So Gran Torino and Frost/Nixon and now Doubt. If this series was a math equation, it would make a lot of sense. All three have been warmly regarded for the most part. Gran Torino was terrible. A paper thin plot layered with terrible dialogue and even worse acting. Frost/Nixon was a pretty straight forward biopic that was carried on the back of the powerful performances. Performances that made up for the failings of the plot. Doubt was the mix of the two. Supremely powerful performances, but not enough to take away from the inherent holes in the plot.

Let me reframe the discussion a bit. I don’t mean plot holes like you’d find in, say Bad Boys II. But it really seem like the entire plot of Doubt was just a single HUGE macguffin. It wasn’t the device that forwarded the plot, it was like the entire plot. And it really seemed to come out of nowhere. They try to explain it throughout (not the actual act that is the basis of the movie), but the genesis of the problem within the movie, and I just never bought it. And it was such a big piece of it that the entire movie, despite how excellent the actors were, I kept thinking “How did this even start?”

The things to take away from this movie are certainly the performances. I don’t know if the praise for Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep can be effusive enough. I know she’s considered one of the finest actresses ever, but the past few movies I really thought Meryl was kind of dipping into current-Al-Pacino (and I suppose current-Robert-De-Niro) acting. But she was just ridiculously good here. Her accent was spot on. Her character was so real I just hated her. Hoffman is cementing his status as best-of-generation. Viola Davis, in what little screen time she had, was spot on. A woman doing what was needed, putting up with what she could because of the circumstances.

I’m not saying the performances in Frost/Nixon were better than those in Doubt. But for me, the single problem in the plot of Doubt was bigger than any niggling issues with Frost/Nixon. And given how central the problem I had with Doubt was to the movie, it was just hard to overcome.

But watch Doubt. Watch Frost/Nixon. Feel free to skip Gran Torino.

Wow. There are problems with this movie, but unlike Gran Torino the acting, dialogue, and performances were very powerful.

I fully admit the problems with the movie. The use of a fake documentary to frame the movie seemed weird, since it was the only bit that was in that style. And the direction wasn’t anything really to marvel at. Ron Howard is a more than capable director and this movie was of that level.

But during the actual interview scenes, I really felt it. It’s not anything really amazing or revolutionary to frame an adversarial interview as a boxing match. And a turn in the plot of the underdog getting a jolt of energy and focus and bringing the big guns ready to blast in his final moment is about as underdog movie as you can get. But the performances just sold it.

Even the supporting roles. Sam Rockwell was excellent. You really got the emotion of the character. Matthew Macfadyen was also excellent. From being Frost’s right hand, down to earth man to the turn where he slightly lost faith in Frost for a moment. Trying to hold the team together. Kevin Bacon was excellent as well. His sense of honor and loyalty to a man who held the highest office. You could see the sense of duty and service he felt. How his service to Nixon was a piece of higher service and duty to the country.

And to top it all off, Langella. There have been a lot of biopics in the past few years. And Joaquin Phoenix certainly deserved an Oscar if Jamie Foxx did. But I think Langella was better than the both of them. I’ve not seen Milk, but I’d say Langella was better than Brad “Ben Button” Pitt. I’d put it ahead (though not by much) of Richard Jenkins. I’d even give him a slight edge over Rourke. I was just so impressed with the nuance from Langella.

This movie stereotypically topical given the end of the Bush presidency. But I have to think that despite his public statements, Bush has to feel like Langella’s Nixon’s did. And I also have to believe President Bush’s aids and such (even Scooter Libby) had to feel Bush did what he did for the most part in the best interest of the country, at least in his view. And they were dedicated in their service. I’m sure there are more ways to parallel this movie to the Bush era, especially as time passes. I was very impressed with this movie. Especially coming off watching Gran Torino. It was what Gran Torino could’ve been. If the performances and dialogue weren’t so stilted. Frost/Nixon was great.

Let’s start with the growl. Only because he’s older is it even, however slightly, passable. As opposed to, say, Christian Bale’s Batman voice.

Is it bad that I’m saddest for the dog?

This movie is terrible. The only slightly okay performance is the guy who plays the young priest.

It was a fairly obvious ending, but I loved the angry/disappointed look on the family’s faces when the kid got the car.

I REALLY need more Clint Eastwood singing. Umm, yeah, I’m very much kidding.

The dialog was bad, the acting was bad. I don’t understand what’s good about this movie. I can make arguments to forgive a lot of things (like why does the gang want the cousin to join the gang so badly or why the neighborhood will testify against the gang when the priest said they didn’t talk), but why bother? Only worth excusing good movies. And this was not it. I really feel like I wasted time watching this.

I don’t even know where to go with this movie. I mean it’s really bad. So bad that my normally unorganized thoughts/review is even more so this time around.

Wow. I think tour de force performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

I think anyone in a long-term relationship could relate to some of this movie. And anyone who feels trapped in the life he or she leads, in any way, could relate to this movie. There wasn’t a lot of character development in this movie, but the characters were very deep. And this movie was about the cracks that begin to show after a period of time.

So the characters didn’t change much from the actual start of the movie until the end, but the journey they took from the beginning to the end was fairly authentic. Even the snippets of the past were effective. Usually I think more is necessary. You can’t just show me time A and expect me to take it that it’s come to time B. It’s the problem The Break-Up [DVD] faced, though I didn’t think it did that bad a job trying. It just didn’t give me enough of the good stuff to care that the characters broke up. Perhaps because the characters in Revolutionary Road were so deep that I just bought into it more. Or perhaps because you saw the relationship breaking apart, but you also so a few nice times, you saw how it could break apart underneath the veneer of normalcy and perfection.

I’m just glad for a change there wasn’t some sort of crazy turn in the third act. Unlike so many movies I’ve seen lately, the third act wasn’t a betrayal of the first two acts. You’ll likely read a lot about how this might not be a great movie, but the performances are excellent. Or perhaps that there’s no reason to revisit this movie, but I’m not sure about either. I really enjoyed this movie and I think with repeat viewings I’d appreciate more the performances and the story.

For what it’s worth, I enjoyed this movie much more than Slumdog Millionaire or The Wrestler. I’m not saying this movie wasn’t without its fair share of cliche, but the cliches really took me out of the movie in Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler, but not so much in Revolutionary Road. A few things came close, but not too bad, except maybe the very last scene of the movie.

A lot of people don’t enjoy the crazy son’s character. The guys at Slashfilmcast didn’t particularly like the character. Why have a character spell out for the audience what’s on the screen, they asked. I’m not sure. I think it was a matter of a person not in this world being able to see through the facade. The son hadn’t bought into the world like the other characters had. He didn’t have any worth wrapped up in that life. So he could see the smoke and mirrors the others so willingly ignored. The part about him being crazy to allow him to disregard social rules was one of those aforementioned cliches that almost pulled me out of the movie.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable movie.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

Okay, I’ll start by saying I’m not supremely familiar with the Coen brothers work. I’ve seen my fair share of their movies, but I couldn’t give you the full rundown of each and what the plots were without consulting IMDB. But my initial impression is just “So the Coen brothers made their Oceans movie.” I admit it’s not a perfect analog as the Coens tend to use their cast of characters and this is not everyone in a single plot but kind of tangential connections of fate. That being said it really seemed like Burn After Reading was a move made by the cast and Coens just to have some fun and hang out.

My second point, the totally false marketing campaign. The trailers really made it out to be some sort of hijinks filled comedy. But it really wasn’t. There were a few funny moments to be sure, but nothing you didn’t see in the trailers for the most part.

It’s not really worth going into the plot, suffice to say people are greedy, people want things, people betray other people, shit happens. I thought all the characters were pretty much caricatures rather than real characters with any kind of depth. I didn’t think the actors played anything other than the most obvious bits of some of their previous works.

All in all a fairly boring film.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

I feel like I should call it “Danny Boyle’s Sunshine” as I keep hearing reading. I don’t know what it is, but a ton of movies for me lately fall apart in the third act. This movie was no different. I really could’ve done without the monster guy. I think the movie would’ve been more interesting as a character study of a team dedicated to a mission coming to grips with their pending, certain mortality. Hell they could’ve even made one of the guys really go crazy and have the mentality of the monster guy.

The movie looks amazing. Danny Boyle’s moviemaking is certainly slick. The audio of this movie is excellent as well. Great use of score versus silence.

I was really surprised by the performances in this movie. I really enjoyed Chris Evans work in London [DVD | Video on Demand], but let’s be honest, he’s the guy from Fantastic Four [Blu-ray | DVD]. But I thought he was really effective in this role. Cillian Murphy was okay. Rose Byrne was basically wasted. Michelle Yeoh had a nice moment. The white guy from Barbershop [DVD], Troy Garity, was surprisingly good and his moment turning from someone dedicated to the mission to someone facing his own mortality was very effective. My favorite performance was Hiroyuki Sanada as Kaneda. I’d have to say most people probably know him from The Last Samurai [Blu-ray | DVD]. He definitely presented kind of the calming authoritative captain of the Icarus II, the spaceship.

So the first two-thirds of the movie was very good, but the final act battling the monster was just crap. It totally went from a character study to a basic thriller/slasher movie. And for what? For nothing! It was just crap at the end. Honestly, at the risk of sounding like I’m ripping off the Slashfilmcast guys, Solaris [DVD] did a much better job of this kind of movie. I find Solaris is kind of an old school sci-fi movie that deals with characters using space as a backdrop. But most current sci-fi movies, Sunshine included, are basically monster movies and only tangentially use the vastness of space or other themes that sci-fi was made for. Sunshine was on track to really be that kind of movie, but then just derailed into monster territory. Still a very good movie.

[Blu-ray | DVD | DVD (2 disc SE)]

Good lord what a stupid movie. This movie is just ridiculous. Off a semi-competent concept, it’s just idiotic. Why is the computer so stylized? This movie was better when the computer was the NSA and Shia LaBeouf was Will Smith and this movie was called Enemy of the State [Blu-ray | DVD | DVD (SE)].

Let me first note, the sound design on this blu-ray is crazy. I mean I suppose it’s good for cinematic viewing or something. But parts are WAY too loud. And you turn it down and other parts are too quiet. This movie is like an ad for that old smart volume feature on TVs.

A movie hasn’t relied on so many PERFECT circumstances since The Game. This movie was also better when Shia was Will Smith in I, Robot [Blu-ray | DVD | DVD (2 disc CE)]. So HAL from 2001 [Blu-ray | DVD], the robot from War Games [DVD | Video on Demand], and the Axiom computer from Wall-E [Blu-ray (3 disc) | Blu-ray (2 disc) | DVD (3 disc) | DVD] all got together to kill the President and needed not one but TWO Shia’s to get that shit done. Yeah. Okay. And simple brute force to derail this computer that can get to and control anything networked.

A slick looking movie, but so incredibly stupid. PQ was also mixed. I’m sad I lost time watching this movie.

Oh, Shia was alright, Michelle Monaghan was pretty nothing, Rosario’s good looking and about nothing else, Chiklis is meh, Embry looks thick, Billy Bob is more ridiculous than he was in Armageddon [DVD].

I’m sad I lost two hours or whatever on this movie.

[No links because it’s not out yet.]

Everyone loves this movie. I think the critical praise of The Wrestler is rivaled only by the love for Slumdog Millionaire. And in a lot of ways these two movies are very much the same for me.

The Wrestler tells the tale of Robin “Randy the Ram” Robinson. He’s a former superstar wrestler that’s now on the outs and on his last legs. He goes through life wrestling on the most minor of circuits, trying to make ends meet. He has trials and tribulations of all kinds.

I thought Mickey Rourke is excellent in this movie. It really is the perfect comeback vehicle for him. He is so true in this role. It really his story just placed in the context of professional wrestling. Marisa Tomei is also excellent in this movie. She’s so hot too. But that’s neither here nor there.

My problems with this movie, and with Slumdog Millionaire, is that it’s not very original. There are so many cliche things: scenes, dialogue, etc. Do the performances earn the emotions so blatantly being courted in these cliches? Yes, but that doesn’t mean the cliches didn’t take me out of the movie a little. If this wasn’t an indie movie by Darren Aronofsky, I don’t think it’d get as much praise. It’s the same as Slumdog Millionaire, if that wasn’t a FOREIGN indie flick, I doubt people would love it as much. I know there are many cliches that appear in movies, all movies, and that’s that, but they really took me out of the movie. I don’t want to list all the cliches out because that’s just too much work.

I still think people should watch this movie. There really is a lot of good. And I liked it a lot. Just I think people are glossing over some of the problems with movie in the midst of the lovefest.

[I know these reviews are terrible. I want to do a little bit long form essay, but if I did that per movie, I’d never publish anything.]