21 Jump Street (2012)

This is the hardest I’ve laughed watching a movie in months and months. Unfortunately, the laugh attack came at about ⅓ of the way in -- a bit of that section is embedded below. The rest was fine but predictable and not nearly so hilarious. Early peaker.



B-

Buried (2010)

Absolutely terrible. Its only redeeming feature is the fact that they let him die. Oh -- spoiler, btw.

D-

Take Shelter (2011)

Man with a familial history of schizophrenia begins having vivid dreams about a storm that causes aggressive behavior. He’s frightened by the possibility that he’s sick, but even more frightened by his suspicion that his dreams are more prophetic than symptomatic.

Very tense and terrifically acted.

B+

Humpday (2009)

I am so surprised at how much I liked this movie. It took a while for me to get into it -- at first I was put off by the plot device of having a comfy life turned upside down by an invader. I also don’t really like the "dude...we’re soooo unsquare..." vibe of the California artist-types.

But then something profound happened. Two guys drunkenly decide to enter an arty porn film competition by taping two straight guys (them) having sex. The aftermath of the decision and their conflicting emotions surrounding it (am I too inhibited to do it? Is he living a more open life than I am?) were just fascinating. I believed it all and wound up just in love with the whole thing.

A-

Prometheus (2012)

I was dissatisfied walking out of the theater, but when Gary and I talked it over later, we realized it was a pretty solid movie ruined by high expectations and, more tangibly, by Noomi Rapace in the lead.

She lacks the charisma and passion to convey the faith and wonder her character held for the project (finding human origin) going in and the devastation and hopelessness she experiences later. Her face was near expressionless and her delivery rarely varied. Her one decent scene was when she was locked in a tube with her aborted alien baby...and, to be fair, I doubt that took much acting.

C+

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Interminable and pretentious.

Pre-human apes find a big black rectangle which, from what I could gather, causes dissonant chords to flow. In the groovy future, people find the big black rectangle way out in space and this time the dissonance is deadly, ya’ll. And then in the dystopian more-future future a robot running a spaceship gets pissy and kills most of the crew...and then the remaining crew member gets ever older in fancy but lonely rooms until he get young. I mean fetus-young. The end.

There.  I just saved you two and a half hours and a headache.

F

A Hatful of Rain (1957)

Junkie ex-soldier is hiding his habit from his pregnant wife, even as his supplier's posse (one of whom wears Buddy Holly glasses and only communicates in whistles -- uh wtf) menaces him for what he owes.  His live-in older brother has fallen hard for the junkie’s wife and their father is in town to make everything just that much harder.

There’s a lot of arguing and angst and tons of overacting and I wound up hating everyone in this obviously-belongs-on-a-stage-but-I’d-probably-hate-it-there-too production.

D

The Avengers (2012)

I don’t think that the theater had the surround sound on so that, even during the big devastating fight scenes, I could hear the little boy behind me saying things like “I have to go to the bathroom” and his father replying with loud slurps from his 64 oz. soda...  Still, it was still pretty great.

I'm not a fangirl, so I know next to nothing about these characters, but I enjoyed the ride and thought the Loki character brought something more than just “bad guy...uh...because” to the villain role.

B+