Despicable Me

Saw Despicable Me (thanks, Leannasaurus Rex!) It was very sweet and charming. Dealing as it does with family with a super-hero/villain twist, I can't help but compare it to The Incredibles (which I prefer.) This is a thing I hate to do because it falls in line with the pattern-reliant mindset of the hated studio execs that probably saw the Incredibles and said 'That! I want that, but getting me money.' and doesn't do justice to the work some presumably well-meaning director, writer, and animation team put into it. I think some movies can be similar and both good in different ways. And that's the case here.

The kids were initially a bit too annoying, but they grew on me and by the end I was genuinely pumped when Gru goes into action-mode and saves the girls. The minions were a little spoiled for me because I could see they were clearly supposed to be adorable and fun and I mentally crossed my arms and said 'impress me.' Despite this, I did enjoy their antics and it's hilarious that Gru is on a first-name basis with all of them. Whew. Good movie. Long review.

Almost Famous

Saw Almost Famous. It was really good. Upbeat and semi-realistic at the end. The characters were all fairly human, even the mother who at first seemed like a standard-issue shrew. I thought the monologue that one of the groupies delivers near the end was a bit too precious. A lot of soundtrack porn. Good stuff.

Event Horizon

Saw Event Horizon. As I feared, many a jump-scare (which I was able to wimpy-ly survive by having one hand on the volume knob at all times) but little actual horror. Once the blood started to flow and the monsters appeared, I didn't really have to worry anymore. There was some fun Hell-raiser-ish visuals near the end. I wish they'd made more of them rather than frightening me with loud noises accompanying flashes of white.

Broken Blossoms

Saw Broken Blossoms. It was an almost comically tragic tale of a girl so down-trodden and pathetic that she can no longer smile without the use of two fingers at the corners of her mouth. A Chinese man falls in love with her but alas they are crushed by the cruel world they inhabit. Sentimental and treacly, but still capable of tugging a heart-string, if you let it.

Escape from New York

Saw Escape from New York. It was a lot more dour than I expected. It was very campy in a sort of super-macho way, and I can't believe it was actually taking itself seriously throughout, but it didn't have that really wildness that I like.

Stranger Than Fiction

Saw Stranger Than Fiction (thanks, Laura Buermann! I've seen Brick and it was good, but I'm supposed to be seeing new things) It was very stylish. A lot of architecture and design porn (that gurney at the end. That can't be real, can it?) which I completely dug. There were bits I thought were strained (will there never be a cute-falling-in-love sequence that doesn't make me uncomfortable?) but on the whole it was quite witty and smart and good. It wasn't one of the great films of the twentieth century (especially seeing as how it was produced in 2006), but it's good, and I think I can live with that.

United 93

Saw United 93. Boy, that was a tough film.

Saving Private Ryan

Saw Saving Private Ryan... for the second time as it turns out.

Los Olvidados

Saw Los Olvidados. A Greek tragedy of a film about child gangs in Mexico. Guilty and innocent suffer alike and only the power-structure that enforces this outcome remains the same. Corruption on all levels, from police to parents to the children themselves conspire to crush the hopes and dreams of the central characters. Unfortunately, much of the subtitles were mangled awfully ("Watch out or l bash you up!") I believe the subs were translated from Spanish to French and thence to English. Such are the dangers of getting subs off the internet, I guess.

Black Christmas

Saw Black Christmas. It was the first (and therefore prototypical) slasher flick. Unfortunately, this means it had a lot of the old hoary conventions. Police can't do anything right, the calls are coming from inside the house, and doorknobs confound the startled female brain. The ambiguous ending is awesome however. It doesn't give the audience the closure we want, and is much the better for it.

Be Kind Rewind

Saw Be Kind Rewind (thanks Atul Felix Payapilly!) It was really delightful. Michel Gondry is always a lot fun. This film is so full of childish glee for the act of making movies. It really makes me want to make a movie. The final shot, revealing the cameras that shot the very film, is awesome. I loved it.

Yi Yi

Saw Yi Yi. It was very strident in a way. It reminded my of Thorton Wilder's work in that it was honest and messy. In this movie the true love is not married and things do not work out. But it's okay, because life goes on.

The Usual Suspects

Saw The Usual Suspects. It was a lot of fun. Often gangster movies are incredibly dour (The Godfather) or fun in a sort of campy way (Domino,) but this one was fun like a mystery should be. The explanation and reveal come like the solution to an ingenious puzzle. (Repetitious violins make this happen. I hate seeing the artifice.)

Gertrud

Saw Gertrud. It was so understated you could barely hear it at all. A woman looks for love with three different men. One gives lust, one security, one romance. None of them individually satisfy her so in the end she does the only sensible thing and leaves them all. In the movie's world this is ultimate tragedy and her final scene as a school-marm seems to have been set-designed to be as barren and empty as possible. Either the movie's ideas of romance are outdated or I missed the point of it. A very slow movie.

Targets

Saw Targets. It was a horror think-piece. More chilly than chilling. It contrasted the gaudy horror of the Suspiria brand with the more 'realistic' horrors of the police procedural. Clever, but not so you'd notice.