#116 - Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)

I finally finally finally have gotten around to watching the popular Holocaust classic (sounds oxymoronic) Au Revoir Les Enfants, a film about young boys at a religious boarding school in the late 1930s/early 1940s.  The film, one of director Louis Malle’s most popular, is based on his own experiences, and is also one of his last films.

The movie is austere, yet beautifully-filmed, and it follows the relationship especially between two of the boys whose relationship is, at first, adversarial, but the power of good triumphs over the power of evil.  Of course, there is a religious conflict (one of the two boys is a Jew who is being quartered by the school.

The movie is leading up to a somewhat inevitable climax, but I certainly didn’t see one aspect of it coming, and was really a bit shocked and angry.  (Part of the shock was that I really did fail to realize the entirety of what was happening, lol.)  The acting is really quite good, especially for the children and don’t seem to be trying too hard, like most children.

Score: 8.5/10

#115 - A Raisin in the Sun (2008)

Today's entry is a part of the 10th Grade English curriculum, as we're reading the Lorraine Hansberry play together in class.  And the version of the movie that we have is not the 1961 film with Sidney Poitier, but rather the made-for-TV remake from two years ago starring Sean Combs, among others.  This is my first experience with this particular piece, and I'm a big fan.  A student of mine said that she found it boring, because it's just about a family and there's some problems.  Well, you have to really pay attention to the literature and everything I'm telling you about how much denser it is.  Good try.

When it comes to the film, the range of acting goes from truly pedestrian (Combs) and overwrought (Sanaa Lathan) to outstanding (the wonderful Audra McDonald- who has very few IMDb credits, but that's likely due to the fact that she's won four(!) Tonys- as well as the instantly recognizable Phylicia Rashad).  The on-screen dynamic is often powerful, but at times, it lacks the true dash of Hansberry's play.  Combs and Lathan, especially, try to make more out of parts that don't need it, while McDonald and Rashad just get it.  In fact, the parts of the play that allow just the two of them to play off each other are easily the most successful.

Score: 7/10

#114 - Zombieland (2009)

Well, with my Easter movie marathon got me nearly caught up on my blog, but I'm still a few behind.  Hopefully over the next two weekends, I will have the chance to get completely caught up.  (Also, it is nice that I am watching a couple of movies with my classes in school as part of their curricula, so I can count those when we finish them!) Speaking of curricula: I found out officially today that next year, I will not be full time.  Kind of like this time last year, when I was told that I would have a reduced schedule.  This year, however, it is bleaker: for starters, my schedule is a .4, which means only two French classes each semester (hardly a livable schedule), and not the same prospect for getting full time as last year, since there's more people on layoff this year.  Oh well, head held high.

This was my last movie of the four-day weekend, and I thought it started a little dumbly (Jesse Eisenberg's initial voice-over narration sounded a little forced and read, unlike the skill he brought to the beginning of The Social Network), and for the most part, Woody Harrelson (who I've always kind of quietly loved) seemed very much a single-point caricature.  Emma Stone (who, if you recall, I absolutely loved in Easy A) and Abigail Breslin (good to see her in a movie that doesn't suck) were nice additions to the film, and Bill Murray is fantastic in his cameo.  The film is a bit uneven, at times, but it was really very enjoyable.  (And at a runtime of 88 minutes, it seems as though they knew that this was not a movie they felt should be drawn out any longer; they were right.)

Score: 8/10

#113 - Reefer Madness (1936)

Here we have a film I've heard a LOT about over the years, but I often forget exactly how long ago this original one was made! (This was not the musical version with Kristen Bell that came out a few years ago, nor does it star James Franco or Danny Masterson, obviously.)  What it is/was, is/was an anti-marihuana (yes, with an "h") propaganda film whose original working title, "Tell Your Children", explains exactly why the movie was distributed: education.  Don't do drugs, kids, or otherwise one of the following will happen to you:

1. You will begin to laugh hysterically, and for no reason.
2. You will begin to listen to, and like, jazz music.
3. You will lose the ability to function normally and appropriately.
4. You will become uncontrollably violent.
5. Other irreparably terrible things will happen to you, as well.  Consider your life over.

I only actually really wanted to watch the movie because there is a RiffTrax attached to it.  I think that my brother Matt and I could have enjoyed it without the RiffTrax being on, but the "movie" is so ungodly terrible that I'm glad the humor could have been supplied.  Now, I can honestly avow that I have never partaken of marihuana (or, the one with the "j") and don't exactly condone it, but I can assure all of my readers that, given the choice between saying Reefer Madness is good for society and toking... who's got the weed?

Score: 1/10 (It doesn't go any lower)

#112 - The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Another early, pre-America Hitchcock film, this one set aboard a train (how I love these one-setting dramas!), is the 18th film I've seen that Hitchcock directed.  This particular one centers around a lady (Dame May Whitty, who I love, having seen her in movies like Mrs. Miniver and Gaslight) who vanishes (surprise!), but there is a giant conspiracy among the train passengers, who all claim that she was never aboard.  The only person who is sure that she was aboard was a young woman (Margaret Lockwood) that she befriended before boarding the train. (Did anyone see Flightplan? It's kind of like that, except as I recall, very few people had actually seen Jodie Foster's child.)

A young man (Michael Redgrave, yes those Redgraves) who had fought with the young woman prior to boarding (conflict!! Whoooo!) believes her because she's pretty, and the two of them embark on their own detective case to find the missing woman.  Unsurprisingly, she is found (spoiler alert?) and the ending is silly, but there is some pretty good suspense built up along the way, and you'll find yourself genuinely pleased at the path of the film, as well as the relationship between the two main characters, which is actually very well done.

Score: 8/10

#111 - The Servant (1963)

This small ensemble drama about a young, engaged man who hires a manservant to take care of his new household, only to find that the servant and his sister (really his lover - ta da!) are trying to slowly and assiduously insinuate themselves into the household.  The young man doesn't realize this fact until much later in the movie, but his fiancée is much sharper and senses something is amiss (and acts like a complete and utter bitch to the servant).  The four of them carry on their lives through several different relationship connections, including the servant's lover seducing the young man.

The film is complex without trying to be, which results in some very smooth storytelling.  The psychological impact of the main relationship between the two men is by far the most intriguing.  When they are onscreen together, it is most enjoyable (and most suspenseful) to regard the way they act together.  Since they both play their parts so capably, it keeps the tension palpable and pushes the movie through to its only slightly less-fascinating end.

Score: 8/10

#110 - Heartbreaker (2010)

As part of my Easter Movie Marathon, I decided that I wanted to watch a current comedy, after the two dramas and the two classic films, and so I chose Heartbreaker, a movie I've been wanting to rewatch since seeing it at the Traverse City Film Festival last summer.  The premise of the movie is somewhat that of the anti-Hitch: the main character runs a small business whose income is gained by breaking up couples.  People hire them when they know a girl who is unhappy in a relationship, but they don't know it.

Yes, it's a romantic comedy, but let me give you a couple of reasons why you'll actually want to watch this one: it's French, and even people who don't really care for romcoms really liked it.  Now, when I saw it in the theatre, there was a slight increase of the enjoyment factor (there is an ambience at the TCFF that you just can't beat), and there were a couple of minutes that I laughed/giggled non-stop (it helped that Dara kept laughing, too, and we kept setting each other off).  Even though I expected these parts the second time around, it was still great.

Definitely take a watch: there were also rumors that there was going to be an American remake of the film, but I don't know that it could match this one.

Score: 9/10

#109 - The Machinist (2004)

An unbelievably emaciated Christian Bale plays the title character in this drama about an insomniac who's a little out-of-sorts.  Okay, a lot out-of-sorts.  When I was working at the FamVid, lots of my coworkers liked the movie, but all of them complained about how skinny Bale is and I kind of just dismissed it.  The movie itself fell into the "rented it from the 2-for-1 section a bunch of times but never watched" category - sadly, a category with a lot of entries.  It's true, though: Bale is so skinny that it's gross.  When he's shirtless (and, God forbid, flexing) and you can see all the ribs and the upper vertebrae, and all kinds of other bone things and protrusions.

I'll say one thing right off the bat: I did not understand this movie at all.  And by that, I don't mean that I couldn't follow it (though it was, at times, a bit Lynchian), but rather that I just didn't get the "Why?" Even when the movie was "cleared up", I didn't get a sense of completion.  Overwhelmingly, I found that I didn't really care.  I cared that I knew how it ended and what the filmmakers were actually going for, but that didn't really reach far enough toward me.  This is a fault of the story itself, not of the acting, as Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Aitana Sanchez-Gijon are great.

This movie also suffers from the trap of thinking that sometimes showing the near-ending at the beginning is a good thing. Here, it does absolutely nothing.  Also, the ending itself was a real "okay, fine" moment.  Of course, since I stopped really caring long before then what was really going on, it didn't really hit me that hard.  And come on, who didn't absolutely know that the first letter was going to be a "K"? DUH.

Score: 5/10

#108 - Brief Encounter (1945)

Brief Encounter is another foreign, small ensemble, arty Criterion Collection selection that I went into hoping for something interesting and new.  Unfortunately, I have been less-than-enthralled with the CC films that I have watched so far (none of the previous three earned scores higher than a 6.5), but nonetheless, I went into the movie high expectations.  I enjoy movies with just a small cast focusing on one particular plot element, and just absolutely zeroing in on the emotions and consequences associated with it.

From this film, I got exactly what I'd hoped for.  I'm not saying that it's going to blow anyone away, but from the two leads, Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, we get very good acting to complement a simple plot: Johnson is a normal housewife who does little that is interesting (Thursday is her "shopping day" and it is clear early on that this seems to be one of the only things she has to herself) and doesn't really seem to want (or know of) anything else, until she meets a (reasonably handsome) doctor who takes an interest in her (and, eventually, vice versa).

The thing I like about this film is the way that Johnson is the P.O.V. Howard's story is far less interesting, and Johnson is the one who is married, so we can see all the conflicts inherent in the situation at that point.  The two do things together, he lavishes attention on her, and eventually she tells him she's married, but that doesn't necessarily mean they stop seeing one another.  Call it "Same Time, Next Week" for a period of time prior to the film's inevitable resolution. 

It's not a terribly long film, nor is it what I would call exciting, but the acting and pacing are worth seeing, and the emotional chords it strikes are so often glossed over or overwrought in so many movies that try this formula and fail.

Score: 8.5/10

#107 - The General (1926)

I have a new leader for earliest-made movie (this was made the year before the amazing Sunrise), and, unsurprisingly, it's a silent film.  (Though I guess anything before 1927 must be a silent film, since isn't The Jazz Singer the first talkie?) Another one of the things I wanted to accomplish with this blog was to watch some different kinds of films, as well as more tried-and-true classics, and since I've never seen any Chaplin or Keaton films.

The General is all about Keaton and his locomotive.  Disallowed from enlisting in the Confederate Army due to his strength as an engineer (railroad, not electrical or mechanical), and thus possibly losing the amour of his ladyfriend Annabelle, but when Annabelle is abducted on board his locomotive, Johnnie Gray (Keaton), desires to rescue both his lady and his locomotive.

I didn't know that much about the film going in, other than it is, 85 years later, still very highly regarded.  I also read that it was a really funny comedy, so I had a preconceived notion that it was going to be a little slapstick or that it would rely heavily on sight gags.  What I got, instead, was an extremely well-measured kind-of-comedy with wonderful comedic timing (the thirty seconds of Johnnie, Annabelle, and the bear trap had me almost in tears) and some terrific athleticism from Keaton running up and down the train. 

The story itself is simple, and, really, it only really provides the backdrop for Keaton to do his thing for 78 minutes.  That being said, it was really heartwarming.  In the same way that Sunrise kept me in suspense the whole time (which, at the time, I felt may have been slightly incidental, though I now realize not to assume that the film was truly going for that is somewhat of a disservice), Keaton kept me entranced.  I have a couple more of his in my IMDb Watchlist that I'm excited to get to some time this year.

Score: 9.5/10

#106 - A Serious Man (2009)

This was one of the two Coen Brothers movies I missed between the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men and the excellent True Grit revitalization.  It was one of the pictures that was nominated for Best Picture the year the Academy went back to ten Best Picture Nominees.  It was never really a consideration to win (it would not have been nominated had there been only five) but goodness knows that the Coens can do little wrong when it comes to the Academy (and as an ardent fan, I'm okay with this) in much the same way that Christopher Nolan can seem to do little right (though his films have won several Oscars).

Unfortunately for A Serious Man, my favorite part of the film was the first six minutes, which was a cautionary tale in Yiddish about a dybbuk, that seemed to be a short allegory for the rest of the piece as a whole.  The misfortune lies in the fact that that was the most interested I felt in the whole film.  I really didn't understand what was considered so great about it.  Other than Michael Stuhlbarg's performance as the main character, Larry Gopnik, there was little to truly enjoy about the film. 

All the other characters were surprisingly flat: the son is a pot-smoking TV-watcher preparing for his Bar Mitzvah (and every single one of his lines comes from the first two things, basically); the daughter washes her hair, and the wife does very little.  Strangely, I felt as though there was a disconnect between the movie Gopnik was playing in and everyone else was playing in.  If that was the point, then I felt it off-putting, not über-intellectual.  It's certainly one of my least favorite Coen films, if not my absolute least favorite. 

ü

#105 - Source Code (2011)

It would be fitting that my first 2011 movie of the year would be one with Jake Gyllenhaal.  Actually, it just happened that way much more than it was planned out.  I've been hearing some decent things about it, and I wanted to reconnect with my friend Jessica, who I haven't seen in awhile.  Thusly, these things conspired to bring this about.

We went to the AMC at Hall and Mound (it's been awhile since I've been there, but Jess had a free ticket, and the ten dollars I paid for mine reminded me why we started going to the MJR in the first place) for a 720 showing.  This was after Erika and Parviz and I played two games of Ticket to Ride (I came in second place for about the seventh time) and we went shopping at The Somerset Collection (it was my first time; it's huge).  I bought a few nice shirts (all different shades of blue: just call me Duncan Kane) at American Eagle.  Then I drove to the theatre to meet Jess.

The film starts just a little bit confusingly at first, but it doesn't take too long to really get into it.  And, since it's much more of a "popular" film than an "arty" film, the confusion is cleared up pretty quickly. (As the film continues, it becomes clearer and clearer that Jeffrey Wright's sole purpose in the film is to clearly explain the "intricacies" of Source Code... take him out and we get a little bit from Vera Farmiga and we have to figure the rest out.  Hmm...) Jake Gyllenhaal is pretty great in the film (like always; plus, he looks great), and Michelle Monaghan does a really nice job repeating some of the same words over and over (and, she looks great), and Vera Farmiga has a very soothing voice (and I love her, of course, if you've read my synopses of either Up in the Air or Nothing But the Truth).

The movie is fine; it's the kind of film I would recommend as a rental, but not to paper double-digit dollars for to see in the theatre. It's enjoyable enough, being neither cloying nor overly "intelligent", though everything about the ending that I heard was very true: the last five or so minutes were really pretty awful, and exactly what you'd expect from a movie that had no idea how they wanted to end it.  (Hint to the studios: it should have ended at the kiss.  DUH.)

Score: 7.5/10

#104 - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Now, I have used the English title here, since here in England the U.S. of A. that's what we squawk speak, but the French title uses the word "parapluies", which happens to be one of my favorite words.  I feel like our word for "umbrella" is the least exciting of all languages.  I mean, who wouldn't want to ask someone to pass him his bumbershoot?

Anyways, on to the film: it holds a distinction of being quite experimental in that it is a non-musical with only sung dialogue.  One thing that is immediately apparent is that the purpose of the sung dialogue is to elevate the situation above the mundane: the lovely Catherine Deneuve is a young woman who works in her mother's umbrella shop (yes, an umbrella shop), and the very pretty Nino Castelnuovo is a mechanic, and they're both so in love and wanting to get married.  Awww.  And both of them (and Deneuve's mother) all have very nice voices. Of course, it is funny to hear dialogue like "Bonjour" and "Pourquoi?" sung, but that's part of the whole mood.

As you watch the film, there are several inevitabilities, and when they occur, there is a duality of "I knew that was going to happen" and "Yet, I liked the way the film handled it".  The acting is terrific, and it has to be, since the dialogue is a little more basic (it can't be too complicated due to the singing), and the acting and singing work together very completely.  Though the film seemed a bit hokey at first, it really grew on me as it went.

Score: 9/10

#103 - Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

The drama teacher who has a room next door to mine wanted to show her kids a musical (but not an old one, since West Side Story hadn't gone over well), so I told her she could bring her kids next door to my classroom and use the Netflix instant stream to show her kids.  Plus, I could spend two of my lunch periods watching the film for my blog (it was also very coincidental, since I had, on a whim, started to watch the film about a week ago, but it was too late to try to start one and I fell asleep).

I have wanted to watch the movie for a long time, because I've never seen it, but my friend Erica actually operated Audrey II in her high school's play.  I know several people who have seen the stage musical done professionally and they all really enjoyed it, but I have to say that there was very little that I actually really liked about this movie.

I enjoyed the musical numbers with the Shirelles-like trio at the beginning of the film (then again singing "Skid Row") and a couple of the songs were okay (I also like the Martin, Murray, Guest, and Belushi cameos), but the acting is campy and pretty awful (Rick Moranis, really?), the majority of the singing is pretty awful (Moranis, the squeaky Ellen Greene, whose voice is much better when she's allowed to just belt it instead of "staying in character", and Audrey II, the plant), and the story is really dumb.

It's so very 80s, and there was very little that a critical movie viewer like me could really get into, regardless of its Oscar nominations (LOL).  The entire Rick Moranis filmography will not be on my to-watch list. "That's tough titty, kid." Uh-huh.

Score: 5/10

#102 - Toy Story 3 (2010)

I was definitely in a cartoony mood, and thanks to my friend Jen, I decided to watch TS3, since she posted something on my Facebook page a couple of days ago where it firmly implanted itself in my brain. "Thanks", Jen! (But at least it was a good PIXAR film and not a crappy movie...)

So I gave in to the temptation.  Of course, the expectation when I saw the movie the first time was massive: Both of the original Toy Story films are in my 25-ish of all time, and after the (comparative) disappoint of Up, I placed a lot of hope in this third installment.

A movie like Toy Story 3 only works when it focuses on the best parts of the first two, without falling into the trap of making essentially the same movie over again, but kinda sorta different.  We have the return of the original voice actors (minus Jim Varney, sadly, though replacement Blake Clark is a dead ringer), another great story, a couple of nods to the past episodes dialogue-wise, the introduction of a couple of new characters (who didn't get nearly enough screen time!) and a heavy dose of emotional attachment.

Every damn time I see this movie, I get teary-eyed at the incineration scene, and I will always always laugh at Mr.Tortilla Head and Mr. Zucchini Head, to name just a couple of the fantastic things from the film.  Thank you, PIXAR, for giving us a film that can disprove the theory that no sequel can be as good as the original.  Looking very forward to Toy Story 4 that will spend more time with the new toys (especially Trixie), who absolutely shine in their mere seconds onscreen.

Score: 9.5/10

#101 - The Thing (1982)

One of the many respected movies from the horror genre that I've not yet seen, The Thing is from the devious and amazing mind of Wes Carpenter (name the movie), and I actually came to watch this particular film because it is a part of the IMDb's Top 250 (and I earmarked the approximately half of those that I have not seen in my Netflix queue).

First of all, The Thing is disgusting looking: all pink and red and bloody and muscly and gross.  Secondly, I love how this is just as much a psychological thriller as it is a horror movie.  What would you do if...? Thirdly, this is basically what The Last Winter, that tour de force of modern film, was trying to be, but it couldn't settle on one of the 62 different ideas it was trying to go for.  The Thing sticks to its premise until the end, and the result is a suspenseful drama that deserves its place in the genre.

The actors do a great job of maintaining the feelings of hysteria and distrust that they fall under.  There is never a sense of peace, but rather only one of isolation and terror.  This all works to the film's advantage, because as a viewer, you're aware of the situation they're in, and of the slim prospects of defeating an enemy they know so little about.  Where the movie continues to succeed is not turning into an inane gorefest, but rather using the startling imagery to enhance the emotional depth of the film.  So well done.  If anyone reads this and has seen this movie, please let me know what other films I might also enjoy (as I probably haven't seen them if they're at all like this one)!

Score: 9/10

#100 - Saving Private Ryan (1998)

I wanted to do something special for my 100th movie (which is happening on the 107th day of the year... stupid tennis season getting in the way of things...) and I had it in my mind from early on that I wanted my 100th, 183rd (halfway, basically), 200th, 274th (3/4, basically), 300th, and final films to be special ones: however that was to be defined.  In this case, I wanted to choose a film that has been deemed classic and that should very definitely be a part of the canon of my viewing.  Of course, I didn't realize exactly where I was in the numbers until I watched Narc earlier, so I was a bit at the mercy of what I had on me.  My brother Matt suggested the modern epic war film Saving Private Ryan, and since I've never seen it (yes, I know) it was a perfect fit.

The movie falls a single minute short of the joint record held by Heat and the Les Misérables: 25th Anniversary Concert for longest film watched (both of them coming in at 170 minutes) but let's be frank here: in the first eight minutes we've got crying at a grave emotional impact and gobs of American soldiers being unexpectedly assailed on by enemy bullets.  Spielberg's not wasting any time getting us emotionally invested in his film.

I was going to start writing about some of the beginning plot points that lead the mission but three words in it felt stupid, since I think everyone knows the basic idea, even if they're one of the six cinemaphiles like me who haven't actually gotten around to seeing the film yet.  So I'll spare you the minutiae and instead limit my comments to how I felt about it all, since, let's be honest, it's all about me.

There are a ton of people who are in this film that I had no idea: Paul Giamatti, Barry Pepper, Vin Diesel, Ted Danson, Ed Burns, Chandler's roommate with the weird laugh, Phoebe's brother that she had the kids for, Patricia Arquette's brother in Medium, and more!

The movie is really every bit as outstanding as its been built up to me: from the overall look and feel of the film to the so obvious camaraderie the actors portrayed through their characters, and especially the individuality that every man earned.  This was not a stock cast (and I could watch 2 hours and 49 minutes of Barry Pepper sniping from a belltower, you better believe it.  Now I've not seen Shakespeare in Love, but I have a difficult time seeing how it could be better than this film, one that has already logged its rightful place in the top 100 of all moviedom.  And, frankly if you didn't tear up a bit at the end, you must be completely devoid of all human emotion and should probably go get checked out.

Score: 10/10

#99 - Narc (2002)

Back in 2002, when I was working at the video store, there was nothing appealing to me about watching this movie: I mean come on, it was Jason Patric of Speed 2: Cruise Control and a fat Ray Liotta in another good-cop-bad-cop drama that a large part of the I-only-like-bad-popular-movies contingent really liked.  I mean, it had "shitty" written all over it.  Unfortunately for me, that was back in the day when I worked at the Roseville FV where there was basically only one person who ever liked the same kinds of movies as me (I mean, my manager loved Corky Romano for fuck's sake) so there was no one with whom to talk about what I should rent.  As a matter of fact, if any of my co-workers has mentioned that they had like the movie, I would have actually avoided it.

In the intervening years, I'd all but forgotten about this movie until it came up while Dan and Marianne and I were taking a Sporcle quiz (true story!) and he mentioned that he had actually liked it.  So I gave it a whirl today.  What I got was a tense, measured drama between a pretty good cop (Patric) and a bit of a loose cannon cop (Liotta) who are teamed up-ish to solve the case of a murdered undercover cop.  The movie is a well-measured, decently-acted (if a bit over-the-top, at times) drama, with some "twists" that, thankfully, don't leave the viewer scratching his head and trying to put together pieces from six different puzzles to make it plausible (I'm looking at you, Shyamalan).

The last fifteen minutes are the key to this movie, and they do a really nice job of summing up the rest of the movie (very dramatically, of course) and it is in this fifteen minutes that the movie truly hinges: if it sucks, then the movie sucks, but if you can pull off the trails leading this way and that, and make the conclusion at least satisfactory, then at least you've accomplished the major goal. 

Score: 8.5/10

#98 - Les Misérables: 25th Anniversary Concert (2010)

Let's be honest: I'll be buying this Blu-ray soon.

I've seen the musical three times live, and each time it was spectacular. (I love Eponine!) Watched this concert DVD with my French class (hey, it's based on the novel by that French guy...) and about half the class really enjoyed it.  (I'm happy for that, truly.)

Alfie Boe is amazing as Jean Valjean (Youtube him singing the song "Bring Him Home"), Lea Salonga is the best Fantine ever (!!!!!1!), Ramin Karimloo is a wonderfully swarthy Enjolras, Norm Lewis is a terrific Javert, and even Nick Jonas impresses as the naïf Marius.  I've had a variety of the songs stuck in my head for days.  This is a good thing.

#97 - In Good Company (2004)

I love this movie.  I've been wanting to see it again for a while now, so I just took some time to sit back and enjoy it.  I know it's not a movie for everyone (and I heard more than one person gripe about the ending when it came out, but I will still, after numerous subsequent viewings, defend to the death that it is the best and most appropriate finish) but it certainly is one I recommend you give a chance.

All three main actors: Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace, and Scarlett Johansson, do a great job in their roles, but it is really the syncopation between Quaid and Grace that absolutely makes the movie.  Grace's hangdog-mixed-with-optimism plays perfectly off Quaid's breadwinner-father-husband-father-to-be and the scenes between them (especially pre- and post-Grace/Johansson relationship) are especially satisfying.

Other than the ending, another complaint I often heard about the movie back when it came out (and I was working at the video store where people loved to complain) was that they thought was a Topher/ScarJo romcom.  Um... Dennis Quaid kind of has top billing, and the box cover even tells you that the "main conflict" is that Topher Grace, though largely unqualified, becomes Quaid's boss, and then Grace falls for his daughter.  You know, tangentially. (Or might that be secantally?)  So, if you were "misled" that's because you did no research, or complete misconstrued what the movie was about, to your detriment.  Unless, of course, you were pleasantly surprised, which I hope is more the case.

Score: 9.5/10

#96 - Children of a Lesser God (1986)

Before she was the deaf line judge on an episode of "Seinfeld", and many more years before she was in the super shitty "What the Bleep Do We Know?" (yes, I watched it out of morbid curiosity, and no, I didn't finish it, and yes, I walked away thinking less of...) Marlee Matlin won an Oscar for her role as a (no big surprise here) deaf... janitor at a school for the deaf she used to attend.  Her big deal is that she doesn't read lips or speak, even though that is one of the school's main goals.

Enter William Hurt, fresh off winning his own Oscar for Kiss of the Spider Woman (another movie I'm planning on seeing this year), a teacher with "fresh" ideas and "interesting" teaching methods (sounds like a plot device that's never happened before!) who falls for the candid, angry young Matlin with just a little bit of make-her-talk project-on-the-side action, as well.  Of course, I'm supposed to feel super emotional when Hurt finds out that one of the reasons she doesn't talk is because she found out that the way she could be just like all the "hearing girls" was to sleep with all the "hearing boys".  And that didn't require her talking at all, I guess.  But either I've got the emotional range of a teaspoon (à la Ron Weasley) or this flashpoint wasn't all that surprising or life-altering.  P.S. It was the latter.  (I mean, come on, I was teary within like, 20 minutes of the first episode of The Killing.)

I'll tell you what the best part of this movie was: Hurt's interactions with his students.  Equal parts "inspiration", humor, candor, and real-ness.  It's also one of the only parts of the movie where Hurt's being made to repeat EVERYTHING that anybody signs works in the movie's favor.  (Seriously, this got annoying.  When Matlin gesticulates wildly and slaps her head with her hand, I don't need to be told that she was saying "Duh".  See what I did there? I copied the movie AND made a funny!) In any case, I loved every part with Hurt working his magic with the kids way more than the real plot love triangle of Hurt, Matlin, and Matlin's deafness.

I don't want to make it sound as though Matlin doesn't do a great job, because she really does.  I actually am able to process emotions when she's onscreen.  But the movie was supposed to have pulled so much more out of me than it was able to.  Of course, I'll always believe that they gave the Oscar to Matlin's Deafness, but meh.  Worse things have happened.

Score: 6.5/10

#95 - Inception (2010)

I saw this movie last year in the theatre and really enjoyed it, but this time I'm getting a chance to watch it with my brothers Matt and Mike, and their friend Drew, as well as with the MST3K-like RiffTrax.  Not a big review this time, as most of you who will be reading this have already talked about it with me.

I do have to say that on the second viewing, it does lose a little of the enjoyment (and the element of surprise, bien sur) from the first viewing, but it still holds up pretty well.  I still maintain that it is in the bottom half of the Oscar nominees from the past year (The Social Network, Toy Story 3, The Fighter, True Grit, and 127 Hours are my favorites, based on my initial reaction and present reflection) but it was a surprisingly good year for movies. 

Score: 8/10

#94 - Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

Today, I wanted a light comedy to watch as I follow The Masters golf tournament, and Michael from TaT (that's the tennis website I often speak of) just posted that he'd watched a few W&G movies.  Ergo, I went into my brother's room and stole his copy of this gem that won the Best Animated Film in 2005, that I'd never gotten around to seeing. 

It's another splendid Nick Park affair, in the vein of everything else Aardman has ever done, which is to say that it's splendid and enjoyable and so very drily funny.  It makes me want to watch more good comedies.  And to think that the other choice I had for this entry was to watch The House Bunny.  Which I still might do at some point.  Maybe.  I've heard it's good...

Score: 9/10

#93 - Airplane! (1980)

I'm awfully glad I finally sat down and watched this movie.  Of course, I've known for years that it's been among the favorites of my family members and many of my friends, but I just haven't actually gotten around to watching it.  Until today.

It's extremely funny, and very witty.  Many of the jokes are layered on top of one another, or have several occurrences, but it's more in a droll, intelligent, wordplay manner than comedies of the "stupid" variety where the "laughs" come from the absurd or the obviously contrived for comedic effect.  But one thing is funny: this definitely seems like an "older PG-rated movie", back when PG could get away with more.  'Cause this movie is a little raunchy (hysterically, as opposed to disgustingly), what with zoophilia, fellatio, cunnilingus, and other sexytime jokes.  All this just adds to the hilarity and wit, though.  What movies like Van Wilder attempt to accomplish with dogs and doughnuts, Airplane does with quick sight gags and well-written dialogue.

Highly recommended, if you're one of the six people who haven't yet seen this movie (like me, before today).

Score: 9/10

#92 - A Mighty Wind (2003)

Many of you know that I've been listening to a lot of new music that's been recommended to me by other people (because I decided it was time to broaden my interests, or actually listen to complete albums of groups that "I've been a fan of for years" because I liked a couple of random songs they did six years ago) because I put out a plea to save me from possibly drowning under the five artists I listen to.  The challenge has been met.

In any case, those who know me the best have been giving me some great recommendations (The Decemberists = Awesome) and most of the music is around the folk/lighter rock vein (no big surprise there) and in listening to all this new music, it reminded me that I haven't seen one of my favorite movies in quite some time: the Christopher-Guest-troupe-takes-on-folk-music A Mighty Wind.

Of all the Christopher Guest "mockumentaries" (I put that in quotes because he hates the term, and yet, I didn't want to waste unnecessary prepositional phrases to describe it, which sounds paradoxical since I've added this entire parenthetical to explain the two sets of quotation marks, but I'm okay with it, so you have to be to. So there.) A Mighty Wind is absolutely my favorite.  I will always love Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy as Mitch & Mickey, the sweethearts of the folk music scene, who were popular for their song, "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" (which, wonderfully enough, was nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar, though it lost to the boring-but-haunting "Into the West" from LotR:TRotK).  Their chemistry and musical harmony are the best part of the movie (evidenced even more beautifully in the song "When You're Next to Me" - find it online and listen to it!).

The premise of the movie is that a pioneer folk music promoter and producer has died and his children are throwing a memorial concert with three of the acts he worked with back in the 60s - the aforementioned Mitch & Mickey, the saccharine "neuf-tet" named The New Main Street Singers (John Michael Higgins, Jane Lynch, and Parker Posey are the noteworthiest members), and The Folksmen (Guest, McKean, and Shearer from This is Spinal Tap).  The movie's fake documentary crew follows the event's organizers and acts prior to, including, and after the show (including the part where Michael Hitchcock raps Bob Balaban on the head, which nearly made me choke with laughter the first time I saw it) and it still makes me fall in love with the songs and characters and stories, even after the millionth or so viewing.

Score: 9.5/10

#91 - Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Back to the classics for a day! This movie, which marks the quarter-of-the-challenge complete (yay!) has long been recommended to me as a classic comedy.  It stars Cary Grant (not his first appearance on the count-up) as a newly-married man who visits his aunts' house, only to find out that they've mercy-killed a dozen men.  Then his estranged brother shows up, preparing for a facial transplant and swearing revenge (for nothing specifically) on his brother. 

The hijinks ensue (don't they always), but I found the film a bit overlong and certainly quite absurd.  The aunts (played by Josephine Hull and Jean Adair) were easily the best part of the film, especially in their constant affirmation that the dozen corpses in the basement were really no big deal, at all.  Provided that Priscilla Lane has some talent (I didn't know who she was before the movie), it was wasted as Grant's new wife, though Peter Lorre's bit part provided some much needed relief.  The constant appearing and re-appearing of the policemen grew stale quickly, especially the one who wanted to provide Grant's character with an explanation of the play he was writing.  Look also for Edward Everett Horton, whose voice was used for The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle's "Fractured Fairy Tales".  (I loved them as a kid.)

Score: 7/10

#90 - I Love You Phillip Morris (2009)

Hey everyone!

I've been fine, just busy.  I'm in Kalamazoo, visiting my friends Dan and Marianne and Kim and Shawn, having a great time, playing board games and visiting and generally having a great time.  Also, tomorrow, we're going to see David Sedaris reading at Miller Auditorium, which is quasi-the main reason I've come to Kalamazoo at this particular juncture.

I'm on my Spring Break from school (much needed) and you can guarantee that later on in the week, I'll have more updates to catch up from these days I've missed.  Today, Dan and I watched I Love You Phillip Morris as a pre-street.  The movie stars Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey as men who meet in prison and begin a relationship.

There are some funny parts throughout, and the performances by the leads are pretty believable, even if some of the chicanery (whether true or exaggerated or not) is not, as much, but it builds up to a fascinating, interesting story.  Exaggeration can be good, especially when the heart of the story has so much... heart.

Not the best movie ever, but it certainly has its moments.  I recommend it for a bit of pretty light viewing.  Certainly, don't try to make it something it's not.

Score: 8/10