Suspiria (1977)

Rococco and dreamlike. Scary? Troubling.

Michael Clayton (2007)

Hollywoodland (2006)

Any chance you get to see Bob Hoskins in a dramatic role is well worth your time, and he's great here.

Affleck's damn good too.

Also with Diane Lane, Adrien Brody, and this chick from The Craft.

Superbad (2007)

Superokay.

Killer of Sheep (1977)

I've wanted to see this since I first read about it, probably in 1980.

I saw it on DVD two weeks ago. I watched it again on TCM Monday night.

I'd watch it again tomorrow. If it was eight hours long, that would be fine with me.

It's a beautiful film, visually just a series of astonishments.

The episode with the engine block says more about poverty than anything I've ever seen anywhere.

Hey, watch for it on TCM next year on Martin Luther King Day!

Recommended.

Anthony Lane

One great virtue of “The Orphanage” is its surfeit of women. We have just crawled to the end of a lopsided year in which many of the most popular movies, as well as those which are now straightening their ties and preparing for the awards season, suffered a kind of female elision. I thought Kelly Macdonald worked hard, and stirringly, to fight her corner in “No Country for Old Men,” but in the end the movie found too little time for her, and, as for “American Gangster” and “There Will Be Blood,” you would struggle to remember a single female face amid the tough guys. The most prominent woman was Katherine Heigl, round-bellied from her drunken rumpus in “Knocked Up,” a film that under the cover of its filthy patter marked a dismal retreat, cranking back the cause of women—not so much their social or sexual status as their raison d’être—to a stage so primitive that Hollywood sought to outgrow it decades ago. Carole Lombard would have taken one sip of a film like that and tipped it down the sink.

in this week's New Yorker

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters for DVD (2007)

This opens with the following subtitle:

EGYPT

ONE MILLION YEARS AGO


That's probably the funniest thing in the movie.

Primer (2004)

I watched this a little over a year ago and admired it, but had trouble following the storyline in the last third.

I watched it again a couple days ago -- same outcome.

If anyone knows for certain what happens in Act 3, please write.

Hostel (2006)

Hey, isn't this movie supposed to be hateful?

I let the marketing and editorializing keep me away until now, and watched it expecting to stop it well before the end.

All of the hand-wringing was way off-base: Hostel is really just a well-constructed little thriller. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

What the hell. Recommended.

I Am Legend (2007)

With a different script -- and maybe Josh Brolin instead of Will Smith, and the mood of the first half hour maintained throughout -- this could've been great.

No Country For Old Men (2007)

Brilliant, then not.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005)

Remember Fingers, a James Toback film from the seventies starring Harvey Keitel?

Neither do I. And now I've forgotten this French remake I watched a couple months ago.

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

The opening scenes may lead to you believe you're in for a dirty good time, but don't be fooled.

Prepare to suffer.

The Lives of Others (2007)

I don't know...for most of its running time, this feels like an Afterschool Special about the Stasi. A bit simple. And are the actors playing characters who've grown used to keeping their reactions tamped down...or are they just not very expressive (not good actors) to begin with? Then comes the coda and, I promise you, your eyes will well up.

The Triplets of Belleville (2003)

The pathos is undercut by the eerieness, the eerieness is undercut by the humor. Really one of a kind.

Recommended.

100 Posts

P2 (2007)

Another genuine B movie?: a thriller, no one in it, no one went to see it, gone before I had the chance. I'll bet it's good.

Dark Water (2005)

Not truly scary -- but moody and good-looking.

Battle Royale (2000)

An entire class of Japanese students is dispatched to a remote island and ordered, under threat of death, to kill one another.

Completely engaging nonsense.

Snakes On A Plane (2006)

Proof you can't set out to make a bad movie.