12 Angry Men (1957)

I rarely take the time to watch movies made prior to 1980, but this one is considered a classic, so I checked it out. For a black and white  movie that takes place inside a small room, it was quite engaging. A lot of the references are outdated, but the themes are still relevant. Enjoyed it.

Rating: C+

Tangled (2010)

Mildly amusing if you are a small child. Corny and ridiculous for adults with their wits about them. The songs border on capital punishment. Disney is no Pixar.

Rating: D

Kolya (Kolja) (1996)

A charming Czech film about an elderly bachelor and an adorable 5 year old boy. Performances are terrific, with the highlight being the little child actor.

Rating: C+

Fresh (1994)

A gritty 90’s urban drama based around a young black teen. Story is pretty solid, but the street talk gets old quick. I realize they are “keeping it real”, but I can only listen to uneducated gibberish for so long. Enjoyed the parallels between chess and the dangerous game the young lead had set in motion.

Rating: C+

Step Brothers (2008)

Needlessly vulgar, but still pretty dang funny a lot of the time. The drum kit violation was one of my favorite scenes.

Rating: C

Children Underground (2001)

A mostly depressing documentary about Romanian street kids. There aren’t a lot of uplifting documentaries about kids living on the streets. If you are like me, you’ll want to reach inside the screen and deliver beatings to worthless parents and the shop owners who sell them paint to huff. Feeling too happy? This is the cure.

Rating: C

Romper Stomper (1992)

The Australian version of American History X. Russell is great as always. He plays a brutal, nasty character. An excellent film from down under.

Rating: B-

Get The Gringo (2012)

A meandering South of the Border crime caper featuring a cranky Mel Gibson. Nada especial.

Rating: D+

Tadpole (2000)

It was a Sundance audience winner, but didn't make any waves at the box office. Worth viewing for it's subtle humor and characterization.

Rating: C+

Annie Hall (1977)

For years I’ve been meaning to see this early Woody Allen  movie—some say it’s his best film ever.

 I was bored to tears. It’s not funny. It’s not romantic. It’s incredibly self-indulgent. It’s neurotic. Basically, it’s Woody Allen on celluloid. Boggles my mind that some lunatics made it through the entire thing, let alone label it a cinematic masterpiece.

Rating: F

Rescue Dawn (2006)

One of the rare times a movie does justice to a  compelling true story.

Fantastic casting! The actor's commitment to their roles help sell the story without shoving it in your face. The focus was on the characters and how they coped with extremely difficult circumstances.

This is not a war movie, so don't go in expecting to see huge battle scenes. However, the film delivers plenty of heart pounding sequences through its realism and the vested interest you'll develop in the characters.

Rating: B

Tomboy (2011)

The child performances are brilliant, however the pace is very slow and there’s not much to the plot besides a girl acting like a boy.

Rating: C-

13 Going On 30 (2004)

Jennifer Garner lets loose and has a ball portraying a 13 year old girl in the body of a 30 year old woman--a hot woman at that. Very witty and well acted. Enjoyed almost everything they threw at me.

Rating: B-

Cell 211 (Celda 211) (2009)

A Spanish prison film with a fresh twist to the innocent-guy-who-mistakenly-gets-locked-up subgenre. I won’t give anything else away, other than to say it’s a believable premise and executed quite well. I would have preferred a better ending though.

Rating: C+

Cinderella Man (2005)

Together, Ron Howard and Russell Crowe do justice to this compelling true story of a comeback boxer during the Great Depression.

My only complaint: Renée Zellicker sliming her way into a perfectly good movie. Just because you made a deal with the Devil to become famous doesn't mean I should have to pay for it by seeing you on the big screen.

To her credit, she didn't ruin the entire film, just the majority of the scenes she was in. But you can fast forward those without missing anything important to the film. Rot in Hell Renée!

Rating: B-

Stake Land (2010)

You have already settled for an average zombie flick at best, and then some film you have never heard of comes along and proves above average exists. I’m genuinely surprised Stake Land has managed to stay below the radar, because it’s a really good movie. Human survivors face a zombie-vampire hybrid, where your brains are at risk after sunset. Additionally, there are unfriendly groups of humans waiting to prey on you. It’s a nice setup.

What Stake Land manages to do is tell a compelling story, deliver competent acting, and somehow stretch their budget to make the landscape look the way it’s supposed to after society has fallen. I never felt like I was watching a B movie, despite the group of unknown actors. Had they cast a couple mega stars in the lead roles, this would have been a huge hit.

The style resembles that of The Walking Dead series, with a bit of Zombieland’s social dynamic thrown in. I liked how they gave the audience glimpses of the outbreak through old newspapers or magazines lying around. Pacing was just right—dramatic elements mixed with plenty of zombie slaughter. Makes up for the hundred or so average zombie films I've had to sift through before finding this one.

Rating: B-

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

There have been movies in the past that have affected me. Movies like Schindler's List, Braveheart, Awakenings... movies that are powerful, that force me to feel things regardless of whether or not I want to feel them.

Dancer In The Dark made me feel anguish throughout my entire body. My head was pounding. All for a character in a movie. I couldn't help it. My eyes were sore from crying. I haven't cried that much and for so long since my grandpa's funeral. He was the first member of my immediate family to die, and I couldn't handle it. I was a mess that day, and I was the same way from this movie.

It started out innocently enough. Bjork plays the lead so amazingly. She's completely natural and believable. It's a quirky film, and I was never really sure where I was being taken, I just knew we were going somewhere. Like Bjork's character in the film, I was led almost blindly along, enjoying my journey, not realizing where it would end.

The entire cast was fabulous. The movie is part musical (at least in her head), and it didn't bother me one bit. I like Bjork's music, and the songs she sang within the film had so much more meaning, as they related to her character and the story. She should have won an Oscar for this role.

The movie took a sudden, tragic turn without me realizing how tragic it really was. I didn't know how far they were going to take it. I didn't realize how much I had invested in her character. I had no idea they could make an ending so overwhelmingly sad and emotional. It was so beautiful, yet my body was convulsing, tears streaming down my eyes. I could not stop crying. Even after I turned off the TV and went upstairs.

What a horrible and fantastic movie that I will NEVER watch again.


Rating: A

Killer Elite (2011)

Too long, yet not long enough. It felt like a lot of key elements were either glossed over or ignored altogether. And yet, for an action movie, things dragged on well after the audience was ready for a conclusion. Perhaps this would have been better suited for a British mini-series or television drama.

Rating: C