Movies of 2010, Pt 1
Jul. 23rd, 2010 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stillonmystringI've watched a lot of movies so far, holy shit. Well, a lot for me anyway. My initial post was getting unwieldy so here are the first 70, the last god-knows-how-many will continue in the original post.
1. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie ★½ (I know it's terrible of me but I find classics in general a massive bore. This one was no different; I wanted to like it but I can't say I really did.)
2. Adam ★★★½ (A bit cliched but, goddamn, this movie is adorable. Mostly due to Hugh Dancy who is both talented and terribly lovely to look at.)
3. Post Grad ★★½ (Predictable and generic. Still, I have this inexplicable fondness forRory Gilmore Alexis Bledel even though she can't really act. Also, the actor playing her best friend was cute and I am shallow.)
4. Wilby Wonderful ★★
5. Let the Right One In ★★★★★ (I'm not much of a horror person but there actually wasn't much horror in this and it was really touching. And now it's going to be unnecessarily ruined by Americans. Awesome.)
6. Marion Bridge ★★½ (I only watched this and Wilby Wonderful for Ellen Page and they were both pretty boring but this one was the better of the two. Also, apparently they're not but I'm convinced Molly Parker and Mary Louise Parker must be related. All I could think through this entire movie was not only how physically similar Molly is to ML but also how similar a lot of her mannerisms are. Creepy.)
7. Penelope ★★★★ (I was under the impression that this wouldn't be all that great but I thought it was adorable! Sure, maybe it's not cinematic genius but it was a nice little story anyway. It helps that I'm in love with both Christina Ricci and James McAvoy too.)
8. The Good Life ★★★★½ (I swear, it has to be written into Zooey Deschanel's contract that she must only pick roles that require her to sing or something. Not that I mind. Very depressing movie but rather good. It's worth watching for Zooey's lovely rendition of "Sunny Side of the Street" alone.)
9. Lars and the Real Girl ★★★★½ (I know this didn't get the best of reviews when it came out and maybe it's a little on the slow side but I found it rather charming and surprisingly moving.)
10. Once ★★★★ (There's not really much of a plot here. It's mostly all about the music. But the music is very good. Still, it's not something I'm ever going to feel a massive desire to watch again.)
11. Brick ★★★½ (I'm sure half of this went over my head because of the detective speak. Honestly, I was most entertained by how many times JGL got beat up; he was seriously getting pummeled every ten minutes.)
12. Disco Pigs ★★★ (I'm sure half of this went over my head because of the Irish speak. Also, it reminded me of My Brother Tom and my love for Ben Whishaw exceeds my love for Cillian Murphy even though I do love him quite a lot. Did I mention how shallow I can sometimes be?)
13. Freeway ★★★★ (This is one of those movies that you think will be really bad and seems really bad most of the time you're watching it but then you get to the end and realize how much you've been enjoying it and come to the conclusion that it's actually awesome and hilarious. I mean, Reese Witherspoon as a murderin', cussin', prostitutin' white trash teenager? It shouldn't work but somehow it totally does.)
14. Across the Universe ★★½ (I didn't much care for this or, rather, I was pretty indifferent - I didn't love it or hate it.)
15. The Nightmare Before Christmas ★★★½
16. Smart People ★★½ (The only character I gave a shit about was Ellen Page's though, mostly, all I could focus on the entire time was how much I hate Sarah Jessica Parker.)
17. Water Lilies ★★★★★ (Lovely little French film about teenage love, both hetero- and homosexual. Kind of slow and light on dialogue but, in this case, it works. It really creates an interesting mood and tone.)
18. Bright Star ★★★★★ (It may possibly be due to my Whishaw bias... but I thought this film was stunning. It's slow-moving but I never felt bored and I found it really intense in a quiet way. Also, I'll admit, I've been kind of annoyed that Abbie Cornish has been getting so much praise for her performance and Ben really hasn't, but I totally understand it now. Her reaction to Keats' death is just devastating - so raw and powerful. I felt like I was right there with her going through the same thing. Guh.)
19. Ma Vie en Rose ★★★ (Not to be confused with La Vie en Rose... which I also need to watch.)
20. The Anniversary Party ★★★½
20. Wilde ★★★ (This was okay... ish. To be honest, I was really distracted by Jude Law's prettiness. And by marveling over the fact that Michael Sheen's in about every other film ever made. Alright, maybe that's an exaggeration but he's in a lot of movies!)
21. The Royal Tenenbaums ★★★★½ (Very quirky and I'm a big fan of quirk. I liked this more the second time I watched it than the first. I imagine it's one of those movies that gets better the more you watch it because a lot of the humor is very subtle and easy to miss.)
22. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter ★★★ (Doesn't touch the book but not a bad film at all.)
23. Hedwig and the Angry Inch ★★★★★ (I was really hoping I would love this movie and it seemed like one of those that you either completely love or completely hate so for that reason it's been on my Netflix queue for ages and ages while I kept skipping over it. I only ended up watching it because it was going to stop streaming in a few days. And... I'm glad I did because, obviously, I completely loved it! It's ridiculously fun and hilarious and also very emotionally moving, which I wasn't expecting at all. Plus, the music kicks ass and John Cameron Mitchell is amazingly talented. And just fucking adorable. <3 <3 <3 I'm kind of in love with him now.)
24. Dead Like Me: Life After Death ★★ (Seriously? Seriously?!? There's so much wrong with this movie that I'm not even going to go into all of it. For one, this new bitch they've got playing Daisy is in no way, shape or form Daisy and it's an insult to the real Daisy that she's even trying to make anyone believe that (and Daisy's always been one of my least favorite characters so it must be bad for me to stand up for her like this). The only semi-redeeming factor was the George/Reggie storyline and that's only when you look at it from completely outside of the series because it basically completely rewrites the rules of reaper/human relations.)
25. Boys Don't Cry ★★★½ (Okay, I wasn't really into the first half but all of the acting was really great and the final portion after everyone finds out her secret is completely devastating and very well-done.)
26. Mysterious Skin ★★★★
27. How to Be a Serial Killer ★ (Worthless movie, to put it mildly. I think it's supposed to be a comedy... but I only laughed once and that was due more to Matthew Gray Gubler's delivery than what he was actually saying. So he gets one star simply for being his awesome self.)
28. Shortbus ★★★★★ (Now, maybe it's because I don't get particularly hung up about sex and nudity in films or maybe it's because whenever you hear something is so extremely fill-in-the-adjective it pretty much always fails to live up to that hype, whether good or bad, but I didn't find this movie to be that sexually explicit. I mean, from what I've heard, I expected it to be all SEX SEX SEX oh maybe we should throw in a couple lines of dialogue SEX SEX SEX and... it really didn't have that many actual sex scenes at all. And the only one I thought was especially graphic was James at the beginning doing yoga (and other things I would rather not describe in detail) in the nude. But, apart from that, I feel like I've seen unstimulated sex that's just about as graphic in other movies. The only difference here is that it's real. And why should that be such a big deal if all of the actors didn't have a problem with it? The porn argument is weak because this is an actual story with likable, three-dimensional characters and the sex isn't even very "sexy". At its core, this is really a sweet, charming, funny little movie about self-discovery that just happens to take place through sexual experimentation. Because, as it turns out, a person's feelings about sex actually reveal a lot about their personality. Also, John Cameron Mitchell has quickly joined my elite list of people who I think are brilliant and perfect so everything I see involving him from now on I'll probably be unable to find much fault with... just saying.)
29. Band of the Hand ★★½ (This is so '80s and soooooooo not to my taste but I guess it's an alright movie for people who enjoy this sort of thing... I don't but I was still vaguely entertained. So you're probably wondering why I watched it at all. It was all because of JCM. Which I am admitting in tiny text because I am slightly embarrassed by that. But it was streaming (and "conveniently" about to be taken down) so what the hell, right?)
30. Delicatessen ★★★½
31. Wendy and Lucy ★★★
32. Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig ★★★★ (A nice little documentary that intersperses footage of musicians recording for the Hedwig tribute album with the stories of four LGBT youths. The transitions from one story to another were a bit jarring but overall, it was pretty good. My favorite part was when Yoko Ono asked John to punch her when she was supposed to start singing and he was afraid to, LOL.)
33. Whether You Like It or Not: The Story of Hedwig ★★★★★ (You think I'd be tired of all things Hedwig-related by now, right? Well, I'm not. I decided this documentary - which is one of the special features on the DVD - counted as its own entry because it's nearly as long as the actual movie. And it was fantastic. Seriously, I wouldn't have complained if it was three hours longer because I found it all terribly fascinating. I loved all of the old footage, from the first Hedwig performance ever to the actors who took the part after JCM, and just found myself wanting hours and hours of it, no matter how shoddily recorded it was. I also wanted more of the behind-the-scenes stuff from the movie. And the interviews were all great too. This is a weird thing to say but I find JCM's normal speaking voice very soothing - it's so soft and kind of hypnotic. One more weird thing: I swear the guy hasn't aged since the early '90s. I can't believe he's only a few years away from 50 because he looks closer to 30. And now I'll stop being weird and stop obsessing for awhile - or try to.)
34. Breakfast on Pluto ★★★★ (So, apparently, if I'm going to stop obsessing over Hedwig, I have to resort to watching other actors in drag. This was a little slow at times, at over two hours long, but I mostly enjoyed it. And now I'm puzzling over how Cillian Murphy makes such a beautiful woman but such a creepy (yet oddly alluring) man. It's very interesting.)
35. Alice in Wonderland ★★½ (This was... okay-ish. It was really nice to look at but I found myself terribly bored at several parts. It was definitely more about style over substance.)
36. How to Be ★★ (Really bad; it only gets two stars because I was vaguely entertained by Pattinson's character's friends. At one point, I thought Rob was a reasonably good actor and was just terrible in Twilight because it's, well, Twilight... but he's actually kind of fucking terrible in general. Slightly related: I don't know how I first thought his American accent sounded passable in Remember Me because every time I see that stupid trailer with his voice-over on TV all I hear is mumble-mumble-mumble-mumble. Seriously, boy cannot emote as an American, at all! He should really stop trying.)
37. Possession ★★ (#1 reason why I'm still depressed about the cancellation of Pushing Daisies? It means I have to get my Lee Pace fix by watching third-rate Sarah Michelle Gellar thrillers (seriously, I think these are the only kinds of movies she does anymore). Well, he did pretty well considering what he had to work with. I wasn't really buying him as an evil guy with a criminal past but that had less to do with his acting and more to do with the fact that I can only see him now as adorable, lovable, kind, pie-making Ned. Also, I really wish he had more Hollywood clout or whatever it takes to be able to make more selective acting choices because 99% of the movies he's been in are of the terrible variety. It's sad.)
38. District 9 ★★★★ (Movies about aliens aren't really my thing. And neither are action movies. Taking all of that into consideration, I still thought this was rather good. A movie must be pretty good if it can entertain me despite not occupying a genre I would typically seek out or enjoy.)
39. Up ★★★★★ (Really, really cute.)
40. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ★★★½ (I feel like I definitely need to watch this again to appreciate it more. As of one viewing, it left me a bit underwhelmed.)
41. 10 Things I Hate About You ★★★★½
42. American Psycho ★★★★ (This is one of the very few instances where I think the movie is actually better than the book. It's very tame when compared to the book and even tamer than I remember it being when I first saw it a couple years ago but this is actually a good thing. In the book, it often feels like all of that shocking and disgusting violence is there simply to be shocking and disgusting and there isn't enough of a story in between. In the movie, the fact that 90% of the stuff in the book can in no way be shown on screen is actually a blessing because without that distraction, the point trying to be made becomes clearer. Also, the movie is much more hilarious. Whoever thought to insert Patrick's random musical criticisms into the murder scenes was a genius because those things are so much funnier together than separate as they are in the book. I mean, the Paul Owen scene for example, it was almost a non-event in the book, one of the least memorable murders, but it's one of the best parts of the movie. Plus, Christian Bale's portrayal of Patrick is spot-on; that dead look that's always in his eyes and that manic edge even when he's trying to act normal isn't really something that can completely come across in writing. Anyway, all that said, I don't totally love either but I'd rather watch the movie again than read the book again.)
43. An Education ★★★★½ (I loved this... except the way it ended. It just felt really unsatisfying. I mean, the entire movie we watch this guy slowly sidetrack all of Jenny's plans for the future until she's let them go completely only to find out that he's not who she thought he was. But, oh, not to worry! He didn't actually ruin her life in the end because she gets everything back exactly how she wanted it! And all with little effort on her part! It just seemed really cliched and an easy way out. And it made everything she went through seem like it didn't matter or have an impact on her at all. So I'm just going to pretend the last five minutes aren't there because otherwise, I thought it was really good and Carey Mulligan was great. Also, I've seen a lot of movies with Peter Sarsgaard in them and every single time, no matter what kind of a role he's playing, all I can think is how creepily attractive he is. Like, his eyes always look kind of murderous and sneaky but it's kind of oddly appealing. Anyway.)
44. Alice ★★★
45. Parting Glances ★★★★ (Listen, I randomly put this on my queue out of vague interest after it was talked about in some film documentary I watched. I wouldn't have watched it for a very long time had it not been approaching its streaming deadline but it was so I did and I was very pleasantly surprised. I'm a sucker for witty, fast-paced but still realistic dialogue so I think that's what drew me in. And it's from the '80s but it didn't really feel like an '80s film to me, if that makes sense. It felt much more modern.)
46. The Wizard ★★★ (Oh, the things I sit through just to witness young Jenny Lewis. Actually, I must admit, I found this rather entertaining in a horribly cheesy and cliched way. It's one of the most tolerable things I've seen her in. Also, she was just so damn adorable it made it worth it.)
47. Peacock ★★★½ (Very strange movie. I watched it twice and I'm still not sure how much I actually liked it. The story seemed a bit off at times (like, for one thing, HOW DOES NO ONE EVEN SUSPECT THAT JOHN IS EMMA?!?) but the acting was very good. Cillian Murphy always impresses me but he especially impressed me here because he basically had to play three completely different roles: John, Emma and Emma pretending to be John. Maybe even four if we're supposed to assume at the end that John's mind resurfaces but he's now stuck in Emma's body so he has to pretend to be her. Ellen Page didn't have nearly as much to work with but I just love her and she sold the scene where she tells Emma about what happened between her and John very well.)
48. Mutual Appreciation ★★½ (Actually, it's more like two and three quarters. If we're getting specific.)
49. Fantastic Mr. Fox ★★★★★ (Brilliant. I adored it. And I realized I wanted to watch it again after I had already sealed it back into the envelope, unfortunately.)
50. Funny Games (1997) ★★★★★
51. Funny Games (2007) ★★★★ (Wow, I really shouldn't have watched both versions of this within a twenty-four hour time period because it made it all the more disturbing... and it was already extremely disturbing to begin with. Though the U.S. version is possibly the closest thing to a word-by-word, frame-by-frame remake of a film there is, something about it just kept me from getting as invested in and affected by it as I did the original. Possibly because I just don't quite get Haneke's reasoning for making the new version, except to make it easier for an American audience to grasp because God knows subtitles are far too difficult for us stupid Americans to read while also watching the movie. Or possibly it's just because I already knew the entire plot, right down to the dialogue and the setting, so it was like watching the same film for a second time, which is bound to be less intense than the first. That's probably what it mostly is. Though I also think I liked the acting in the original better. It's not that the acting in the newer one is necessarily bad - it's not at all; it's just that... I don't know. I had never seen any of the European actors before so it felt more like I was watching random, completely normal people being terrorized. Whereas with the U.S. version, I was always aware of the fact that I was watching Michael Pitt torturing Naomi Watts and couldn't forget about who they were and buy them as their characters. But, damn, in both versions, that ten-minute scene right after - SPOILERS - the two men shoot their son and then leave and the parents just sit there in shock and eventually recover is one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever sat through. And the fact that it is all done in one take makes it even more so; imagine how draining that must have been on the actors, God. And speaking of the acting and this particular scene, I also thought that the European actor did a far better job with the father's hysterical breakdown than Tim Roth - it was almost unbearably depressing.)
52. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian ★★½ (This was okay-ish. The first movie was way better. Thought I might have just been distracted by Ben Barnes' terrible accent. WTF was that supposed to be? He shouldn't have even attempted one because it was just sad.)
53. A Clockwork Orange ★★ (Wasn't expecting to but I hated this. I thought the acting was not good. And it was just all rather blah to me. I can't explain any further than that.)
54. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ★★★★★
55. Schizopolis ★★★½
56. The Last September ★★★½ (This was better than the book to me, though it was also rather different. It just held my attention more and the added drama made it more interesting. The book just seemed rather dull and nothing happened until the last few pages and then it happened without any real excitement. But, then again, there's only so much flowery, proper, obsessively-detailed prose I can take before my eyes start to glaze over. I usually find those kinds of books much more gripping on a re-read.)
57. Whip It ★★★★★ (Let me mention for the billionth time that Ellen Page is the cutest girl ever and makes everything she's in a million times more awesome. Though I thought this was pretty great to begin with despite the fact that it didn't get many favorable reviews, as I remember. It was entertaining and adorable. That's enough for me.)
58. Party Monster: The Shockumentary ★★½ (I find the whole story about the Club Kids/Michael Alig very interesting but this documentary was disappointing. For being about such a shocking, twisted event, it was surprisingly boring. It was also very short and I didn't really feel like I learned anything I couldn't learn from reading a few entries on Wikipedia. I'm more interested in watching the movie dramatization of the same name but haven't gotten around to it yet.)
59. Fierce People ★★½ (Oh God... where to start? First of all, I read the novel before seeing the movie. It started off kind of slow and I spent about two weeks trying to just get past the first hundred pages but then it started to get really good and the turn of events at the end was brilliant and unexpected and dark and awesomely disturbing. And I came away from it thinking it might actually make a great movie. But the movie gets things all wrong. In several ways. It can't be explained without major spoilers so I'm warning you now. For one thing, a lot of the casting is all wrong. I can't buy Diane Lane as a cokehead. Chris Evans doesn't look at all how I pictured Bryce and, more importantly, his acting has absolutely no depth which is kind of important for a character whose main trait is that he's such a good actor/liar and manages to fool everyone for so long. And Kristen Stewart. I knew she was in the movie before I read the book. Luckily, I didn't know she played Maya because otherwise I would've read all of Maya's dialogue in a bored monotone. Hmm, maybe she should have played Paige instead. But, oh yeah, Paige is reduced from a supporting character who plays a rather major role in the twisted climax to a throwaway cameo appearance with maybe two lines. It's not that Kristen was especially terrible. It's just that she is completely not Maya. Which I guess makes it a good thing that most of Maya's personality and, hell, even most of her storyline is non-existent in the movie. Speaking of that, I don't understand how the screenplay can be written by the author and be so vastly inferior to the book. Things are pointlessly excluded and included all over the place - new characters who do absolutely nothing for the story are added in but old ones who are important to the story are taken out; the order of scenes is switched all around with no care to how it effects the narrative; THE WHOLE CLIMAX OF THE BOOK IS PRACTICALLY REMOVED AND REPLACED WITH A MUCH LESS DRAMATIC ONE! At first, I thought certain things might have been glossed over or replaced because they were too "controversial" but that doesn't really make sense considering they left Finn's rape intact (I honestly thought he would just be beaten and it would be left at that). So I have no idea why it was so drastically changed. But, regardless of the reasons, it completely ruined the story. It wasn't nearly as chilling, there was no real character development because all of the big character-revealing moments were cut out or watered down, and it all just kind of ended without ever really getting started. Well, this is getting long but it really pissed me off. This could have been good and it was just inexcusably terrible and completely butchered the book besides.)
60. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (I'm not even going to rate this because I rank these movies on a totally different scale than all other movies. One thing I will say: most of the acting was so terrible that Kristen Stewart was actually among the best. She didn't even once use stuttering as a way to express extreme emotion; color me impressed... okay, not really impressed, but you know.)
61. Up in the Air ★★★★★
62. Finding Neverland ★★★
63. Ira & Abby ★★★★★ (Quite possibly the most adorable movie I've ever seen. It also helped that the soundtrack was, like, 85% Rilo Kiley tunes.)
64. Manic ★★★★ (I saw most of this movie a couple years ago and just finally got around to actually watching the whole thing. I like how realistic and gritty it is but, at the same time, the fact that it's so realistic and almost documentary-like also means that there are a lot of boring, unnecessarily drawn-out parts. Still, it's a very interesting film. Plus, Joseph Gordon Levitt + Zooey Deschanel equals awesome, clearly.)
65. Camp ★★★★ (So maybe the characters were mostly stereotypes and the plot was rather cliched... but it was cute. And I do enjoy cute things a great amount.)
66. Ben X ★★★
67. A Single Man ★★★★★ (I thought this was an immensely beautiful and moving film. At first, I was thinking, well, it's a bit heavy on lingering pretty shots that don't have anything to do with the story, isn't it? But then I realized those lingering shots are actually extremely important to the story because George is expecting this day to be his last and so he's taking in everything for the final time and seeing it all brighter and clearer than ever. So, looking at it that way, the gratuitous prettiness makes sense. Also, it's not like it makes the movie drag or anything because it's still barely more than ninety minutes long.)
68. Party Monster ★★★¼ (I'm on the fence about this. There were things I loved about it but also a lot of things I hated. Most of it had to do with the acting. I understand that the people portrayed in this film were over-the-top individuals but there's embodying someone who is dramatic and flamboyant and making it seem natural and then there's over-thinking it way too much to the point where it comes out seeming amateur and doesn't quite ring true. The second, I feel, is very much the case with Macauley Culkin's performance. I've seen a few clips of Michael Alig and I just didn't buy Culkin as him for one minute. It didn't help that they look nothing alike but if an actor is strong enough, he can overcome the physical differences, and Culkin just couldn't make it work. He didn't have much help from the supporting players either, who ranged from terribly wooden (Wilmer Valderrama and Dylan McDermott, I'm looking at you) to talented but underutilized (I usually love Chloë Sevigny but she wasn't given a chance to do much more than sit around and look pretty here).
Luckily, Seth Green gives such a great performance he pretty much single-handedly makes the film worth watching and I was surprised by this; I'm not sure I've ever seen an entire movie of his before but I'd always pegged him as nothing more than a passable comedic actor. He is impressive here though. James St. James has an even more unbelievably over-the-top personality than Alig but, unlike Culkin, Green actually makes it work and even makes it seem like there's a real person underneath all the crazy costumes and witty quips. He doesn't really look the part either but he gets St. James' mannerisms and especially his voice down pat. Seriously, the bits where he's getting interviewed for the documentary are eerily near-identical to the real thing. While we're on the subject, this is probably a terrible thing to think during a documentary/movie about a murder, but honestly, all I could keep thinking during both was how goddamn adorable of a self-obsessed drug addict James St. James was. Seriously, I'm kind of fascinated and entranced by him and also Seth Green's performance as him. Though now he looks like a completely different person. But I kind of love his former self in a "you are so annoying, I would probably hate you in real life, but OMG I WANT TO PUT YOU IN MY POCKET TO ENTERTAIN ME WITH YOUR QUIPS" kind of way. Yeah.
Anyway, as far as the actual film-making goes, there were a lot of interesting choices. Some of them worked (I thought the whole beginning sequence with St. James and Alig arguing over narrating the story was brilliant) and some of them didn't (human-sized rat explaining how the murder went down to a drugged-out St. James, um no thanks). Ultimately, it's very uneven. With some less-than-great acting. But it's also very entertaining and all of the costumes and makeup and party scenes are awesome. But, mostly, I'm probably giving it higher marks than I should because of Seth Green. But he was really fucking awesome and I would probably watch this multiple times just for him. Sorry for writing a novel but, like I said, the story behind this film interests me greatly.)
69. Boy A ★★★★½ (Jesus, this was a depressing movie. I'll admit I bawled like a baby at the end. Though then I questioned why I felt so bad for a convicted murderer. It's probably because Andrew Garfield is just so darn adorable. Hello, new crush. His acting in this reminded me of Ben Whishaw in Criminal Justice, really nuanced and realistic and emotionally raw. It was easy to forget he was just an actor playing a character.)
70. Rory O'Shea Was Here ★★★½ (The acting was great and I could watch James McAvoy in anything but the story itself was pretty predictable.)
1. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie ★½ (I know it's terrible of me but I find classics in general a massive bore. This one was no different; I wanted to like it but I can't say I really did.)
2. Adam ★★★½ (A bit cliched but, goddamn, this movie is adorable. Mostly due to Hugh Dancy who is both talented and terribly lovely to look at.)
3. Post Grad ★★½ (Predictable and generic. Still, I have this inexplicable fondness for
4. Wilby Wonderful ★★
5. Let the Right One In ★★★★★ (I'm not much of a horror person but there actually wasn't much horror in this and it was really touching. And now it's going to be unnecessarily ruined by Americans. Awesome.)
6. Marion Bridge ★★½ (I only watched this and Wilby Wonderful for Ellen Page and they were both pretty boring but this one was the better of the two. Also, apparently they're not but I'm convinced Molly Parker and Mary Louise Parker must be related. All I could think through this entire movie was not only how physically similar Molly is to ML but also how similar a lot of her mannerisms are. Creepy.)
7. Penelope ★★★★ (I was under the impression that this wouldn't be all that great but I thought it was adorable! Sure, maybe it's not cinematic genius but it was a nice little story anyway. It helps that I'm in love with both Christina Ricci and James McAvoy too.)
8. The Good Life ★★★★½ (I swear, it has to be written into Zooey Deschanel's contract that she must only pick roles that require her to sing or something. Not that I mind. Very depressing movie but rather good. It's worth watching for Zooey's lovely rendition of "Sunny Side of the Street" alone.)
9. Lars and the Real Girl ★★★★½ (I know this didn't get the best of reviews when it came out and maybe it's a little on the slow side but I found it rather charming and surprisingly moving.)
10. Once ★★★★ (There's not really much of a plot here. It's mostly all about the music. But the music is very good. Still, it's not something I'm ever going to feel a massive desire to watch again.)
11. Brick ★★★½ (I'm sure half of this went over my head because of the detective speak. Honestly, I was most entertained by how many times JGL got beat up; he was seriously getting pummeled every ten minutes.)
12. Disco Pigs ★★★ (I'm sure half of this went over my head because of the Irish speak. Also, it reminded me of My Brother Tom and my love for Ben Whishaw exceeds my love for Cillian Murphy even though I do love him quite a lot. Did I mention how shallow I can sometimes be?)
13. Freeway ★★★★ (This is one of those movies that you think will be really bad and seems really bad most of the time you're watching it but then you get to the end and realize how much you've been enjoying it and come to the conclusion that it's actually awesome and hilarious. I mean, Reese Witherspoon as a murderin', cussin', prostitutin' white trash teenager? It shouldn't work but somehow it totally does.)
14. Across the Universe ★★½ (I didn't much care for this or, rather, I was pretty indifferent - I didn't love it or hate it.)
15. The Nightmare Before Christmas ★★★½
16. Smart People ★★½ (The only character I gave a shit about was Ellen Page's though, mostly, all I could focus on the entire time was how much I hate Sarah Jessica Parker.)
17. Water Lilies ★★★★★ (Lovely little French film about teenage love, both hetero- and homosexual. Kind of slow and light on dialogue but, in this case, it works. It really creates an interesting mood and tone.)
18. Bright Star ★★★★★ (It may possibly be due to my Whishaw bias... but I thought this film was stunning. It's slow-moving but I never felt bored and I found it really intense in a quiet way. Also, I'll admit, I've been kind of annoyed that Abbie Cornish has been getting so much praise for her performance and Ben really hasn't, but I totally understand it now. Her reaction to Keats' death is just devastating - so raw and powerful. I felt like I was right there with her going through the same thing. Guh.)
19. Ma Vie en Rose ★★★ (Not to be confused with La Vie en Rose... which I also need to watch.)
20. The Anniversary Party ★★★½
20. Wilde ★★★ (This was okay... ish. To be honest, I was really distracted by Jude Law's prettiness. And by marveling over the fact that Michael Sheen's in about every other film ever made. Alright, maybe that's an exaggeration but he's in a lot of movies!)
21. The Royal Tenenbaums ★★★★½ (Very quirky and I'm a big fan of quirk. I liked this more the second time I watched it than the first. I imagine it's one of those movies that gets better the more you watch it because a lot of the humor is very subtle and easy to miss.)
22. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter ★★★ (Doesn't touch the book but not a bad film at all.)
23. Hedwig and the Angry Inch ★★★★★ (I was really hoping I would love this movie and it seemed like one of those that you either completely love or completely hate so for that reason it's been on my Netflix queue for ages and ages while I kept skipping over it. I only ended up watching it because it was going to stop streaming in a few days. And... I'm glad I did because, obviously, I completely loved it! It's ridiculously fun and hilarious and also very emotionally moving, which I wasn't expecting at all. Plus, the music kicks ass and John Cameron Mitchell is amazingly talented. And just fucking adorable. <3 <3 <3 I'm kind of in love with him now.)
24. Dead Like Me: Life After Death ★★ (Seriously? Seriously?!? There's so much wrong with this movie that I'm not even going to go into all of it. For one, this new bitch they've got playing Daisy is in no way, shape or form Daisy and it's an insult to the real Daisy that she's even trying to make anyone believe that (and Daisy's always been one of my least favorite characters so it must be bad for me to stand up for her like this). The only semi-redeeming factor was the George/Reggie storyline and that's only when you look at it from completely outside of the series because it basically completely rewrites the rules of reaper/human relations.)
25. Boys Don't Cry ★★★½ (Okay, I wasn't really into the first half but all of the acting was really great and the final portion after everyone finds out her secret is completely devastating and very well-done.)
26. Mysterious Skin ★★★★
27. How to Be a Serial Killer ★ (Worthless movie, to put it mildly. I think it's supposed to be a comedy... but I only laughed once and that was due more to Matthew Gray Gubler's delivery than what he was actually saying. So he gets one star simply for being his awesome self.)
28. Shortbus ★★★★★ (Now, maybe it's because I don't get particularly hung up about sex and nudity in films or maybe it's because whenever you hear something is so extremely fill-in-the-adjective it pretty much always fails to live up to that hype, whether good or bad, but I didn't find this movie to be that sexually explicit. I mean, from what I've heard, I expected it to be all SEX SEX SEX oh maybe we should throw in a couple lines of dialogue SEX SEX SEX and... it really didn't have that many actual sex scenes at all. And the only one I thought was especially graphic was James at the beginning doing yoga (and other things I would rather not describe in detail) in the nude. But, apart from that, I feel like I've seen unstimulated sex that's just about as graphic in other movies. The only difference here is that it's real. And why should that be such a big deal if all of the actors didn't have a problem with it? The porn argument is weak because this is an actual story with likable, three-dimensional characters and the sex isn't even very "sexy". At its core, this is really a sweet, charming, funny little movie about self-discovery that just happens to take place through sexual experimentation. Because, as it turns out, a person's feelings about sex actually reveal a lot about their personality. Also, John Cameron Mitchell has quickly joined my elite list of people who I think are brilliant and perfect so everything I see involving him from now on I'll probably be unable to find much fault with... just saying.)
29. Band of the Hand ★★½ (This is so '80s and soooooooo not to my taste but I guess it's an alright movie for people who enjoy this sort of thing... I don't but I was still vaguely entertained. So you're probably wondering why I watched it at all. It was all because of JCM. Which I am admitting in tiny text because I am slightly embarrassed by that. But it was streaming (and "conveniently" about to be taken down) so what the hell, right?)
30. Delicatessen ★★★½
31. Wendy and Lucy ★★★
32. Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig ★★★★ (A nice little documentary that intersperses footage of musicians recording for the Hedwig tribute album with the stories of four LGBT youths. The transitions from one story to another were a bit jarring but overall, it was pretty good. My favorite part was when Yoko Ono asked John to punch her when she was supposed to start singing and he was afraid to, LOL.)
33. Whether You Like It or Not: The Story of Hedwig ★★★★★ (You think I'd be tired of all things Hedwig-related by now, right? Well, I'm not. I decided this documentary - which is one of the special features on the DVD - counted as its own entry because it's nearly as long as the actual movie. And it was fantastic. Seriously, I wouldn't have complained if it was three hours longer because I found it all terribly fascinating. I loved all of the old footage, from the first Hedwig performance ever to the actors who took the part after JCM, and just found myself wanting hours and hours of it, no matter how shoddily recorded it was. I also wanted more of the behind-the-scenes stuff from the movie. And the interviews were all great too. This is a weird thing to say but I find JCM's normal speaking voice very soothing - it's so soft and kind of hypnotic. One more weird thing: I swear the guy hasn't aged since the early '90s. I can't believe he's only a few years away from 50 because he looks closer to 30. And now I'll stop being weird and stop obsessing for awhile - or try to.)
34. Breakfast on Pluto ★★★★ (So, apparently, if I'm going to stop obsessing over Hedwig, I have to resort to watching other actors in drag. This was a little slow at times, at over two hours long, but I mostly enjoyed it. And now I'm puzzling over how Cillian Murphy makes such a beautiful woman but such a creepy (yet oddly alluring) man. It's very interesting.)
35. Alice in Wonderland ★★½ (This was... okay-ish. It was really nice to look at but I found myself terribly bored at several parts. It was definitely more about style over substance.)
36. How to Be ★★ (Really bad; it only gets two stars because I was vaguely entertained by Pattinson's character's friends. At one point, I thought Rob was a reasonably good actor and was just terrible in Twilight because it's, well, Twilight... but he's actually kind of fucking terrible in general. Slightly related: I don't know how I first thought his American accent sounded passable in Remember Me because every time I see that stupid trailer with his voice-over on TV all I hear is mumble-mumble-mumble-mumble. Seriously, boy cannot emote as an American, at all! He should really stop trying.)
37. Possession ★★ (#1 reason why I'm still depressed about the cancellation of Pushing Daisies? It means I have to get my Lee Pace fix by watching third-rate Sarah Michelle Gellar thrillers (seriously, I think these are the only kinds of movies she does anymore). Well, he did pretty well considering what he had to work with. I wasn't really buying him as an evil guy with a criminal past but that had less to do with his acting and more to do with the fact that I can only see him now as adorable, lovable, kind, pie-making Ned. Also, I really wish he had more Hollywood clout or whatever it takes to be able to make more selective acting choices because 99% of the movies he's been in are of the terrible variety. It's sad.)
38. District 9 ★★★★ (Movies about aliens aren't really my thing. And neither are action movies. Taking all of that into consideration, I still thought this was rather good. A movie must be pretty good if it can entertain me despite not occupying a genre I would typically seek out or enjoy.)
39. Up ★★★★★ (Really, really cute.)
40. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ★★★½ (I feel like I definitely need to watch this again to appreciate it more. As of one viewing, it left me a bit underwhelmed.)
41. 10 Things I Hate About You ★★★★½
42. American Psycho ★★★★ (This is one of the very few instances where I think the movie is actually better than the book. It's very tame when compared to the book and even tamer than I remember it being when I first saw it a couple years ago but this is actually a good thing. In the book, it often feels like all of that shocking and disgusting violence is there simply to be shocking and disgusting and there isn't enough of a story in between. In the movie, the fact that 90% of the stuff in the book can in no way be shown on screen is actually a blessing because without that distraction, the point trying to be made becomes clearer. Also, the movie is much more hilarious. Whoever thought to insert Patrick's random musical criticisms into the murder scenes was a genius because those things are so much funnier together than separate as they are in the book. I mean, the Paul Owen scene for example, it was almost a non-event in the book, one of the least memorable murders, but it's one of the best parts of the movie. Plus, Christian Bale's portrayal of Patrick is spot-on; that dead look that's always in his eyes and that manic edge even when he's trying to act normal isn't really something that can completely come across in writing. Anyway, all that said, I don't totally love either but I'd rather watch the movie again than read the book again.)
43. An Education ★★★★½ (I loved this... except the way it ended. It just felt really unsatisfying. I mean, the entire movie we watch this guy slowly sidetrack all of Jenny's plans for the future until she's let them go completely only to find out that he's not who she thought he was. But, oh, not to worry! He didn't actually ruin her life in the end because she gets everything back exactly how she wanted it! And all with little effort on her part! It just seemed really cliched and an easy way out. And it made everything she went through seem like it didn't matter or have an impact on her at all. So I'm just going to pretend the last five minutes aren't there because otherwise, I thought it was really good and Carey Mulligan was great. Also, I've seen a lot of movies with Peter Sarsgaard in them and every single time, no matter what kind of a role he's playing, all I can think is how creepily attractive he is. Like, his eyes always look kind of murderous and sneaky but it's kind of oddly appealing. Anyway.)
44. Alice ★★★
45. Parting Glances ★★★★ (Listen, I randomly put this on my queue out of vague interest after it was talked about in some film documentary I watched. I wouldn't have watched it for a very long time had it not been approaching its streaming deadline but it was so I did and I was very pleasantly surprised. I'm a sucker for witty, fast-paced but still realistic dialogue so I think that's what drew me in. And it's from the '80s but it didn't really feel like an '80s film to me, if that makes sense. It felt much more modern.)
46. The Wizard ★★★ (Oh, the things I sit through just to witness young Jenny Lewis. Actually, I must admit, I found this rather entertaining in a horribly cheesy and cliched way. It's one of the most tolerable things I've seen her in. Also, she was just so damn adorable it made it worth it.)
47. Peacock ★★★½ (Very strange movie. I watched it twice and I'm still not sure how much I actually liked it. The story seemed a bit off at times (like, for one thing, HOW DOES NO ONE EVEN SUSPECT THAT JOHN IS EMMA?!?) but the acting was very good. Cillian Murphy always impresses me but he especially impressed me here because he basically had to play three completely different roles: John, Emma and Emma pretending to be John. Maybe even four if we're supposed to assume at the end that John's mind resurfaces but he's now stuck in Emma's body so he has to pretend to be her. Ellen Page didn't have nearly as much to work with but I just love her and she sold the scene where she tells Emma about what happened between her and John very well.)
48. Mutual Appreciation ★★½ (Actually, it's more like two and three quarters. If we're getting specific.)
49. Fantastic Mr. Fox ★★★★★ (Brilliant. I adored it. And I realized I wanted to watch it again after I had already sealed it back into the envelope, unfortunately.)
50. Funny Games (1997) ★★★★★
51. Funny Games (2007) ★★★★ (Wow, I really shouldn't have watched both versions of this within a twenty-four hour time period because it made it all the more disturbing... and it was already extremely disturbing to begin with. Though the U.S. version is possibly the closest thing to a word-by-word, frame-by-frame remake of a film there is, something about it just kept me from getting as invested in and affected by it as I did the original. Possibly because I just don't quite get Haneke's reasoning for making the new version, except to make it easier for an American audience to grasp because God knows subtitles are far too difficult for us stupid Americans to read while also watching the movie. Or possibly it's just because I already knew the entire plot, right down to the dialogue and the setting, so it was like watching the same film for a second time, which is bound to be less intense than the first. That's probably what it mostly is. Though I also think I liked the acting in the original better. It's not that the acting in the newer one is necessarily bad - it's not at all; it's just that... I don't know. I had never seen any of the European actors before so it felt more like I was watching random, completely normal people being terrorized. Whereas with the U.S. version, I was always aware of the fact that I was watching Michael Pitt torturing Naomi Watts and couldn't forget about who they were and buy them as their characters. But, damn, in both versions, that ten-minute scene right after - SPOILERS - the two men shoot their son and then leave and the parents just sit there in shock and eventually recover is one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever sat through. And the fact that it is all done in one take makes it even more so; imagine how draining that must have been on the actors, God. And speaking of the acting and this particular scene, I also thought that the European actor did a far better job with the father's hysterical breakdown than Tim Roth - it was almost unbearably depressing.)
52. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian ★★½ (This was okay-ish. The first movie was way better. Thought I might have just been distracted by Ben Barnes' terrible accent. WTF was that supposed to be? He shouldn't have even attempted one because it was just sad.)
53. A Clockwork Orange ★★ (Wasn't expecting to but I hated this. I thought the acting was not good. And it was just all rather blah to me. I can't explain any further than that.)
54. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ★★★★★
55. Schizopolis ★★★½
56. The Last September ★★★½ (This was better than the book to me, though it was also rather different. It just held my attention more and the added drama made it more interesting. The book just seemed rather dull and nothing happened until the last few pages and then it happened without any real excitement. But, then again, there's only so much flowery, proper, obsessively-detailed prose I can take before my eyes start to glaze over. I usually find those kinds of books much more gripping on a re-read.)
57. Whip It ★★★★★ (Let me mention for the billionth time that Ellen Page is the cutest girl ever and makes everything she's in a million times more awesome. Though I thought this was pretty great to begin with despite the fact that it didn't get many favorable reviews, as I remember. It was entertaining and adorable. That's enough for me.)
58. Party Monster: The Shockumentary ★★½ (I find the whole story about the Club Kids/Michael Alig very interesting but this documentary was disappointing. For being about such a shocking, twisted event, it was surprisingly boring. It was also very short and I didn't really feel like I learned anything I couldn't learn from reading a few entries on Wikipedia. I'm more interested in watching the movie dramatization of the same name but haven't gotten around to it yet.)
59. Fierce People ★★½ (Oh God... where to start? First of all, I read the novel before seeing the movie. It started off kind of slow and I spent about two weeks trying to just get past the first hundred pages but then it started to get really good and the turn of events at the end was brilliant and unexpected and dark and awesomely disturbing. And I came away from it thinking it might actually make a great movie. But the movie gets things all wrong. In several ways. It can't be explained without major spoilers so I'm warning you now. For one thing, a lot of the casting is all wrong. I can't buy Diane Lane as a cokehead. Chris Evans doesn't look at all how I pictured Bryce and, more importantly, his acting has absolutely no depth which is kind of important for a character whose main trait is that he's such a good actor/liar and manages to fool everyone for so long. And Kristen Stewart. I knew she was in the movie before I read the book. Luckily, I didn't know she played Maya because otherwise I would've read all of Maya's dialogue in a bored monotone. Hmm, maybe she should have played Paige instead. But, oh yeah, Paige is reduced from a supporting character who plays a rather major role in the twisted climax to a throwaway cameo appearance with maybe two lines. It's not that Kristen was especially terrible. It's just that she is completely not Maya. Which I guess makes it a good thing that most of Maya's personality and, hell, even most of her storyline is non-existent in the movie. Speaking of that, I don't understand how the screenplay can be written by the author and be so vastly inferior to the book. Things are pointlessly excluded and included all over the place - new characters who do absolutely nothing for the story are added in but old ones who are important to the story are taken out; the order of scenes is switched all around with no care to how it effects the narrative; THE WHOLE CLIMAX OF THE BOOK IS PRACTICALLY REMOVED AND REPLACED WITH A MUCH LESS DRAMATIC ONE! At first, I thought certain things might have been glossed over or replaced because they were too "controversial" but that doesn't really make sense considering they left Finn's rape intact (I honestly thought he would just be beaten and it would be left at that). So I have no idea why it was so drastically changed. But, regardless of the reasons, it completely ruined the story. It wasn't nearly as chilling, there was no real character development because all of the big character-revealing moments were cut out or watered down, and it all just kind of ended without ever really getting started. Well, this is getting long but it really pissed me off. This could have been good and it was just inexcusably terrible and completely butchered the book besides.)
60. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (I'm not even going to rate this because I rank these movies on a totally different scale than all other movies. One thing I will say: most of the acting was so terrible that Kristen Stewart was actually among the best. She didn't even once use stuttering as a way to express extreme emotion; color me impressed... okay, not really impressed, but you know.)
61. Up in the Air ★★★★★
62. Finding Neverland ★★★
63. Ira & Abby ★★★★★ (Quite possibly the most adorable movie I've ever seen. It also helped that the soundtrack was, like, 85% Rilo Kiley tunes.)
64. Manic ★★★★ (I saw most of this movie a couple years ago and just finally got around to actually watching the whole thing. I like how realistic and gritty it is but, at the same time, the fact that it's so realistic and almost documentary-like also means that there are a lot of boring, unnecessarily drawn-out parts. Still, it's a very interesting film. Plus, Joseph Gordon Levitt + Zooey Deschanel equals awesome, clearly.)
65. Camp ★★★★ (So maybe the characters were mostly stereotypes and the plot was rather cliched... but it was cute. And I do enjoy cute things a great amount.)
66. Ben X ★★★
67. A Single Man ★★★★★ (I thought this was an immensely beautiful and moving film. At first, I was thinking, well, it's a bit heavy on lingering pretty shots that don't have anything to do with the story, isn't it? But then I realized those lingering shots are actually extremely important to the story because George is expecting this day to be his last and so he's taking in everything for the final time and seeing it all brighter and clearer than ever. So, looking at it that way, the gratuitous prettiness makes sense. Also, it's not like it makes the movie drag or anything because it's still barely more than ninety minutes long.)
68. Party Monster ★★★¼ (I'm on the fence about this. There were things I loved about it but also a lot of things I hated. Most of it had to do with the acting. I understand that the people portrayed in this film were over-the-top individuals but there's embodying someone who is dramatic and flamboyant and making it seem natural and then there's over-thinking it way too much to the point where it comes out seeming amateur and doesn't quite ring true. The second, I feel, is very much the case with Macauley Culkin's performance. I've seen a few clips of Michael Alig and I just didn't buy Culkin as him for one minute. It didn't help that they look nothing alike but if an actor is strong enough, he can overcome the physical differences, and Culkin just couldn't make it work. He didn't have much help from the supporting players either, who ranged from terribly wooden (Wilmer Valderrama and Dylan McDermott, I'm looking at you) to talented but underutilized (I usually love Chloë Sevigny but she wasn't given a chance to do much more than sit around and look pretty here).
Luckily, Seth Green gives such a great performance he pretty much single-handedly makes the film worth watching and I was surprised by this; I'm not sure I've ever seen an entire movie of his before but I'd always pegged him as nothing more than a passable comedic actor. He is impressive here though. James St. James has an even more unbelievably over-the-top personality than Alig but, unlike Culkin, Green actually makes it work and even makes it seem like there's a real person underneath all the crazy costumes and witty quips. He doesn't really look the part either but he gets St. James' mannerisms and especially his voice down pat. Seriously, the bits where he's getting interviewed for the documentary are eerily near-identical to the real thing. While we're on the subject, this is probably a terrible thing to think during a documentary/movie about a murder, but honestly, all I could keep thinking during both was how goddamn adorable of a self-obsessed drug addict James St. James was. Seriously, I'm kind of fascinated and entranced by him and also Seth Green's performance as him. Though now he looks like a completely different person. But I kind of love his former self in a "you are so annoying, I would probably hate you in real life, but OMG I WANT TO PUT YOU IN MY POCKET TO ENTERTAIN ME WITH YOUR QUIPS" kind of way. Yeah.
Anyway, as far as the actual film-making goes, there were a lot of interesting choices. Some of them worked (I thought the whole beginning sequence with St. James and Alig arguing over narrating the story was brilliant) and some of them didn't (human-sized rat explaining how the murder went down to a drugged-out St. James, um no thanks). Ultimately, it's very uneven. With some less-than-great acting. But it's also very entertaining and all of the costumes and makeup and party scenes are awesome. But, mostly, I'm probably giving it higher marks than I should because of Seth Green. But he was really fucking awesome and I would probably watch this multiple times just for him. Sorry for writing a novel but, like I said, the story behind this film interests me greatly.)
69. Boy A ★★★★½ (Jesus, this was a depressing movie. I'll admit I bawled like a baby at the end. Though then I questioned why I felt so bad for a convicted murderer. It's probably because Andrew Garfield is just so darn adorable. Hello, new crush. His acting in this reminded me of Ben Whishaw in Criminal Justice, really nuanced and realistic and emotionally raw. It was easy to forget he was just an actor playing a character.)
70. Rory O'Shea Was Here ★★★½ (The acting was great and I could watch James McAvoy in anything but the story itself was pretty predictable.)
