Argo (Ben Affleck, 2012)

8/10
I had heard some things about Argo playing fast and loose with history, so I went out of my way to avoid reading any of the facts until I saw the movie because, hey, I like a good yarn as much as anyone. And a good yarn Argo does spin - the pacing is tight and the tone is a perfect balance of humour and drama. Affleck, Arkin, Goodman and Cranston were all excellent, and any movie of this era is going to benefit from a more than listenable soundtrack. Really, I didn't have very many complaints. The "runway chase" at the end of the movie felt a little too cinematic (but as I've yet to study the facts, I have no idea if that actually happened or not) and the barely-there thread about Affleck's wife and kid was shoehorned-in, Hollywood schmaltz. The six hostages are little more than ciphers but there was enough going on that you can forgive their lack of character development. Maybe ignorance is bliss and the key to fully enjoying Argo but at the end of the day, sometimes we go to the movies just to be entertained, and I was. Finally a movie worthy of all the premature hype Affleck the Director has been garnering.

Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)

7/10
Holy Motors got quite a bit of buzz at Cannes after, for some reviewers, the "other limousine movie" actually upstaged Cronenberg's hotly-awaited Cosmopolis. Like Cosmopolis, Holy Motors is an assault of style, with most of the action taking place in a limosine prowling through the city (Paris, here). Its passenger is Mr. Oscar, played by Denis Lavant. Mr. Oscar's job seems to involve him taking a number of "assignments" which lead Mr. Oscar disguising himself and completing a multitude of bizarre scenarios - motion-capture, blacklit, dragon-avatared sex, dressing up like a freakish troll character and kidnapping supermodel Kay M (Eva Mendes), playing an old man on his deathbed, making a musical with Kylie Minogue, and picking up his daughter from a party. It's virtually impossible to find rhyme or reason to many of the events, but it remains a pretty fascinating ordeal, though it'll try the patience of many. Lavant in particular is incredible, and if nothing else, you'll want to keep watching the movie just to see how he transforms himself next. I feel like I need to see it at least one more time to start deciphering it though.

Smashed (James Ponsoldt, 2012)

6/10
Smashed is an indie-dramedy about a young alcoholic couple. Kindergarten teacher Kate (played by Mary Elizabeth Winsted) is the focus of the film and her attempts to get and stay sober while her husband remains off the wagon.
There are a lot of easy criticisms about this movie, namely its portrayal of sobriety as something that can be achieved practically overnight with little struggle. When Kate wants to get sober, she goes to a couple of AA meetings, reads a book, and voila, success. Her only transgression is when she gets fired from her job (for covering up the lie about an episode that led to get wanting to sober up in the first place) and immediately after that, she's shown recovered and sober again.
Nick Offerman plays Kate's vice principal and a recovering alcoholic himself. A thread about him falling in love with Kate is played for laughs then dropped abruptly - either something was left on the cutting room floor or it was all an excuse to get some foul-mouthed jokes in. Megan Mullally plays Kate's prinicipal and overacts every line to an absurd degree.
All things considered, I should have liked Smashed less than I did, but I actually did enjoy it. This is likely owing almost entirely to Winsted's performance - far better than the movie deserves, her own likeability somehow rubs off on the film itself. And the fact that it was a free screening didn't hurt either.

The Land of Hope (Sion Sono, 2012)

8.5/10
Barely recognizable as a Sion Sono film, The Land of Hope is a drama about three couples affected by radiation fallout from a local nuclear plant explosion - an elderly couple, their son and his girlfriend, and their neighbors. The elderly couple elect to stay, despite their proximity to the contaminated zone, while the neighbors head for a shelter and to hunt for their adult son's girlfriend's parents, and the son and his pregnant, "radiophobe" girlfriend coming to terms with living with radiation. The movie features numerous moments of tragedy and sadness, although I feel like in his attempt to do something dramatic, Sono turns the volume up a little too high - overbearing "dramatic" music threatens to distract too often and the performances occasionally dip into weepy mawkishness. If this were an American director and an American movie, we'd be tagging it "Oscar bait". All that aside, the movie still works - it's saddening and affecting and a refreshing change from Sono's last couple of inconsistent outings.

Rhino Season (Bahman Ghobadi, 2012)

7/10
Bahman Ghobadi's first (I believe) foray into fiction is a deadly serious, artistic affair, telling the story (based on something that happened to a friend of Ghobadi) of an Iranian poet, Sahel, and his wife who are imprisoned for 30 and 10 years respectively. Sahel is released and attempts to piece his life back together. There's no denying the film's beauty and sadness, despite its excessive dryness, but a late semi-twist feels slightly contrived and artless. The ending is marvellously shot though, and pretty unforgettable.

Life of Pi (Ang Lee, 2012)

8.5/10
I've never read Yann Martel's source novel so I can't draw any comparisons, but as a stand-alone flick, Ang Lee's Life of Pi is quite impressive. Any "stranded" films inevitably fall into a lull at a certain point (although the stakes are upped with the presence of the tiger) - something a writer can work his way around by describing the characters thoughts, emotions, feelings, etc. Those things are much harder for a filmmaker to convey, so Lee goes full-bore with mindblowing visuals, making exemplary use of 3D. It may be something of a cheap shortcut if you're a cynic, but it's impossible to deny its effectiveness. The film is absolutely gorgeous and does, in the end, work on an emotional level. I have a friend who wants to see it when it hits full release and I'm looking very much forward to seeing it again.

Clip (Maja Milos, 2012)

4/10
With the worldwide buzz garnered (for better or for worse) by A Serbian Film, it's not much of a surprise that other Serbian films would try to one-up it, or at least hop on the bandwagon. And why not - billing a film as another "shocker from Serbia" is an easy way for festivals to sell tickets. Maja Milos' Clip dispenses with the blood and gore and focuses on sex and nudity - namely full-frontal, explicit nudity amongst barely-legal teenagers. Given Clip centers on one girl and her three friends (mostly centering on them having sex and doing drugs) and the fact that it's directed by a woman, it's easy to paint this as the female version of Larry Clark's Kids...but that was 15 years ago, when it seemed fresh and dangerous. Now it seems trite and obnoxious, existing purely to shock and failing at everything else.

Insurgence (Group d'Action en Cinema Epopee, 2012)

0/10
A zero for content, and a zero for the fact that Insurgence isn't a movie. Rather, it's a collection of footage shot during the Quebec "Printemps Erable" student riots - no narration, no interviews, no context, just "as if you were there" footage from the left-wing Group d'Action en Cinema Epopee. This is little more than "protest porn" - shot by protestors for protestors who only have to flex the minimum amount of brain cells it takes to cheer at rocks being throw at cops, mocking Nazi salutes, and chanting "fuck la police" or "SSPVM".
Without delving too much into politics, I consider myself something of a moderate on the issue of the strike - while I agree with some of the issues the students raised, I was against the strike and especially against the means used to achieve their end. Quebec has a history of thinking more highly of itself than is warranted, and nowhere has that embarrassing sense of self-entitlement ever been more evident than when watching Insurgence - people wearing Canada Goose down jackets and clutching Louis Vuitton taking pictures of themselves next to riot cops with their iPhones for their new Facebook profile picture, without a clue in the world about what constitutes actual oppression, fascism, and Nazism.
It struck me watching the idiocy before my eyes that a right-wing group could have just as easily put out a documentary ridiculing the protesters - and they would have used the exact same footage found here.

In the House (Francois Ozon, 2012)

8.5/10
I've never seen a Francois Ozon movie until now. Though I hear this one is something of a departure for him (someone called it Ozon doing Woody Allen with a bit of Hitchcock), I enjoyed it immensely. When a young student named Claude turns in a "what did you do this weekend" homework assignment into the first chapter into an infiltration into his friend Rapha's family life (befriending Rapha, gaining entry into the house, making mild sexual allusions about his mother), his bored, failed-writer teacher Germaine becomes obsessed, both with Rapha's story and in coaching him to becoming the writer he never did. The situations become more and more absurd - what we see on-screen is what Claude has written, but is it what actually happened? Occasionally Germaine, annoyed with Claude's occasional forays into "sitcom" melodrama or cheap thrills, makes him re-write what happened, which is also shown on-screen - so which is the true version? Occasionally Germaine himself shows up in Rapha's house commenting on the action unseen by the other characters.
The blending of the real and surreal is what makes this movie so interesting, and the dialogue absolutely crackles. The movie moves at breakneck speed, which is good because as we become voyeurs to the Rapha house (just like Germaine), we end up constantly curious as to where Claude goes next.
The movie's end deals with Claude looking for a way to end his story, and I got the sense that Ozon wasn't sure how to end his either. The end is a bit messy and even more surreal than anything hither-to, and feels a little strained in that regard.

No (Pablo Larraín, 2012)

8/10
Set in Chile in the 1980's, Pablo Larrain's No stars Gael Garcia Bernal as Rene, an ad-man who gets recruited to help win the "no to Pinochet" campaign. Campaign movies seem almost to be a mini-genre unto themselves. No underplays a lot of what would be blown-up or exaggerated in a Hollywood production. In fact, Bernal's character is deceptively sedate. It's a great performance, completely devoid of grandstanding and the better for it.
The tone of No is quite interesting - it could almost be an absurd black comedy, if the situation weren't so real and dire. There's a part where Rene's son is threatened by "yes" supporters, and he takes him to stay at his mother's house, where she's lodging with her current lover - who is wearing a "no" campaign shirt with the rainbow logo created by Rene. As Rene walks away from the house, you know he's either going to burst out laughing or burst into tears, and neither reaction would be inappropriate.
Slim offerings in the way of history lessons here (Larrain assumes the audience should already know why Pinochet is so undesirable and why winning the "no" vote is so important), which is admirable, but I think it disservices the film a bit too. A little more context would have gone a long way. As such the movie doesn't hit as hard as it maybe could have, but it's still well done and memorable.

Hold Back (Rachid Djaidani, 2012)

7/10
This year's FNC has been rife with annoying technical issues - delayed starts, wrong-language subtitles, and outright missing subtitles. Catimini was a Quebecois film that was missing its English subtitles, though it was a breeze to understand since I have a good handle on Quebecois French. Hold Back was missing its English subtitles and, as it is a Parisienne French film focusing on North African and Algerian characters, the dialects were much tougher to decipher. The plot was easy enough: a young North African woman, Sabrina, intends to marry a black Christian, Dorcy, in modern-day Paris, despite the vociferous objections of her traditional, overprotective brother Slimane. The movie tracks Slimane as he hunts down some of his 40 (yes, 40) brothers, gathering information and opinions and trying to find Dorcy to talk him out of the union, by any means necessary.
Much of the film revolves around Slimane and his brothers' conversations, and judging from the reactions of those around me, most of these were quite funny. I wish I could say for certain if this were so. Regardless, I did enjoy the film (despite the occasionally obnoxiously jittery handheld digital camera work) and am regretful I wasn't able to enjoy all of its subtleties.

Tabu (Miguel Gomes, 2012)

8/10
A surprisingly moving film that started off kind of off-kilter and eventually settled into a rather conventional rhythm despite its unorthodox style - black and white "silent" film with voiceovers. Of all the movies in the world to be reminded of, it made me think of The Notebook. Not in a bad way, just that the plots share undeniable similarities. I liked it more and more as it went on.
And a quick aside - director Miguel Gomes was present and very funny and self-effacing as he apologized for the quality of the print (Blu-Ray instead of film), looking like he hadn't slept in about 10-20 years.

Dead Man's Burden (Jared Moshe, 2012)

4/10
I keep going to these new, indie western movies hoping someone is going to revitalize the genre. Meek's Cutoff came the closest, but others like The Last Christeros and this one fall well short. This is more a family drama set in the west than a real western, but bares none of the spark of, say, The Furies, an example of such a thing being done a million times better. I won't bother detailing the plot much - a woman, her husband, and her long-absent-since-returned brother squabble over the woman's land - because it would probably be as boring to write as it was to watch. Aside from the grave mistake of being boring, Dead Man's Burden fails in a major way: at least two of the main characters don't look like they belong in a western - they look like they've been pulled from Central Casting and given a layer of grime. The woman in particular has brown roots showing through her blonde hair the entire film - I wonder what brand of salon dye they used in the 1800's? The music for the movie is also terrible, barely soap opera caliber obnoxiousness. Maybe next year someone will get it right...

A Month in Thailand (Paul Negoescu, 2012)

6.5/10
Some time ago at the FNC I saw a Romanian film called Tuesday, After Christmas about the dissolution of a relationship due to infidelity. It was tremendous, one of my favorites of the year. Maybe I was hoping this Romanian film about the dissolution of a relationship could be a repeat success, but no such luck. During a New Year's Eve party, and without warning, Radu breaks up with his girlfriend of two years. The rest of the night bounces him around as he mopes from party to party with his friends. At some point he latches onto the idea of reconciling with another ex-girlfriend, Natalia, and spends the rest of the night tracking her down (the "month in Thailand" of the title references a vacation Radu was supposed to take with his girlfriend, which he later proposes to Natalia). The movie has some interesting things to say about relationships, but nothing earth-shattering or brand new. All in all it felt kind of pointless.

The Last Time I Saw Macao (Joao Pedro Rodrigues & Joao Rui Guerra da Mata, 2012)

8/10
Written, directed, and "starring" (we never see their faces) João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata, The Last Time I Saw Macao is loosely about a man, Joao, called back to his hometown of Macao to save his transvestite friend Candy from the evil forces she's gotten herself mixed up with. Candy is killed, and Joao tries to crack the murder - loosely. This is really a travelogue (think heavily of Chris Marker's Sans Soleil) or essay film with a flimsy investigation/thriller subtext. Personally, I found it the investigation charade pretty unnecessary. The voiceover narrations and still-camera shots of Macao were interesting enough. Some could call the film monotonous, I found it hypnotic.

Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas, 2012)

6.5/10
Coming off the 5-hour Che, Olivier Assayas' new film at first blush seems to be plunged right back into the world of revolutionary politics - this time in 1970's France. Indeed, it's heavy-handed on the politics to a fault, especially once the focus moves away from that and onto the young student Gilles. Gilles, initially passionate about student rights and anti-corruption (his activities range from printing up incendiary pamphlets to hurling Molotov cocktails), slowly finds himself pulled in several directions. He bounces between two girls - one even more fiercely activist than he, another the complete muted opposite - in addition to pursuing his drawing and painting. Gilles becomes increasingly disenfranchised - by the politics within the ranks of his own allies, by his inability to reconcile his political beliefs with his need for a job in the "system" to further his art career, by the two girls in his life. The film takes a long, roundabout way to get to where it's going, and it's not always enjoyable watching it do so. By the end it becomes evident that Gilles is at least in some way an avatar for Assayas himself, and the film feels perhaps too personal or introverted to fully connect.

The Legend of Kaspar Hauser (Davide Manuli, 2012)

7/10
The legend of Kaspar Hauser is a well-known one, thanks in large part to Werner Herzog's interpretation of the story in the 70's. Davide Manuli's film takes a few liberties with the subject matter - Kaspar Hauser is a woman, who washes up on the shore of a near-deserted Italian island, replete with Adidas tracksuits and headphones. The Sheriff (Vincent Gallo) takes her in and rehabilitates her, teaching her how to DJ amongst other things. The Duchess, meanwhile, doesn't believe Kaspar is the real returning king, and dispatches the Sheriff's brother, the Pusher (Vincent Gallo again) to take care of things.
This little summary makes it seem like the movie has much more of a plot than it actually does. Filmed in black and white with a great house (hause?) soundtrack, it's completely ridiculous but plays things straight-faced, much in the vein of Alejandro Jodorowsky. Gallo hams it up and seems to be having a good time, and the movie is funny and absurd enough to hold interest if you have the patience for this sort of obvious goofing off (at one point a boom mic drops plainly into frame). If the trailer on Youtube makes you laugh, you might enjoy it too.

Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas, 2012)

8.5/10
Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light has been on my to-watch list forever, and now it's been bumped up several spots after seeing his new one, Post Tenebras Lux. It's taking something of a critical and commercial beating and, indeed, it's not really for everyone. It has its share of moments that are flat-out baffling and push the bounds of ridiculousness. It also has moments of extreme beauty and as a whole can't really be compared to anything I've ever seen before except in inspired in me the same feelings I've had watching Aipitchatpong Weerasethakul's "magic realism". I'm still debating just how much I liked it but either way, it'll be with me for a long time.

The Chemical Brothers: Don't Think (Adam Smith, 2012)

9/10
I never really considered myself a big Chemical Brothers fan - I have the Surrender and Dig Your Own Hole albums on my iPod, but mostly just listen to the singles on them every now and again. When the hype blurb declared this, a concert filmed in front of 50,000 spectators in Japan, to be the first concert film of significance since Stop Making Sense, Gimme Shelter and The Last Waltz, I had to check it out. The claim might be a bit heavy-handed but this is still an absolutely sensational experience, with both music and visuals on a mindbogglingly incredible level. If you get a chance to see this somewhere with the music turned way up, don't pass it up. It is remarkable.

Catimini (Nathalie Saint-Pierre, 2012)

7.5/10
A Quebec film following the lives of four young girls as they bounce around from one foster home to another, some occasionally landing in behavioural correction institutions. With the girls aged 6, 12, 15 and 18, and each story taking place during a specific season, it's easy to read the narrative as a cohesive whole - these four fictional girls easily could be one girl unto herself. The movie is critical of the foster care system, detailing how these kids are taken in only to be spit out again unchanged (or worse), over and over. However, it doesn't get its criticism across by pounding its fist on the table - it's subtle, and all the better for it. Only a charge of pedophilia levelled at one of the male caregivers late in the film rings of shrill and unnecessary melodrama. That and the fact that the few males that do appear in the movie are all scum - I counted 4 males: one a possible pedophile, two were rapists, and one tried to lure a 12 year old girl into his car - lost it some points from me.

Antiviral (Brandon Cronenberg, 2012)

5/10
Antiviral is the debut feature from Brandon Cronenberg, son of David. What's surprising is how similar its themes are to the work of his father - specifically body horror, bizarre fetishes, and celebrity obsession.
Its plot centres around Syd, the employee of a clinic in the unspecified future that sells viruses and diseases from celebrities to their obsessed fans. Syd also deals samples of these diseases to the black market, smuggling them out of the clinic in his own body and cracking their encryption in his home. When mega-celebrity Hannah Geist is revealed to be ill, Syd naturally co-opts her blood, realizing only later that someone has poisoned her, and now he's dying from the same mysterious ailment she is, and has to find some way to stop it - or at least deal with it.
Antiviral is on shakey ground from the start - at no point does it attempt to explain why people would want to infect themselves with celebrity diseases. We're just to assume that, In the Future, this is what we do. On the other hand, Cronenberg spends a lot of time explaining and developping seemingly insignificant or unnecessary plot points, which feel introduced only to overcomplicate things (the encryption, namely). The movie jerks about rather than ever settling into a comfortable flow, even if it always looks immaculate when doing so (this non-specific Future is the same one where everything is brightly white and well-lit, Stepford style).
I should also call attention to Caleb Landry Jones' performance in the lead role. If ever any performance on the planet needed reeling in - it was this one. I don't blame Jones - he does a great job. But Cronenberg is clearly pushing for too much. Jones spends almost every single frame heaving and sobbing and straining and vomiting and contorting. When the volume is at 11 the entire time, it's tough for anything at all to register.

Ana (Ouananiche, 2012)

3/10
Or, when short films preceding a feature fails. Before I talk about the movie, can I talk about film festivals? OK. The screening begins at 9. But it never really begins at 9, because everyone's gotta shuffle in. So maybe 9:10. But of course, the movies need to be introduced, by two separate people. So maybe at 9:20 the short film that, let's face it, nobody really paid to see, begins. I will admit to being prejudiced against short films - rarely do I find them entertaining or memorable. I've seen countless at festivals over the years, and only a handful have ever really stuck with me. And, to be fair, Ana is not a terrible movie. Actually it isn't even a movie, it's a "live remixing" by Quebec artist Ouananiche of a movie called Amer. What this means is that frames are looped and manipulated and beats are derived from the sounds on-screen. This is interesting to watch for a bit on Youtube at home when you're killing time. But to sit through it for half an hour while you're waiting for the movie you paid money to see to start so you can hopefully get home at a semi-reasonable hour, how can it stand a chance? It doesn't help that so many of these beats develop exactly the same way and reach exactly the same conclusion, coming in repetitive 3-4 minute chunks rather than a nicely composed 30-minute piece. Short films preceding feature films is a tricky endeavour - a bad experience could sour the viewer on whatever else is to come, which may be what happened to me for...

I Hate But Love (Koreyoshi Kurahara, 1962)

8/10
The more I dig in, the more the Nikkatsu studios are starting to seem like an endless treasure trove of wildness in Japanese film. I didn't know much about this one going in, but it's startlingly vibrant (especially juxtaposed with what preceded it - see above). The crooked-teeth Nikkatsu star Yujiro Ishihara plays a TV star with a non-stop schedule, kept strictly by his manager and semi-girlfriend (the couple have a no sex pact), the crooked-teeth Ruriko Asaoka. Increasingly dissatisfied with his celebrity life and questioning the meaning of love, Ishihara meets a woman who needs a driver to bring her cross-country lover his Jeep for the hospital he works at. Ishihara, blown away by the concept of long-distance love and searching to do something selfless and "humanitary", forsakes his contracts and TV appearances to drive the Jeep. His manager tracks him across the country, as do reporters and the general public, with opinion swaying from national deserter to folk hero. The movie calms down in the second half when it becomes more of a road movie, and also gets surprisingly dark at times. But it's always interesting, frequently funny, and pretty far out there.

Jiraiya the Ninja (Shozo Makino, 1921)

8/10
Or, when short films preceding a feature works. Jiraiya the Ninja is a 21-minute fragment of a 1921 Japanese film about the legendary, mystical samurai Jiraiya who can transform himself into a frog. Of course, the special effects are very rudimentary, but still really cool. The movie is hard to follow - despite being a silent film, there are only a handful of intertitles, and the on-screen conversations don't make things obvious. I don't know what was lost from the rest of the film, but maybe it would have made for easier understanding. Either way, a really cool history lesson and a fun watch. The live accompaniment of percussion and chimes was a nice touch.

Angels with Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938)

6.5/10
Gangster film from the 30's featuring James Cagney is his first real star turn (he is quite good) and an underused Humphrey Bogart. It deals with a common trope in the gangster movie era, that of the two childhood friends whose lives go in completely opposite directions (Cagney of course becomes a crime world king while his pal becomes a priest). Caught in the middle are the Dead-End Gang, a group of kids increasingly turning away from wholesome endeavours like basketball at the rec centre to follow in the footsteps of gangster idols. Personally I found it lacked action and the good/evil struggle felt played out, but it made up points with its remarkable, unexpected ending that leaves you wondering about Cagney's character's true nature.

Valhalla Rising (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009)

8/10
Finally got around to this one from Refn...it was good, exceptionally stylish (becoming a trend it seems) and very reminiscent of Herzog's Aguirre so of course I liked it. Mads Mikkelsen was also pretty great in a non-speaking role and I'm looking forward to seeing him in The Hunt where he won Best Actor at Cannes. The cinematography is beautiful, making me kind of wish I watched it on Blu-Ray instead of Netflix and the sound design is sharp too.

The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)

8/10
A few other people have already recapped the plot of The Master here, so I'll skip that. It is a fascinating, gripping movie, but it certainly left me wonder just how deep it is. I guess some might consider it hard to follow, or non-linear, or what have you...I think it's a deceptively simple movie, and I'm not saying that as a negative. Or, more accurately, the movie is simple, but the characters are endlessly complex. Paul Thomas Anderson has created two characters who, in the hands of a less nuanced writer in a different film, would be black-and-white and broadly sketched out. The types of characters are cinematic staples (a post-war drifter and a leader who may or may not have answers) but they're fleshed out in an utterly unique and original way. Of course, special attention must be given to the men bringing those characters to life, Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman's performance is excellence as per his usual standards, and Phoenix's left me damn near breathless at times - I'll be shocked if there's a better performance on screen this year, although kihei makes a good point when he says the performances one-up the film they're in (much as in There Will Be Blood).
The film also looks fantastic, immediately calling to mind Terrence Malick's work (as does much of the movie's structure). Any time you can get your film visually reminiscent of Malick, you're doing something right.
Ultimately, I did find myself wishing there was a little more meat here - the two main characters are fascinating, but to what end? Maybe that's still for me to figure out, or maybe not. Nevertheless, an engrossing and unique experience.

Looper (Rian Johnson, 2012)

7.5/10
Looper was a film I liked but didn't love, and I'm not really sure why. I didn't get pulled into the tension or suspense like I hoped I would. I wonder at times about the viability of time travel as a plot device - to me, it seems to create problems and plotholes just because of its inherently contradictory nature. At times I found myself wrestling with those contradictions instead of letting myself enjoy the film. That said, it was never boring, and everyone gives a game performance. The special effects are nifty and above all else, the movie is finally something original out of Hollywood, so thank god for that.
Two problems with the visuals in the film - at times Joseph Gordon-Levitt is so made-up he barely looks like himself or Bruce Willis. It's jarring and takes you right out of the film's reality. My second problem was with Hollywood's latest obsession, the goddamn solar flare filter. What quicker and easier way to make your high-tech, multi-million dollar movie look cheaply artificial and obnoxious? This trend needs to die a quick death.

Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)

8/10
This came out just before or around the time I was seriously getting interested in movies, so I'd never seen it until now. It's quite good, buoyed by three great performances (Ledger, Gyllenhaal and Williams), the beautiful cinematography and direction, and a great soundtrack. It loses some points for the editing which felt a little ham-fisted but I guess that's what happens when you're trying to cram the life stories of two people into two hours.

Shut Up and Sing (Barbara Kopple & Cecilia Peck, 2006)

7/10
Pretty interesting documentary about the flap the Dixie Chicks caused a few years ago with Bush and all. The amount of flak they got for such an innocuous comment is, of course, ridiculous to the point of being absurd and a pretty embarassing portrayal of a particular kind of Americans, to say the least. It's obviously meant for Dixie Chicks fans, which I am not, so I wish it had focused even more on the political and artistic ramifications, but still pretty eye-opening as to just what the extents of "free speech" really are.