The Hurt Locker

Although certain sequences felt long upon my second viewing, it’s still highly emotional, visceral, and entertaining movie. Performances by Anthony Mackie and Jeremy Renner still grip, further eliminating a desire for a typical plot. There’s something special about this movie.

500 Days of Summer

Beautifully directed but heartbreaking to watch, the filmmakers understand the agony, the miscommunications and the mixed signals of love. Zoe Deschenel perfectly portrays "Summer", the guarded, aloof, dangerous woman -- always smiling, but never open, never giving. She tells Joseph Gordon-Levitt she's not interested in a “relationship” but then she proceeds to make out with him. She goes so far as to co-opt his secret meditative place, only to ambush him and blame the relationship failures on HIM. For his part, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who's great in everything he touches lately, combines broad comedy and tragic emo rejection with great skill. The direction is unique and playful, sampling a variety of gimmicks to keep the story moving: voice of God narration, split screen, funky locations (Ikea) and even a zany Ally McBeal-ish music number. The movie's obsessed with architecture, but ironically the plot's non-linear, which also keeps us on our toes. It's all sugar to get us through what is ultimately a very cynical portrait of a doomed romance. But it's crafty, the story is worthy, and the acting is strong. Not really a date movie, though.

Orphan

It’s The Bad Seed meets Gaslight meets, I dunno, Sleepaway Camp? And sure, there’s a twist. But no twist, no matter how good, is worth what one must endure watching Orphan. It’s excruciating. It’s God-awful, and not in a “fun” way. In a worse-than-Transformers, I-can’t-wait-for-this-to-end, I’d-rather-be-at-the-dentist way. And it’s not even that the concept’s bad, or the acting for that matter. It’s the disrespect shown by the director to the audience. It’s the arrogance of wrongly assuming we’ve never seen any of these cheap startle tactics before. It’s the arrogance of making this horrific experience 123 minutes long, when it should have been 93. There’s nothing worse than terrible, unironic horror movies. I strongly dissuade! Yuck!

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

The media at large claims this 6th movie is darker and more serious than the previous ones. Translation: slow. Very few truly essential events happen to Harry this time around. There’s a lot of teen angst. Lots of snogging. Possibly some wanking. Though it’s funny to see Ron befuddled by a love spell, it’s pretty frivolous when your best friend, the chosen one, must shoulder the responsibility of killing the most evil wizard who ever lived. For his part, Harry listens well to Dumbledore and follows his orders, but it’s hard to tell if that sways the price of tea in China. I’ve stopped reading the books, so I don’t know what’s going to happen from this point on. I only hope something exciting happens with Snape. Rowling et al have MILKED his shiftiness and mysteriousness to death ten times over. It better pay off, or I’m going to be CHEESED to high heaven!

Blood: The Last Vampire

Really goofy Hong Kong, Japanese, French and Argentinean co-production featuring a vampire Samurai, played by a Korean, who protects an American girl in Tokyo from marauding demons. It’s in English, but the actors who play the Americans are all from Australia or something and they all sound weird. There are excellent and surreal sword fighting massacres set in a hyper-real dream world. Thick purple blood sprays liberally across the hilariously gruesome kabuki canvass. The hero is, of course, uniformed as one of those fetishy Japanese school girls, and the creep in me hopes she and the American girl are eventually going to get it on. But this gory vampire samurai movie is too classy for that. Should you be in the mood to get out of the multiplex and see a foreign film, and you want to broaden your horizons (i.e. turn off your brain), you won’t be bored.

Bruno

Bruno is a gay man who likes to fuck with people. If you DON’T DO everything Bruno asks, and respond favorably to his advances, you are a homophobic bigot. If you DO play along, you are a fool. Bruno wins either way. Bruno is a genius who's hung like a mule. But he’s not really all that funny. This lacked genuine, honest reactions. Every one of Bruno’s foils seemed over-blown and put-on. The exceptions to this, a well-meaning Karate instructor, a freakishly chauvinistic de-gayer, and a nervous Justice of the Peace are all good for a laugh and hold up the requisite mirror to society. But the outrage about checking his baby at the airport (especially with all the cameras around) seems pretty justified, and unfortunately, Ron Paul will probably never grant anyone an interview ever again, which is sad and not so hilarious.

Dead Snow

Although it takes a while to get the zombies on screen, it’s everything you could possibly want in a Nazi zombie movie. It dutifully follows many of the recipe’s tried and true steps, all while adding a fresh Norse flair. Lots of laughs, lots of gore, and lots of Nazi zombies. A strong addition to the art-house zombie lexicon, joining the likes of Sean of the Dead, Zombie Strippers, and Black Sheep.

Public Enemies

Video has arrived! Hazaah! But I’ll be damned if a lot of this movie doesn’t look fake. Why? I’m not sure. Why shouldn’t a period gangster movie look like an episode of Cops? Why must period movies be sepia-tone and desaturated? Nevertheless Michael Mann’s lust for video yields mostly distractions in what is otherwise a well-written and well-acted action/drama. And when the cinematography is attention-getting enough to be distracting, that’s BAD. It’s unfortunate because the movie strikes an interesting juxtaposition between the fledgling FBI "good" guys trying to catch some thugs, and the very thuggish methods they resort to.