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... )

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... )

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EXTRACT (***) - Dir. Mike Judge

Underrated.  As usual in the bleak universe of Mike Judge (“Office Space,” “King of the Hill”), defeat rains on the ambitious and the un-ambitious alike.  There’s something refreshing, invigorating, and dare-I-say uplifting about the hopelessness of Judge’s vision:  the successful are joyless and the ambitious ( Read more... )

KNOWING (***) - Dir. Alex Proyas

A shadowy, creepy, and pretty good end-of-the-world thriller, involving the multiplex version of quantum mechanics, the Book of Daniel, a time capsule that predicted all the disasters of the last 50 years, and an unhinged professor (Nicolas Cage) whose son is being stalked.  Who’s stalking him?  Why, creepy pale ( Read more... )

JULIE AND JULIA (**1/2) - Dir. Nora Ephron
I’d love to see a stronger movie about an aimless woman in her 20s who seeks direction through the worship of a celebrity.  But “Julie and Julia” is so relentlessly upbeat that it glosses over all the creepy stuff that might make it interesting.  Aspiring author Julie (Amy Adams) starts reading ( Read more... )

SHERLOCK HOLMES (***) - Dir. Guy Ritchie

Finally, a featherweight piece of Hollywood trash that knows better than to scramble its story or its visuals.  The result is a fun confection.  The movie begins with Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr., great) feeling bored because he thinks he understands everything.  Then along comes a villain who ( Read more... )

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... )

Saw this back at Landmark River Oaks with the wife, possibly at a pre-release screening. Liked it a lot when I first saw it, but if I saw it again the mixture of fact/fiction/interviews/animation might strike me as too clever. I'd probably still like it though.

( 2003 review (***1/2 out of ****) )

American Gangster (*** out of ****)
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