Needful Things (1993)

I remember this book as deliciously full of dread -- it's a shame that what was so vivid and nerve-wracking on the page turns out flat and rather silly on screen. Part of the problem, I think, were the awful special effects. I remember, in particular, envisioning the pendant that one of the character receives for her crippling arthritis as shifting, almost imperceptibly, but enough to make the wearer aware of the movement and somewhat afraid of it. In the movie, however, all of the items impart a visible bolt of blue electricity to the receiver. Bo-ring.

At least they went ahead and embraced the camp. It would have been pretty sad if the filmmakers thought they were doing something important rather than simply a not-bad way to spend a couple of hours.

D+

Junebug (2005)

The most interesting thing about this movie is that there's so much to admire, so much that's good and right, but nothing about it that can truly be called extraordinary.

I'll join the crowd in cheering Amy Adams' performance as a chatterbox sister-in-law -- she's both adorable and heartbreaking. I'm also amazed at the way the situations feel so organic. I know people like this and I've been where I didn't quite "fit" and where no one was altogether hostile, but neither was anyone terribly friendly. I have a husband who loves me but who, in the early years of our marriage, could become a completely different person in the presence of his extended family.

What I'm saying is that I got what was going on and I'm impressed -- but I didn't love the way it all came together and I didn't really understand the motivations of the characters (though we've had some fun guessing, particularly about what was eating younger brother Johnny).

As Gary put it: they weren't different enough to be interesting nor familiar enough to relate to.

B

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)

Here's what I knew about Enron before I saw this doc: there was a big scandal. I know quite a bit more now.

I've never been interested in watching big business news and have never followed stocks -- I wasn't at all sure that this movie would be interesting to me on any level. Despite my ignorance of the subject matter, the movie did a great job of introducing the "players," explaining their jobs in laymen's terms and, finally, exposing the crimes committed.

Extremely well done. Thoroughly engrossing.

B+

Hustle & Flow (2005)

Sounds completely different: low-level pimp works to to break out as a rapper just like his hometown idol Skinny Black did. But it's actually just the standard-issue formula movie: hero/heroine, tired of their same ol' life follows a dream toward a different life and it doesn't quite work out...until right before the credits, that is.

Definitely watchable, but it's not unique in the least.

B-

The Changeling (1980)

George C. Scott loses his wife and daughter in a tragic accident and decides to start fresh somewhere new. He takes a job in a different city and moves into a furnished estate that, for some reason, has stood empty for more than a decade.

The first half creates a sense of dread -- it's genuinely creepy and so different from other horror movies which depend so heavily on jump scenes. Our "hero" isn't scared so much as inquisitive and that's a novel approach. It's also an approach that begins to feel rather clinical. If he's not nervous and he's right there, why on earth should I be nervous sitting on my couch watching him? Also, the movie kind of breaks down at the end. The climax made no sense to me. Basically, if revenge was the thing and the ghost was able to apply it at will across miles, why hadn't he done so long ago?

C

Syriana (2005)

I'm still a little lost. Oil. Corruption. Agendas. Whatever. Sometimes it was interesting, but most of the time I was simply annoyed -- though that could have had a little something to do with the guy sitting next to me who had a Tourette's-like nose-clearing tic.

Regardless: if I can't follow it (and it's pretty clear I wasn't always supposed to be able to do so), it's a pretty good bet I'm not gonna love it.

C+

Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)

Well-acted but rather dry film. I never really felt the true threat that McCarthy posed as he went down far too quickly and easily, from the perspective presented.

It just never really felt complete -- we were only getting one side and everyone on the side we saw was way too "cool" to be terribly panicked by the implications of what they were choosing to do. There's one guy who has a meltdown, but we're introduced to him as a man already broken by his wife's abandonment. Was he destroyed by politics or home life? It's unclear.

The best things about this movie were, in order: 1) I won a "backrub bet" on Patricia Clarkson's age. Gary said "she's a well-kept mid-'50s, but way too old for Robert Downey, Jr." 2) Alex Borstein in a serious non-comedy! Yay! 3) David Strathairn. Love that guy.

B

Capote (2005)

Every year, Gary and I run up to St. Louis for a short overnight anniversary trip/movie-watching marathon. I mean, no way do they allow stuff like Brokeback Mountain, 21 Grams, and Kinsey in Springfield -- so if I want to see all of the Oscar contenders before the Oscars, I have to travel a tad to do so. That's really fine with me as the Frontenac is truly my favorite place to see movies. The screens are a bit small, but I've never had to leave (or, more accurately, send Gary out of) the theater to complain about sound or picture and the patrons always respect the theater experience.

Anyway. Gary likes movies -- but the "marathon" bit of this annual event is really more my thing than his. We've gotten into the habit of three movies on Saturday with Gary skipping the middle one. Ever since the year he missed You Can Count on Me (my top film of 2000), we've made it a point to schedule it so he's missing the film we deem "most likely to suck." Since we'd both seen the trailers for Capote and wrinkled our noses at its self-importance and were in agreement that Hoffman's vocal affectation would get old FAST, we thought this was the safest bet. I was only seeing the thing out of duty since it seemed likely (from all of the critic awards) that he was a sure bet for a nomination. After the movie, when I walked out to meet Gary, I almost felt guilty that I'd gotten to see this masterpiece and he'd missed out.

This one knocked my socks off. It's surprisingly engaging -- very witty and gritty. Philip Seymour Hoffman wins the Oscar, hands-down. He made me love this guy, even as I was completely aghast at his self-involvement and lack of empathy for his subjects. He seemed to fool himself at times. Just an amazing performance.

Best picture. Best actor. Best director. I love this movie. Oh -- and due to my "will she ever shut up" string of praise Saturday evening -- Gary chose to see this one on Sunday rather than joining me for Syriana. Good choice.

A+

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

I'm a sucker for true love stories and I walked into the theater with a purse full of Kleenex, more than willing for my heart to be swollen and my tears jerked. My tissues, however, went untouched. This was quite a disappointment for me.

I never really felt the love that these two men supposedly shared. Their affair was portrayed more as an addiction than a passion -- and that's a huge difference. I'm also rather mystified as to why Gyllenhaal isn't receiving the same level of attention for his work that Ledger's enjoying. I thought they both did a good job, but if I had to pick one as the acting "winner" here, it'd be Gyllenhaal.

B-

The Constant Gardener (2005)

I was pretty ill while watching this movie -- but it was good enough that I couldn't bring myself to shut the TV off and just go to sleep.

Justin and Tessa Quayle are opposites who fall into a relationship almost at first glance. She's a loose cannon with a political agenda and he's a keep-your-head-down-and-do-as-you're-told diplomat. It's only after her violent death that Justin begins to discover the depths of his wife's activities. It's marvelous to watch him learn, bit by confusing bit, each of her secrets. Exciting, scary, and compelling stuff.

A-

Grizzly Man (2005)

The DVD we saw started with the notice that "this film has been altered from the original version," but unhelpfully declines to elaborate on what the changes actually entail.

The film sounds interesting: bear-loving guy spends all of his summers in the Alaskan wilderness living with and studying the wildlife there, specifically the bears, and eventually is killed and eaten by one.

Werner Herzog, the filmmaker, tells us that he's got about 100 hours of Treadwell's own personal footage (filmed in the last 5 of his 13 summers with the bears). It's unfortunate that so much of what Herzog chose to show us was unremarkable. I wanted more bears -- less attention whores trying to capitalize on the fact that they knew the dead guy. I wanted more wildlife -- less of Herzog alternately romanticizing and scolding Treadwell. I also wanted truthfulness -- which is something I'm not sure I got from Herzog. I can cite one very obvious lie: he says that there are only two instances of Herzog's girlfriend on film and that both make it difficult to see her face. He goes on to show us both scenes and punctuates his point that they're the only ones by showing a third in which she must have been controlling the obviously handheld camera. Near the end of the movie, however, we see a close up of her face as she crouches behind some earth as a bear sniffs about right above her. Um, that's three times she's on film, not two. That's a close-up, not an obscured shot. Is this what was changed from the theatrical release? I don't care what caused the discrepancy -- but it certainly proves that he's not to be trusted.

Treadwell is, obviously, a very insecure man who craved attention in heavy doses. I do admire his dedication to living in the wilderness -- and was very interested to learn that he did so for eight years without filming his exploits. Once you get the backstory, though -- that he changed his name and moved to California to be an actor/surfer boy, told even friends there that he was an Australian orphan (when, actually, his parents were alive and well on the east coast), and only moved north after failing as an actor (coming in "second" for the role of Woody on Cheers, according to his father), it just feels as though he simply found another way to get his 15 minutes.

I'm just shocked that Ebert thinks this is the documentary of the year. Not only is the "star" less a hero than a ham, his story's poorly told.

C-

Broken Flowers (2005)

Bill Murray is a ladies' man who has left so many women in his wake that, when he receives an anonymous letter telling him that his 19-year-old son might be looking for him, he can't narrow down the possible mothers to less than four. The thing is, I don't see Murray as being a ladies' man (whose streak is portrayed as, improbably, continuing with Julie Delpy as his current lover). He's downright bored with life and seems to be bored with other people as well.

Jeffrey Wright is a lot of fun as Murray's next-door-neighbor who's a frazzled father of five holding down three jobs. He fancies himself an amateur PI and seizes on the opportunity to solve the mystery of Murray's letter-writer. That bit of brightness in this deliberately low-volume odyssey is not enough. Just winds up feeling monotonous as Murray -- the one person to whom the mystery should matter seems completely uninterested in solving it.

I did like the "just a guy buying a guy a sandwich" scene, but it seemed almost mean-spirited to withhold the pay-off.

C+

My Brilliant Career (1980)

Judy Davis is a young lady in a poor family who's not willing to be forced into the life set before her. What an interesting invention she is: she's unhappy with her plainness, yet uninterested in hooking a husband. She's got grand ambitions, but she's also got a heart and it can be broken.

Though the ending wasn't the one I wanted -- I was satisfied by the fact that it was the only true ending.

Loved this one.

A-

Auto Focus (2002)

Greg Kinnear is quite good as Bob Crane, genial family man and local radio celebrity, whose life changes drastically when he lands the lead on Hogan's Heroes. Although there are a couple of good scenes of Crane trying not to fall too far into a life he seems to know he doesn't want: confessing/rationalizing to his priest in a coffee shop and his horror at finding that his buddy was the one fingering him during a "group grope," I have to say that the transformation from mass-attending grapefruit juice drinker to obsessed pornographer seemed to just happen. Maybe that's the way this stuff usually goes, but it still felt as though I was missing too much of the story.

Basically, it's a well-made film that feels rather hollow.

B

50 First Dates (2004)

This movie upsets me.

First, full disclosure: I am no Adam Sandler fan. I hate his whiny sing-song voice and his stupid-looking haircut and I think he's a super-suck actor. Even his "serious" movies (Punch-Drunk Love & Spanglish) are ruined by his presence. This movie, however, certainly isn't meant to be serious. Evidences: 1)We're immediately told that Sandler is some kind of serial ladies-man that leaves every woman aglow with pleasure -- they buzz about their encounter with his perfection for days afterward. My thoughts? Look at him! Sure, he might be a great date...but very few hot women on vacation are going to give him the opportunity to help them get their grooves back. 2) His co-worker is some kind of mannish foreign woman who talks about sex (she prefers sausage to taco) and who gets covered in a wave of walrus puke within the first 10 minutes. 3) His sidekick is a one-eyed Rob Schneider who gets bit by sharks and has a brood of much-smarter-than-him children following him everywhere.

However, there is a very good, sweet, effective movie hiding underneath the wave of Sandler crap. Drew Barrymore is just adorably believable as the brain-damaged object of affection, a condition that's (thankfully) not played for laughs the way the trailers would have you believe. I really liked the meat of the story and was actually moved to tears a couple of times. The non-Barrymore segments, however, were just embarrassing. I probably wouldn't have minded so much if I could dismiss this as a gross-out comedy -- but it's truly upsetting that a terrific tearjerking romance was allowed to be Sandlerized.

B, as is. Without the crap, though, it would be a solid A.