litrock (Level 18)

Seen 1/2. A charming French romantic comedy about a woman obsessed with cooking who is suddenly made to care for her orphaned niece. Sweet and whimsical, without being twee, the way the best French comedies are.

Seen 1/3. I haven't revisited Insomnia since I saw it in theaters. In many ways it is the most obscure Nolan movie (maybe moreso than The Following), but upon revisiting it I found it surprisingly compelling. The ideas Nolan cares about most--identity, subjective truth, self-image--are all in full effect here.

Seen 1/3. The Polanski classic. I have to admit I'm not sure what I thought of this. The gender politics are so outdated to the point that they feel archaic, but Mia Farrow's disintegration is pretty harrowing to watch. Proto-body horror with a feminist bent hiding behind the religious thriller facade.

Seen 1/3. Like most Italian horror movies this plays out like a fever dream. More romantic than gory, Cemetery Man is surprisingly touching and heartfelt, even when it involves zombies on motorcycles.

Seen 1/3. The best teen comedy since Mean Girls, and maybe as far back as Clueless. Easy A is clever and packed full of great actors putting in memorable performances. These are the kinds of comedies I wish the world had more of.

Seen 1/4. Notable for Ian McKellen in the titular role and its fascist 1930s setting, this Richard III adaptation turns a character piece into an epic. It's powerful stuff, and McKellen owns this role.

Seen 1/4. I always thought The Motion Picture was a big, boring mess, and that's still kind of true, but upon rewatching it I was struck by how beautiful it all is. It is the only movie that feels like an expansion of the show it came from. Also, spaceship porn.

Seen 1/5. Herzog documentary about the deaf-blind. Early Herzog, it contains less of his madness and more of a straightforward, down to earth approach to something that is incredibly hard to imagine and relate to.

Seen 1/5. Rewatched this for the first time since theaters for my Scorsese project. Surprised at how well it holds up when one knows the twist. The same film feels consistent, but with new motivations for most of the characters.

Seen 1/5. Part of the Scorsese project. One of the best uses of color correction in a film I've ever seen. Good movie, though I found Blanchett's Hepburn to be jarringly inconsistent. Sometimes it was too perfect, others just Blanchett in a role. DiCaprio's work with Scorsese is amazing.

Seen 1/5. Weird metaphysical mystery movie starring Ryan Reynolds. I ended up being impressed by it, despite it starting slow. Felt weirdly like The Fountain meets The Melancholy Life of Suzumiya Haruhi, if you can wrap your head around THAT elevator pitch.

Seen 1/6. A YOUNG Jeff Daniels stars in this Woody Allen movie about a character who gets fed up with being in his movie and exits the screen for the real world. The actor who plays him shows up to convince him to go back. It's like if Last Action Hero was a romantic comedy, but good.

Seen 1/7. The LARP documentary. Pretty amazing, actually. Found it both touching and respectful to the source material and insightful into what drives a person to become the type of person who LARPs.

Seen 1/7. Had a good time with this one. Not a huge fan of redneck stuff, be it pro or con, but Burt Reynolds delivers as a believable smooth talking bastard.

Seen 1/8. How do you waste the power of Our Greatest Living Actor? Put him in a shitty period movie that doesn't know what it wants to be and tell him to not act crazy. A tragedy on every level.

Seen 1/9. I never thought about it, but outside of Halloween there really isn't much devoted to the holiday like Christmas seems to have. This is a pretty amazing entry, a darkly comic riff on Creepshow-esque horror and the traditions of the season.

Seen 1/9. The worst TOS movie. What does God need with a starship indeed. Still better than most of the TNG movies.

Seen 1/10. Silly British comedy starring Maggie Smith as a woman who kills people. That was enough to get me in the door. Unremarkable, but it passed a lazy afternoon well.

Seen 1/10. I'm a big fan of Cronenberg, but this one just didn't click for me. Maybe it was that all of its themes were totally invalidated by the shock culture of the internet. Maybe I'm okay watching James Woods make out with a malleable TV. Who can say.

Seen 1/11. Surprised at how awesome this is. Robocop is badass, down to his bass thumping footsteps and his old school, do-gooder heroism. It doesn't hurt that his theme is among the best.

Seen 1/11. Old school JCVD could throw down. Especially when he was leaping through time fighting crooked politicians for the love of Mia Sara. I mean, wouldn't you? More than that Bueller shit ever did.

Seen 1/12. Motherfuckin' Chev Chelios. If you don't know, find out. If you know, then you KNOW. Fuck yeah Crank.

Seen 1/12. I love the DC animated stuff. They are the best superhero movies ever made, far better than almost all of the live action stuff out there. This one is a Supergirl origin story, which I thought would be dull but turned out to be pretty compelling. Also, the best version of Wonder Woman I've ever seen on film.

Seen 1/12. Surprised at how funny this movie was. I was going in expecting a grunt-fest, and got something self-aware and lighthearted. Also, Arnold kills some guys by throwing circular saw blades like shuriken. That counts for a lot.

Seen 1/13. I'll admit it: I hate The Shining. I think it's overly long and poorly paced and none of the scares work. I was actively wishing for the deaths of the wife and child 20 minutes in. In the end, I really hoped that Jack Nicholson would bash everyone's head right the fuck in, including my own for having to sit through all of that mess.

Seen 1/13. A small character drama starring Peter Dinklage and Patricia Clarkson, The Station Agent is the story of a man (Dinklage) who is left a small abandoned railway station by his last remaining friend. Making it his home, he befriends other lonely, broken people. It sounds a bit precious, but it isn't. Well worth the time.

Seen 1/14. Gondry does Hollywood, though I wish he wouldn't. I love his whimsical stories of arrested manchildren, but wrapped in an action movie it feels a bit overstretched. The funny is good, the whimsy is solid, but the action suffers. As a comedy I feel it hits more than it misses.

Seen 1/14. A dark comedy about children's programming. I love when Robin Williams plays dark. He does it so well. This is grand farce, on a certain level, so it takes a certain comedic taste, but I loved its bleak/heartwarming take on how adults view children's things.

Seen 1/16. Part of the Scorsese project. A sprawling epic probably better known for its setting and design than its story, Gangs is good but not great. It seems a bit overambitious, but there really isn't much else like it out there. Worth seeing just for the history on display.

Seen 1/16. Part of the Scorsese project, his second film which was a direct-for-hire exploitation movie about a woman on the run. Full of sex and violence, and one of the most impressively overpowered shotguns I've ever seen in a movie. Not good, but exploitation doesn't need to be good.

Seen 1/16. Part of the Scorsese project. His first film, also known as Who's That Knocking On My Door, starring a shockingly young Harvey Keitel as a young man unable to deal with the revelation that his girlfriend has been raped. A bleak look at Catholic guilt, a theme that shows up in many of his later movies.

Seen 1/16. A documentary without kayfabe, the story of Bret Hart's retirement from then-WWF and the decline of the WWF in the 90s. Anyone who has ever cared about pro-wrestling should watch this one.

Seen 1/20. Jimmy Stewart as a man who sees an imaginary human-sized rabbit, and the reactions of everyone around him. This ended up being good, despite the screwball premise. It is the best movie ever with a man-sized rabbit. Yeah, better than Donnie Darko.

Seen 1/21. Aliens. Also known as the Avatar prequel. This one set up space marines, the future of Michelle Rodriguez, and the pacing of modern blockbusters to come. If you haven't seen it, what the hell are you doing on a movie website?

Seen 1/21. Heavily influence by the McKellen Richard III, this Macbeth is set in an abstract version of WWII-era Britain. Startling in its imagery, an older Macbeth makes the whole play feel different than usual adaptations of the work.

Seen 1/22-1/23. Mainlined the first season of Community over the weekend of the 22nd. In short: It's awesome. I don't really watch TV weekly, but I'll pick up Season 2 the instant it's out.

Seen 1/23. Japanese movie about four players of a futuristic MMO-style game and their efforts to kill an unkillable boss. Weird, distopian, and more style than story. But if you want Japanese ladies in crazy outfits with giant guns, it'll hook you up.

Seen 1/24. Part of the Scorsese project. Scorsese takes on the early life of the Dalai Lama, from his discovery at age 2 to his exile into India. A surprisingly reverent look at the lost Buddhist legacy of Tibet, coming from a man who usually directs films very down on religion. Beautiful and epic like few films are, with a great otherworldy score by Philip Glass.

Seen 1/24. This is the live action version of Cars. Take from that what you will. I found the rose-colored look at small town life a little outright biased in this, but it was fun enough. Michael J Fox is too great to have his career so abbreviated.

Seen 1/24. Spielberg said that all war movies are anti-war movies. I tend to believe that. Watching this was harrowing.

Seen 1/27. I was surprised at how early the most famous sequence (the sewer drain standoff) occurs in this movie. Despite its kind of silly premise and too-pat ending, it was a surprisingly fun journey.

Seen 1/31. Woody Allen continues to impress with small films about smart adults acting like people actually act in real life. I found myself far more interested in the B Plot of this one, Woody Allen as a TV producer going through an existential crisis.

Seen 2/1. For how attractively its shot, this movie was dumb. Too brutal, not enough character beats, just 90 minutes of stuff happening that's all very violent but not very impactful. It's not a dumb movie, but it's very hollow feeling.

Seen 2/1. A weird Woody Allen tribute to German expressionist films, this movie feels like a waking dream. I kind of adored its utter disregard for logic, but sometimes it edges dangerously close to complete nonsense.

Seen 2/1. Part of the Scorsese project. A trio of short films, one by Scorsese, one by Francis Ford Coppola, one by Woody Allen. The Scorsese one is fantastic, with the best Nick Nolte performance I've ever seen. The Woody Allen one is pretty classic Allen. But the Coppola one is genuinely TERRIBLE, with one of the worst child actors I've ever seen dragging down what was already a misguided attempt at boring whimsy.