I had a lot of fun keeping a movie journal last year, so I figure why not do it again for 2012? Every film I see for the first time this year will be logged, rated and written about. Sometimes I'll write a little; occasionally I'll write a lot. Depends on the movie. And I plan on seeing a lot of them this year. As always, ratings are based on a one-through-five-star scale with no halfsies.
2/29 Drive (2011) ★★★: A decent attempt at mimicking '80s Michael Mann, and as such, there are worse ways to spend two hours. But the spare story and cast characters who all fall into one of two categories -- one note or blank slate -- provide a far-too-minimalist spine for the film, no matter how hard director Nicolas Winding Refn attempts to buff every frame into a hyper-stylized sheen. Also, Drive's most thrilling sequence, by a large margin, is the pre-title getaway. When your movie's best scene is its first, that's usually a problem.
2/11 The King's Speech (2010) ★★★★: Such a lovely film. It's becoming more and more apparent that I will never tire of Geoffrey Rush.
2/8 Burn After Reading (2008) ★★: Even though this shares a lot of the same DNA with some of the Coen brothers' best films, it's much too scattershot and unfocused to cohere into anything satisfying. John Malkovich and Brad Pitt are worth a few good laughs though.
1/23 Super (2010) ★★★★: What is it with the violent, girly sidekick always stealing the show in this recent rash of "real-life superhero" movies? First Chloe Moretz runs away with Kick-Ass, and now Ellen Page completely owns every single second she appears in Super. It's nearly a trend. Past that, it may not be fair to compare the two movies, as they're more similar in concept than execution. Kick-Ass comes across as just an amped-up, somewhat loopy version of a mainstream superhero film compared to Super's low-budget, ultra-violent, darkly comedic take. A harsh revenge fantasy that can be both shocking and hysterical, Super struggles to balance its various tones early on, but things start to mesh once Page's Boltgirl joins Rainn Wilson's Crimson Bolt in his quest to fight crime and save his drug-addled wife from the dealer she ran away with. Writer/director James Gunn also made the delightfully crazy Slither. That film is better than this one, but Super still helps prove that we need Gunn making more movies more often.
1/16 Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2011) ★★★★: The fact that Purgatory is the third film in this series yet still packed with brand-new evidence that illustrates how badly the investigation into and trial against the West Memphis Three were bungled is astounding. As they have twice before, documentary filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky document the triple-murder case in incredible, riveting detail. They don't exactly come at the material from an unbiased angle anymore, but, honestly, how could anyone at this point?
1/13 Moneyball (2011) ★★★★: Not exactly the full truth -- I'm pretty sure the names Tim Hudson, Barry Zito and Mark Mulder are never spoken during the film -- but still a movie that's pretty much impossible for any baseball geek (which I am) not to enjoy.
1/8 The Book of Eli (2010) ★: Two hours of warmed-over post-apocalyptic cliches slathered in a dollop of hokey, faith-is-all-you-need spiritualism. And then there's a twist ending that the movie comes nowhere close to selling.
1/7 War Horse (2011) ★★★: The film is pretty and plenty well put together, but it didn't really connect with me on any kind of emotional level. Maybe it's because I'm not much of an animal person. Or maybe it's because there are no human characters worth getting attached to. I seriously couldn't tell you a single characteristic about the human lead other than he really liked his horse.
1/7 Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol (2011) ★★★★★: The most fun and thrilling action movie I've seen in a good, long while. While most series are running on fumes by part four, the Mission: Impossible franchise is somehow just hitting its stride. With J.J. Abrams (who directed the very good M:I-III) still on as a producer and Pixar whiz Brad Bird making his live-action directorial debut, it seems Tom Cruise has finally found the right combination of people to unlock this property's full potential. The set pieces are amazing, including the jaw-dropper in, around and on Dubai's Burj Khalifa and a very clever prison break that opens the film. Simon Pegg is hilarious. Jeremy Renner gets to be funny, too, as well as appropriately bad-ass. The surprise cameos near the end allow this installment to warmly acknowledge the films that came before without overly relying on them. I know it's this series' M.O. to rijigger the cast and bring on a new director with each film, but I'm pretty sure no one will complain if Bird and this exact same team return for M:I-5. I certainly won't.
1/5 Green Lantern (2011) ★: It's somewhat ludicrous the things we film geeks obsess over before a film's release. With Green Lantern, all I heard about in the months leading up to the movie's release was how silly and fake the CGI suit looked. I'm sure there are pages upon pages of nervous message-board posts about it floating around the Net. As it turns out, the suit is just fine. Actually, it's better than fine. It's downright nifty. Too bad then the rest of the film is a complete and total train wreck. It's like the filmmakers took a bunch of bullet points from the comic's mythology and strung them together haphazardly without bothering to craft a functioning story. I could make a laundry list of things wrong with Green Lantern, both big and small. In fact, why don't I just go ahead and do that? Deep breath ... ready? ... here we go: Hal Jordan's character arc is murky and uninteresting; the emotional triangle linking Hal, Carol and Hector should have been more carefully set up earlier in the film in order for it to resonate more effectively later on; it's not always clear early in the movie when Hal has the ring with him and whether he's wearing it or has it stuffed in a pocket; there's a bunch of weird cross-cutting -- like between Hal taking the oath and Hector being infected -- that only serves to weaken the impact of the individual events; Hal only acts like a superhero for about 10 minutes of the movie (okay, 15 tops); there's a decided lack of money shots (when Carol throws Hal the ring near the end, I would have slowed that shit down and milked it for all it was worth); way too much time and energy is spent explaining Parallax's origin; characters enter and exit the story seemingly on a whim; etc.; etc.; and so on and so on. Green Lantern fans deserved better. Ryan Reynolds, who I like a lot and tries his best here, deserved better. Just a massive disappointment.
1/2 Machete (2010) ★★: There are sights worth seeing here -- Machete rappelling down a building using some bloke's intestines; Machete "steering" a car by twisting the blade embedded in the driver's back; Michelle Rodriguez's stomach -- but they're surrounded by so much embarrassing nonsense that the movie is ultimately not worth it. Also, Jessica Alba gives what may be the worst "let's go to war!" motivational speech in film history.
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