The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Niels Arden Oplev, 2009)

7/10
Decided to see the Swedish adaptation before the U.S. one. If I could describe it in one word, it would be "functional". It does a decent job all around. While I agree with a lot of the necessary storyline cuts and alterations, I do feel like something got lost along the way. I also felt there was zero chemistry between the two leads, and the movie actually starts to sag when they meet instead of crackling as in the book. The direction is average, and I'm looking forward to seeing the style and visual flair Fincher will bring to his adaptation.

My Week with Marilyn (Simon Curtis, 2011)

7/10
This is a pretty good movie boasting another great performance from Michelle Williams - that her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe never descends into cartoonishness (despite Monroe's cartoonish personality) and constantly treads a very nuanced line between sexy and childish, cleverness and borderline outright stupidity, is a testament to both Williams' abilities and the screenplay. I suppose if I had one major complaint, it's that there just isn't a lot here - it's a pretty fluff movie, and when you start to wonder how such a thin story got made into a major motion picture, it's not hard to imagine someone pitching this as pure Oscar-bait for the Monroe role alone. Luckily they were able to create a sufficiently entertaining movie around it, however.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011)

7/10
I feel like this is a movie I might enjoy more on a second viewing - not only to help clarify the plot which I found a bit muddy, but because it just seems like the type that might grow on me. Especially since I found the first 45 minutes or so a real tough slog...characters are reserved to the point of being frustrating (the repeated questions that go unanswered by characters staring pensively into the distance is more annoying than intriguing at a certain point) and the movie is so dry from dialogue to cinematography that it feels like the celluloid it's printed on might crumble any second. The story picks up in the second half and becomes quite engrossing, the acting is top notch (especially Gary Oldman and Colin Firth, the latter criminally underused), and the period detail is remarkable. The ending is a bit of a wash though - with much screen time devoted to the mechanics of the mystery itself, there isn't enough time to develop any of the suspects enough to manifest real viewer interest in the "whodunnit" aspect. Not a bad movie, but pretty flawed too.

Pina (Wim Wenders, 2011)

8/10
A very different kind of documentary by Wim Wenders, featuring some of the best, most tasteful use of 3D I've ever seen. The film is comprised of performances from Pina Bausch's dance troupe of her pieces, as well as the recollections of Pina by the troupe members. What slowly and subtlety emerges is a film about dedication and love. The film is not noisily ecstatic and all the better for it, and immensely enjoyable in the end.

War Horse (Steven Spielberg, 2011)

4/10
I won a couple of passes to an advance screening of Spielberg's latest, and I'm happy to not have paid for it. The story follows that of a horse born on the precipice of World War I - from being raised by a teenage farmhand named Albie, through his entry into the war via the British army, and subsequent owners, protectors and guardians that include two young German defectors, a French girl and her grandfather, a sympathetic horseman in the German army, and others. The film is of epic scope and epic length, but its simple story can't support of the weight of this blockbuster that was built around it. It failed to strike any emotional note whatsoever with me, and was just a big bore. The battle scenes felt slapdash and way too sanitized and the emotions were one-note and hammered home with an ending you could predict upon seeing the commercials. Spielberg also fails to imbue the horse itself with any true sense of personality or character, although characters in the movie all fall in love with it minutes after crossing its path, so I guess we were supposed to as well. Some nice-looking photography aside, there was little to enjoy here.

The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, 2011)

9/10
A silent film that at once overtly apes and pays loving homage to virtually every silent film trick in the book, my only criticism of The Artist is that it's almost too slick, too mechnical, too well-crafted. And there are points in the film where you really wonder if the two leads are going to be able to make the emotional connection necessary for the viewer to truly enjoy the film. Well in the end it wound up working on me...and even if it didn't, it would take a heart of stone to not be able to appreciate how exceedingly clever and joyous the movie really is. I personally can't wait to see it again.
Special mention has to be made for Jean Dujardin who is absolutely sensational in the lead role, and has a face that looks like it was cobbled together from an entire film history's worth of silent film star facial expressions. His toothy smile should get a best supporting actor nomination on its own.

The Hit (Stephen Frears, 1984)

7.5/10
Nice U.K. road movie from 1984 directed by Stephen Frears. Terence Stamp is great as the man being led from his hideout in Spain to France to be whacked. Tim Roth (in his first feature role) plays the green, inexperienced helper to a tee and John Hurt is the man in charge with ice water in his veins. They're completed by Laura del Sol, a victim of circumstance picked up along the way. The characters may seem rote but they're all well-acted, Stamp in particular steals the show as the zen-like dead man walking. The movie is darkly funny and features some beautiful photography, reminiscent of Paris, Texas in its dry landscapes (and also the guitar-centric score). I would have liked the film more were it not for the ending, which I thought was a bit botched.

The Descendants (Alexander Payne, 2011)

7.5/10
The Descendants has two big strengths - first is the acting. George Clooney is reliably great and Shailene Woodley is surprisingly fantastic. The second is the way it deals with its central theme of death and how the reverberations of the life of the deceased continue to affect their loved ones. Most of this material is dealt with in a thoughtful and mature way, and does ask some questions we don't normally think about.
But like director Alexander Payne's last movie Sideways, it also grates at times. One supporting character is particularly corny and insufferable and sometimes things just fit a bit too cutely. For me, both movies had things I liked and things I didn't but were at the end of the day enjoyable, if not revelatory.

The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar, 2011)

7.5/10
This is the first Pedro Almodovar movie I've ever seen. The man certainly is a visual master - every shot is sumptuous, beautifully framed and magnificently photographed. He also draws strong performances from just about everyone in the movie. The story, adapted by Almodovar from a novel called Tarantula, is confounding. It's not that it's hard to follow, but it's told in such a bizarre rhythm that you can almost feel the movie jerking along instead of running smoothly. Maybe that was the goal but personally I found it frustrating, and it also left me feeling fairly distant from anything that was happening in the movie. But I have to give him credit for a completely original, artistic approach to what could have been Human Centipede-type shlock. At the end I found myself liking it more than I thought I would in the early goings, but I had to force myself to stick with it at times, that's for sure.