eric brochu

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• Inglourious Basterds (2009) 5/5

  2009-08-31 13:34

  

  can i buy clomid over the internet 2009-08-31
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• Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) 5/5

  2008-10-23 23:11

  

  2008-10-23
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• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 5/5

  2008-05-25 22:17

  

  2008-05-25
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• No Country for Old Men (2007) 5/5

  2007-11-15 20:20

  

  I saw this on my birthday last weekend and couldn't have received a better present. This is a great, great film -- stark and subtle and filled with memorable scenes. I'll need to watch it again (and again) to decide just how great it is, but this I know: No Country for Old Men has taken up permanent space in my head alongside Fargo and Miller's Crossing. And hopefully this will finally shut up the pompous idiots who claim the Coen brothers are lacking in depth because they are "funny". Not that there aren't funny moments, but they are so dark and frightening that laughing at them starts to feel perverse.

  2007-11-15
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• Sunset Blvd. (1950) 5/5

  2007-09-28 14:33

  

  The cynicism of the film -- it's eagerness to look at the ugliness underneath Hollywood -- has gone, since 1950, from shocking to trite. But I think it's an incredible testament to the quality of the film and its performances that this barely registers. It's still a powerful and utterly modern film -- a black masterpiece of failure and disenchantment.

  2007-09-28
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• Rushmore (1998) 5/5

  2007-09-02 00:31

  

  I love this movie so much it hurts. I'm not even kidding. It's my favourite Wes Anderson movie, my favourite Bill Murray performance, and easily one of my all-time favourite movies, period. There are so many perfect moments here.

  2007-09-02
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• Unforgiven (1992) 5/5

  2007-09-01 17:10

  

  This movie amazes me every time I see it. It's not only a devastating critique of the whole Western mythos, but a meditation on violence, morality and filmmaking. After seeing this movie, it's pretty hard to ever again take seriously any movie about the righteous good-guy bloodlessly blowing away a bunch of bad men.

  2007-09-01
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• Legend of Drunken Master (1994) 5/5

  2007-08-25 23:57

  

  Or, Drunken Master II, as I saw it on a bootleg VHS back in my film school days. This is pretty much the perfect Jackie Chan movie, meaning I can't watch it without grinning like an idiot the entire time. The premise is sublime: Jackie plays a well-meaning 20-something slacker with a Popeye-like relationship with alcohol. This comes in handy when he accidentally lands in the middle of a plot by the British ambassador to smuggle Chinese treasures out of the country. The result is the perfect scaffold on which to hang Jackie Chan's unique combination of ass-kicking, physical comedy, and ingratiating charm, and everybody involved just runs with it -- the stunts, martial arts and comedy are all top notch. The whole third act is essentially a series of stunts and fights, each somehow topping everything that came before it, until the climactic, breathtaking fight scene involving a steel mill, large quantities of industrial alcohol and Jackie literally crawling backwards over hot coals.

  2007-08-25
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• Groundhog Day (1993) 5/5

  2007-07-01 23:49

  

  This may or may not be my all-time favourite movie, but it is my favourite movie of my favourite actor. Bill Murray is this film has to go from smug to egocentric, to confused, to elated, to nihilistic, to suicidal, to resigned, to compassionate, to humble, to serene -- all while playing the same character. And he has to do it all while being funny. This is the kind of movie that makes me happy to be alive, not because it's uplifting, but because it is just so damn brilliant. It is also the original source of my Bill Murray man-crush.

  2007-07-01
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• Dawn of the Dead (1978) 5/5

  2007-04-09 13:35

  

  The ultimate zombie movie. It's not slick, but it's powerful. At some point, I have to pull together all my ideas about why zombie movies appeal to me, and this movie is the key. It's also probably the only zombie movie that's a great movie, period. Except possibly Shaun of the Dead.

  2007-04-09
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• Point Blank (1967) 5/5

  2007-03-26 23:34

  

  This is the ultimate Lee Marvin movie, and probably in my top ten films of all time. I love this movie on so many levels -- the stunningly avant-guard editing; the colour-themed photography; the stark tough-guy dialog; the cool sixties location shooting -- it's a movie both of and ahead of its time. But above all, there's Lee Marvin as the brutal, existential anti-hero he was born to play. Nobody punches a crotch like Marvin, and nobody makes sadness seem so manly.

  2007-03-26
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• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) 5/5

  2007-03-12 12:03

  

  It turns out my roommate Florence had never seen this masterpiece. So naturally, we had to put everything on hold and watch it. I don't think there's ever been a movie with so many incredible scenes, finishing off with three fantastic set pieces in a row -- Tuco's run through the graveyard, the three-way duel, and the hanging -- any one of which would be a scene for the ages, but together just leaves you breathless and grateful that such films exist (well, it has that effect on me, at least).

  2007-03-12
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• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) 5/5

  2006-10-07 00:03

  

  The greatest English-language movie of the 21st century. So far, I guess. Honestly, I think I like it a little more each time I see it.

  2006-10-07
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• "Spaced" (1999) 5/5

  2006-09-03 21:34

  

  Completely brilliant Channel 4 series from the creative team that went on to make Shaun of the Dead. Hilarious characters, non-stop movie and comics references, and a sountrack featuring everything from Boards of Canada to Fantastic Plastic Machine -- I'm amazed I managed to go so long without seeing it.

  2006-09-03
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• "The Office" (2001) 5/5

  2006-08-26 22:32

  

  Literally the funniest thing I've ever seen.

  2006-08-26
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• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) 5/5

  2006-08-20 01:34

  

  As close to perfection as this kind of movie will ever get.

  2006-08-20
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• Shaun of the Dead (2004) 5/5

  2006-08-07 00:19

  

  If I had stayed in film school and become a filmmaker and been much more talented, a Canadian version of this movie would be the greatest thing I could ever hope to accomplish. However, do not buy the DVD, unless the idea of sitting through seven-and-a-half minutes of unskippable ads and anti-piracy threats every time you pop it in appeals to you.

  2006-08-07
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• The Thin Red Line (1998) 4.5/5

  2011-01-02 12:28

  

  2011-01-02
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• The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) 4.5/5

  2010-10-24 23:21

  

  The 1970s New Hollywood put out so many great films that even after you've seen all the famous classics, there are still dozens of lesser-known but totally brilliant ones to track down. Take, for instance, this Robert Mitchum gem. It may not be totally obscure, but until they recently started raving about it on Filmspotting, it never occurred to me to check it out. Am I ever glad I did. The story of an over-the-hill low-level Boston gangster with his fingers in too many pies, it's by turns warm and bleak, comic and tragic, and it may be my favourite Mitchum performance of all time, which is saying a lot.

  2010-10-24
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• Eraserhead (1976) 4.5/5

  2010-09-12 09:03

  

  "So I just, uh... I just cut them up like regular chickens?"
  "Sure, just cut them up like regular chickens."

  2010-09-12
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• Inception (2010) 4.5/5

  2010-08-07 23:18

  

  2010-08-07
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• The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) 4.5/5

  2010-02-07 17:38

  

  Awesome movie, but what does the title mean? Shouldn't the second one, where Bourne threatens his former masters, be the ultimatum, and this one, where he kicks their collective asses, be the supremacy? It's a good thing it has some of the best action and suspense set pieces of all time to distract me from this, or I might get annoyed.

  2010-02-07
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• Let the Right One In (2008) 4.5/5

  2009-12-27 16:55

  

  A grim, unromantic and genuinely creepy vampire movie, probably the best of its sort since the 1979 Nosferatu, which was also grim, unromantic and genuinely creepy.

  2009-12-27
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• A Serious Man (2009) 4.5/5

  2009-10-25 15:54

  

  in 1967, a mild-mannered physics professor starts to find his life unravelling by inches, but instead of complaining or giving in, he tries to understand God's plan by visiting three rabbis. Funny, cruel and infused with a bleak Jewish existentialism, even for a Coen brothers movie, this film has a lot to unpack. I need to see it at least once more to really decide what I think of it, but right now, I think it's kind of brilliant.

  2009-10-25
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• Pusher (1996) 4.5/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
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• The Hurt Locker (2009) 4.5/5

  2009-08-04 22:03

  

  2009-08-04
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• Wendy and Lucy (2008) 4.5/5

  2009-06-21 18:01

  

  En route to Alaska, a nearly-destitute Michelle Williams has her car break down in small-town Oregon, and then loses her dog. There are no quirky townspeople or saccharine melodrama or grand statements, just one person in one place in one situation, but the story is so well-told, I was completely engrossed from the opening scene to the credits.

  2009-06-21
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• Le Samourai (1967) 4.5/5

  2009-06-06 21:02

  

  Incredible piece of 1960s-issue existential Eurocool. Alain Delon is perfect as the ultraprofessional, icy-cool hit man who drifts through chic jazz clubs and rainy Parisian streets with a trenchcoat, a gun and a blue fedora. But it all starts to unravel as he comes into conflict with both the police and his employer. An absolutely fantastic piece of filmmaking that respects and rises above its genre origins.

  2009-06-06
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• Le Cercle Rouge (1970) 4.5/5

  2009-03-15 21:33

  

  Alain Delon, the epitome of 1960s Euro-chic cool, is a thoroughly professional master criminal who is released from prison and is drawn, more by fate than will, into planning and executing an elaborate heist. At the same time, he and his partner are being hunted by an equally brilliant and aristocratic detective. The centrepiece is the incredible heist sequence, which is real-time and dialogue-free, and which piles cool upon cool until all you can do is gape at it's awesomeness.

  2009-03-15
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• Man on Wire (2008) 4.5/5

  2009-02-15 13:45

  

  Incredible documentary about Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the WTC twin towers. Hearing it described, it sounds like a stunt, but seeing the planning and execution turns it into something transcendental -- a kind of insane dream art. Particularly as seen through the eyes of Petit's then-girlfriend, who is a primary narrator. My only real complaint is that the movie is lacking decent footage of the walk itself, but in a way, that just lets it live more strongly in the imagination, where it belongs.

  2009-02-15
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• Synecdoche, New York (2008) 4.5/5

  2008-11-18 10:44

  

  My glib analysis is that it's a meditation on mortality, narcissism and the inability of art to capture life -- three things that I think Kaufman sees as nearly identical. That's kind of a disservice to the movie, though. It's a lot deeper and more obscure than that. I think I'll need to read and think more about it, but right now, I'm definitely in the camp that says it's a kind of masterpiece of unlubricated mindf*ckery. (Though I saw it with Tyson and Gillian, with whom I usually agree, and they were much less impressed.)

  2008-11-18
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• My Winnipeg (2007) 4.5/5

  2008-08-06 23:55

  

  2008-08-06
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• The Dark Knight (2008) 4.5/5

  2008-07-25 09:36

  

  2008-07-25
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• WALL-E (2008) 4.5/5

  2008-07-02 23:12

  

  2008-07-02
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• Shoot the Piano Player (1960) 4.5/5

  2008-04-13 11:02

  

  2008-04-13
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• La Jetée (1962) 4.5/5

  2008-01-09 12:20

  

  Yes, it's a 28-minute sequence of black-and-white still photos. And yes, it's French. French science fiction, no less. Don't let any of that put you off -- this is a fascinating, engaging, entertaining film that will stay with you for a very long time. And, it's the film that Twelve Monkeys is a remake of, so it's got that, too.

  2008-01-09
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• Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) 4.5/5

  2007-11-25 23:42

  

  2007-11-25
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• Into the Wild (2007) 4.5/5

  2007-11-04 20:47

  

  A terrific movie, and the rare adaptation that enriches the original book, instead of trying to reproduce or supplant it (I've read the Krakauer book twice). The interviews and essays of the book become the backbone of a road movie that preserves the book's ambivalence towards its subject -- Christopher McCandless is irritatingly self-absorbed, naive and intransigent, but his self-assigned mission to cast off material concerns and follow a road of hardship, self-discipline and joy probably registers with anyone who has ever thought about how easy and how hard it would be to simply walk away from their life for one on the road. And the America shown in the movie is so vast and beautiful, it can't help but feel like you're missing out if you don't spend your life exploring it.

  2007-11-04
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• Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) 4.5/5

  2007-10-07 21:00

  

  I don't know what I can say about this film that hasn't been said a hundred times. It's brilliant. It's painful. It's exhilarating. And it has the best, most stylized dialogue any film has ever had. "We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. "

  2007-10-07
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• A Better Tomorrow (1986) 4.5/5

  2007-09-30 18:29

  

  The movie that launched the Hong Kong New Wave, and the international careers of John Woo and Chow Yun Fat. The stylish action scenes were so influential that they now seem a bit dated, and the melodrama is beyond over-the-top, as only John Woo can pull off. But it's impressive just how much skill and confidence there is on display in this film. As low-budget as it obviously is, it's obvious everybody knew they were onto something groundbreaking -- the cinema of the past twenty years would look very different without this film.

  2007-09-30
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• One, Two, Three (1961) 4.5/5

  2007-08-30 10:08

  

  I can't believe I never heard of this manic Billy Wilder cold war comedy until recently. James Cagney stars as a smug Coca-Cola executive in Berlin, who has to suddenly deal with his boss' engagement-prone teenaged daughter. This in addition to his snarky wife, his sexy secretary, the ultra-efficient German Coca-Cola staff, officious East German police, sarcastic American police, and a corrupt Soviet trade delegation. And then things start to get kind of crazy. Awesome. Hilarious. Awesomely hilarious. To quote Billy Wilder on his screenplay: "This piece must be played molto furioso. Suggested speed: 110 miles an hour - on the curves - 140 miles an hour in the straightaways. "

  2007-08-30
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• Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005) 4.5/5

  2007-08-19 10:51

  

  I enjoyed this movie immensely. The first half is kind of a comedic free-fall, jumping from hilarious scenes of a fictional film adaptation of the 18th century novel, to a portrayal of the filming of those scenes, to a behind-the-scenes dramedy about the actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, playing versions of themselves. Confusing? Yes, but funny as hell, too. The second half settles down behind the scenes of the production, but repeatedly drifts away from the movie and the book, only to occasionally veer back into them. Which, I gather, is how the book works (I read the first hundred or so pages once when I was doing my BA, and gave up). In the hands of lesser talents, this approach could be insufferably pretentious, but whatever you might think of writer/director Michael Winterbottom, he's not a lesser talent.

  2007-08-19
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• Network (1976) 4.5/5

  2007-08-14 15:47

  

  Sure, it's overwritten and naive and clearly pandering to the liberal elite. It's still brilliant and prophetic. "You've got to say, 'I'm a human being, Goddammit! My life has value!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'" Yes. Fuck yes. Yes.

  2007-08-14
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• Pandora's Box (1929) 4.5/5

  2007-08-01 12:55

  

  The best silent films have an exotic and oddly literary quality that didn't survive the transition to sound, making Pandora's Box one of the high points of what turned out to be an artistic dead end. The film is a dark melodrama about Lulu (the seriously hot Louise Brooks), who must be the world's most innocent bisexual nymphomaniac. Actually, it's not really fair to talk about realistic characterization: Lulu isn't a person, she's female hypersexuality as a hedonistic force of nature. Kind of a flapper-era Madonna in a sexy hair cut. Lulu can't help being lusted after by every human being who lays eyes on her, including a father and son, a countess, an Egyptian white slaver, and a serial killer. Every encounter is twisted into tragedy, not by her actions, but by her inadvertent ability to unlock everyone else's inhibitions. The gorgeous cinematography and the unreality of silent films saves it from becoming camp, and instead it becomes a kind of fascinating visual poetry. I like this movie a lot.

  2007-08-01
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• Once (2006) 4.5/5

  2007-07-12 11:34

  

  Sure, I'm a snarky, borderline-bitter guy whose relationships mostly consist of insecurity and awkward rejection. But deep down, I'm a sappy romantic who likes sad-bastard-style indie pop love songs. Actually, I guess that's not really a contradiction. I will say, though, that while I dig musicals with an enthusiasm unbecoming for an ostensibly hetero man, this is the first time I felt that a musical was made for me. It made me want to move to Dublin and start a band and get a beautiful teenaged Czech musician girlfriend. Maybe after I finish my PhD.

  2007-07-12
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• Duck Soup (1933) 4.5/5

  2007-06-15 23:23

  

  My intellectual hero, Pauline Kael, once said that the Marx brothers were never in a movie as wonderful as they were. But Duck Soup! So. Very. Fucking. Close! A lot of it, I think, is that this is the film that best serves as a scaffold for the brothers to be themselves, without all the romantic subplots and vibrato-heavy musical numbers. Groucho gets to be the ultimate wise-ass, insulting and charming Margaret Dumont in the same sentence. Harpo gets to be an asshole. Chico gets to mangle the English language and confuse various pompous straight men. And Zeppo gets to not sing.

  2007-06-15
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• Knocked Up (2006) 4.5/5

  2007-06-04 09:43

  

  This movie takes the lamest premise (and title) imaginable (fat, hairy slacker-type accidentally impregnates supermodel-type and they decide to make it work, for the sake of the baby), and somehow manages to turn it into a movie that not only transcends its premise, but transends the entire sex/romantic comedy genre. I mean, every single scene is hilarious, and yet every major character is real, three-dimensional human being. Which just makes it funnier, and more moving, because these things are happening to people, goddamit, not Hollywood joke machines. How fucking awesome is Knocked Up? Very. That's how fucking awesome it is.

  2007-06-04
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• Hot Fuzz (2007) 4.5/5

  2007-04-25 22:16

  

  It doesn't quite reach the heights of non-stop awesomeness that Shaun of the Dead does, but it's still superb and hilarious and I enjoyed it an awful lot. I guess I'm not the only one who spent his formative years fantasizing about his go-nowhere, dull little home town erupting in scenes of spectacular action-movie mayhem.

  2007-04-25
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• Grindhouse (2007) 4.5/5

  2007-04-23 10:48

  

  I may end up giving this one a ten when I see it on DVD. The two films are both excellent, and play to the strengths of Rodriguez and Tarantino. Rodriguez is a master craftsman -- his films are never the slightest bit deep or original, but when he's on, he's superb at aping other people's styles and delivering slick entertainment. Here, he combines his ubiquitous John Woo fetish with the gore of Romero and Argento and the hipster winking of Return of the Living Dead to serve up a great zombie action-comedy. Tarantino, on the other hand, may nod, but he doesn't wink, and he gives us a movie that only Tarantino could have made. On the surface, it's a Tarantino version of Two Lane Blacktop or Vanishing Point. But as much as he loves those films, he is willing to take a sledgehammer to their macho 1970s misogyny. It'll be hard to ever take those squinting antiheroes and hysterical bimbos seriously again after this. And the ending is utterly brilliant -- totally in line with the counterculture nihilism of the racing films, and completely hilarious.

  2007-04-23
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• Being John Malkovich (1999) 4.5/5

  2007-04-16 15:49

  

  Wacky doesn't even begin to describe this movie about a secret door that leads inside John Malkovich's brain. What appeals to me is not only how original the premise of the film is, but that it just keep piling more and more brilliant inventive material on.

  2007-04-16
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• Chungking Express (1994) 4.5/5

  2007-04-02 12:39

  

  Chungking Express. After the disappointingly stuffy and ponderous 2046, I needed to watch this movie again to remind myself why I used to like Wong Kar Wai. And it's all still here -- it's amazingly full of life and vivid characters and atmosphere, and here, WKW is working with Christopher Doyle's breathtaking cinematography, instead of making it do all the heavy lifting. However, this time around, I could see all the seeds of what I've come to dislike about WKW's more recent work -- there's a certain self-importance behind the playfulness, and a literary fascination with the internal states and histories of the characters. These things might make for a good novelist, but they don't bode well for a truly cinematic filmmaker.

  2007-04-02
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• Zodiac (2007) 4.5/5

  2007-03-03 01:58

  

  A painstakingly detailed masterpiece about the painstaking detailed assembly of a murder case. This is truly a film that lives up to its own obsessive inspiration -- the true story of the tracking of the Zodiac serial killer by professional and amateur sleuths. I've admired David Fincher ever since Seven, but here he puts the flashy tricks away and sets himself up as heir to Hitchcock.

  2007-03-03
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• Pan's Labyrinth (2006) 4.5/5

  2007-01-28 15:51

  

  I saw this movie a week ago, and I've spent a long time thinking about it since then. I'm not sure I can fully grasp the film's underlying themes, which seems to be connnecting fascism with fairy tales, but I am sure that it's an dark, original, powerfully-told story, and I liked it very much.

  2007-01-28
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• The New World (2005) 4.5/5

  2006-11-27 01:20

  

  Terrence Malick made hsi first feature in 1978, and this is only the third since then. But like Badlands, Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, I think it's brilliant: beautiful and poetic and joyful and sad and damn near transcendent.

  2006-11-27
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• Only the Bad Sleep Well (1960) 4.5/5

  2006-11-23 11:21

  

  Kurosawa's fantastic and nihilistic revenge film, loosly based on Hamlet, but set inside a corrupt public corporation in postwar Tokyo. What makes it fascinating is that the violence is more emotional and social than physical, but no less devastating, and the price is just as high.

  2006-11-23
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• Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit... 4.5/5

  2006-11-19 15:00

  

  Laughed 'til I peed and peed 'til I laughed! (Just checking to see if anybody's actually reading this. Hi, mom!)

  2006-11-19
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• Bringing Up Baby (1938) 4.5/5

  2006-10-28 12:00

  

  Now that is what I'm talking about! 101 minutes of breakneck entertainment with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn bein' all young and funny and adorable. Typical 1930s style, it's very stagey, but somehow it works.

  2006-10-28
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• The Departed (2006) 4.5/5

  2006-10-19 11:01

  

  It's great to have Scorcese back after his last couple of experiments with middlebrow Oscar bait. Brilliant film. If I have one complaint it's with Jack Nicholson's cartoon villain. But otherwise, excellent performances from everyone involved, and a hell of a lot easier to follow than the original Infernal Affairs.

  2006-10-19
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• The Descent (2005) 4.5/5

  2006-09-20 11:04

  

  Fantastic. Rave blog post coming soonish.

  2006-09-20
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• Clerks II (2006) 4.5/5

  2006-07-30 23:56

  

  I loved this movie! It's funny and nasty and smart and heartfelt and possibly Kevin Smith's best film yet. I hope we'll be revisting Dante and Randal again in another ten years.

  2006-07-30
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• True Grit (2010) 4/5

  2011-01-02 12:29

  

  2011-01-02
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• Pusher 3: I'm the Angel of Death (2005) 4/5

  2011-01-02 12:28

  

  2011-01-02
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• Pontypool (2009) 4/5

  2011-01-02 12:26

  

  2011-01-02
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• Pusher 2: With Blood on My Hands (2004) 4/5

  2011-01-02 12:26

  

  2011-01-02
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• Secretary (2002) 4/5

  2010-11-16 20:20

  

  Finally, a movie to use as a model for my future married life!

  2010-11-16
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• Boogie Nights (1997) 4/5

  2010-10-24 23:20

  

  I swear to God, you could place Boogie Nights right on top of Goodfellas and they would line up perfectly. I'm not sure this is a bad thing.

  2010-10-24
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• Kung Fu Hustle (2004) 4/5

  2010-10-07 08:23

  

  While packed full of references to Hong Kong and Hollywood films, rewatching this, the clearest antecedent is the Asterix books. It's paced at a breakneck speed, filled with cartoony violence and broad -- but affectionate -- characterizations, and celebrates a chaotic communal life protected by superwarriors over the harsh world just a few steps away.

  2010-10-07
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• Winter's Bone (2010) 4/5

  2010-08-07 23:17

  

  2010-08-07
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• Toy Story 3 (2010) 4/5

  2010-08-07 23:11

  

  The Incredibles > WALL·E > Ratatouille > Toy Story > Finding Nemo > Villingen-Schwenningen Toy Story 3 > Up > Monsters Inc > Toy Story 2 > Bug’s Life > Cars

  2010-08-07
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• Moon (2009) 4/5

  2010-02-15 22:17

  

  Man, if there's one microgenre I really have a soft spot for, it's low-budget "hard" science fiction films, where story and character are... not unimportant, but secondary to exploring ideas in meticulous detail. Moon is the story of the only occupant of a lunar base (a brilliant performance by Sam Rockwell), and what happens when he's suddenly *not* the only occupant. It borrows hugely and openly from 1970s sci-fi, but its ideas are its own, and it's fascinating to watch them unfold.

  2010-02-15
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• The Bourne Identity (2002) 4/5

  2010-02-03 12:31

  

  I picked up the Bourne trilogy on sale and I've been watching them in one-hour chunks before bed. The first one is definitely the most conventional, though it still has a lot of grit and a distinctive style, not to mention some pretty awesome stunt work.

  2010-02-03
  0.3

• The White Ribbon (2009) 4/5

  2010-02-02 12:23

  

  In a small, pre-WWI German town, repression, cruelty and hopelessness grip the townsfolk like a vise, and mysterious violence starts to erupt among the generation that would grow up to create National Socialism. Knowing Michael Haneke's previous films, I was expecting something bombastic. While there's definitely a take-home message, what I found fascinating was the dissection of how the groundwork for such an ideology is laid.

  2010-02-02
  0.3

• Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans (2009) 4/5

  2009-12-27 16:43

  

  With only the barest resemblance to the original Bad Lieutenant, this oddball blacker-than-black comedy about the "bliss of evil" might as well have been called Werner Herzog's Grand Theft Auto III, with Nic Cage channelling Klaus Kinsky impersonating Ray Liotta playing Tommy Vercetti.

  2009-12-27
  0.3

• Bigger Stronger Faster* (2008) 4/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Point Break (1991) 4/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Henry V (1989) 4/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Stranger Than Paradise (1984) 4/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• District 9 (2009) 4/5

  2009-08-31 13:36

  

  2009-08-31
  0.3

• Up (2009) 4/5

  2009-06-06 21:40

  

  2009-06-06
  0.3

• Volver (2006) 4/5

  2009-06-06 20:34

  

  In this campy (but heartfelt) melodrama of well-meaning mother-daughter murder teams and ghosts working as assistant hairdressers, the thing I found most implausible is that someone that looks like Penelope Cruz could ever be dirt poor or single. But that's probably missing the point. I've come to the conclusion that I probably lack the sensitivity to ever fully get caught up in Pedro Almodovar's stories of romantic Spanish poverty, but I'm enough of a film geek to totally enjoy his best work, such as this.

  2009-06-06
  0.3

• Killer of Sheep (1977) 4/5

  2009-05-18 18:45

  

  Meticulous, haunting and beautiful. This is a film in the vein of Italian neo-realism, but it also comes across as very American (in a good, good way). It's essentially a series of short vignettes about one working-class family in Watts, Los Angeles. Some scenes seem like jokes or anecdotes, some are moments of characterization and some are just small everyday moments. And it all somehow fits together.

  2009-05-18
  0.3

• Crank: High Voltage (2009) 4/5

  2009-05-06 05:54

  

  2009-05-06
  0.3

• Vanishing Point (1971) 4/5

  2009-03-15 21:50

  

  It's kind of hard to talk about this movie without comparing it to it's arty, existential road-movie doppelganger, Two-Lane Blacktop. So I will do just that, and say that TLB does the existentialism better, but this one has a lot more action. They're both great movies, but this isn't the one that sticks with me.

  2009-03-15
  0.3

• Grease (1978) 4/5

  2009-03-15 21:06

  

  Alright, I'll admit the highlight was watching it with Janelle while she gleefully told me how each scene shaped her younger self. But I still dug it. What can I say? I really do have a soft spot for musicals -- even when they're not great films per se. Only problem is, I found Olivia Newton-John to be kind of a bore (sorry, Janelle). I wanted to see more of Didi Conn's rebel-dork Frenchy! (Which I hear I can in Grease 2. Hmmm...)

  2009-03-15
  0.3

• Ace in the Hole (1951) 4/5

  2009-02-15 13:35

  

  It amazes me just how modern Billy Wilder's movies seem. While most of Hollywood was mired in turgid melodramas, good-guy/bad-guy westerns and musicals -- few of which have aged very well -- Wilder's unsentimental dissection of sensationalist journalism is so sharp and nuanced that it could have served as the template of season 5 of The Wire. In fact, maybe it should have.

  2009-02-15
  0.3

• The Wrestler (2008) 4/5

  2009-01-21 13:36

  

  The story is disappointingly unimaginative, but the acting and direction more than compensate. Mickey Rourke is the titular over-the-hill professional wrestler, but within the first two minutes you forget you're watching Rourke -- it's just Randy "The Ram" up there on screen, living the life it must have taken decades to get to. An absolutely incredible performance.

  2009-01-21
  0.3

• Con Air (1997) 4/5

  2008-12-21 17:49

  

  I hadn't seen this movie since it was in theatres, and I forgot just what a glorious masterpiece of stupidity it is! There is not a single line that isn't grandiose or a performance that isn't over-the-top, and there's not a hint of subtlety in sight. With a cast including Nick Cage, Steve Buscemi, John Cusack and John Malkovich, who all competing in some kind of secret scenery-chewing contest, the whole thing is excessive and gratuitous, and so cheerfully idiotic, it can't help but be entertaining.

  2008-12-21
  0.3

• Highway 61 (1991) 4/5

  2008-11-26 22:34

  

  One of my favourite Canadian movies. Writer Don McKellar is a small-town Ontario barber who ends up on a road trip across the US with roadie Valerie Buhrgear and a corpse in a coffin, pursued by a creepy bingo-playing American who thinks he's Satan. The directing and story-telling are maybe a little sloppy and low-rent in places, but the movie has a charmingly offbeat DIY attitude a lot of 16mm heart. Director Bruce McDonald would team up with McKellar again to make the brilliant gen-X TV series Twitch City.

  2008-11-26
  0.3

• Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) 4/5

  2008-11-14 20:22

  

  2008-11-14
  0.3

• Ms. 45 (1981) 4/5

  2008-11-08 16:35

  

  A really odd Abel Ferrara-directed revenge flick set in NYC at its scuzziest. Raped twice in one night, a pretty, mute seamstress kills her attacker. Terrified at first, she keeps the body in her bathtub while disposing of it bit by bit. Pretty soon, though, she takes the rapist's gun and starts hunting other "bad" men, but her evolving moral code makes more and more men targets. We follow her descent in increasingly creepy and unnerving set-pieces, until we find our anti-heroine dressed in a nun's habit kissing her .45 while planning a massacre. The movie's not all that graphic, but it is unnerving, and like most of Ferrara's other films, has a ratio of two parts exploitation flick to one part art film. Which means it's pretty much right up my alley.

  2008-11-08
  0.3

• Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) 4/5

  2008-10-15 23:09

  

  2008-10-15
  0.3

• Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) 4/5

  2008-09-25 21:58

  

  2008-09-25
  0.3

• Encounters at the End of the World (2007) 4/5

  2008-07-12 19:54

  

  2008-07-12
  0.3

• Top Secret! (1984) 4/5

  2008-07-12 16:53

  

  2008-07-12
  0.3

• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) 4/5

  2008-05-25 22:19

  

  2008-05-25
  0.3

• Iron Man (2008) 4/5

  2008-05-07 19:10

  

  2008-05-07
  0.3

• The King of Kong (2007) 4/5

  2008-04-22 21:57

  

  2008-04-22
  0.3

• The Thing (1982) 4/5

  2008-03-16 11:30

  

  2008-03-16
  0.3

• Bombay (1995) 4/5

  2008-02-24 16:37

  

  2008-02-24
  0.3

• Michael Clayton (2007) 4/5

  2008-02-16 21:23

  

  It was interesting to see this and The Lookout in the same week. Both have the structure of conventional thrillers, but are both more interested in their main characters than the plot. Both those characters have managed to get to places they are not happy with, and are trying, not always perfectly or directly, to rehabilitate themselves. Both even have memorably stark, totally appropriate, winter landscapes. I wish I had something insightful to say here after drawing all those parallels, but I don't -- I just enjoyed both films a lot.

  2008-02-16
  0.3

List generated by WP Movie Ratings.