margot at the wedding

Noah Baumbach - 2007

Noah Baumbach doesn't work that much, but I love everything he's ever done - especially "Kicking & Screaming" from 1995. This one was wonderful as well, with Nicole Kidman playing a most unlikable character. Baumbach's films are filled with wonderful dialogue and discourses. Excellent.

This is likely my last film of 2009. During this year I've watched 132 movies, not so bad, but not my goal - which was 150. However, I also watched a number of 1 hour ESPN documentaries and the entire season of "Freaks & Geeks" which is 18 hours long, so I think I've come pretty close.

I think I'm going to start 2010 with Butch Cassidy - I don't think I got to it in 2009 and I now own it on blu-ray. What a great way to start the new decade.

alphaville

Jean-Luc Godard - 1965

Fascinating film, wonderfully visual and textual.

polar express

Robert Zemeckis - 2004

Really liked it.

body of lies

Ridley Scott - 2008

up in the air

Jason Reitman - 2009

Wow. This was really good. Great plot twist I didn't see coming and such a great character study. George Clooney was amazing. Vera Farmiga fabulous and watch for the moment where her in a different type of clothing signifies her truth.

julie & julia

Nora Ephron - 2009

I tend to like Nora Ephron's movies - seeing a movie through a woman's lens is so rare that even her somewhat predictable heartfeltness (word?) is okay by me. Julie Powell's husband is indeed a saint, I would have gone crazy.

At the end, this film is about finishing what you started. Completion in a fragmented age is more and more difficult - what does completion even mean? Blogs go on forever, movies have sequels, prequels and even squeakwels - ugh. Anyhow, media fragmentation can make completion feel more elusive, and thus more difficult to achieve. Both of these women accomplished something, and not something trivial.

My one nit - they raise the specter of Julia Child not liking what Julie Powell was doing, but then they leave it alone and don't bring it back - quite frustrating. Did anything else happen there?

school of rock

Richard Linklater - 2003

It seems to be a Linklater month. Watched this in Buffalo on TBS - very funny. Not really, but ok.

taking woodstock

Ang Lee - 2009

First movie I ever watched on my iPhone. Not bad, actually.

The movie was okay - good, not great.

she's the one

Edward Burns - 1996

Jennifer Aniston rules. There, I said it.

definitely, maybe

Adam Brooks - 2008

Why do I love this so much?

no country for old men

Cohen Brothers - 2007

Only the second time I've watched this. Javier Bardem is beyond creepy. Kept thinking that these are the same people who made Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski and other farces. This movie is not a farce.

the fantastic mr. fox

Wes Andersen - 2009

What a great film. Has everything that a Wes Andersen movie should and more - in stop-action. The amount of patience that that must require is beyond me. It is visually rich. Really, really great.

dazed & confused

Richard Linklater - 1993

Had insomnia the other night and caught the last hour of this. So many great early performances - mila jovavich, ben affleck, joey lauren adams, matthew mcconaghey, adam goldberg and more. So great, so early nineties, so many memories of high school when I see it.