The Ghost Writer (2010, France)

I love Ewan McGregor, and Olivia Williams is incredibly talented, so she carries a good deal of the weight of this film. Acting talent is very important in this type of slow-building suspense, where there's no obvious threat but instead a creeping feeling that something's wrong. The atmosphere is equally important, and it was dark and chilling.

I found the plot a bit strange, alternating between inexplicably complex moments and stagnant inaction. It wasn't bad per se, I just kept waiting for something to happen or something to make sense. Sometimes it was the good, suspenseful kind of waiting, but sometimes it was just a bit dull.

The last 60 seconds of the film were the absolute best. I love a good plot twist, and while part of this twist should have been more predictable, the other part came out of nowhere and completely made the film. Amazing what an ending can do to improve one's final impression of a film!

Rating: 3.0

Remember Me (2010, U.S.)

I was absolutely stunned to discover that most professional critics ripped this film apart. It was absolutely astounding.

Essentially, two young people who have suffered terrible losses find each other and fall in love. Ally saw her mother murdered when she was 10 years old, and Tyler (whose 22nd birthday is approaching) had an older brother who committed suicide on his 22nd birthday. Ally's father has become overly protective while Tyler's parents divorced and his father especially emotionally distanced himself from his surviving children. Tyler is close to his young sister, a shy brainy girl whose classmates torture her.

The characters were so incredibly real. I've always said that Robert Pattinson is a seriously underrated actor (inevitable, due to his roles as Cedric Diggory and especially Edward Cullen). (See The Haunted Airman for further evidence.) He was Tyler in this film—frustrated, lost, alone, a good brother, a bit of a mess, imperfect but still a basically good person. Emilie de Ravin wasn't overwhelming by any means when contrasted with Pattinson, but she is still a fairly strong actress and convincingly portrayed a fragile girl trying to find herself and redefine her identity without hurting her father too much. The rest of the cast was also great, though what else would you expect from the likes of Pierce Brosnan and Lena Olin? The real stunner was the young actress who played Tyler's younger sister. Her performance just defies description; you have to see it to believe it.

Ally had a thing about eating her dessert before her meal, because anything could happen and she might not make it to the main course. The filmmakers seemed to make such a big deal of it that I kept running over it in my mind and found the heart of the story. This is a film about loss and living life as if each day will be your last. About learning from grief and embracing each day and appreciating each person that comes into your life. It's hard to say more without giving away the ending, but a lot of critics said that this film was just a series of tragic things happening to beautiful people. That sounds like the kind of opinion I would be prone to have, and yet I didn't. Even with an ending that was incredibly cliche and, in retrospect, totally obvious, I still thought it worked well.

Aside from fantastic acting, the subtle score, gritty New York scenery, touches of humor, and good writing really made this a stunning film. So take that, Roger Ebert.

Rating: 5.0

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010, U.S.)

You should never judge a book by its movie. One of my mantras, and that definitely goes for this one too.

I will say there were some great things about it, namely Logan Lerman. Ever since I saw him in The Patriot, Riding in Cars with Boys, Jack & Bobby, and The Butterfly Effect when he was kid, I've loved him. If you can act that well when you're 8, you can only get better. He was great in this as Percy. (Although he was actually a bit old to be playing Percy, who's supposed to be about 12 or 13 in the first book. And wow, Lerman's sexy 18-year-old muscles should not be allowed!) His sidekicks were also pretty good. His centaur mentor, played by Pierce Brosnan, was pretty awful—although that could have been partially due to some pretty awful CGI.

The film did capture the adventure and humor of the books to some extent, although a lot of it would be lost if you weren't able to fill in plot holes with knowledge of the book. On the other hand, it also brought some of the settings more alive than I was able to with my imagination when reading the book—namely the Lotus Hotel (wow!), and to a lesser extent Medusa's lair and Hades. And speaking of the Lotus Hotel... Brandon T. Jackson as Grover the Satyr dancing to Lady Gaga was puh-riceless.

It's hard for me to judge whether it could stand alone as a movie since I read the book first, but it was pretty entertaining. Toward the end I found myself glancing at my watch quite a bit, but hey. It wasn't any worse of an adaptation than the later Harry Potter films.

Wonder if it was successful enough to finish the series or whether it will die a painful death like the His Dark Materials trilogy (The Golden Compass).

Rating: 3.5

Mamma Mia! (2008, U.S.)

I didn't have very strong feelings about this film one way or the other, but there hasn't been much else to see in the theater this summer, and my ABBA-fan friend needed some serious cheering up, so I decided to take her to Mamma Mia!. I do not regret it at all.

I love musicals, of course. The '70s, on the other hand, I am not so fond of. Consequently, I've never listened to ABBA. Big mistake. All of the numbers in Mamma Mia! are catchy and fun—so fun that you might just want to run home and buy the soundtrack, like I did. The dance sequences are just absolutely ridiculous (and often hilarious), but they work really well. It's obvious that the script was written for the music rather than the music being written for the script, but it worked well that way.

Of course I have nothing but good things to say about the actors. Amanda Seyfried probably has a good career ahead of her, and she has a beautiful voice. Meryl Streep I like more and more as she gets older. Of course I love Colin Firth, and he was great. And I was so excited to see Stellan Skarsgård in a part where he wasn't a bad guy or some such (i.e. Bootstrap Bill)—actually, he was so adorable in this film I could just eat him up. Of the three "dads" in the movie, Pierce Brosnan was my least favorite. I've never been a big Brosnan fan, but he was still pretty good. I don't know about his singing though. Well, to be fair, his voice wasn't awful, but he sure does make funny faces when he sings. I think it's from trying to maintain an American accent.

So I don't know what else to say. Great music. Beautiful scenery. Fun dancing. Hilarious situational comedy. Stellar cast. Ends with a twist. Good, good stuff.

Rating: 4.0