Woman on Top (2000)

Wow -- this movie is awful. It's like an attempt at a fairy tale but with absolutely no whimsy whatsoever. Cruz's squawky attempt at English could've killed an enjoyable movie on its own, but in this one it just gets added to the very long list of problems. Everything's just so terribly clumsy and annoying from start to finish.

I'll give it a slight bump (up from an F) solely for Harold Perrineau's game attempt to inject some life and fun into the proceedings with a colorful turn as a cross-dresser.

D-

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Fits right in with the rest of Anderson's body of work, but somehow feels a bit less precious/annoying in animated form. It's charming rather than cloying.

The voice work is stellar.

B+

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)

This made a much better movie than it did a novel. When I read the book, I found Pippa to be aggressively unlikable, but I "got it" in the movie. Stripping out the right amount of backstory and putting a spotlight on the cause of her current behavior and attitude really helped to make Pippa relatable. It's a good thing that the author handled the conversion to screenplay and directing duties herself because I rather doubt that anyone else could've understood the material (I certainly didn't).

Not quite good, but interesting and, like I said, a heckuva a lot better than the source material. Blake Lively, who was beginning to annoy me with her one-note performance on Gossip Girl, turns in a nicely nuanced performance as the young Pippa here.

B-

The September Issue (2009)

Mildly interesting look at the work that goes into producing the year's biggest issue of Vogue, but Anna Wintour is such a closed-off person that it's hard to figure out what she's looking for when listening to ideas or looking at spreads for upcoming issues (and it's apparent that her staff have the same problem).

Grace, a former model who started as a stylist for American Vogue on the same day that Anna came on board, is the real star of this doc. She's talented, willing to stand up for herself rather than become a sniveling sycophant, and she's passionate about her work. You can see that she's crushed when any of her photos get killed because her work is about VISION rather than pleasing Anna.

C+

Invictus (2009)

I guess this is inspirational...but I was so bored and had such a hard time deciphering most of the accents that it resulted in more frustration than inspiration.

C

The Lovely Bones (2009)

A steaming turd if ever I saw one. It was both seedy and uninteresting -- what a deadly combination.

I hate this movie with a passion.

F

The Last Station (2009)

First, a little rant about our local arty/indie theater: I've just about had it with the Moxie and its atrocious sound system. Why is it so much worse in the new building (both theaters) than in the old one? I've been frustrated by the muddled delivery, which takes me out of the film, for several movies that I'm sure I would've otherwise liked pretty well (An Education, Crazy Heart) and one that I know I loved and would've rewound to catch the lines that were lost, had I the ability (A Single Man). I pretty much wait for DVD if the only other option is the Moxie...unless I have to see a film before the Oscars and it won't be released in time.

Anyway. This was yet another film ruined by the bad sound -- and I, frankly, have no idea if I would've enjoyed it with decent acoustics because I'm not sure what was HAPPENING with the bad ones. Was it well acted? Certainly. Was it clever? No idea. It was tolerable in the venue only because McAvoy and Mirren are both such goodwill-inducing performers that I probably be willing to watch a series of still-frames for a couple of hours if they were the featured subjects.

C