Anna Christie (1930)

Garbo, long estranged from her sailor father, seeks him out when she needs a place to recuperate after hospitalization. While with him, she falls in love with the sea and also with a sailor that they pick up in a storm.

This is not a good movie -- it’s stagey and overly dramatic. Add in the fact that her father, with his desperate “love me despite the fact I’ve never been there for you” pleas, reminded me far too much of my own father, and you’ve got the blueprint for a story in which I have zero interest.

C-

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

I enjoyed the hell out of this film about a group of British retirees who've never met heading to India, seduced by the brochures for the titular hotel. Only after arriving do they discover that the brochure version of the hotel was more of a vision for the future than a current reality.

Nevertheless, most of the transplants adapt quickly, coming more alive, and it’s a joy to watch. And how could it not be? Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, and Judi Dench nearly guarantee a worthwhile time on their own -- sticking them all together in a single film is an embarrassment of riches.

B+

Fat Kid Rules the World (2012)

Though I didn't much care for the the audiobook, I couldn’t help but be seduced by Lillard’s enthusiastic reading. His passion for the material was so apparent that I had to see how he’d bring it to the screen.

The movie is definitely an improvement over the book -- gone are the Fat Kid's CONSTANT self-deprecating internal monologues in which he refers to himself as “fat kid,” though the sexual fantasy life remains, unfortunately, intact. And Billy Campbell is great as the stern single father who’s got more going on emotionally than he wants to show.

I am slightly bemused by Lillard’s love for this story. It’s just not that interesting.

C

The Conjuring (2013)

Man -- I was so READY for a good scare...but this, unfortunately, was really disappointing to me. I can’t get into a movie that the camera work keeps me out of, and I could barely look at the screen for the first half hour or so as the ever-moving camera meant that I never got a good focus on anything. If the movie had paused after the first 30 minutes or so, I wouldn’t have been able to pick ANY of the daughters out in a line up...it was worse than the dizzying catwalks on Project Runway.

I actually do believe that demonic activity is real, so this should’ve been right up my alley scare-wise, but instead the frights felt overdone.  I’m surprised that the family endorses this as being fairly accurate, because it seemed fairly eh.

C+

Chapter Two (1979)

A widower and a recent divorcee aren’t interested in finding anyone new right now, but they do anyway. They’re in love in minutes, married in weeks, and on the rocks -- for no reason at all -- on their honeymoon.  It all gets wrapped up neatly, but I couldn’t get past the doormat mentality of the woman.

I think it’s supposed to be a comedy (this is the movie mentioned in Seinfeld’s ep “The Letter,” in which it’s called “funny....fuh-nee”), but other than a couple of witty conversations early on, I found little to make me laugh.

C+

Tabloid (2011)

Talking head documentary about a southern beauty queen falling for, and allegedly kidnapping, a Mormon missionary. It’s pretty interesting, but it’s also impossible to figure out what actually happened as the missionary isn’t talking and the beauty queen’s a fruitcake.

B-

The Circus (1928)

I’m not generally a Chaplin fan, but this really worked for me -- probably because the silliness that’s in Charlie Chaplin’s DNA fits perfectly into a circus atmosphere.

Some of the sight gags are iconic and hilarious and the story itself is solid. The only thing that didn’t work for me was the ridiculously high villainy level of the man in charge. But at a brisk 75 minutes or so, it didn’t have much time to ever grate.

B

Lovely, Still (2010)

First, the IMDb cast of characters serves as a spoiler for the movie, so don’t look at it beforehand if you’re going to watch it.

But even if I hadn’t been handed information the film deliberately hides until the last few moments, I couldn’t recommend this movie.  It feels amateur at best and heavy-handed at worst.  Ellen Burstyn gives a lovely performance, though.

D+

The Aura (2006)

One of those wonderful movies that I knew almost nothing about going in. I had zero idea of where it was taking me -- how refreshing in spoilery trailer times!

The whole movie cast a spell with limited dialogue and bare-bones approach to both visuals and score. At times it was almost unbearably quiet. I may have enjoyed the experience more than I did the story, but the story is pretty strong on its own.

B+

Premium Rush (2012)

This movie really needed to make up its mind about whether it wanted to be an action comedy or action thriller -- since it didn’t, everything felt unintentionally cartoonish.  There was silly, out-of-place banter while the messengers were dangerously cycling at top speeds through traffic and Michael Shannon was steam-coming-out-of-his-ears apoplectic as a corrupt cop.

Really not worth the time (except as an excuse to hang out with my son).

D+

The Central Park Five (2012)

Documentary about the teens wrongfully arrested for the 1989 "Central Park Jogger" assault.

It’s a wretched story with the only “black” and “white” being the skin colors of those involved. Too bad the movie feels like it doesn’t go deep enough -- probably because it’s so one-sided. Getting one of the prosecutors or police involved in the case as a talking head would’ve turned this into something truly riveting and meaningful.

B

Robot & Frank (2012)

A superb story of an older man with a failing memory and adult children who both love and are exasperated by him. He slowly warms to the presence of the helper robot his son leaves with him, and we do, too.

It’s original, charming, and wonderfully tender. It has a lot to say, but uses the most effective type of movie shorthand to simply plant the seeds of its ideas about friendship and aging and love in our minds so that we have the pleasure of realizing, well after the credits, that it has stayed with us and affected us.

A-

The Watch (2012)

Mild in every way. This seemed like barely an outline for a movie in which nothing original has a chance of happening.  It's not shocking or funny or really anything.

D+

Casablanca (1943)

I saw this once before, probably 25 years ago, and it didn’t make much of an impression on me. I don’t know if I was distracted or simply too young to appreciate it, but I couldn’t remember it well enough to really know how I’d rate it today, so I thought I’d watch again. Boy, am I glad I did.

One thing that really surprised me was how much of the dialogue I knew by heart -- how, exactly, did that happen? Of course the “I’m looking at you kid” and “We’ll always have Paris” quotes are ubiquitous and always attributable to the movie, but I just had no idea how many other oft-used phrases are straight from the film -- “round up the usual suspects” is one such example. Even the less familiar dialogue was so quippy with a dash of noir...just crackling. And even when the words weren’t necessarily quotable, the story itself approached perfection.  It’s earned the praise heaped upon it.

A+

The Skin I Live In (2011)

The story was told in such a way as to keep us in the dark for as long as possible about what was really going on.  Once I had an inkling of what I was watching, my enjoyment increased markedly.

Banderas is great as a doctor with questionable ethics and the vibe is an interesting mix of tense and antiseptic. Although I was never bored, the ending felt ridiculously rushed.

B-