The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953)

8/10
Catching up on on an old Criterion I never got around to watching, I enjoyed this early suspense/road movie from Henri-Georges Clouzot very much. At 2 and a half hours it is a bit bloated. The South American scenes, as much as I enjoyed them, could have been trimmed a bit. I'm not sure so much exposition and background story was necessary. The trip itself was great...filled with ups and downs which each of the four drivers' personalities taking centre stage at a certain point. I was fearful for a moment that we were in for a happy ending - Clouzot rightfully snatches that away with bombastic, evil glee.

Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, 2012)

8.5/10
I was a little unsure of its episodic format, but I think it generally worked well. And I can't really imagine another way to have done it. Everything I was supposed to feel and didn't with The Hurt Locker, I felt here. The pacing was tight, the acting was great (though as much as I like Chastain, I don't think she was that unbelievable) and the direction was superb. The final sequence plays out like a masterclass of maintaining tension and suspense in direction...with the added challenge of playing to an audience who knows how it all ends anyway. Excellent.

Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard, 2012)

5/10
This is not a very good film, and what makes Rust and Bone even more disappointing is the fact that it has so many strong elements - you get the sense that there's a really great movie just outside the frame, waiting to be put together into something fantastic...and either Audiard lost the plot or I just didn't get it.
This movie has absolutely no rhythm, the tone is consistently messy, and it completely wastes the definitely-there chemistry between its two leads (who both give excellent performances). It's soundtrack is overwrought (figures that it's Bon Iver, a band I always suspected would annoy me), no more so than at the end of the film, when the "slow the action down and hit play on the soundtrack" reaches its height of saccharine stupidity. The movie is completely devoid of humanity or humour when it would benefit greatly from both. Just an ugly, disappointing experience that could have been so much more, and frankly baffling coming from the hand that crafted A Prophet.

La Strada (Federico Fellini, 1954)

9/10
Who knows why it takes me so long to watch certain movies. I've owned this forever, finally got to it last night. What a great, sad, tragic, funny movie this is. In the all-time pantheon of "they were made for that role", Giulietta Masina takes top spot. The expressiveness of her face and the way she portrays naive happiness and heartbreaking sadness - incredible. I'll have to scope out Nights of Cabiria next.
One thing that did disappoint me with the movie was the dubbing. Even if standards back then aren't as they are now, it was still pretty poor. I can forgive having Anthony Quinn speak his lines in English and dubbing them in Italian (though I don't love it) but little things like the trumpet sounds not even synching up with the movement of Gelsomina's lips - that kind of bugs me. I kind of wonder why so little attention was paid to these minor details that would have been easy to fix. Oh well.

Black Snake Moan (Craig Brewer, 2006)

5/10
Friend wanted to watch this again, I'd never seen it, though I remember the ads for it. With the blues soundtrack as hyped as it was, I was underwhelmed. Not enough of the old, dirty, gritty recordings featured in the movie itself - too many newer renditions and covers (some in-film by Samuel Jackson himself, who does a good job at it). I don't know, overall, this movie felt pretty inconsequential - it has a ludicrous premise and still doesn't do a whole lot with it. Christina Ricci's performance is amped up to high volume and not always better for it, but Jackson is good. Overall, not much here I found worth the time.

Les Miserables (Tom Hooper, 2012)

4.5/10
I knew going in this wasn't my bag - I've never seen a musical I've really enjoyed, and had no prior attachment to the source material. But it'll probably be around come the Oscars telecast, so I figured I'd better see it.
I spent most of the film's running time (just under six days, I believe) trying to decide if this was a bad movie or just a failed experiment, possibly a gigantic misstep from Tom Hooper. I'm leaning towards the latter.
There were two huge surprises from this film - first of all, how it utterly failed to evince any emotion from me whatsoever (excitement, suspense, sorrow, etc) and secondly, how unbelievably bland the whole thing looks. I can't even begin to guess at how many zeroes were in the budget figure, and after all that money I'm willing to wager there have been more memorable performances of the play in small-town theatres. Aside from an impressive opening scene and maybe a couple of scenes of interest towards the end, visually, the film is a total drag - not helping is the fact that 95% of the movie is shot either at night or in grey rain. I know the movie's not called Les Joyeux but I mean, come on...
As far as the always-singing angle, I didn't find it as distracting as I thought I might, but I think it took away from the film as a whole - these stop feeling like characters you can empathize with and just seem more like vessels for songs.
As far as the singers, I'll echo pretty much everyone's thoughts - Jackman is fine, Hathaway is excellent, and Crowe tries his best but just can't get there. The always-tight camera angles were noticeable, but not unbearable.
The movie as a whole is such a grim, drab affair, I found myself perking up every time Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter (two actors who I have no real love for) showed up to at least slap some life back into the thing.
I'd recommend switching off after the first half hour - you've got the opening ship scene and Hathaway's show-stealing number, and that's about as interesting as it all gets.