we might have been led to believe.

It's kind of a funny story

Indie films are as formulaic as summer blockbusters these days, but that doesn't mean a good example of the genre isn't worth searching out. Like this one. Witness the magical method of conveying the utter joy of playing music very poorly with friends.

Did You Hear About The Morgans?

Romantic comedies work better when the leads are charming and attractive.

All Good Things

Thoroughly creepy, thanks in large part to Ryan Gosling's performance but I'm not sure whether the ambiguous bits help or hurt the movie's impact.

Limitless

Not a bad portrait of mania until the end, at which point the creators clearly reached their limit.

Hall Pass

What a waste of my evening.  I want my two hours back.

The Lincoln Lawyer

Kind of like a rejected Law and Order script (not enough twists) with a few sub-plots added on.

Unknown

You'll be forgiven if you start thinking about the Bourne Identity.

Barney's Version

Mostly honest; fully heartbreaking.

Survivors (BBC Series)

Remarkably better than The Walking Dead.

Battle Los Angeles

Where "Battle" is the operative word.  I actually think this is one of the better "behind enemy lines" movies in quite a while, but it is very one-dimensional.

Source Code

The concept isn't very far removed from a very good episode of The Twilight Zone -- with modern action movie production values (Chicago has never looked better) -- but make no mistake, this is superlative science fiction.

Spring Summer Fall Winter ... Spring

is still the best Buddhist movie I know. And re-incarnation still sucks.

L' Ivresse du pouvoir

Despite the American title, this is not a comedy. Despite the classification, this is not a thriller.

Sucker Punch (2010)

Marvelous tropes about the subconscious, undermined by Pyrrhic passages.

The Mechanic

Kind of like a mediocre episode of Burn Notice stretched out to double the necessary length.

The Company Men

More real and more depressing than Up In The Air.

The Adjustment Bureau

All believable except the romance.  Blade Runner is still the best Philip K. Dick adaptation to film, but this is a worthy addition to the list.

The Dilemma

Would have been better as a comedy.

Solaris

Upon rewatching this, now in an excellent Blu-ray edition, it strikes me as a something greater than a mashup of Ingmar Bergman, David Lynch, with a tiny touch of Stanley Kubrick.

Black Death

Exhibit 349 in the case against religion run amok, and a kind of elegy for the tens of thousands of women murdered for "witchcraft" in Europe.

True Grit (2010)

If there were more westerns like this, that would be reason enough for there to be more westerns.

The Departed

Upon revisiting The Departed I am even more struck by the masterful adaptation of the source material, but my day job keeps reminding me that identity deletion is not nearly that easy.

Howl

One might want a narrative tale, and one might not want the anachronistic animation distracting from the mystical incantations, but ultimately the material exceeds the trappings. I am with you in Rockland.

Somewhere

I thought Coppola exorcised her daddy-issue ghosts with Lost in Translation. I guess I was wrong. But it has become much less interesting.

The Magician

For anyone who can't simply rely on science.

The Extra Man

Kind of like second rate Wes Anderson but not without some charm.

The Illusionist

The animated Tati doesn't have the comic timing of the real Jacques. But the world is a better place with even this half an additional Hulot film in it.

No Strings Attached

Above average romantic comedy, or maybe it's just Natalie Portman.  Yep, that's probably it.

The Switch

I really didn't want to like it.

Splice

It's not Cronenberg, much as it might want to be.

Never Let Me Go

While I am a big fan of science fiction in which there is little speculative technology (eg, Brazil), and while this story is set in a world almost precisely our own, it's really just a heartbreaking metaphor for the ways we treat one another.

Unthinkable

Ugly, unpleasant, unlikely, but not un-interesting.

Wall Steeet: Money Never Sleeps

It's hard not to like a movie that is ripped from the financial headlines, and uses the debate between crystalline silicon and thin film solar energy as a plot device, though the romance and family ties subplot is tacked-on nonsense.

How Do You Know versus The Backup Plan

The right way and the wrong way to build a romantic comedy:  Love your subjects and build in some tension in addition to the romantic machinations (How Do You Know), or get cynical and treat everything as a plastic backdrop (The Backup Plan).

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I guess they blew the budget on the climactic battle on the volcanic island, which is impressive, since the escape from the Lone Islands looks like a made-for-SyFy movie.

44 Inch Chest

Feels like a poorly adapted stage play.

Secretariat

Not the story of a horse.

Fair Game

I went into it thinking "How many more movies do we need to see about Bush lying?" and it convinced that the answer is "at least this one more."

Piranha 2010

If this is a good example of the genre then the genre is in trouble.

Megamind vs. Despicable Me

Choose your savior:  romantic love or paternal love.  I enjoyed Megamind more.

Exit Through The Gift Shop

I'm Loving It!

Wife vs. Secretary

Awesome deco design and realistic office life, three quarters of a century ago.

Winter's Bone

A long way from St. Louis. A lot closer to America.

Get Low

Not as profound as it wants to be but you get most of the charm it promises.

The Tourist

Minor Hitchcock.

The Next Three Days

Family values.

Black Swan

We knew Aronofsky was a master of the psychic break.  Now he has found his perfect vehicle.  Fincher and the other pretenders need to take notes.

The King's Speech

We are each both prince and "doctor".

Midnight FM

A nice little Korean film meditating on mass media via hostage taking serial vigilante killing.

Unstoppable

Gorgeous to look at. Exciting to watch. What more could you want?

Deadline at Dawn

One of those "old" movies that surprise you and remind you that we really don't care about plot, anymore.

Machete

Machete don't text.

Caprica

Lucas could learn a thing or three about prequels.

The American

Assassin? Yes. But think Le Samourai and not Jason Bourne.

The Social Network

Nicely scripted but one day the story about the money and the personalities will be far less interesting than the way these technologies have changed lives. Think: navigating the oceans, the birth of agriculture, or the invention of language.

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Pitch perfect popcorn.

Heartbreaker (L'Arnacoeur)

Pretty people in Monaco aren't enough to make L'Arnacoeur feel like it's not missing something.

The Kids Are Alright

Annette Bening owns this movie. Wow.

Jamaica Inn

An early, British, period piece / costume drama Hitchcock -- and it works.

Dinner for Schmucks

I may have to watch Le dîner de cons again, just to recover.