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.