“I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!” — Margaret Hamilton (as the Wicked Witch of the West), The Wizard of Oz (1939)
 |
Sunshine Cleaning (2008) I have a hard time understanding why some reviewers put this one down. True, it comes out of the same box as Little Miss Sunshine and other Sundance Film Festival winners, and it does have a tendency to be uplifting . . . perhaps the hipsters have moved onto something else, leaving me behind. Well, I don’t mind if people think I’m not hip. I really enjoyed this movie. It is a lot like real life, only not as fucked up and sad, and isn’t that why we watch movies in the first place? |
 |
The Secret Life of Bees (2008) I thought it was formulaic, the formula being strong wise black matriarch gently guiding a hodgepodge of characters to a better future, with small bits of tragedy thrown in along the way. Why Queen Latifah should be that strong wise black matriarch I can’t say, but she’s well on her way to becoming typecast in the role. Dakota Fanning was cute cute cute, and the stock white southern cracker types were ugly ugly ugly. It would have been better if the bees had stung the shit out of someone. |
 |
Adventureland (2009) Pretty standard coming-of-age movie, quite sweet in its way, but not of much interest to older audiences. Or at least not of much interest to Donna and me. We’re old. |
 |
Watchmen (2009) The whole comic book superhero thing passed me by as a kid; I was into hard science fiction and didn’t have time for Batman and Wonder Woman. But now that the smart kids who were into comics are smart grownups making movies about comics, they’ve helped me sense some of the wonder they must have felt on opening a fresh issue of Fantastic Four. I was totally impressed by Watchmen — great effects, wonderful scenery, good acting — and I felt it was on the edge of saying something terribly important, and perhaps it did and I just didn’t pick up on it. Nevertheless, I had a great time watching it; it’s eye candy and mind candy combined, with the most ass-kicking soundtrack I’ve heard in a long time. Who watches the Watchmen? I did, for one, and maybe you should too. |
 |
Duplicity (2009) I hope it doesn’t mean what I think it means, that they’re making Depression-era screwball romantic comedies again. This so could have been a Cary Grant/Katharine Hepburn movie, it actually made me feel nostalgic about the 30s (and my parents were barely even born then). It’s a well-crafted film, filled with backdrops of wealth and power, suitably madcap antics by Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, and you don’t see the twist coming until the last 30 minutes, so what’s to complain about? It’s great entertainment. Well, okay, Julia is looking far too thin and haggard to play a convincing Katharine Hepburn. There. Otherwise I quite enjoyed the movie. Does it say something, though, that my wife didn’t? |
 |
London to Brighton (2009) A very good short film, but god, what a slice of life it depicts — petty criminals, pimps, prostitutes, perverts — the whole sorry lot is present, plus a 12-year-old runaway girl who falls into their clutches. If you can make it all the way to the end without putting your head in the oven and turning on the gas, you’ll be moderately cheered by the ending. Not a family film, and definitely not a film to watch when you’re feeling down. |
 |
Mean Creek (2004) An old-fashioned morality play. You feel the threat looming all through the first part of the movie . . . the threat that whatever these kids are planning, it’s going to go horribly wrong . . . and when things do go wrong, you feel like the characters in the movie would have felt, as if the wind has been knocked out of you, the ground beneath your feet whisked away. The morality comes in when the kids, led by the youngest among them, decide to confess. It’s an intensely involving, touching story, and the young actors are superb. |
 |
Alien Trespass (2009) I loved Galaxy Quest and Mars Attacks. They were brilliant and hilarious, and I could watch either movie again and again. Alien Trespass clearly aims for the same target, but unlike its smarter cousins it doesn’t have an original story to tell. It’s just a collection of 1950s science fiction movie cliches, too self-consciously cute by far. It delivers a few chuckles, but one tires of the joke long before it’s over. |
 |
Encounters at the End of the World (2008) As a child I wanted — among many other things — to grow up to be a scientist doing field work in some godforsaken distant and deserted part of the world (or better yet, on the Moon), so Werner Herzog’s documentary about scientists working in Antarctica filled me with longing and wonder. This is what our first colonies on Mars will be like, I think, and I find that the dream still lives in me. If you share my wonder at the universe, you will love this documentary. |
 |
The Brothers Bloom (2008) A movie with appealing actors, snappy dialogue, good soundtrack, gorgeous locations, and a frivolous, empty story. Sure, sometimes you want frivolous and empty, so you stick a James Bond movie in the DVD player, or one of those Jason Bourne things. But with Bond you at least get supervillians with cool names. With Bourne you get frenzied action. With The Brothers Bloom you get . . . what, exactly? Pretty people? I tried to follow the plot, but it was just one impossible premise after another; nothing like life at all. I tried to concentrate on the love affair between Rachel Weisz and Adrien Brody, but it was equally meaningless. I tried to make sense of the end, but I couldn’t connect the dots; I’m not sure anyone could. Maybe younger people will enjoy the movie, and smirk their way through it, in on the joke. Me, I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it. |