More Glib Movie reviews: Mega post

A few more old movie reviews while I mull over my next personal life post.

"The Killer Inside Me" Directed by Michael Winterbottom, starring Casey "Mumbles" Affleck carrying the momentum of his last few nice roles, here. Great seething performance as a nice guy sociopath deputy sheriff in this very good adaptation of the Jim Thompson novel. some smaller performances are uneven, but Affleck, and Ned Beatty make up for those. Katie Holmes- unrecognizable to me. Jessica Alba has made the successful  transition to hooker with a heart of gold roles in this film.

oh, and um ouch. You shouldn't hit girls. It makes me squeamish.

"Me & Orson Welles" directed (with workmanlike competence, but not much else) by Richard Linklater. Kind of laborious movie actually wherein Zac Efron plays an emo "I am so entitled" modern youngster who travels back in time to do the second most popular Time travel riff after killing Hitler - being in an Orson Welles play.

okay not really... but Efron seems so not of the era, it's my explanation for watching it. The actor who played Welles does a great turn as Welles actually, nailing the voice and delivery much better than most. The scenes with Efron haphazardly being naive and young are dull and boring, simply because he doesn't fit in with all these other actors actually portraying people of another era. Even Zac's lines are in a modern patois that few other characters get.

Rush - Beyond The lighted Stage. good doc on Canada's most successful band (in many ways) Lots of cool stuff on the great early to mid years. Lots of "caress of steel" jokes, and some still kinda bitterness about Geddy's "synthy period" from the other guys. They are the more well adjusted human being versions of Anvil (if you've see Anvil: The Story Of Anvil).... anyhoo, well worth it for fans or people who have to watch it because their Boyfriend is a Rush Nerd (which is any Rush fan really), it's funny and interesting enough as it really humanizes these very average dudes who happen to be Rush, quite well, indeed.

Michael Jackson: This Is It. a bit underwhelming after all the hype I heard from people who've returned it to the video store. It was very well done, and that would have been a pretty cool concert tour, that I would never have gone to, anyways. I was starting to fade in and out by the time it was ending. The best part was the including a heavily lipstick'd Michael as  Rita Hayworth's favourite gay friend watching her sing Mame in "Gilda". Better than Astaire hawking vacuums at any rate.

When You're Strange : a doc about the Doors, directed by Tom DiCillo, narrated for some reason by Johnny Depp. The narration is mostly ludicrous Jim worship. But there is a lot of cool candid footage that I hadn't seen before of the band who I still love despite everyone around me now discounting them.  Sure The Doors were a mess but for me the music is as important as anything else from the era. It's part of the soundtrack of the time I was pre school age. Everything around me at that time was Doors, Zeppelin, Creedence, or old school country. I've heard Riders on The Storm more times than I could even think of counting and still get goosebumps for some reason. worthy of a viewing by Doors fanboys, otherwise there isn't much going for this doc other than nice use of stock footage, and editing. I didn't like the "ghost Jim driving down the highway" stuff much.

A Prophet - Nothing but crime films outta France these days it seems. Not that that's a bad thing. A prophet was very well done... Though I don't get "The Godfather" comparisons. This is much more of a modern film than that, in mostly good ways. It could have been like many modern films, a bit tighter, shorter, but overall a very solid movie with interesting characters and a decent story.

Pusher  Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Danes  do often make great movies. is there a correlation between the super fucked upness of so many good Danish films and real life in Denmark? I don't care, as long as they keep making cool freaky movies like Pusher. From the dude who recently brought the world "Bronson" and "Valhalla Rising" (which is playing in NA soon, I believe.) 

typical dumb criminal movie really, some dealers have a really really bad week of getting their shit and money stolen as they try to pay off a huge debt to their supplier (Zlatko Buric, who last year was a popular/regular customer at our store, while in town shooting something) Things get ugly before, no wait they never really take a turn for the better.

drugs r' bad m'kay

Ghost Writer - Polanski may be a horrible person, but he sure can direct a movie. Great sense of forboding in every single perfectly composed frame of this film. Story does lack some edge, and Kim Cattrall is out of her depth with all these movie actors, luckily for her she's mostly there as Cougar eyecandy. Not a Great Polanski film, but a good one.

Terribly Happy. Dir. by Henrik Ruben Genz is this year's "Adam's Apples"... Those wacky Danes are at it again as a "Big City" (Copenhagen) Cop is demoted to the boonies (think a Danish Roysten Vasey) where he immediately captures the attention of the local battered wife. Hilarity ensues! Ok not so much with the "haha" funny as much of the "um ew" kind of funny. Some bravura camerawork, masterful direction at work here, this movie hums along disturbing you further as it careens around oddly. Eventually it ends, and you stare at the blank screen for awhile. 

"Inception" Directed by Christopher Nolan....  While very slick and well done, the story felt stale, flat very predictable. The actors were fine, set-pieces cool, if a bit on the video gamey edge.  If you want to see it, see it in the theatre, but beware the hype in either direction. The only thing I don't get about this movie is the Hype/Hate thing. It's well done, a lot of people in the theatre seemed to be more into it than me. My co-worker found it "confusing". I think he was high.

Mother - directed by Joon-ho Bong (of "The Host", "Memories of Murder") is  a return to the world of small time crime in Korea. Obsessive mother can't believe her mentally challenged son could have killed a young girl, and sets out to solve the case after the cops spend about 30 seconds getting a "confession" from the son. Creepy and weird is this film and most of it's characters. Outstanding performance by "Mother" (Hye-Ja Kim). great little movie not as fast moving as some of his previous outings, but not worse for it. 

Night Train To Munich. (1940 Sir Carol Reed) Rex Harrison chews all kinds of scenery in this ripping yarn about Nazi/OSS agents infiltrating either side at the very beginning of ww2. Paul Henreid is a Sudetenlander, Well paced, lovingly rendered models are used for much of the countryside stuff. Nice Criterion restoration of Reed's 1st film. Jolly good fun!

The Runaways.

Great punk rock with a glossy lipstick kinda movie. Great performances that were wholly unexpected by me, I was hoping for "not  cringe worthy" minimum, but was instead charmed by actresses I've previously not thought much of. Stewart and Fanning got the trashy loveliness of the era's best most kickass chicks. Good flick. Nice double bill with "...The Fabulous Stains". Is Kristen Stewart this generation's Diane Lane? We can only hope so.

"The Eclipse"

 has nothing to do with either vampires or werewolves, but there are some ghosts. That big Irish actor (Ciarán Hinds) who reminds me a bit of a latter day Bob Mitchum plays a widower who helps out at a small writers' fest somewhere in Ireland (Cobh?) who starts seeing the ghost of his father in law who's actually not quite dead.  He also runs afoul of Aidan Quinn playing a successful novelist who's a big asshole (get out, really?) and a lady writer (Iben Hjejle) who's actually very nice and writes of her own ghosty encounters... they eventually have a very light and realistic umm romance.... It's all done in a very quiet way and clocks in at a svelte 83 minutes. It has some really nice performances, and a taut story, nice scenery, and a few really decent old school creepy scares.