Sweetwater (Logan Miller & Noah Miller, 2013)

5/10
This is a decent-enough Western starring Ed Harris and January Jones. I keep seeing these indie Westerns thinking one will truly blow me away, but I haven't seen one yet. It's disappointing. Sweetwater doesn't make any grand missteps, really - it's just kind of...goofy. The plot is pretty threadbare...Ed Harris plays a lunatic of a sheriff who comes to town after two relatives fail to arrive with suspicion falling on the evil preacher (such a worn out trope) who's also fallen on the bad side of Jones' character once her husband goes missing. These plots lead exactly where you think they will. Really the only attractions are the beautiful, HD-shot landscapes and Ed Harris hamming it up as a zany badass who gets all the good lines and who is clearly having a blast. It's so against type from Harris' usual straight-laced and stiff characters that it makes the movie way more entertaining than it has a right to be, as everything else is fairly unimaginitive.

The Battery (Jeremy Gardner, 2012)

8.5/10
I guess the extraordinarily popular The Walking Dead is going to open the doors for a lot of other zombie-related media, conventional or otherwise. The Battery is a really unique take on the zombie apocalypse - actually, it's more like a buddy film with a zombie apocalypse back drop. Made on what must have been a shoestring budget with Jeremy Gardner writing, directing, producing and starring, it's a really smart, heartfelt, stripped down take on a worn-out genre. The core of the movie (really, the entire movie) is the relationship between two kinda-friends, Mickey and Ben, thrown together after a zombie outbreak hits. How they get along, how they bicker, and how they survive, and of course the success of the movie is owing largely to their chemistry and the believability of their relationship. There are super long, slow takes and a really good indie rock soundtrack - so very un-zombie-film-like traits. Imagine Jim Jarmusch directing a zombie/road movie with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg writing the dialogue - something like that, with the indie aesthetic of the also-excellent Bellflower. A zombie movie for people who don't like zombie movies, basically. I really recommend it.

Lesson of the Evil (Takashi Miike, 2012)

5.5/10
Takashi Miike's other new movie, supposedly more of a return to his "controversial" and shocking past...ehh only sorta. It's another high budget affair (I don't think Miike has to worry about not finding backers anymore regardless of what he wants to do) but it is a little more transgressive...essentially a well-liked teacher, in response to a variety of logical and illogical circumstances, loses his mind and mows an entire class of students down with a shotgun. More or less.
Of course, the image of a teacher stalking his students and shooting them in cold blood is a little unsettling, but the movie is too cartoonish to really be offensive in any measure. It's not really saying much, and its plot kind of jerks forward making some weird detours along the way. I don't know, it's not inventive enough like a Battle Royale, but it's not funny enough in its absurdity either, so it's just kind of there.

Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012)

8.5/10
Killing time before the movie below, I went to see Frances Ha not knowing much about it aside its positive reviews and comparisons to Woody Allen and the French New Wave. I definitely get both - in fact, in the first few minutes, I was sort of preparing myself for a pretentious and annoying "hipster" flick. But despite its obvious influences, it really wasn't. In fact it was a very disarming and very charming story about a very awkward twentysomething girl basically trying to get her shit together. It's not really laugh-out-loud funny the way a Woody Allen movie can be, and it doesn't contain many great revelations or insights, but it manages to be constantly entertaining and it features one of the most interesting and well-written female leads I've seen in a while, portrayed brilliantly by Greta Gerwig (who also co-wrote the movie). She's the kind of character you wish were real so you could go home and read more about her. In any event I thought the whole movie was very original and very charming, a very pleasant surprise as I was basically using it to spend time before another movie (that I wound up enjoying less than Frances Ha anyway).

Shield of Straw (Takashi Miike, 2013)

6.5/10
The first of two Takashi Miike movies at Fantasia this year, this one being the festival opener. It's a big budget police thriller that also played in competition at Cannes. The premise is simple: the grandfather of a murdered 7-year old offers an incredible cash sum to the person who kills the killer (and will even pay millions just for a worthy attempt). The killer turns himself in to the local police station, and a team of 5 police officers have to escort him to Tokyo safely. It's something of a 2013 update of previous perilous journey movies - The Wages of Fear, 3:10 to Yuma and The Warriors all sprang to mind.
Of course, the premise may not be entirely logical (especially some of the decisions made by the police force) but it allows for plenty of hazards and set pieces for Miike to work with, as they travel by bus, train, car and foot. If you don't let the logic get to you it's an enjoyable enough action/thriller with some obvious social commentary, although I found myself wishing Miike directed it 10 years ago when he could have done something really out-there with the premise. As the film stands now it's decent if undistinguished, and I could easily see it getting an entirely forgettable U.S. remake at some point.

The Hangover Part II (Todd Phillips, 2011)

0/10
I usually reserve zeroes for movies I truly despise, but I didn't despise this one...however, it was so free of content, I can't bring myself to give it any kind of score. By offering up the exact same movie as its predecessor, changing the location, and removing all of the humor, I wonder if Todd Phillips was going for some kind of commentary on the film industry and its constant demand for sequels/rehashes that don't need to exist. He's a pretty smart guy I'm sure, I can't believe he actually watched any reels of this one and thought anything remotely funny or original ever took place.

Ted (Seth MacFarlane, 2012)

6/10
Well it was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be, from start to finish. It was like an episode of Family Guy - too many 80's and 90's pop culture references and the odd offensive line here or there that'll make you laugh out loud (delivered exclusively by the bear, mind you). The "kidnapping" plot seemed a little tacked on, as if the movie was self-conscious about the romance between Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis not being enough to sustain the film. For what it was it was all right, but I expected more.