Bridget Jones’s Diary is an English romantic comedy starring Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant.  Bridget’s life is an unhappy mess and she is resolved to turn things around fo herself.  Unfortunately, for every step she takes forward, circumstances knock her back one or two.

This was an entertaining movie.  I have no idea how Renee Zellweger was cast in this role, but she pulls it off.  I can’t stand her serious stuff, but she does pretty well in comedies.  As far as romantic comedies goes, this is not bad.  I really dread watching things from this genre because it is so full of trash and this one certainly had annoying and cheesy pieces, but it also had some witty and clever comedy.  It wasn’t much, and it doesn‘t stray far from the formulas, but it was much more than I expected it to be.

“It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.”

5/10

The second film adaptation of the 1968 novel of the same name written by Charles Portis.  A 14 year old girl hires a mean and drunk bounty hunter to track down her father’s murderer.

I really feel pretty much the same about this film and the 1969 version.  Neither are anything special.  Hailee Steinfeld’s performance was quite incredible given that she is just fourteen.  To be honest though, and this is not the opinion of the majority, but I liked Kim Darby’s version of the character better.  This film is much darker in tone and lighting than its predecessor and I liked it just a shade more.  I also thought it was a little more realistic and gritty, both of which I am a big fan of.  The Ned Pepper scenes seem to parallel the original so much they were almost identical.  This could be the result of the original novel, but none of the other scenes were so closely mimicked.  I did not care for the ending at all as it completely removed me from the movie and what the heck was it trying to say?  True Grit has a solid storyline and this is a slight improvement from 1969, but it still isn’t very interesting.

“One would be just as unpleasant as the other.”

6/10

Average Rating: 7/10 (2 ratings)

The Other Woman stars Natalie Portman as a young wife mourning the loss of her infant daughter while trying to maintain her family and develop a healthy relationship with her stepson.

A decent film.  It did just well enough in acting and writing.  The final series of happenings dampened the film I thought.  The movie is a series of highs and lows with the final low being the lowest point of the film and I believe a natural end point.  Unfortunately, we are dragged through a sappy Hollywood ending that is obvious in meaning and lame in delivery.  I thought Natalie Portman was terrific and Scott Cohen was not bad at all.  Lisa Kudrow’s performance was her usual bit that I do not enjoy.  My displeasure was then compounded by her character having no depth or basis in reality.  The movie was probably weak overall as many critics have found a distaste for it, but I found the dialogue sans Kudrow to be authentic, the acting sans Kudrow to be well done, and this made it doable for me.

“Why is she dead?”
“I don’t know.”

5/10

A realistic look at falling in and then out of love starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.

This movie really captured the demise of a relationship very realistically.  It was weird how poignant Dean’s goofy little song about always hurting the ones you love was.  That is basically the theme of the movie right there.  The acting was terrific and I feel bad that I didn’t enjoy the movie more.  I didn’t like the handheld close-up camera feel and I wanted more from the characters.  I can’t believe I am actually saying this but I wish it was more of a traditional movie and less like a documentary style film.  I liked the out of order sequencing and I could really relate to the film as a whole, but I just never was able to get that into it.

“You always hurt the ones you love.  The ones you shouldn’t hurt at all.  You always take the sweetest rose and crush it ‘til the petals fall.”

6/10

Average Rating: 8/10 (2 ratings)

Corpse Bride is a Tim Burton feature done in claymation.  It is the tale of a worried young groom who mistakenly marries a corpse in the forest.

This movie was done in claymation which is absolutely grueling and taxing work for the animator, but really gives the movie a cool look and feel.  I liked how the story was somewhat original at least a different take on an old story.  I am not one for musicals though and I didn’t really get anything from it.  Outside of the claymation, it was a little hollow.  I do like how Tim Burton animations are darker and not so bubbly like most animated features.  It just wasn’t my kind of movie, but I still enjoyed it for the most part.

“Die, die we all pass away.  But don’t wear a frown ’cause it’s really okay.  And you might try and hide.  And you might try and pray.  But we all end up the remains of the day.”

6/10

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a Sidney Lumet film starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke.  Two brothers struggling for cash decide to go way over their heads and rob a jewelery store.  It is one big donward spiral from there.

This movie had a good disjointed beginning but unfortunately it never went anywhere except into absurdity in its last scenes.  The story had me intrigued with their idea to rob their own family store, yet it became boring, repetitive, and, ultimately, ridiculous.  The acting was well done and the story had potential, but the fifteen minutes at start and finish were the only meaty parts of the film.  The ending was so weak and contrived though.  It was at least free of clichés and the acting was super solid.

“All my parts don’t add up to, to one me I guess.”

6/10

Welcome to the Dollhouse is a film by Todd Solonz.  It is about a socially awkward middle schooler who just can’t catch a break in any aspect of her life.

This movie was so-so.  It was not emotional enough to be dramatic and not funny enough to be an effective comedy.  It was just a middle of the road movie.  The costumes and sets were done well and had a good retro effect.  I liked how it showed us the bane of the middle child’s existence.  They are completely overlooked and misunderstood.  It felt to me that the movie lost a theme in its quirkiness and lack of story.

“You think you’re hot shit, but you’re really just cold diarrhea.”

5/10

Precious is a 2009 film that tells the story of an abused and overweight teen who discovers two secrets about herself that will make her life a million times harder.

I liked this movie.  It is certainly pessimistic as we are introduced to Precious at the bottom of her life only to see her go even lower.  Her stoicism makes the movie hard to get into and makes it almost like a voyeuristic peering into her world.  Mo’Nique was actually quite excellent in her role and I was very surprised at just how good she was.  This is definitely my kind of movie, but I thought this film did not take much risk or let us in emotionally.  The movie was solid, but it lacked punch and wasn’t as original as it could have been.

“Some folks has a lot of things around them that shines for other peoples. I think that maybe some of them was in tunnels. And in that tunnel, the only light they had was inside of them. And then long after they escape that tunnel, they still be shining for everybody else.”

6/10

The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King is written by Michael Craig.  It is a non-fiction book about  Andy Beal, a Texas banker and billionaire, who takes his heads-up poker prowess to Vegas, specifically the Bellagio, where he competes against a consortium of poker professionals at the highest stakes of all time.  Each side had ten million dollars on the table and the swings were in eight figures.

This book had interesting moments, but was somewhat dull too often for me to really get into it.  I was very interested to read about these enormous games and all the intricate associated facets, but the writing was too much a dry report of the happenings with the intrigue placed in the back stories of the various characters. The reports of the actual poker were repetitive and a bit boring.  The story also jumped around too much and lacked a real focus I thought.  I enjoyed hearing anecdotes of the well known poker pros and even our author’s own poker stories, but I guess I just expected more here.

5/10

The Kids are All Right is an indie film from Lisa Cholodenko starring Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo.  It is about two kids raised in a lesbian family that want to know their biological father a.k.a. the sperm donor.

This was a decent movie.  It was a standard indie flick that was well acted and written.  It just didn’t do much for me.  The scope of the movie was so small around five characters and those characters didn’t seem to have enough range or interest to captivate me.  I felt like Paul really got the shaft.  It felt like there was this open piece that just didn’t get resolved by the family breaking contact with him.  There was one interesting scene where Julianne Moore’s character basically apologizes in front of her family.  That scene impacted me but not really any of the others came through.  It was a better than average movie though.

“You stop seeing the other person.  You just see weird projections of your own junk.”

6/10