Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

3/5

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is an all right movie. It's very confusing if you haven't read the books, or if haven't seen the other three or four or five or six or however many movies there were that preceded this one, or if you saw them but you don't remember them. I fall in all three of those categories, and it was very confusing for me. I'm not certain of the plot except that there are some wizards and some bad guys and they are fighting each other. Some people think that Harry is the "Chosen One" but others do not--I don't really know what that means though. Voldemort makes an appearance as the child Tom Riddle. Helena Bonham Carter is evil and can fly around as a cloud of smoke, along with some other people who are dressed equally goth. There's a vanishing closet that's really just a portal to another vanishing closet. That's all I can remember about the plot.

I think this movie was really just there for the ending (where something terrible happens, but I can't reveal what or I would "spoil" the movie). Every other part of the movie is essentially just buying time until what I assume will be a final battle between Voldemort and Harry in the last movie (which will be in two parts to milk as much money out of you as they can). It's just kind of simple, mindless nothing. Some of that nothing is boring, some of it is exciting, some of it is scary, and some of it is funny; it's all equally worthless though. I'm fairly certain you could have skipped this movie and gone on to the next one if you wanted. But the movie is an entertaining one. You probably will not be disappointed if you just want to waste 2.5 hours watching something fun.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417741/

The Young Victoria (2009)

4/5

Going into the movie, I did not know anything about The Young Victoria. But it surprised me in ways I never expected a movie like this would. It is a period piece set in the early 1800's, as the young Princess Victoria (Blunt) takes on her role as England's new Queen at the age of 18. New and inexperienced, she enlists the aid of Prince Albert (Friend) of Belgium and the Prime Minister of England Lord Melbourne (Bettany). People become concerned that she may be manipulated to do their bidding, and indeed the political intrigue is present for those who like that kind of thing. She grows close to Prince Albert but appears to trust Lord Melbourne more, and indeed there is romance for those who like that kind of thing. But it does not fit snugly into a single genre, and that is what I liked most about this movie. It is simply a retelling of what happened in Queen Victoria's early life, and does not cater to plot conventions and predictable story arcs.

On to the technical aspects: the costuming, makeup, and set design were appropriately detailed for being a period piece, but this movie had so much more to offer. It is superbly directed. The cinematography is spectacular, made even more captivating by the impeccable editing. As complex as the editing can be, it is never confusing (at least, after the first 30 minutes of learning everyone's name and royalty status). The acting was equally remarkable, especially the sensational performance by Blunt. I had seen her before only in bits and pieces of The Devil Wears Prada, but here she was wholly convincing as the independent, unyielding new Queen. She manages to bring empathy and awe to the role of someone struggling against those who would have her do their bidding (quite the opposite of the puppet that Helen Mirren played in The Queen). However, the movie seemed a bit short and a little incomplete. It felt like a slice of life and, quite frankly, it left me wanting more. This movie is exquisitely crafted and intelligently told. I highly recommend it for those looking for good editing, good writing, or just plain good acting.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0962736/

North by Northwest (1959)

4.9/5

Hitchcock's North by Northwest is a genuinely satisfying movie from start to finish. It is probably not one of Hitchcock's best, but it is certainly one of his most enjoyable. The plot follows everyman Roger Thornhill (Grant) after getting kidnapped by Mr. Vandamm (Mason) and his goons. They have confused him for a spy named George Kaplan and thus attempt to murder him. But he escapes (in an exhilarating and hilarious getaway) and then retaliates by trying to find out who his assailants were and who the real George Kaplan is. But they are one step ahead of him and frame him for murder! He leaves town on a train that is crawling with cops, but he gets to Chicago undetected with the help of Eve Kendall (Saint), who we later learn is not at all the stranger she appears to be.

The plot is surprisingly complicated in its typed-out retelling, but it's actually quite easy to follow when you're watching the movie. That is one of Hitchcock's strengths: to think in the shoes of someone watching the movie for the first time, to tell it exactly according to what they are thinking, and to engage the audience every step of the way. The acting is pitch-perfect as you can expect from the stellar actors. Cary Grant is witty in his jokes and charismatic in his delivery. Eva Marie Saint is just the right amount of sexy in her subtle innuendo without being slutty and just the right amount of hurt in her furious indignation without being melodramatic. The special effects are a bit dated, but they still work because they're not essential to the story/experience--they just add to it. Hitchcock flexes his suspense muscles and puts them to good use in this film. Overall, this is an incredibly engaging and stimulating movie by the true master of suspense.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053125/

Iron Man 2 (2010)

3/5

Iron Man 2 is not quite as good as Iron Man, mostly because it copied the first one and therefore lost the refreshing originality that distinguished that movie from all the other superhero movies. The plot is fairly simplistic (evil Russian physicist Ivan Vanko has a bone to pick with Tony Stark and creates a suit with electric whips to kill him) but it suffices for the genre. There are a number of dumb/inconsistent plot points that make the movie more preposterous and less believable than it already is (e.g., creating a new element by changing how protons, neutrons, and electrons interact; flashing a warning light 30 seconds before the evil drones are set to explode so that the hero can escape). And the tension during the action sequences was completely deflated because the movie basically turned into a straight-up comedy. Instead of caring that the explosions didn't kill the characters we got attached to, it felt like we were watching a CGI demonstration for July 4.

All that being said, the movie is quite enjoyable. It is far funnier than I remember the first one being. (That swinging doohickey was comic genius!) The jokes are well-timed and delivered with aplomb. The acting by all parties met my expectations, although Robert Downey Jr.'s smugness is now starting to get on my nerves a little bit. If you liked the first one, you'll surely like this one, but I'm not envisioning it blowing anyone's socks off. Don't be afraid to wait for it on DVD. Btw, don't bother watching the 5 second snippet at the end. Let me save you the trouble. He finds Thor's hammer. Now you can leave 10 minutes earlier without having to sit through the 9 minute 55 second-long credits. You're welcome.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1228705/

Letters to Juliet (2010)

3/5

Letters to Juliet is the prototypical romantic comedy, from the awkward meet-cute to the conflict between two loves to the cheesy finale. And quite frankly, the formula works. It was a light, enjoyable flick with charismatic characters and playful hearstring-tugging. The story follows Sophie (Seyfried) with her fiancé Victor (García Bernal) in Verona on a pre-wedding honeymoon in preparation for the opening of his new restaurant. Instead of spending time with Sophie, Victor ends up trying all the foods and wines from Italy on his own, while she begins to get involved with the "secretaries of Juliet." Strangers write letters to Juliet and attach them to a wall, and the secretaries collect them all and write back. Sophie finds one letter that had been lost for 50 years and writes back, only to have the original writer Claire (Redgrave) show up with her grandson Charlie (Egan) on a quest for her long-lost love.

As you can imagine (and visibly see in the trailer), the old woman finds her long lost love and the young girl starts to get close to the young boy. I'm sure you can guess how the movie will end, but the point of the movie is precisely that you get exactly what you want out of watching it. I could complain about minor details like the slow pacing, sloppy writing, and confusing camerawork time after time, but the technical details simply don't matter for this movie. The movie's charm is in its inhabitants, and their relationships with each other, and that is really something to cherish about this film. The people are friendly and funny (how Claire treats her grandson, how Victor talks about food) and their connections--while far from unique--are precisely what we want our own connections to be. And that is where this film succeeds; it gives us exactly what we want, and it does so in the beautiful country of Italy.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0892318/

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

2/5

Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a mesmerizing acid-trip of a film, but little more. The plot follows the centuries-old Dr. Parnassus (Plummer) and his troupe of storytellers (Garfield, Troyer, Ledger) as they attempt to free the minds and save the souls of modern-day Londoners through his imaginarium. He must win over 5 souls before the devilish Mr. Nick (Waits) wins over 5 souls as part of a wager to save his daughter (Cole) before she turns 16. Yes, it's fairly convoluted and entirely fantastical, but it is precisely this freedom from rules and expectations that make this movie so exhilarating and captivating. Because it is so bizarre, you never know what happens next or how it will end--you are continually drawn along its winding trail until the very end.

But that is also one of the film's flaws. Sometimes it feels drawn out or scatterbrained. And while it keeps stringing you along, you get the sense that most of the questions you have about what exactly is going on will never be answered. As for the other technical aspects, this film is a mixed bag. The acting is competent (as far as I could tell), but the characters are all so unorthodox and otherworldly that it's hard to appreciate the acting that they're doing. Some aspects of the writing and story are fascinating, but the plot overall is unnecessarily tortuous and confusing. The movie as a whole feels like the work of a mad genius, someone so far ahead of everyone else's reality and so far ahead of modern technology that frustratingly incomplete ideas obscure the underlying brilliance. Either that or Gilliam is just crazy. Gilliam has made much better movies; this is nowhere near his best.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1054606/

The Princess and the Frog (2009)

4/5

Because of some middling comments I had overheard about the movie, I was not expecting to love Disney's classically animated The Princess and the Frog as much as I did, but it is an extraordinary film and a pleasure to watch. The plot follows a young girl in New Orleans named Tiana who wants to turn her dream of running her own restaurant into a reality. Prince Naveen, who was recently cut off from his rich parents, visits New Orleans and is intoxicated by the voodoo doctor's fortunes of wealth. He accepts the shadow man's offer of a future of "green," only later realizing that it meant he would be turned into a frog. He hops on over to Tiana, mistakes her for a princess, and kisses her. Unfortunately, it causes her to turn into a frog as well, instead of turning him back into a prince. The rest of the movie details their quest to turn human again and stop the witch doctor from taking over the town and sucking out everyone's souls.

The movie is visually breathtaking. The 2D animation is sharp and smooth--and quite a refreshing departure from the typical animated film of the late 2000's. The story is captivating from beginning to end. There are scares and triumphs, thrills and laughs, in the perfected proportions that can only come from years of cartooning experience. Granted, there are a few unnecessary scenes/side plots (e.g., the three frog hunters), but they add in some fun, excitement, and drama. The characters are intriguing and charismatic; they draw you close with their friendliness, warmth, and emotion. And the story unfolds like a puzzle that gets slowly put together into an awesome tapestry. The plot is not without a few predictabilities and the music is not without some repetitive or forced dynamics, but on the whole this movie has all the elements you remembered and loved about the best Disney movies of the 1990's.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780521/

Kick-Ass (2010)

3/5

Kick-Ass tells the story of a normal high schooler (Johnson) who reads comic books and wonders why no insane prepubescent kid has ever tried being a superhero like in the comics. So he decides to try it. And gets his ass kicked. So bad, in fact, that most of his body is replaced by metal plates and his nerve endings are destroyed. But he gets videotaped defending a stranger and becomes famous via YouTube and MySpace, which attracts the attention of two real life superheros: Big Daddy (Cage) and Hit-Girl (Moretz). Things spin wildly out of control and what started as an experiment quickly turns deadly.

The movie has graphic violence and language. Their presence in and of itself does not concern me. What bugs me is that they use it repetitively for comic effect and, quite frankly, it gets old. Hearing an 11-year-old girl swear is only (potentially) funny the first time. As is seeing her disembowel someone; seeing it more than once makes it seem like she has a weird fetish or something. The piece's writing was fairly solid. The jokes were great (although some were quite predictable) and Cage's intonation and prosody were absolutely hilarious. The acting was surprisingly good. However, Kick-Ass's real life relationship just didn't strike me as very compelling or original. I just didn't care about what was going on in his personal life. All in all, however, this movie is engaging and exciting. It takes a relatively old genre and spins it in a new direction. And it does so with humor and no sense of boundary. And for that it deserves at least some credit.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1250777/

New Moon (2009)

1/5

New Moon is a bad movie. This is the extent to which I know the plot: the vampire (Pattinson) makes up some reason to leave the town, which of course makes the pale girl (Stewart) depressed. She starts getting closer with her werewolf neighbor (Lautner) and then has to choose between them. There's little else in the 2+ hour movie, although I did learn a few things during the course of watching it. First, Kristen Stewart is ugly when she cries. I think she's ugly all the time, but apparently that sentiment is not as universally shared as I thought. Second, Taylor Lautner has a fairly fit physique. I know this because EVERY SINGLE SCENE with him in it had him shirtless. Kyle thinks his back muscles make him look like a camel or something. Third, Robert Pattinson has kind of a grotesque, gargoylish, sickly frame that makes me think he should see a doctor for anorexia or heroin addiction. Fourth, the CGI werewolves looked like they have really fat necks. It was weird. Oh, and I presume the director had a call for extra pauses, and asked the male pauses to have sex with the female pauses, because there are a bajillion pregnant pauses in this movie intended to simulate fierce thinking and emo angst. Nearly half an hour is wasted on long, drawn out dialogue where the teenagers cannot find the words they want to say. The movie has a lot of forced writing, forced acting, and forced action. It's a round peg of a book being forced into a square hole of a movie. I can't wait for the third one!

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259571/

3 Ninjas (1992)

3/5

3 Ninjas is a movie I loved as a kid. I would watch and rewatch it--much like I would Austin Powers--and reenact scenes with my brother. Watching it again, I was amazed to realize how many sequences and jokes I remembered. (The boingy sound effects add so much replay value, especially with alcohol.) The plot follows three young kids (Treanor, Slade, Power) who are trained by their grandfather (Wong) in ninja martial arts. Their father (McRae) is an FBI agent who is trying to catch a nuclear weapons transporter (Kingsley). The bad guy has three surfer doofuses try to kidnap them, but they fight back like a cooler version of Home Alone. This is a movie with plot holes, shallow characters, and ridiculous improbabilities. But it's a fun, silly movie that's worth a quick 90 minutes if you used to watch it and wanted to reminisce on your childhood.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103596/