Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008)

9/10
Amazing...I'm a huge Eastwood fanboy and have liked/loved just about everything I've seen him in so I'm not a fair judge but man this movie was great. Eastwood was a total powerhouse and can still carry a movie at 78 but I thought the two main "kid" actors (Sue and Tao I think their names are?) were good too. Even the usual knocks it would get (somewhat implausible plot, occasional wooden acting by the non-actor cast, predictable outcome, etc) I glossed right over because it was still a brilliantly made film. The song that plays at the end and having Eastwood himself sing it was just great too. I can't see it getting any major Oscar nods but I hope I'm wrong.

Godzilla (Roland Emmerich, 1998)

2/10
Haha okay kind of a step down from the other two classics but it was on late last night and I felt like turning my brain off so I watched it and yeah it's as awful as I'd heard. So many things wrong with it but I just loved how Godzilla was this 900-foot monster or whatever, could swat helicopters out of the sky, yet couldn't catch a freaking taxi.

Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)

9/10
Loved it...brilliant, surreal, and also with a great ending that defies typical Hollywood conventions. Reminded me a bit of A Clockwork Orange in the quasi-futuristic style it has. Highly recommended.

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

8.5/10
Great...can't believe I waited this long to watch the entire thing. I loved the scene where there's a top-down view of Arbogast coming up the stairs and Norman running out of the adjacent room with a knife. Combined with the music, it actually made me jump..impressive for a movie made 50 years ago. The scene at the end where Norman smiles at the camera and it ever-so-subtly flashes the skull of Norman's mother over his face is great too. Definitely worth all the hype.

The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)

4/10
Just watched it earlier and uhhh I'm still trying to come to grips with this one too...not with what I saw, but with why I see people calling it a "classic". Give me a break. I like Darren Aronofsky and I really wanted to like this one but it was just a mess. I "got" the three storylines and the way they tied in to eachother but it wasn't particularly well done at all, it was garbled and uninteresting to watch. I would say that some of the effects were beautiful and Hugh Jackman gave a really good performance (if over the top a lot of the time) but that's about it. It was like a weird mix of Lord of the Rings, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Matrix: Revolutions. I hope The Wrestler is better...

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)

7/10
I'm still grappling with a score for this one...the direction, cinematography and acting were all brilliant (especially Casey Affleck who had a much harder character than Brad Pitt IMO) but the story never really grabbed me...you could argue there isn't much of a story and you'd be right. But I never found it long despite its length (2h40m) and its tendency to meander. I really liked the ending.

The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)

6.5/10
Kind of torn since there was nothing I disliked about it but nothing I loved either. Good performances by Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, good special effects, interesting story...but yeah, nothing that blew me away either.

The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976)

8.5/10
Great Western directed by and starring Clint Eastwood...the back of the DVD case says the character of Josey Wales harkens back to Eastwood's The Man With No Name but that couldn't be further from the truth. Aside from being a quick draw and pretty much immortal, they're nothing alike, and it was interesting to see Eastwood play a character with a heart in one of his Westerns. A bit slow at times but no complaints other than that.

Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)

8/10
Good movie. Apparently of lot of white people come away thinking of Sal as the victim and a lot of black people come away thinking of Mookie as the hero...I was somewhere in between, I think neither were heroes and both were in the wrong and in the end, Mookie didn't do the right thing, which I think is what Spike Lee was trying to get across...but I don't know. The quotes at the end from Malcolm X and MLK muddle things too. Anyone else seen it have an opinion?

Sleepaway Camp (Robert Hiltzik, 1983)

7/10
I'd never seen this before but so many people mentioned it in the "creepiest movie scenes ever?" topic I had to watch it. The movie itself is pretty lame - none of the deaths are very good/gory/inventive and the kids involved are too young for any gratuitous nudity, so it's kind of a chore to make it through...but the ending scene, holy shit what a brilliant twist of total unexpected weirdness. Definitely won't be able to forget that for a while...

Hang 'Em High (Ted Post, 1968)

7/10
Good entertaining Clint Eastwood Western, not his best but not his worst either...it was fun to see him as the sheriff systematically tracking down the guys who wronged him one by one.

All the Real Girls (David Gordon Green, 2003)

7/10
Kind of a "real" look at relationships (or basically one relationship) between the amazing Zooey Deschanel and some dude, I could see a lot of people hating this but for some reason it struck a chord with me, even if I never really went through what the characters did...I probably wouldn't watch it again soon but I'm glad I saw it.

28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002)

8/10
Wasn't really sure what to expect from this but I was surprised to find out it's not really a zombie movie...well there's zombies, but obviously the main message is how man's greatest danger to himself is himself and all that, which has been done before, but it was done very well here too. A pleasant surprise.

Westworld (Michael Crichton, 1973)

6/10
Campy fun, I'll always fantasize about what it would be like if a Westworld actually existed but man, so many plotholes abound once you start thinking about the logistics of such a place...

The Hired Hand (Peter Fonda, 1971)

8.5/10
Great Western directed by and starring Peter Fonda and featuring Warren Oates. The story moves slowly, deals with unconventional Western subject matter, and features only about 3 minutes total of actual gunfighting. So anyone expecting a conventional, action-packed Western will hate it. Personally I loved it, and two things immediately struck me - the fantastic editing job (which, with all the fancy image burns and transitions and whatnot, some will say is to distract from the fact that there's no real story) and the amazing soundtrack by Bruce Langhorne I believe. The two combine for an opening sequence that I don't think I'll soon forget. If you like Westerns that are somewhat off the beaten path, check this one out.

Death at a Funeral (Frank Oz, 2007)

3/10
Someone recommended this to me because "if I liked Extras (the series), I'd love this". I do like Extras and I like British humor, but this was not similar and had nothing going for it at all. It was like they were trying to make an American Britcom...and it was pretty bad. The "straight man accidentally takes psychedelic drugs and things get crazy!!!" crutch has been used to death, as has the cranky old impaired elder who swears and hates everything character. Most of the other jokes were just incredibly lame (the old man poops on one of the guys' hands! the midget gets placed on top of the dad in the coffin in a 69 position! how outlandish!) and fell totally flat. The writing was dull and uninspired too, which is normally the strength of so many British comedies. Overall I chuckled maybe twice, and otherwise barely broke a grin. Disappointing considering how much it'd been hyped. Then I get on IMDB and see dozens of people going "omg I was laughing so hard when the guy got poop on his hand I could barely breathe!!" and I wonder if it's just me.

Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968)

7/10
John Cassavetes movie from 1965 I think, first one of his I've ever seen. Kind of interesting "case study" almost about the dissolution of a marriage. It basically deals with a volatile couple that get into an argument and the night after the husband demands a divorce. It's a very weird movie and I say that having seen at least a few weird movies...everybody talks in non-sequitors and the actors are laughing throughout almost the entire movie, despite how much everybody seems to hate their lives and their surroundings. It was interesting and I'm glad I watched it but not something I'm really in a hurry to see again.

The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977)

6/10
I wanted to like this more than I did...it just sort of plodded along with no real scares or anything. It worked best when the cannibals were hidden away in the darkness. Once you start seeing them galloping along in broad daylight with their ridiculous animal pelts and shell necklaces, the element of fear is pretty much gone. I don't think this one held up quite as well as other 70's horror flicks do.

La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962) & Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, 1983)

La Jetée - 8/10
Sans Soleil - 6.5/10
Two movies by French filmmaker Chris Marker. La Jetee is a short made entirely of stills and deals with post-apocalyptic time travel, very interesting and curious movie that I watched a couple times and enjoyed a good bit. Terry Gilliam pretty much remade it as 12 Monkeys but I haven't seen that yet.
Sans Soleil is feature length and is a sort of faux documentary/travelogue using mainly footage Marker shot in Japan set to a female narrator reading letters sent to her by the ficticious camera man. Hard to explain. It was nice enough, but I just never really got into it that much.

Two Mules for Sister Sara (Don Siegel, 1970)

7/10
Above-average, entertaining Clint Eastwood Western. Eastwood's character has more of a personality than usual and he has pretty good chemistry with Sister Sara (Shirley MacLaine). Ironic because I just read on IMDB that MacLaine didn't get along with Eastwood during shooting.
Anyway the movie is at its best for the first half when Eastwood and MacLaine's characters are the focal point, once the focus shifts to the capturing of the garrison it becomes less interesting and a bit more plodding...and the "twist" could be seen a mile away (they did foreshadow it heavily) but still, good movie that kept me entertained.

There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

8/10
First of all - NCFOM is so much better. That said, TWBB was still enjoyable (and Daniel Day-Lewis absolutely deserved the Oscar) but never fully gripped me...although it didn't bore me either. I just never really bought into what it was selling. Jonny Greenwood's soundtrack was polarizing, great at times and irritating and unnecessary at others. Anyway, good movie, but not as great as I expected.

Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)

6/10
I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. There were only two scenes that ever really held my interest - the Yardbirds performance and the game of "imaginary tennis" at the very end of the movie. Although afterwards I read Andrew Sarris' Village Voice review and he remarked on the apathy with which Antonioni treats his subject matter (the fact that a photographer has accidentally captured a murder in a park) and I thought that was pretty interesting as well...but as far as the film went - not so interesting.

Mr. Baseball (Fred Schepisi, 1995)

5/10
Well there's probably a good movie to be made about the alienation American athletes feel when forced to play in unfamiliar territories just to earn a living, but this isn't it (maybe there already is one and I haven't seen it?). But I can't be too hard on it because it is what it is and everything goes exactly as you expect it to. And cmon, it's Tom Selleck.

The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982)

4/10
I don't think this one aged so well. The special effects were the big selling point of the movie in '82 and maybe people glossed over other aspects of the movie because of them...but now that the effects aren't so impressive, the fact that the plot is really quite slow and boring and the acting subpar really comes to the surface. Or maybe it's just not for me.

High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1973)

9/10
I was surprised by how much I liked this. It started kinda slow, and looked like a pretty boring story, but it got really good and interesting...I loved the ending and the whole, uh, supernatural aspect to the story I guess. And Clint Eastwood rules.

No Country for Old Men (Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, 2008)

8.5/10
I'm gonna have to sit on this one for a while to see just how much I liked it...I really liked everything the whole way through and had heard about the "unconventional" ending so I was ready for it, but I still kinda had to take a moment to process everything (I even went on IMDB to make sure I didn't miss anything major). In terms of pure cinema it's an obvious masterpiece but it didn't leave me feeling wholly satisfied which is why I'm giving it an 8.5 as opposed to a 10. Spoilers: I don't mean I was unsatisfied in the sense of "I can't believe Llewelyn died and you didn't even get to see it and how come Anton lived and who got the money in the end this isn't fair blah blah"...I understand what they did and why...it just kind of a strange, empty feeling at the end, purely from a story perspective.
I was really happy to see that Javier Bardim got Best Supporting Actor...he was phenomenal. The Anton Chigurh character is one of the best, most interesting characters I've seen in years. I was also pleasantly surprised at how much (black) humour was in the movie.

Joe Kidd (John Sturges, 1972)

5/10
Wasn't a big fan of this other Eastwood Western...the plot wasn't all that interesting, Eastwood's character wasn't as badass as he usually is, and overall there was nothing really memorable or unique about it.

The Basketball Diaries (Scott Kalvert, 1995)

7/10
Caught this on MoviePix, missed the first half-hour or so (I came in right when DiCaprio was starting to take drugs more seriously than basketball). Good movie with some great acting by Leo, only disappointment was the ending which was absurdly rushed (not to spoil anything but basically it happens in about the span of a minute and a half). They could have fleshed it out a bit more. Based on a true story too.

Hellraiser (Clive Barker, 1987)

7/10
First time I ever saw this on a recommendation from a friend...it was all right, not really what I was expecting. Some cool effects and a pretty good story but it got just a little too corny at times and some of the acting was amazingly wooden.

Sicko (Michael Moore, 2007)

9/10
I saw Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 and while both are entertaining, they also are more (ahem) "liberal" with facts than they needed to be. So I was skeptical about seeing this one but it really, really impressed me. Yes Moore still has an obvious agenda, uses extremely small sample sizes to back-up his "research" and never shows both sides of the story (as a Canadian I can tell you that free health care isn't as glorious as it seems and not everybody is as ecstatic about it as the film portrays - and I hear similar things regarding England, France and Cuba's health care as well) but to pick on his bias is to completely miss or blatantly ignore the point of the movie. Even disregarding how other countries do it, America's health care system is still downright terrifying. Kicking obviously sick people out onto the streets just because they can't pay their bills? I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it for myself. It's kinda weird that something that's such a non-issue to myself and other non-Americans (to be able to walk into a clinic and get free treatment) is a major, life-altering (and sometimes fatal) experience for some people. And the part about the people who have insurance getting screwed the most was even more scary, when you think about it.
I like how Moore didn't give himself nearly as much face time in this one, and how he veered away from his typical attempts at humor with over-the-top cartoons and the like. Definitely the best of the three I've seen.

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg, 2008)

7.5/10
Not as good as the first one but still had some laughs...I didn't really like the idea of escaping from Guantanamo Bay in the first place (seemed a little too out there compared to the banality of going to White Castle, which was why the first one was so great IMO) but it turned out okay. I will echo another criticism I heard mentioned here in that Rob Coddry's character was too easy, too expected...I dunno, I don't find much of that whole "ironically conservative/over-the-top patriotic" thing the Daily Show spawned very funny. The scene with Ed Helms playing the interpreter who doesn't understand Harold and Kumar's parents despite the fact that they're speaking English is a prime example of that. Lame, stupid, and too easy.

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

8.5/10
Finally got around to seeing this monster...I'll freely admit that the end of the movie baffled me and I had to get on Wiki/IMDB to see exactly what was going on. But according to Kubrick and Clarke it's supposed to raise more questions than it answers, so I don't feel too bad. Usually I'm bad for falling asleep watching DVDs (and I caught myself starting to nod off on occasion) but for the most part I was awake and engaged, which is impressive considering all the nothingness in the movie. Spoilers: My only complaint was that I thought HAL "turned" too quickly...it would have been better if more of those 2.5 hours was given to HAL losing confidence in the mission/in the other crew members and then taking matters into his own hands But other than that I enjoyed it. Must have been a trip to see all those effects back in '68 when it first came out.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956)

7/10
There wasn't much not to like about this one...the "pods" haven't aged so well but the story is still plausible. I loved at the end where the main character is screaming into traffic trying to get people to stop and then he screams "you could be next!" into the camera. Great quasi-breaking-the-fourth-wall moment. I read they tacked on the scenes in the doctor's office that bookend the movie to make the movie more upbeat which is a bummer because it would have been better without them.

Snatch. (Guy Ritchie, 2000)

8/10
Saw this for the first time on the weekend...pretty good movie, good story and great direction by Ritchie. Brad Pitt and Vinnie Jones stole the show IMO.

The Midnight Meat Train (Ryuhei Kitamura, 2008)

5/10
I enjoyed the first half and was really curious to see where it went...but then almost immediately after two specific scenes halfway through (the sex scene and the "warts" scene) the movie stopped being realistic and just started being stupid and nonsensical. It almost felt like the second half was done by a different director. Anyway I saw it with a friend who'd read the original Clive Barker story and he said it was pretty faithful so I guess if you liked the story you'd the movie, but I thought it could've been a bit better. And the ending was so predictable.

The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)

9.5/10
Great movie but I felt it was missing just that little extra that would push it over into being a truly perfect movie for me...although I have nothing bad at all to say about it really (well okay the "Harvey Dent story" was a bit rushed and I thought Bale's Batman was a wee bit over the top). Still, totally deserving of the hype it's getting.

Sukiyaki Western Django (Takashi Miike, 2007)

10/10
This movie was a fucking blast from beginning to end. It's a Spaghetti Western directed by Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer, Visitor Q, etc) and the entire movie is done with Japanese actors speaking in phonetic English, with English subtitles. It's hilarious, the action is awesome, and the plot is surprisingly coherant. It's not a remake of Sergio Corbucci's Django but it uses similar devices (the name Django, the machine gun in a casket thing). Without a doubt the best Miike movie I've seen in a long time. Oh yeah, and Quentin Tarantino plays a sukiyaki-eating master gunslinger. Right on.

Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)

8.5/10
A touching, coming-of-age vampire movie from Sweden, probably released last year as well. Not much gore to speak of (though there's some) but a dark, gothic vibe from start to finish that sticks this one on the fringes of horror. The two 12-year old protagonists are fantastic and the story incredibly engrossing, although there is a distracting subplot that could've been done away with. In fact you could've chopped about 10 minutes from the movie and it might have boosted my score up even more. Sometimes it dragged a bit. But otherwise a pretty remarkable movie. Apparently JJ Abrams is trying to get this remade in the U.S. as well.

[REC] (Jaume Balaguero & Paco Plaza, 2007)

9/10
I love a good zombie movie and this is the best one I've seen in ages. It was made in Spain, came out last year, and has been getting rave reviews all over. I'm 99% sure an American remake is on the way, but it'll probably be dismissed as a Blair Witch Project/Cloverfield ripoff since it's filmed verité style (handheld camera). There were a couple of great scares and a real creepy atmosphere throughout, but it probably wouldn't work so well on DVD. See it in theatres if at all possible.

Mother of Tears (Dario Argento, 2007)

7/10
The final film in Dario Argento's "three mothers" trilogy, the first two being Suspiria and Inferno, with this one coming about 25 years after Inferno. Suspiria is an undisputed classic for me, Inferno was awful, and this one was an enjoyable improvement on that. It still wasn't a great movie but I think I liked it because I was expecting the absolute worst.

La Antena (Esteban Sapir, 2007)

5/10
An Argentinian(?) movie about a town that lives in silence because the evil Mr. TV has stolen everybody's voice. So they communicate with subtitles (which the characters can see and interact with) but now Mr. TV is threatening to take away their words as well. So the protagonist, his father, his daughter, his ex-wife, The Voice (a hooded woman with the only voice in the city, Mr. TV forces her to sing on television every night) and The Voice's blind son set out to stop him, recover everybody's voice, and get a set of eyes for The Voice's son. It came out in 2007 but it's a silent, black and white movie. It had a lot of promise but the story was plodding and the idea was kind of worn out spread over the course of a full-length movie. My friends and I agreed that it would work better as an hour-long feature.

Nowhere (Gregg Araki, 1997)

2/10
One of those movies I caught late at night on Moviepix and saw a lot of young actors I recognized (Ryan Philippe, Heather Graham, Christina Applegate, Mena Suvari, Guillermo Diaz, etc) so I just had to keep watching till the end to see what it was all about. It could have been a decent commentary on the state of bored, drug- and sex-obsessed teenagers but instead a stupid, inexplicable subplot involving some sort of alien invasion runs throughout and basically undermines any intelligence or "message" the film is trying to convey, especially at the end. Maybe that was the point.

The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976)

7.5/10
The acting was terriffic but I found some of the plot to be more than slightly implausible - where did the priest come from and how did he know all this stuff was going to happen? How could Damien's parents go five years without noticing their son has a "666" birthmark on his head? Anyway I much prefer Rosemary's Baby in the canon of "devil child" films.

Ride in the Whirlwind (Monte Hellman, 1965)

4/10
Early Monte Hellman western featuring Jack Nicholson (who also wrote the movie) wasn't nearly as good as I was hoping. It had a very weird pace, the standoff in the cabin was dragged out far too long and the rest of the movie seemed to have to rush to catch up.

The Wild One (Laszlo Benedek, 1953)

7/10
I didn't like it as much as I hoped I would but it was still entertaining, and I'm coming to enjoy pretty much anything involving Brando.

Cobra Verde (Werner Herzog, 1987)

7/10
Probably my least favorite of all the Herzog/Kinski collaborations. I had a hard time following the plot in this one but admittedly I wasn't paying too much attention. The last scene with Cobra Verde trying to pull the boat into the ocean was great though.

Batman & Robin (Joel Schumacher, 1997)

1/10
There must be some reason I stick around to watch this every time Teletoon replays it so I'll give it a 1...but good lord it's bad on so many levels. Every time I see it I think "it's probably not as bad as I remember" yet it's even worse. The entire dialogue is horribly lame, cheesy one-liners. Everything is so ridiculously unbelievable. Schwarzenegger's performance has to go down as one of the worst ever put to screen in a major motion picture.

Day of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1985)

7/10
Not really what I was expecting after having seen Night, Dawn and Land. Day is more about humans' reactions to zombies living amongst us, so it was interesting from that POV. The message is pretty clear (humans are a greater danger to humans than any outside force) and for the most part it's well-acted...I found the scenes where the Professor was "teaching" the zombie Bub to be a little corny, and the ending felt like a bit of a cop-out to me. Also it didn't bug me much but I can see where some people would be disappointed with the lack of true zombie-on-human killing action (until the end, of course). As of now my Romero zombie hierarchy goes Dawn > Night > Day >>>> Land (haven't seen Diary yet).

Incident at Loch Ness (Zak Penn, 2004)

8.5/10
Werner Herzog again manipulating the documentary genre...the story is that a cameraman is making a documentary on Werner Herzog called "Herzog in Wonderland" and it follows him as he prepares to direct a documentary on the Loch Ness Monster called "The Enigma of Loch Ness". The production quickly turns into a comedy of errors centering around the bumbling producer Zak Penn who appears to only want to have a role in the project because his name alongside Herzog's will give him some real credibility. As he, Herzog and the rest of the small film crew take to the high seas to shoot the documentary, all kinds of revelations are made along the way, tempers flare, people drown, guns are pulled, and the boat is attacked by the actual Loch Ness monster itself...

It becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly (and I even knew it beforehand) that the entire thing is a sham - there is no "Herzog in Wonderland" doc and there is no "Enigma of Loch Ness" and everything you see happening is carefully scripted by Herzog and acted out by real-life people (e.g. Zak Penn really is a Hollywood producer), but it blurs the lines between fiction and reality so well, and it's hilarious to watch everything unfold. I have no idea why this movie got some poor reviews and a score as low as 6.6 on IMDB - maybe people were expecting a real documentary by Herzog on the Loch Ness Monster? Nevertheless it's a really well done look at the genre and an interesting watch to boot.