What I Think About Movies I've Seen

Nic and Jules (Annette Benning and Julianne Moore) are lovers who each decided to have kids via artificial insemination from the same donor. Their kids Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson) have always been curious about their biological father, but their moms haven't had any interest in learning anything about him. When Joni turns 18, Laser convinces her to contact the sperm bank, who in turn gets in touch with their father, Paul (Mark Ruffalo). The kids meet with him and it goes well, but when their moms find out they are a bit hurt but decide that they want to meet him as well.

This is a good movie and probably deserves the critical praise that it's getting. However, I didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped. It puts out too much of an artsy / hippie / organic / new age vibe for my taste. I also didn't find the relationship between Nic and Jules very believable, since they didn't seem to have much in common and were constantly arguing, and the few scenes in which they were happy together didn't seem very natural. While I enjoyed the performances by Mia Wasikowska and Mark Ruffalo, I didn't care for the character written for Annette Benning and only felt so-so about Julianne Moore's. Josh Hutcherson's character was too flat to get any real impression of him.

I also felt that many of the jokes didn't work as well as they could have. Several of them were spoiled in the trailer, and on several occasions it seems like they didn't know when to quit. Often, something which started off funny quickly became awkward and even uncomfortable when they took it too far. Ultimately, it feels like it could have been a great movie if they had made some better choices in writing and editing.

Evelyn Salt (played by Angelina Jolie) is one of the CIA's top agents. As a child, she lived with her parents at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, so she's fluent in Russian and familiar with their culture. As such, she specializes in Russian intelligence. One day, an elderly Russian man comes into the CIA with the intent to defect. He claims that Evelyn is actually a Russian sleeper agent who intends to kill the Russian president when he's in the United States in order to help install a new Russian government. Although they act quickly to lock things down while they try to sort it out, it's not fast enough for Evelyn who escapes to go check on her husband and try to prove a way that she's innocent.

This movie marries Bourne-style action with a Manchurian Candidate-style plot (and interestingly, Liev Schreiber is in both this movie and the 2004 rehash of The Manchurian Candidate). It's not on the same level as either of those movies, but nevertheless it's still pretty fun. It's a little over 90 minutes long, but it feels pretty short because there's a lot of action and not a lot of downtime. It's also not as predictable as I had expected going in, and there's more to the movie than is depicted in the trailer. Perhaps what is most surprising about it is that Angelina Jolie manages to keep her clothes on for the entire movie.

Lenny is a divorced father who gets to spend two weeks a year with his rather young kids. He's also incredibly self-centered, irresponsible, and very foolish which doesn't make for a great combination when that time rolls around. He pawns them off on someone else whenever possible, leaves them alone for extended periods of time, drags them to work with him, and sends them on errands by themselves in New York City. Whenever there's a decision to be made, he generally picks the worst possible option.

I absolutely hated this movie. There really isn't anything to like about it. It doesn't really have a plot other than perhaps to show how many times a man can seriously screw up over a two-week period. Lenny is completely unlikeable, as are many of the other characters. The scenes are disjoint with little or know transition between them, and several of them seem to have no purpose whatsoever. The camera work is awful. The consequences of Lenny's bad decisions are obvious well in advance, so the movie becomes boring, predictable, and pretty uncomfortable. It's only 100 minutes long, but it felt much longer than that. I had expected to like it from all of the positive ratings I had seen, but now I'm just puzzled about how anyone could.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Roger Nygard had difficulty reconciling the many religions and philosophies of the world, especially those which seem to be in stark opposition to each other. How is it that there can be so many different belief systems which are so different? To help him answer that, he decided to make a documentary in which he talks with people from a variety of backgrounds to help better understand things. This includes speaking with a number of religious leaders, scientists, academics, and followers to see what they had to say.

This is an interesting, informative, and provocative documentary, but it is also flawed. Even though Nygard said that one of the triggers for this investigation was the attack initiated by Islamic fundamentalists, Islam was conspicuously absent from the film. He travels all across the United States, and to various places in Europe, Israel, India, and China, but he doesn't talk with anyone associated with the religion that supposedly spurred his investigation. It also seems that his investigation of Christianity is somewhat odd, as his primary subjects (a very confrontational "fire and brimstone" evangelist, a WWF-style wrestling team, and his inability to get an audience with the pope) aren't very representative of the religion as a whole. Finally, one of his interviewees for atheism was a seventh-grade student who, although impressively thoughtful and well-spoken, does not have any real credentials as far as I can tell and seems to be a strange choice. Nevertheless, the documentary does its job and at least spurs you to think about what you believe and why.

In this sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth Salander has just returned to Sweden from vacationing all over the world. She decides to stop in on Nils Bjurman, her court-appointed guardian to make sure that he's keeping up his end of the bargain in which he gives her complete autonomy and periodically files positive reports in exchange for Lisbeth not releasing the video of him raping her. She arrives in the middle of the night while he's sleeping and while rooting around his apartment, Lisbeth finds a gun, which she uses for extra intimidation when she wakes him up to let him know that she's keeping her eye on him. Unfortunately, in doing so, she puts her fingerprints on the weapon that will be used to kill Bjurman and two other people, making her the prime suspect. Now she must stay under the radar while trying to figure out who actually killed them and how to clear her name.

This is a movie that I was very excited to see. I loved The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and everyone I know who had read the books said that The Girl Who Played with Fire was better than the first. I haven't read the second book, but am most of the way through first, and although it's cliche to say it, the book is better than the movie. I'm guessing that's even more true with the second one, because although I did like the movie, it lacked the intensity of the first, and was even slower to develop. There were also a couple of things in the second movie that built on something explained in the first book but weren't depicted in the first movie, although I don't think that it's necessary to read the first book in order to follow the second movie.

Ultimately, I think that I had built up expectations for this movie to the point where it would have been hard for anything to live up to them. I'm definitely looking forward to watching it again, but since I fully expect to finish the first book and make it through the second within the next couple of weeks, I should be able to hold off on rewatching this movie until I've made it through the book.

Medicine has progressed to the point where one person has the ability to enter the dream of another, and can even have interaction with the dream. Not only can the second person see the dream world that the first has created, but they can even make changes to it. It is important to not make too many changes, though, because the dream's originator may figure out that something isn't right and could try to find and attack the intruder. Cobb and Arthur (Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are very skilled at entering others' dreams but they generally use that ability to steal their secrets in order to use that information in the real world.

One day, Cobb and Arthur are approached by a businessman named Saito (Ken Watanabe) who wants to hire them for a slightly different purpose. He doesn't want them to steal information from someone else, but rather he wants them to plant an idea inside the head of one of his competitors (Fischer, played by Cillian Murphy) that will dramatically alter his future decisions. This is a much more complicated and dangerous task than they had previously undertaken, particularly when they find that Fischer has had training to detect and defend himself against people manipulating him through his dreams.

This is a complex movie that will likely take multiple viewings to fully comprehend because there is so much to take in. This certainly isn't the first movie in which one person is able to invade the dreams of another, but it does make some interesting departures from the typical formula, and it does so with breathtaking effects and a very intricate plot. It doesn't always take the predictable route (although occasionally it does), and I found myself constantly working to try to figure out where they were going.

This is a very good movie, but I don't think that it quite lives up to all of the hype that it's gotten. I definitely don't think that this is Christopher Nolan's best work, and I would also say that about several members of the cast. There are also some discrepancies that I don't think were adequately addressed that make it hard for me to analyze the plot to the depth that I would like. I don't think that those discrepancies are necessarily the kind that would be resolved by seeing it again, but I will probably try.

Many centuries ago, Merlin had three apprentices: Balthazar (Nicolas Cage), Veronica (Monica Bellucci), and Horvath (Alfred Molina). Morgana was Merlin's nemesis and wanted to cast a powerful spell that could wake all evil sorcerers from the dead and enslave all of humanity. Working in cahoots with Horvath, she was able to get the best of Merlin and fatally wound him, but before she could take over the world Veronica managed to trap Morgana and herself in one statue, and Balthazar trapped Horvath in another. While he lay dying, Merlin gave Balthazar a ring that would lead him to the one who could ultimately destroy Morgana.

Balthazar spent centuries looking for Merlin's successor, until eventually he came across Dave (Jay Baruchel). Dave is a smart but very socially awkward physics student with a crush on Becky (Teresa Palmer). Although initially hesitant, Balthazar manages to convince Dave that he needs to become his apprentice so that they can ultimately defeat Morgana and save the world. Although fascinated by his newfound abilities, Dave is also very distracted by Becky.

Although I originally had decent expectations for this movie, I was ultimately disappointed with it. The writing was pretty bad, and many of the characters seemed unnatural and even Alfred Molina wasn't able to overcome the limitations of his role. The special effects were only mediocre, but what they were trying to depict was surprisingly unimaginative in the face of characters who were supposedly among the greatest magicians to have ever lived. There was also a lack of believability in several areas, but in particular in the interactions between Dave and Becky. This movie isn't good on its own merit, and it's not bad enough to be enjoy it for how bad it is. Nicolas Cage is also pretty flat, and doesn't deliver the kind of over-the-top "Wicker Man"-type performance that might have helped at least somewhat salvage the movie.

An architect is typically thought of as someone who designs skyscrapers, museums, and other types of elaborate buildings. However, those are only a tiny fraction of the structures that need to be designed, but many architects don't really want to spend time designing homes for regular people, let alone low-income housing. Samuel Mockbee realized this and helped to start the Rural Studio, a program at Auburn University in which students would spend a year in a very low-income area designing and building something from scratch and on a budget for which they help to find materials and raise funds. Since the program started, they have built a number of things, including homes for individuals, a church, and a fire station. Helping to actually build these structures provides insight that architects don't often get, and budgetary constraints help enhance their creativity by forcing them to look outside the box at materials they might not have otherwise considered. The results are pretty impressive, and the students are able to see the value in these kinds of jobs when compared with those on the other end of the architectural spectrum. Since then, a number of similar programs have been started at other universities around the world to help inspire interest in architecting for "regular people".

This is a made-for-PBS documentary that I believe is supposed to air on August 23. It is very entertaining, particularly because of interviews with many of the people in the community that have been impacted by the Rural Studio program. It's interesting to see some of the changes that they have helped to bring about, and some of the people interviewed are also very funny and have very infectious personalities. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie, and at only 57 minutes it probably wouldn't be too difficult to fit it into your schedule when it airs on public television next month.

Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) is an evil man, and he delights in making others unhappy. When he sees a child crying because she dropped an ice cream cone, he cheers her up by giving her a balloon animal only to pop it and get an even better reaction from her. However, a new rival named Vector (voiced by Jason Segel) has cropped up and is getting too much attention. When Vector steals a shrink-ray that Gru needs to pull off the biggest heist in history, Gru has to find a way to get back at him. When Gru learns that Vector bought some cookies from a few orphans, he decides to adopt those orphans and use them to deliver something other than the cookies he had ordered.

I absolutely loved this movie. The story is great, and it's something that both children and adults can enjoy (although I went to a midnight showing in order to avoid a theater packed full of kids). There are some jokes that kids won't get, and that's all the better. I saw it in 3D with RealD technology, and it looks great and makes a lot more use of the 3D than Toy Story 3. I did notice a couple of times when I had a hard time focusing on something in the extreme foreground (and this unfortunately included the main title), but most of the time it worked really well. I still really hope that this 3D fad goes away quickly, but I'm at least much more amenable to it in animated movies than live action, and in this case I do think that the 3D does enhance the experience rather than detract from it.

Royce (Adrien Brody) wakes up to find himself falling from the sky. He has no idea how he got in that predicament, but fortunately a parachute deploys just in time to allow him to land all in one piece. A few other people (including characters played by Danny Trejo, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Topher Grace, and Oleg Taktarov) soon join him in the same manner. Before too long (and with the help of a hackish exposition tying this movie to the original Predator), they discover that they're actually on some other planet and being hunted for sport by some kind of creature with superior technology, kind of like an alien version of The Most Dangerous Game.

I have mixed feelings about this movie. It definitely feels like a real Predator movie, and there are some good action scenes, but there were just too many mistakes made for me to be satisfied with it. No amount of acting can make Adrien Brody seem like a real badass, and his imitation of Christian Bale's Batman voice throughout the whole movie was just plain annoying (especially when Laurence Fishburne shows up halfway through doing the same voice like some kind of nightmarish dueling banjos). I was also disappointed with finale, particularly because they dangled an awesome ending in front of us before yanking it back and leaving us with something completely boring and predictable. It's not that it's a bad movie, but it is a little painful when you realize how much better it could have been if they had made some better choices.