Repo Men (2010) **

Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, and Leiv Schreiber are affable in this well-meaning but forgettable SF satire / adventure.  Jude and Forest have two of the best laughs in the movies.  Jude tips back his head, just a little, and his laugh comes out so suddenly, so honestly, and with such gleeful British posh-school poncey-ness.  ( Read more... )

I watched 42 of 2010's theatrical releases.  As much as I'd like to write a thoughtful dissertation on each of them, I'm too busy with my own stories (I'm revising "Every Airship Needs a Wizard" and "Painter" (aka "Black Mist," aka "In Its Place") and mailing "The Dream").  So I gave myself 10-20 minutes per movie to crank out a couple paragraphs ( Read more... )

There are a ton of movies from 2000 - 2009 that I've missed (consult this list and this list), but I have to put this up eventually.  Picks and rankings are based on nothing deeper than how I feel right now.  Don't be surprised if tomorrow I redo the ranking completely.
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With "The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans," I finally call myself done with the films of 2009.  Here's my Top Ten…or Top Eleven.

EDITED 5-10-2010:  Actually, why don't I just rank every movie I saw last year.

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I watched over 30 movies released in 2009 but have hardly written about any of them.  Here are some quick reviews.

My latest theory about why we like or dislike a movie (or a book or any other piece of fiction or art) has to do with subtlety.  If we feel a movie is being obvious, we feel condescended to; if we feel a movie is opaque, we get ( Read more... )