Your Sister's Sister (2012)

Man still suffering the loss of his brother a year before is urged by his best (girl)friend to spend some alone time at her family’s vacation home to get his head straight. However, her lesbian stepsister, reeling from a breakup, is already staying there. Shenanigans ensue.

This is kind of a weird movie. It deals with some pretty big situations in a very surfacey way -- and the situations are almost too unbelievable. It’s almost like a sitcom plot played straight. Rosemarie DeWitt and Mark Duplass are really good, though. This is the third straight movie in which Duplass has impressed me, the other two being Humpday and Safety Not Guaranteed.

B-

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

All reviews I've seen have been a variation on "youhavetoseeityoullbeamazedandtheGIRLshesawesome" so, I was pretty excited to see this.  After all, I like good movies and cute kids!  But, hell.  I didn't get it.

I wasn't inspired by the nobility of the bayou dwellers who disdain those privileged people who go grocery shopping (what assholes!) but seem fine with separate shacks for a tiny motherless daughter who lights her gas stove with a frickin blowtorch and and the drunken father who disappears for days.  Pride of place is fine.  Choosing a non-traditional existence is also cool.  But putting your child in danger just because you aren't soft like the city folks across the levees is reprehensible.

To be fair, I’m not even sure if I’m criticizing what was actually happening since there were plenty of hallucinatory sequences. Maybe little Hushpuppy's just having a bad dream and when she wakes up, there'll be zero giant pigs and two clean bed sheets.

D+

The Road to El Dorado (2000)

I’m not sure who this movie was meant for.  It was too predictable and childish for teens/adults, but also  too frightening (human sacrifices and scary conjuring) and full of hubba-hubba leering for kids.

It’s not a bad (except for Rosie Perez's tough-broad accent trampling all over her sexy native character's dialogue), it’s just nothing special.

C+

Pitch Perfect (2012)

Great laughs and great music -- exactly what I was hoping for with a bigger dose of silly than I expected (which is a good thing).

B+

Bedazzled (1967)

Suicidal schlub sells his soul to the devil for seven wishes, which he plans to use to land his dream girl. Although the girl’s charms were lost on me, the movie itself is very funny, especially the everyday peskiness the devil gets up to and the clever word and sight gags in his realm (e.g. he can’t get any good help...must be the wages).

B+

Spartacus (1960)

Spartacus is a belligerent slave sold to train as a gladiator -- instead, he becomes the leader of a slave revolt that eventually becomes a full-blown revolution. There are some cheesy bits, but it generally works and, even though it's long, it's never boring.

B

The Letter (1929)

Doesn't get anywhere near the Bette Davis-starring remake, but not bad. The leading lady is a little overwrought, like she was still finding her voice after years of silent movie acting, but it doesn’t ruin this nasty little story of adultery and murder.

B-

Once Is Not Enough (1975)

Clumsy melodrama involving a has-been movie producer marrying for money so his recently recuperated (learned how to walk and talk again after a motorcycle accident) daughter can remain in the lap of luxury. It’s convoluted and pretty yucky, especially when the daughter falls for an impotent older writer because, we’re led to believe, what she really wants is to be in a relationship with her father. It’s ugly and empty.

D-

Brave (2012)

Kind of a letdown. The visuals were decent, but the story was a less-than-inspiring “feisty princess rebels against her queen mom’s rules” story. I did enjoy the early scenes in which said queen was turned into a bear who still minced around like a very proper queen, but that’s not much to recommend a film.

C+

Mourning Becomes Electra (1947)

Garbage.

Adult daughter finds out that the man she’s sweet on is having an affair with her mother. Blackmail, two murders and two suicides follow and, despite all of the sordidness, it’s manages to be stiff and tedious. It feels like a stage play, but an extremely boring one. Hated this.

F

The Woman in Black (2012)

Sad widower is sent to a dismal town to go through the papers of a recently deceased landowner, but the locals are hostile.   Come to find out it’s because the titular phantom, who died at the destination house kills their kids whenever anyone sees her... probably would’ve been better to warn the new guy rather than to keep him out of the loop.

Nonsensical and non-scary.

D

The Constant Nymph (1943)

Teenager from a musical family is in love with an older aspiring composer who is also a family friend. To him, she’s just a charming child on whom he dotes. When her father dies and he marries her cousin, things get more complicated (and a little squicky).

C

Paul (2011)

Seth Rogen voices the title alien who hitches a ride with two British fan-boys on a tour of American alien sites. It’s lazy and unmemorable, except for the many jabs at faith.

D+

Lincoln (2012)

When I scan the list of movies Steven Speilberg's directed, I realize that I haven't really enjoyed one since Minority Report and he hasn't made a truly great one since Saving Private Ryan.  It's probably unreasonable to expect someone to turn in masterpiece after masterpiece, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect critics to be honest about the quality of the work.  He's become safe and, more often than not, boring.  War Horse, War of the Worlds and The Terminal were all subpar and the masses lapped it up.

Lincoln isn't a turning-point.  For the first hour or so, I barely kept my attention on the screen and Gary actually fell asleep. Day-Lewis is magnificent and Sally Field deserves a nomination too.  In truth, all of the actors did admirable work, but the film's overstuffed with characters and dialogue and very little drive.

C

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)

Martha escapes what seems to be a misogynistic commune and goes to stay with her sister and brother-in-law at their vacation home.  We are kept in the dark for most of the movie, only getting intermittent flashbacks to explain Martha’s difficult behavior.

This was not an easy movie to watch. Yes, the subject matter was difficult, but what made it hard to watch was the way the information was presented, not the content itself.  Sometimes we were so far up into the subjects’ faces that orientation was difficult, or much of what was onscreen was out of focus, or the dialogue was deliberately difficult to hear (at one point we were listening through a sliding glass door). These little flourishes were distracting and annoying.

As for Martha herself, her behavior was downright unbelievable.  I had a difficult time believing that social norms could be so thoroughly stripped away in a matter of a couple of years -- I mean, seriously?  She can’t remember that being naked in public places isn’t appropriate or crawling into bed with your sister while she’s having sex with her husband might be considered weird?

There’s an interesting idea here, but it's done in by indie “sensibilities.”

C+

Pretty Poison (1968)

Anthony Perkins is a young man recently released on probation after being held as a juvenile for arson/manslaughter. He’s not quite ready for the real world, though.  He pulls a pretty high school senior into his life by convincing her he’s a CIA agent.  I was never quite sure if he was deliberately lying to her or was simply delusional. One thing’s for certain: he picked the wrong girl.

Unexpectedly good.

B+

The Go-Between (1971)

A real waste of time. It was painfully slow and seemed to be deliberately attempting to obfuscate what was going on (though what was going on was incredibly obvious). The score often went for suspense-type piano, when there was nothing suspenseful whatsoever happening onscreen. And, to top it off, the acting was stiff.

What a dud.

D-

Autumn Sonata (1978)

Ingrid Bergman crushes it as an aloof concert pianist visiting her adult daughters after being widowed by their stepfather. The film is basically talk, talk, yell, flashback, talk, talk, yell -- but, wow. The power in their faces is nothing short of marvelous.  I admit I wasn't a real fan of Bergman's before, but she proved to me here that her place as a revered actress was earned.

A