The September Issue

The only person who seems to understand the fashion industry is the daughter of the Vogue “boss”. There’s more to life. Indeed, just about anything is more real, and more objectively important than the world of fashion. Still, with that critique understood, this was a well done documentary about a world few outsiders really know.

Gran Torino

As the years increase, so does my respect for Clint Eastwood. This movie had a lot of things going for it – great writing, acting, story… I think the best part was the pace of the movie. There wasn’t some “Hollywood moment” where things changed for the movie’s hero; it was a real process.

Easy Virtue

Another of those movies with  no character you can root for. They’re all just a bunch of privileged whiners… Seriously, this woman is distraught about having to sell 400 acres of land to keep this obscene mansion running? Hello! how about scaling back? How do you think the people downstairs feel about your predicament? Sheesh. Anyway, by the end of the movie, I figured they could all just go stuff it.

Priceless

This is one of those movies where I find it hard to sympathize with the main characters. One of them is a completely heartless gold-digger. The other has too much heart, and not enough sense. Still, even with that, it’s very watchable, and it did get a little better toward the end… And there were some funny scenes, and it’s always a pleasure to watch Audrey Tautou work her magic. In a sense, I guess I could sympathize with the plot from that aspect… Even though her character was despicable, I found it hard to turn away.

Kings of Pastry

Nicely done documentary about the pinnacle of pastry chefs… In a way, I had the impression that this thing just goes way beyond pastry… in the end, it’s almost like they expect these guys to be sculptors and mechanical engineers. Anyway, I guess you can’t really complain – they all go through this voluntarily, and the end results are pretty striking (I have no idea how they taste though).

One of my impressions seeing the displays on the final tables though was that few of them had a theme that tied the individual pieces together. Sure, they were very nice on their own, but there were these tables filled with wondrous, yet incongruous creations. I would think that a series of pieces that all told a story, and had a common aesthetic, would make a big impression.

Tron (the new one)

With some movies, you have to go in knowing what to expect. I was expecting a wild ride of special effects… And this movie delivered. I heard some reviews of this movie deriding the sometimes nonsensical, predictable, illogical plot. Plot? Pfft. Come on. It was good enough to shoulder the 3D fireworks. I cared about the characters a little… Enough. Sure a few tweaks might have made this a transcendent movie with a message and all that, but whatever… It was entertaining, and that’s all I was looking for. 

True Grit

A movie has to be really confident in itself to be this straightforward and get away with it. It’s almost like this one was saying “in your face. Here’s what gonna happen, and you’re gonna enjoy it”. And I did.

Terminator Salvation

I wasn’t expecting much from this one, but you know what? It was fantastic. The mood was right, the acting was good, the plot made sense (yes, it made sense you nimwits)… It didn’t try too hard, and the action was first rate. I realize this isn’t the movie for everyone… Ok not most people, but I’m glad they made it, and enjoyed the ride.

2012

As someone who despised “Independence Day” as much as I did, you might think I’d loathe this just as much. No way! This movie was so preposterous, it went all the way past horrible and round back to fun. So much of everything was done/destroyed/tried in this movie, so many cliches, so much bad dialogue… there is simply no way to top it.

Transsiberian

For the kind of movie that ought to have a dozen twists and turns, this one pretty much stays on the main track. I suppose there’s something reassuring about a predictable plot, but then I wonder, is it really worth watching if you know what’s going to happen?

Beowulf

I am Beowulf… and you’re not. I hate to admit it, but I actually liked the plotline of this movie better than the original. It made sense from front to back. Sure, the action and dialog and 3D nuttiness was completely over the top, but that’s what made it so fun. I didn’t get to see it in 3D though – bummer… someday!

Benny and Joon

I kind of liked Johnny Depp’s little “antics” in this movie, but the rest of it didn’t really mean much to me.  Can two different types of weirdos find love simply due to the fact that they’re both unusual?  I don’t know maybe it could work with these two.  It seemed that “Johnny” was the only person that Joon wouldn’t “co crazy” on, and Joon was the only person that accepted “Johnny” as a real person.

Becoming Jane

Did you ever wish you could go back in time and just smack someone in the face? Just shake everyone to get them to snap out of their stupid societal constraints? I wonder if people from the future will feel the same about us? Anyway, as for this movie… it was entertaining, well structured, and left me feeling good about life in general… so that’s good I suppose.

Beavis and Butt-head Do America

This suffers from the same problem as many TV-to-movie things.  It borrows too heavily from the TV show, and is just way too much.  Beavis and Butthead work much better in shorter bits.  Sure, the movie was broken-up to make it like a bunch of TV-shows spliced together, but by the second time Beavis did “cornholio”, I was rolling my eyes.

A Beautiful Mind

A beautiful film. For much of the first half, I wasn’t sure if I liked it… but by the end, I did. It made me wonder if I was sane… perhaps every waking moment of my life is a delusion, perhaps these aren’t really words I’m typing. Perhaps the commies have brainwashed me into thinking the cold war has ended and are simply using me as a puppet to transmit secret messages diguised as movie reviews to an armada of robotic aliens hiding behind the moon. Perhaps I’m not really living in an underwater tube city populated with glimmering gelatinous super-jellies. Perhaps if I just ignore reality, it will all just go away.

Beastmaster

I think this movie has the record for “most broadcasts on USA / TNT / Fox / etc.”  For a while there it was on all the time.  It was on so much that the movie attracted fans and spun-off a TV series.  Anyway, the movie itself was really cheese-ball entertainment.  The scenes were all pretty brief, and the plot kept moving along – so if you didn’t like one scene, you could just try-out the next one.  I actually liked this movie – I admit it!  It came out when I was like 10 years old –  perfect timing.