What was the last movie you saw at the theaters?

Kick Ass - immense

Iron Man 2

The Green Zone

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cop out. i heard alot of bad reviews, but i thought it was great.

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"Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the room, talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books." -Jack Handey

Iron Man 2 - Loved it (9.5/10) Yeah, he can still fly!!!!!

Great sequel. Iron Man 2. It has rare seen that sequel is better than the first one.

Man, that was a fun evening.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

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"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

Haven't updated with reviews in forever, due partially to more traveling than I usually do, but I've seen a few things I really want to describe in detail in the past month or two, including Soderbergh's documentary on Spalding Gray And Everything is Going Fine, Michele Gondry's doc on his family The Thorn in the Heart and Michael Winterbottom's brutal adaptation of Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me. Saw The Runaways, but that seems like forever ago now. I've also seen Iron Man 2 a couple times, Polanski's The Ghost Writer for a third, and finally caught up with How to Train Your Dragon. But the most recent movie I saw theatrically was Scorsese's After Hours (1985). And I'll be seeing Dr. Strangelove (for about the sixth or seventh time theatrically) in the next few days.

Overdue reviews on And Everything is Going Fine, Thorn in the Heart and The Killer Inside Me to follow relatively shortly. If I get around to it.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

And Everything Is Going Fine
2010, Steven Soderbergh

Not long after famed monologist Spalding Gray's suicide in 2004, Steven Soderbergh announced he would be making a documentary about his friend and colleague (Gray appeared as an actor in his King of the Hill and Soderbergh filmed one of his stage pieces, Gray's Anatomy). The director has been very active in that period ever since (with eight features completed), but the long gestating Spalding project has finally materialized six years later. Over a month ago I got to see it. Serendipitously happened to be back in Columbia the same time as The Maryland Film Festival in Baltimore, so I went down to The Charles Theatre and caught the film. I am an unabashed, slobbering, hardcore fan of Spuddy Gray, so my review will be naturally slanted...but I certainly enjoyed it.

Rather than go the interview route with friends and family recounting the man they knew, Soderbergh has assembled only footage of Spalding telling his own life's story in his own words. A decent chunk of material is from his monologues, including "Monster in a Box" and "Morning, Noon and Night", but as they have him recounting important episodes such as his Mother's suicide and his accidental family acquired late in his life, it is probably unavoidable. But there are also plenty pieces of his earliest monologues, not readily available on video or audio, as well as various on-camera interviews he gave over the years. One of the most interesting finds was footage of Spalding talking on camera with his father about his childhood, and the other new really revelatory bits had him discussing the car accident in Ireland that left him battered and ultimately led to his taking his own life. Whether one of his perfectly crafted staged pieces of autobiography or chatting with somebody from MTV, Gray was always the consummate storyteller.

Soderbergh's unorthodox approach worked for me, but again, I am a mega-fan and know so much about the man already, not just from his own work but other sources as well. I can only speculate, but it may be somewhat less compelling for those who don't have anywhere near the level of interest or background that I do. I suspect for the uninitiated or those with more passing familiarity with all things Spalding, And Everything Is Going Fine may not be the best introduction. For this happy fan it was a love letter I soaked in and will anxiously add it to the rest of his canon in my regular rotation.


GRADE: B+

The Karate Kid(2010): Don't waste your time. Will Smith's son as much as I wanted him to succeed in a starring role fell flat in my opinion. The story is also the same old stuff as when Mr. Miagi and Daniel-Son were beating up karate students. I give this a 2 out 5 stars at the most.

Looking forward to your review on The Killer Inside Me. I'm interested in this movie.

L'épine Dans le Coeur - Thorn in the Heart
2009, Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry, the French music video director turned feature auteur with the likes of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep and Be Kind Rewind, turns his camera inward to tell some stories of his own family. The project started out as something he assumed would be, essentially, a home movie. His Aunt Suzettte, the matriarch of the Gondry clan, was in her eighties, and while she was still able Michel thought he'd commit some of her personal stories to film. Mostly they were going to be talking about her professional career. She was a school teacher for decades going from village to village in a remote and rural part of France. Sometimes her classes, which had all the children in the area, might have only three or five pupils, other times as high as twenty, but never more than that. The plan was to travel to some of those old little school houses, or at least what was left of them, and reminisce about those sometimes difficult but usually interesting days and her progressive and avant-garde approach. But along they way another movie formed, as often happens with documentary.

Suzette's only son, Jean-Yves, was around the production for a few days, and since they were interviewing some of her former students they thought to turn the camera on him, since she was both his teacher and Mother. His answer was awkward and full of pain. Michel of course knew there was some level of estrangement between his Cousin and Aunt, something that had been there since childhood, but as with most families there are some things that are left unsaid and become secrets, so the specific details and their depth was unknown to Michel. Until he started asking more questions. On camera.

Modest but interesting piece, both as that document of a beloved teacher on a changing landscape and of a woman who was a remarkable educator but perhaps not really equipped to be a mother.


GRADE: B+





Michel Gondry was at the screening in Portland a couple weeks ago and took Q&A afterward (the only ground rules were no queries about The Green Hornet). It went very well, despite Gondry's still very broken English. One cool Dude, that fella.

Someone asked in my profile page what my opinion of the Ralph Macchio Karate Kids were. I only viewed these films on VHS & DVD and even at an early age, but I still have to say the original was just about enough Karate Kid I could stand. The storylines became extremely predictable as the moves kept going on and on.

Iron man 2

I've been to a local theater (local meaning NYC, while I'm from Europe) with a friend of ours. Saw Robin Hood, which proved to be pretty enjoyable to say the least.

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Movie Reviews

Shutter Island

I liked it, it wasn't great, but there wasn't anything wrong with it.

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But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. W.B. Yeats

Italian Job- the idea is just like Ocean's 11-13, but I like Ocean's movies better.

The Kids Are All Right
Lisa Cholodenko

Appealing and amusing portrait of a family, one that is slightly unorthodox on the surface but that has all the familiar strengths and weaknesses as most any. Julianne Moore and Annette Bening are Jules and Nicole, a lesbian couple who have been together for over twenty years. Nic is a doctor, Jules...isn't. Currently unemployed but thinking of starting up her own landscape architecture business, she has forgone a career to raise their children. They have two, a boy and a girl, each having carried a child via artificial insemination. The girl, Joni (Mia Wasikowska), is the oldest, eighteen and about to go off to college. The boy, Laser (Josh Hutcherson), is fifteen and much less goal-oriented than his sister or his other Mom. But he's grown curious about their biological father. They know they were both conceived from the same anonymous donor, and now that Joni is of age she can request to have the record unsealed. They do, and it turns out to be Paul (Mark Ruffalo), a scruffy restaurant owner. The kids meet him first, and while Laser is less than impressed Joni is almost immediately enamored. Then it's time to meet the whole family.



Director and co-writer Cholodenko (Laurel Canyon, High Art) navigates the dramadey waters expertly, equal parts awkwardness and emotion, as each of the five characters realize things they may be missing and either embrace or confront those elements found by adding the new person to the mix. Laughs, tears...what more can you ask for? All five of the actors are excellent, especially Ruffalo, who gets his best role since his breakthrough in You Can Count On Me nearly a decade ago, Moore has never been better, and Wasikowska who was so captivating in HBO's "In Treatment" a couple years ago is quickly maturing into one of the best young actresses around. Bening plays the most tightly wound of the characters but gets to have some of the most emotional payoff in the third act.

Definitely one of the most engaging and satisfying movies of the year, happily free of explosions or 3D, instead relying on the honest interaction between the characters for its fireworks.

GRADE: A-