Cedar Rapids (2011)

What a weird movie! It went for naive sweetness rather than the big laughs and it suffered -- but not too terribly -- for it.

A little too familiar, a little too “small.”

C+

This Is It (2009)

I grew up on Michael Jackson music -- watched the premier broadcast of his Thriller video, danced around to A-B-C when I was a toddler, and saw Captain EO at Epcot -- but I was never more than a casual fan. Like most, I thought he was weird and slightly grotesque and was more surprised than sad when I learned of his death.

But wow. This documentary footage really put his innate talent front and center. You see the hard, hard work he put into his music as well as the perfection he demanded of himself and others, all while staying impressively “nice.” I came away affected and can now see his death as the obvious tragedy it was.

A-

Let Me In (2010)

Wonderfully quiet and unsettling -- I think it might actually be stronger than its precursor (which truly surprised me), even though there were a couple of less-than-perfect effects. I feel as though this iteration took pains to make sure I knew more about the who and the why, despite the very muted feel and sometimes near-silence of the action.

“Eat some now, save some for later...” Owen's singing of the jingle as bookends to the story was perfect -- the reminder that we're seeing a child, here; a child being drawn into something he doesn’t understand but that will now inform the rest of his years. It’s terrible and terrifying and so so sad.

B+

Barney's Version (2010)

Giamatti gets the chance to show that the same guy can be both a cuckold and an old cock (see what I did there??), if you just let a movie span enough years.

This movie just seemed to go on and on... like three stories in one that did some kind of space-time trick so that it was much longer than its just-over-two-hours running time. I sort of liked it despite the fact that I was continually checking on the time and wondering where the heck it was heading.

B-