A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

This is probably my fourth or fifth viewing -- and it still made me laugh just as hard this time as it did the first time. Still funny and charming and silly as can be. It's one of our top-five quoted movies of all time.

Love it.

A

La Mission (2010)

I don't want to be hard on this movie because there's a lot of good stuff going on here. Benjamin Bratt is an ex-con, ex-drunk living strong now with his honor roll teenage son. When he finds out that his terrific kid is gay, he handles it (predictably) poorly. The movie deals with the process of changing your views and acceptance...and backsliding into old ways, which was a portion of the story that I particularly appreciated.

Still, it's almost too small in scope -- too focused to be applicable. Also, the neighborhood Aztec stuff, though interesting in the "I don't know anything about that culture" kind of way, was distracting and a little weird.

B-

The Last Winter (2007)

An almost laughable "message" movie about a small group at a tiny Alaskan outpost researching the land in preparation for drilling. The problem is that there are ghosts or giant birds or "sour gas" that are dead-set against letting anyone get the oil out of the ground. So, of course, almost everyone at the outpost either goes crazy and/or dies.

The mood started out great -- I'm a sucker for "trapped" thrillers -- but it just got so stupid.

D

And Now for Something Completely Different (1972)

Though it has some of Monty Python's most well-loved bits incorporated (Dead Parrot, Wink-wink Nudge-nudge, and The Lumberjack Song), the pacing is off. I think it may be that there are far too many animated bits -- I've never enjoyed the style/humor of these -- and it winds up feeling as though it just goes on and on.

C+

Mother (2010)

So, I kinda hate to admit this, but I've got very little patience for people who don't make sense -- even when the person can't help it. For example: River Tam on Firefly drove me up a wall, but I absolutely love that show as a whole and see her as an integral part of it. In this movie, the nonsense is generated by Do-Joon, a man in his late twenties. Well, no...I guess he doesn't so much generate the nonsense as readily believe it. Case in point: even though he just watched his buddy break the mirror off of a car, it takes almost no effort to convince Do-Joon that he, not his buddy, is responsible for the damage.

Do-Joon's obviously got some kind of mental defect, possibly caused by a traumatic event from his childhood, but there's no physical evidence that he might not function correctly. When a murder takes place in their small South Korean village, the police pick-up Do-Joon for questioning and it's not long before he's convicted. His coddling mother won't give up her efforts to 1) make others care about his plight and 2) get him out of prison, regardless of the cost.

I just flat-out didn't like this. It was compulsively watchable -- not at all boring -- but the mother's ratcheting efforts felt less like love and more like the kind of desperate need to which prison may be preferable. Yucky.

C

Greenberg (2010)

While his brother's family is vacationing in Viet Nam for several weeks, Roger (Ben Stiller) comes to stay in their California home to "do nothing for a while."

He's definitely misanthropic - he judges everyone harshly, routinely alienates those with whom he comes in contact, and is far from socially apt - but he also definitely needs the company, attention, and chauffeuring of others. I wasn't turned off by Roger, but rather my heart went out to him in a burst of understanding -- which is what I think happened with the lovely Florence. She and the family dog work on him, seemingly against his will, to make him care.

Something about this film just got to me.

A-

Nightfall (1957)

Tight little noir about a good guy on the run from thugs and the law. He gets help from a girl, wins us over with his aw-shucks gentleness, and generally makes watching this a nice way to pass the time.

How come I'd never heard of it before?

B+