The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009, U.S.)

Dr. Parnassus makes a deal with the devil for immortality, promising the devil his first-born child when he/she reaches 16. A thousand years later, when his daughter Valentina is reaching her 16th birthday, he makes another deal with the devil that he can get five souls first.

Dr. Parnassus has a very unique traveling show, where the audience gets invited behind a mirror where all their dearest dreams and worst nightmares, basically the products of their imagination, await. The land behind the mirror is something you'd have to see—or imagine—to believe. Major CGI work, definitely. Words cannot explain.

The traveling players meet a stranger (Tony) who proves to be a great help in the quest for five souls. When Tony and Valentina spark up a romance, their fellow performer Anton is jealous and suspicious... with good reason.

Of course the major topic of interest regarding this film is the performances of Heath Ledger and his three stand-ins. They did choose a good way to divide the roll. The Tony character takes three trips into the mirror, so they used the three stand-in actors for one trip each. It almost makes sense for Tony to take a different form in his imagination, if you try to force it in your brain. Depp, Farrell, and Law all did brilliantly with their five minutes of on-screen time. I feel like the sketchiest was Ledger. There were gems in his performance, but it was obvious that other parts were unfinished. It gave the film a disjointed feel, but because the plot was so out there anyway, it kind of worked.

It was really an interesting concept and execution, but to be honest I was a bit busy memorizing every part of Ledger's performance and trying to keep up with a confusing plot at once. I need a better viewing for a better review.

Rating: 3.5

The Lovely Bones (2009, U.S.)

The novel that this movie is based on is a beautiful examination of death and life grief as seen in the eyes of a young girl who is raped and murdered by her neighbor. It is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read, and some of the best parts of the film were the passages lifted directly from the novel.

It felt like they tried to cram a bit too much suspense into a story that was supposed to be more thoughtful. On the other hand, Saoirse Ronan is a great young actress (see Atonement for further proof) and played the dead girl with a very nuanced performance.

Peter Jackson's touch was obvious in Susie's CGI heaven. It was beautiful, with a forest in summer blending into mountains in winter, all with a slowly disintegrating gazebo in the center. (The gazebo is a duplicate of one in the mall where she was supposed to meet a boy on her first ever date.) From here, Susie watches her family and friends grieve and her murderer reliving his crime.

It could have been done better, but it was still quite good.

Rating: 3.5

Avatar (2009, U.S.)

This was possibly the most underwhelming movie of the year. (Okay, maybe not fair to this movie. The Hurt Locker was worse.) It was not the biggest epic of all time, as all the hype would have you believe. Something tells me that the main reason for the hype is that it looked amazing on the big screen in 3-D. I do think it deserved its Oscars for Art Direction, Cinematography, and Visual Effects, but Best Picture nomination? I don't think so.

Avatar is like a combination of the Matrix and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. (Actually, Dances with Wolves might be a better example, since the soldier goes native.) Not a good combo. A bunch of Americans colonize an alien planet in order to get their hands on this valuable rock, but they don't even bother to say why this rock is so valuable. It seems like they were so focused on visuals that they ignored the need for a clear plot. In addition to that, the blue people seem to be a racist mix of Native- and African-Americans. Terrible.

I've always been a fan of James Horner, but this score seemed very recycled. Some of the music sounded reminiscent of Titanic, which I guess isn't a huge surprise. But then there was a repeated strain that sounded identical to one from Troy. I looked it up, and lo and behold, Horner composed that score too. Seems like the well of creativity is dry. Not that it wasn't good, it just didn't seem original.

Overall, this movie was just one big disappointment. Visually beautiful, at least!

Rating: 2.5

Food, Inc. (2008, U.S.)

What a great (though disturbing) documentary! I learned a lot. I kept a lot of notes of fascinating things I learned that I could share, but you just can't get the full effect if I rattle them off. Food, Inc. is a great documentary that looks into the world of the corporate controlled food industry

The one positive thing they showed was a farm in the Shenandoah Valley (near where I live). It is a beautiful farm with beautiful, grass-eating cows. The cows eat, fertilize, and harvest the grass. Other cows, which are raised in terrible conditions, are corn-fed, which requires altering diet and shipping in corn, hauling away manure, etc. Anyway the point is that this farm was beautiful and I wish I could get all my food there, because all the corporate meat plants and genetically modified seed businesses just make me sick.

I've never known many documentaries to have stellar scores, but this one was pretty great. The music was ominous in beef plants, slow and peaceful in the Shenandoah Valley (kind of like the Brokeback Mountain score), creepy (creeping music like a bad guy's coming, sort of) when they're talking about a surveillance team from a genetically modified soybean company persecuting farmers who save, clean, and reuse seeds.

As the Virginian farmer said, the food we eat may seem like cheap food, but it's expensive in terms of environmental, societal, and health costs. True and fascinating!

Rating: 4.0

Coco avant Chanel (2009, France)

A young girl and her sister and left in an orphanage by their father, who never comes back. They grow up, finding work as barmaids and seamstresses. She has an affair with a Baron, giving her entry into society and the opportunity to pursue her gift of designing hats. Then she falls in love with an English businessman, complicating her life further.

A good story, and supposedly based on the real life of Coco Chanel, who I know nothing about. Therefore, I'm unable to judge historical accuracy, which is probably a good thing for me.

Setting and costumes brought the period to life amazingly beautifully. (Definitely deserved the Best Costume nomination for the Oscars.) The writing, music, and everything else was great too. But even if it was awful, Audrey Tautou would have made it a winner. She is a beautiful, fragile, strong, talented actress. She was Coco Chanel.

The film ends right as Coco has gotten a toehold in the fashion world. The title Coco before Chanel is a fitting one. It's a bit unclear at the end how she manages to become so successful and how she deals with her personal tragedies. I loved the file shot of Coco sitting dispassionately, reflected infinitely in full-length mirrors, surrounded by models wearing her fashions. There's nothing like a movie with a memorable final shot. Good stuff.

Rating: 3.5

Inglourious Basterds (2009, U.S.)

What a bizarre film. A French Jewish girl whose family was murdered by Nazis grows up to own a theater where a group of the highest echelon of Nazis is going to the premier of a propaganda film. Meanwhile, a group of Jewish American soldiers is running around sniping Nazi officers. There's also a German actress spying for the Allies. All of these people bump together in a giant plot to assassinate the Nazi high command.

I guess the point here was to have an alternate history, and it was almost believable. However, I have never seen so much over-acting in my life. Again, this is probably what they were going for, but it was just hard to take these people seriously when they were caricatures of characters.

On the bright side, there was not an overwhelming, nauseating amount of violence, which you would expect from Tarantino.

Still, the best I can say for it was that it was okay.

Rating: 3.0

An Education (2009, UK)

In the 1960s, Jenny is a bright, pretty, young school girl whose father pushes her and pushes her to become a perfect candidate for Oxford. She is more interested in cultural things like music and art, and she wants to live in Paris. When she meets David, a man twice her age, he begins to introduce her to these things. Her parents don't see anything improper about it. If anything, her father pushes Jenny at David, thinking he will improve her chances at Oxford.

This film was really subtly done. It was easy to picture this happening in the 1960s, a much different time. It was very well written and performed. Carey Mulligan is a great young actress. She was excellent at portraying a young girl who was coming of age in the midst of a very awkward situation. Even at a tender age, she was more mature than her elders.

This was a very slow-paced, artsy sort of film. If it were a novel, you'd probably call it literary fiction. It probably isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it was well done.

Rating 3.5

The Last Song (2010, U.S.)

Much better than Nights in Rodanthe, didn't hold a candle to The Notebook or Message in a Bottle. Then again, this wasn't my favorite Sparks book either.

A very troubled teenage girl and her brother get shipped off to her dad's for the summer. There she finds her first love and reestablishes her relationship with her father.

The casting was pretty good on this one. Miley Cyrus wasn't that bad, Greg Kinnear was good, the boyfriend was sexy, and the kid who played the younger brother was awesome. I've seen some great child actors recently, it seems.

I think this was very true to the novel, because it too tried to take on too much at once. The combination of the dying father-troubled daughter story and the first love story was just too much. I think the movie did a pretty good, maybe better, job of showing how the girl falling in love helped her open her heart to her father more too.

It was sweet and I was sobbing at the end. Nicholas Sparks, what more can I say?

Rating: 3.5

The Hurt Locker (2008, U.S.)

An army bomb removal squadron disenganges a bomb in Baghdad. And then they disengage another. And a few days later they do another. On and on and on, blah blah blah.

This had to be the slowest paced movie I've ever seen in my life. It would be one thing if they tried to make some deep statement about the psychology of war or something like that. What made it worse was that they probably thought that's what they were doing. But no. Characters weren't sympathetic, writing wasn't good, acting was wooden... awful.

I was already doubtful about the Academy Awards in recent years, but the fact that this movie actually won the Best Picture Oscar just completely made me lose faith in the Academy. I've only seen a couple of other nominees, but all of them were better by far.

Rating: 1.0

The Bounty Hunter (2010, U.S.)

Blah, blah, blah. Another romantic comedy with a good idea and a terrible execution.

Milo is a bounty hunter with bad luck, and then he gets an assignment to track down his bail-jumping journalist ex-wife, who's doing a story on a dirty cop murder cover up. They find themselves on the run in a ridiculous, unbelievable adventure.

Look, people. Jennifer Aniston is not a good actress. She never has been, she never will be. She plays the same character over and over again. Rachel Green, Brooke Meyers, Nicole Hurley... they're all the same. (I will say that she was actually excellent in The Good Girl, but that was an exception and not a rule.) Gerard Butler, on the other hand, is a wonderful, wonderful actor. He was the Phantom of the Opera, for crying out loud. And now he's doing crap like The Bounty Hunter and The Ugly Truth. Also he's looking kind of rough. It's just not right.

Rating: 2.5