Hugo

Yeah, yeah, its Martin Scorsese doing a 3-D kid's film about the wonder of cinema, lets all line up around the block and pay homage. Snark aside, the film is fine, though not as monumental as some of the hype (but not the box office) would suggest. It does try a little too hard to generate whimsy at times, and the Sascha Baren Cohen character is just a distraction, but overall its watchable, though I don't see it becoming an enduring holiday classic along the lines of Die Hard 2 or Rocky 4.

That said the film trotted out one trope that just annoys me every time I see it. At the very end one of the main character gets up to get a speech at an event meant to honor him. Now this event (a hog-tying ceremony) is attended by hundreds of people who undoubtedly paid a lot of money to go, so they have a reasonable expectation of some sort of coherent remarks. What they actually get is one of those speeches that exist solely in films, where the character gives a speech not only directed at one other character in the audience, but delivers it in such a manner that everyone else who hadn't been intimately involved in the plot for the last two hours would have been completely lost and have no idea of what he was talking about. It was basically something like this:

"Well I wouldn't be here tonight if it weren't for the courage of one person who did that one thing with the thing and then made a end around this other thing event though he wanted this thing. Now come and Dream with me.'

This is of course greeted with rapturous applause even though nobody there would have any idea what he was talking about. Its perfectly possible to give a speech thanking individual people while still being entertaining (as an example do not watch the Academy Award acceptance speeches). Just once I'd love a crowd in a movie to give ones that don't the tepid responses they actually deserve.

Melancholia

Alright before I get into the review I need to be perfectly clear that I was really not in the right mood to see this kind of film. I went in distracted, and really only went because its been on a bunch of best of lists and I wanted to get it in before it got pulled from the theatres. I wholeheartedly acknowledge that my reaction might change if I see it again in a better frame of mind.

Okay now that the preliminaries out of the way lets get to it. Melancholia is an incredibly bleak film. And not 'wow that was intense' bleak, but tediously bleak. It opens with the titular planet destroying the earth in super slow motion, and then jumps back in time a few months to lead us back to that moment. The rest of the film focuses on four characters (two sisters, a husband, and a son) in one location - a manor in some indeterminate location. We then get two hours of watching a mentally ill woman (Kirsten Dunst) act really sad, and then everything ends. Plus the main point seems to be that everything is meaningless so just accept our destruction (and yes I'm being intentionally flippant). That's not my issue since I've seen other films powerfully make this same point, but they did it in a much more engaging manner. I had at least six indiglo moments during the runtime, and spent the rest of the time fidgeting (granted that can probably be attributed to the meth, but still).

Now its not a worthless film. I liked the matter a fact way it approached the end of the earth, and the performances, such that they are, are good (I would go so far to say this is Dunst's best performance since Bring it On). Still I can't get past the fact that it was just really pedantic and tedious, which ended up overwhelming its positive elements.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

TTSS (see what I did there) is an incredibly mannered film. Almost to a fault. It takes great pains to tell this story about the search for a Russian mole in the British Intelligence Service in the most calm and deliberate manner possible. There aren't any histrionics, very little action, and almost no raised voices. This is all fine, but as a result it takes about an hour to get going and almost falls over the brink into complete tedium. Thankfully the performances keep that from happening, and once the story gets moving the film coalesces into a reasonably engaging spy thriller. It doesn't reinvent the genre, but its worth checking out. Just with the proviso that the first half is really slooooow.

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

I saw this in IMAX so I could watch the first six minutes of the Dark Knight Rises, and it was worth it. As for Mission Impossible, I generally enjoyed it. Unusually for a sequel, its actually the best of the series (though to be fair the first two were really not good), and director Brad Bird has a nice touch balancing the inherent ridiculousness of the subject matter with some very well-executed set pieces. Unlike its predecessors this installment actually has a sense of humor about itself and thankfully, pretty much, abandons the trope of everybody wearing a mask to explain any plot development. Speaking of the plot, its pretty much just an excuse to deliver the action, which it does well, but its engaging enough to keep everything from getting boring. Incredibly deep its not, but in general its a well-crafted action film which is saying something given a lot of what is floating around out there.

Okay, I think that's it with blockbusters. I'm hopefully going to knock out some Oscar contenders over the next couple of weeks to restore my artistic credibility (says the guys whose written about 30,000 words recapping One Tree Hill episodes).

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

So I haven't read the books, or seen the swedish original. Other than a passing knowledge of the main character I really came into the film uninformed so I think I can actually give a pretty clean opinion. Basically I just found the film to be okay, but ultimately flawed. Oh its watchable, but I found the central mystery to be pretty run of the mill and uninteresting. This is a big problem since much of the film's (two hour and forty minute) run-time is devoted to trying to find this girl that went missing from a family of a bunch of rich ex nazis 30 years ago. Since I didn't substantially care what happened this left me just sort of feeling kind of 'meh' at the resolution.

That said, I think Lisabeth is actually a pretty interesting character, and I'll check out the subsequent films just to see if they can do anything substantial with her. It didn't interest me enough to check out the books though which I think indicates its ultimate failure.

Also, this has been pointed out elsewhere, there is a scene that will absolutely change the way you listen to Enya (which I know you all do, you are only human).

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows

I generally enjoyed the first Sherlock Holmes film, but this one just kind of left me feeling blase. It had all the elements that made its predecessor enjoyable, but just in greater quantities and amped up to 11. Here's an example of what I mean. At one point we learn that Holmes is afraid to ride a horse. Smash cut to next scene of everyone riding a regular horse, followed by Holmes on what can best be described as Li'l Sebastian . So okay that's moderately amusing once, but its repeated about four more times in a row, and the returns diminish quickly. This is the main problem with the rest of the film as I eventually just got tired of watching bullet time sequence after sequence, and wondering what just happened. By the time we got to the ending denouement, I had stopped caring much at all.

Just so this isn't a complete rip job, I will say I still generally enjoyed Downey's portrayal, and could still some potential for future films of the series. Its not as much of a step down as the Pirates of the Carribean sequels were, but its still a step down all the same.

Bonus: Exit Through the Gift Shop

I finally caught up with this documentary from 2010, and I really enjoyed it. Its an interesting look at street art, and also functions as an almost satirical look at the art world in general. Its well worth checking out.

The Muppets/The Descendants and a bonus because it took me so long to write this post

I actually started this post two weeks ago, and now I"m no longer motivated to write something coherent. So there's that.

The Muppets

Don't you dare say anything bad about the Muppets. They're consistently one of the few forms of children's entertainment that can walk that fine line between genuine sentimentality and cloying, without becoming annoying. This film pretty much continues that. If you liked the old muppets stuff, you'll enjoy this, if you didn't you probably think Thomas Kinkade makes great art.

And Jason Segal is pretty much a real life muppet so he fits in well.

The Descendants

I've come to the conclusion that Alexander Payne just doesn't work for me. I sort of get, intellectually, why people go crazy for his films (Election, About Schmidt, Sideways) but they always just end up leaving me cold. Its not that there un-watchable, in fact they're generally well acted and have some moments of real humor, its just that I never really end up caring about the characters and spend most of the proceedings disengaged.

The Descendants takes place over the few weeks after George Clooney's wife is thrown into a coma after a boating accident. He soon learns that she was cheating on him before the accident, and on top of all that, he's dealing with selling 25 million acres of pristine Hawaiian wilderness that his family owns. Not quite hilarity, soul searching, and Matthew Lilliard ensue.

The preceding two paragraphs are what I wrote two weeks ago. Its how I still feel, and I can't really be bothered to write more. The film didn't make angry, it just left me cold and kind of restless. If you liked it that's fine, I just think I'm done trying get Alexander Payne.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

Saw it on a plane, pretty contrived and forgettable, though it does have some appealing performances. Don't go out of your way to see it.