The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009)

Pretty good overall. Noomi Rapace was awesome, again. And in the first few seconds of the movie it became clear that I’d misjudged the ending of the last one by a lot. All kinds of kick-ass going on in this movie, and no watered down B.S. romantic imperatives. What a relief.

The Girl Who Played with Fire, just like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, will make you consider what it means to watch brutal violence, specifically against women, on the big screen. Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely difficult to watch at times. Worth the effort for the story and the compelling lead character.

Go see this (and rent the first one too) if you can, before Hollywood churns out its sure to be disappointing adaptation.

Dinner for Schmucks (2010)

Pretty funny, but not really the type where you’re laughing hysterically every three to five minutes. More like a chuckle every ten to fifteen minutes.

Questionable use of the word schmuck: the people in question aren’t really schmucks at all; they’re just sad-ish oddballs lacking in social aptitude.

Also, while the peripheral characters are interesting and definitely unique, you still have to suffer through yet another Paul Rudd playing a guy who used to be nice, became a jerk, and now has to win back his sweetheart by being nice again storyline. Ugh.

Overall, I’d say Dinner for Schmucks is worth a rental. Mostly for the seriously wonderful lovely mice taxidermy tableaux that Steve Carell’s character dedicates his time to, and also for Jermaine Clement’s (of The Flight of the Conchords) well done satire of a pompous artist who photographs himself in animal costumes. Highly silly. I approve.

The Runaways (2010)

This based-on-a-true-story film about the formation of the all girl rock band The Runaways was kind of a letdown, but that wasn’t particularly surprising given the criticism it already received, both when it made the festival circuit and when it was distributed more widely.

I was hoping that critics had been unjustified in rating it so low, but sadly they were right. It was a pretty boring movie overall. Eyebrow raising, considering that the story it tells (of how Joan Jett and company were brought together to form a rather groundbreaking band) is actually pretty interesting in and of itself. It just wasn’t served by the filmmaking and the way the whole thing was put together.

What I did like, however, was Kristen Stewart’s performance. Finally breaking away from the moody teenager romantic angst figure that she’s been associated with so far, Stewart actually convincingly portrays Jett in presumably accurate fashion (Jett herself has been quoted as saying Stewart actually became her for the film)*. Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I’m already a fan of Stewart for various reasons, but I think here in The Runaways Stewart’s performance can show that she’s actually a quality actor to those who aren’t on Team Bella.

Maybe rent it if you’re interested in the music history already, or if you’re really keen on seeing Kristen Stewart make out with Dakota Fanning. Overall- meh.

*I don’t remember where. Most likely in an interview in Entertainment Weekly.

The Monster Squad (1987)

Yeah, this movie is good…if you like your movies ridiculous and offensive.

From scenes with Dracula shouting “Give me the amulet, you BITCH!” in the face of a terrified five-year-old girl, to Frankenstein taking photos of a stereotypical 1980s teenage girl in pink bra and thong while muttering “bogus,” it is entirely clear that no one was holding anything back while making this film.

Less amusing: a bunch of twelve year olds throwing around “fag” and “homo” like there’s no tomorrow, with gratuitous violence, lackluster characters, and a plot that would make even the biggest B-movie fan fall asleep.

I watched The Monster Squad because a number of people had said that it was “critically underrated” and “deserved watching.” Clearly I do not share that opinion. This movie should have stayed in 1987.

Bogus, indeed.

Inception (2010)

My feelings toward Inception are not unlike a teacher’s toward the student who sets the curve for the class. Sort of a “hooray, you were totally the best out of the group” attitude balanced with a good dose of “you (and everyone else) really could be doing a lot better.”

That being said, I think the movie had a ton of really impressive aspects to it. The intensity was staggering—I was unable to break concentration for a second, because I felt compelled to fully invest in its details and all the questions it was asking. At the same time, such concentration and investigation was almost immediately rendered irrelevant because we were encouraged to keep diving further and further into the maze without trying to remember the way out. Just as for the main characters, the best way out of the welter was to plunge further in, forgoing any attempt at leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.

I also found that the story felt very personal, but sort of effortlessly so. I wasn’t drawn into it by knowing all the details of the time period it was supposed to be set in, or by knowing each character’s back story. Rather, I suspect that my willingness to go along with the emotions and interests of the characters is the result of a well written screenplay combined with some seriously great acting. I can’t even pick out one performance that I thought was particularly well done—every single actor in the movie delivered on his or her role completely and fully.

And lest you begin to suspect that this is just a fan-girl, stars in her eyes over JGL/Leo workin’ together like some kind of fantasy designed just for me moment, let me point out that my favorite scene of the movie had nothing to do with the attractiveness of anyone, and more to do with the level of thought put into both the dialogue and the acting. The hands down best moment of Inception, for me, was when Cobb takes the dying Mal in his arms and explains to her that she’s not his real wife. He says something to the effect of “you’re not half of what my real wife was, because you’re just my own memory/interpretation/reproduction of a sad shadow of the real her.” Hello awesome metaphor for a lot of stuff! (Film/acting/artistic representation/memory/relationships/etc)

Yes indeed, through and through Inception was a really smart, thoughtful, and creative film on questions that the noir genre has been working through since it first reared its difficult to define head way back in the ‘40s.

Why, then, did I start out this review by saying that it sets the curve but doesn’t go far enough? I don’t really know and it’s hard to explain. I’d definitely give Inception an A when compared to the movies that have been coming out so far this year. However, I’d probably assign it a solid B when compared to my favorites picked from cinema from all over the world since the beginning.

Maybe it was because the dreams weren’t weird enough to suit my fancy. Nolan did an excellent job re-creating the feeling of the dream—the disorientation combined with total normalcy, the changes in perspective, the emotions that were made metaphors of. But I’m the kind of person who has bizarro epic nightmares about being Johnny Depp and a vampire in a movie that I’m also watching. So for me, these ‘dreamscapes’ were surprisingly mundane, in a way.

I’m also not a huge fan of spending gag-inducing amounts of cash on movies for no discernible reason. Yeah, I know that to complain about the industry spending money is dumb. That’s like complaining about concepts with capital letters at the beginning: Capitalism, Sexism, Poverty, Ignorance! Pointless, passé, and actually hugely distracting from fresher, more pressing and nuanced debates. But I watched crews laboriously construct a set (the rooftop set that Mal, Cobb and Arthur appear on in the opening sequence for, say, five minutes total in the beginning of the movie) down the street from my house for approximately three months only to tear it down after one night of filming. The whole thing felt a smidge wasteful.

Anyway, neither of those complaints is really a solid reason for me not giving Inception a wildly enthusiastic review. But I’ll give it a solid one without any debate, because it is definitely a good example of creativity in filmmaking, pretty cool special effects, and really excellent acting. I just wasn’t hugely crazy about it, for whatever reason. Definitely worth watching though, and in theaters too.

But people, I know we can do better. Whether or not we will is a different question altogether. I’ll totally look forward to watching filmmakers try.

Despicable Me (2010)

I liked this. I thought the humor was encouragingly bold and that the story was pleasantly imaginative yet simple.

Not really a movie, however, with any type of depth to the characters. Some questionable portrayal of racial (and other) stereotypes, though not enough to incur my wrath, just enough to raise an eyebrow here and there.

Overall—pretty good. Not the best children’s entertainment, not the worst. Props for a lot of humor that was intended for the grown-ups in the audience balanced with tons of silliness for the kids (and me... and you!) to enjoy.

Eclipse (2010)

Despite what you may expect, I, like many people all over the place, have totally and not altogether regrettably been sucked into this whole Twilight mass tomfoolery. I enjoy debates over who is “better for Bella.” I can tell you the plot of the whole series in the time it takes for a bus to travel about ten blocks. I have pretty definite opinions about casting decisions that have been made, and I now own the soundtrack to two of the movies. And I can say all of these things while still acknowledging (like most adult fans of Twilight) that even through the whole thing is pretty awful, when you get right down to it, I still sincerely enjoy participating in it.

And yet I found this latest installment of the self-proclaimed “saga”, Eclipse, pretty ho-hum. Where they were trying for suspense all they really achieved was too much dilly-dallying and dwelling on some weaksauce make-out scenes. The intensity of all the smoldering gazes is totally neutered by the sheer number of shots that are dedicated to them. Plus I think I’m now totally insensitive to both Taylor Lautner’s abs and Kristen Stewart's sultry sulking, which is a goddamn crying shame. Overexposure was the culprit, again.

Pretty much the most emotional part of the whole movie was the scene in which Bella spends what is supposed to be her last sunny vacation with her mother in Florida, which was probably the only scene in the movie done with any type of restraint or subtlety whatsoever.

I spent the rest of the movie being bothered by the clunky opacity of the yellow contacts they put on the Cullens and wishing for a tiny bit of risqué behavior from anyone at all on screen. All this idle time also unfortunately allowed me to make dangerous realizations about Stephanie Meyer’s narrative style, which basically entails her not thinking about the mythology she’s creating, backtracking, and then re-writing the rules so that the story can continue and everyone is happy.

Whatever. I still can’t wait to see the next movies. They should be just as forehead-slappingly frustrating, yet just as mandatory to attend to anyone addicted to the crack that is Twilight.

Yours truly included. (Team Bella).