Thursday, December 23, 2010

elf

Jon Favreau - 2003

state of play

Kevin McDonald - 2009

pulp fiction

Quentin Tarantino - 1994

Perhaps even more amazing now than it was then.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

kissing jessica stein

Charles Hurman-Wermfeld - 2001

"She's a lovely girl" -- what a great moment. The movie is great otherwise, but that moment alone makes it worth watching. Every child wants that moment.

secretary

Steven Shainberg - 2002

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

good morning vietnam

Barry Levinson - 1987

You forget how good Robin Williams is. Crazy.

juno

Jason Reitman - 2007

tangled

Nathan Greno & Byron Howard - 2010

much better than I expected. inventive.

the hangover

Todd Phillips - 2009


Monday, November 22, 2010

the hangover

Todd Phillips - 2009

Thursday, November 18, 2010

muppets take manhattan

Frank Oz - 1984

megamind

Tom McGrath - 2010

Excellent. Very funny. Very smart.

ronin

John Frankenheimer - 1998

Sunday, October 31, 2010

the hangover

Todd Phillips - 2009

serpico

Sidney Lumet - 1973

any given sunday

Oliver Stone - 1999

Monday, October 25, 2010

the puffy chair

Jay Duplass - 2005

if lucy fell

Eric Schaeffer - 1996

The only way this guy was making it into a movie was by directing it.

cyrus

Jay & Mark Duplass - 2010

Sunday, October 17, 2010

date night

Shawn Levy - 2010

Smart for what it is.

Friday, October 8, 2010

up in the air

Jason Reitman - 2009

the blind side

John Lee Hancock - 2009

the social network

David Fincher - 2010

Saw it opening night. Sorkin's dialogue -- as always -- is masterful.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Sunday, September 19, 2010

fast times at ridgemont high

Amy Heckerling - 1982

f/x

Robert Mandel - 1986


greenberg

Noah Baumbach - 2010

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Friday, September 3, 2010

forgetting sarah marshall

Nicholas Stoller - 2008

As always...awesome.

catfish

Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman - 2010

Amazing. Really smart, well done -- great tone. See this movie!

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Friday, August 27, 2010

ET: The Extra-Terrestrial

Steven Spielberg - 1982

First viewing for the kids...they loved it!

M*A*S*H

Robert Altman - 1970

Saturday, August 21, 2010

the girl with the dragon tattoo

Niels Arden Oplev - 2009

A pretty good representation of the book.

ponyo

Hayao Miyazaki - 2008

Gorgeous. I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful example of animation.

21 grams

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu - 2003

Amazing. Deconstruction of a story.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

i love you, man

John Hamburg - 2009

Jason Segal still rules, and this is one of the most uncomfortable movies I've seen in awhile. Also, generally stupid.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

breathless

Jean-Luc Godard - 1960

Saw the new anniversary print of this...very good, but hard to believe it was revolutionary at the time.

backdraft

Ron Howard - 1991


Monday, July 26, 2010

the kids are all right

Lisa Cholodenko - 2010

For most of this I thought it was good, not great. But the end just packed a wallop emotionally. No surprises, but really, really good -- and real, I think. Most of the film was...uncomfortable.

city of god

Fernando Meirelles - 2002

Amazing as always.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

inception

Christopher Nolan - 2010

Good, not great.

all about steve

Phil Traill - 2009

I had begun to like Sandra Bullock a bit...no longer. This was positively awful.

casino royale

Martin Campbell - 2006

Love the new Bond.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

the king of california

Mike Cahill - 2007

Evan Rachel Wood is great.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Thursday, June 24, 2010

shopgirl

Anand Tucker - 2005

Really enjoyed this. Jason Schwartzman steals the show again.

sexual life

Ken Kwapis - 2005

Interesting.

ronin

John Frankenheimer - 1998

youth in revolt

Miguel Arteta - 2010

Michael Cera -- a genius in his time.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

state of play

Kevin McDonald - 2009

Really good - kept me guessing until the end.

any given sunday

Oliver Stone - 1999

Thursday, June 10, 2010

away we go

Sam Mendes - 2009

What a great film. I laughed and I rooted for the characters and their relationship. That is what you want in a great movie, right?

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

out of sight

Steven Soderbergh - 1998

One of my favorites of all-time. What a great movie.

Monday, June 7, 2010

whip it

Drew Barrymore - 2009

Check out Maeby from Arrested Development!

Monday, May 3, 2010

supertroopers

Jay Chandrasekhar - 2001

Classic.

dude, where's my car?

Danny Leiner - 2001

hannah & her sisters

Woody Allen - 1986

Still one of my favorite Allen films - the shot composition adding to the tension of the story reaches a new high.

"The heart is a very resilient little muscle"

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

ratatouille

Brad Bird & Jan Pinkava - 2007

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

rachel getting married

Jonathan Demme - 2009

Hey wow - third or fourth time I've seen it, and it never fails - I cry like crazy. How can one movie produce that much emotion, time after time after time? It's a true work of art.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

rat race



Wow, that is a bad movie.

defiance



So, so good.

greenberg

Noah Baumbach - 2010

So good, I had to see it again.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

nick & norah's infinite playlist

Peter Sollett - 2008

Love this movie; Love this soundtrack.

Monday, April 12, 2010

funny people

Judd Apatow - 2009

Basically the movie I'd like to make someday. Almost perfect for what it is and is supposed to be.

greenberg

Noah Baumbach - 2010

What a great film. Smart, hilarious, sad, poignant - great acting from Ben Stiller and Greta Gerwig. Stiller's outbursts are still sticking in my head.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

new moon

Chris Weitz - 2009

Not as good as Twilight.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

green zone

Paul Greengrass - 2010

Jason Bourne does Iraq - awesome!

Actually, this movie made me really fucking angry. Check it out.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Sunday, March 21, 2010

the hurt locker

Kathryn Bigelow - 2009

awesome, again.

pete's dragon

Don Chaffey - 1977

I grew up watching this with Abby Lublin in Connecticut. She had a projection screen and it was always between this, Willy Wonka and Mary Poppins. The kids loved this!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

frost/nixon

Ron Howard - 2008

Better than I thought in the beginning, but then it skipped ahead too quickly toward the end. Made it feel unbalanced.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Sunday, March 7, 2010

an education

Lone Scherfig - 2009

crazy heart

Scott Cooper - 2009

The mark of an amazing movie is that it stays with me. I haven't been able to get this one out of my head. Heartbreaking.

a serious man

Coen Brothers - 2009

Not what I expected. Need to see it again to understand it fully.

Monday, March 1, 2010

smart people

Noam Murro - 2009

Not bad.

extract

Mike Judge - 2009

Hilarious. Jason Bateman is amazing.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

wanted

Timur Bekmambetov - 2008


Sunday, February 21, 2010

couples retreat

Peter Billingsley - 2009

When this came out I had no interest in seeing it, but then I realized that it was co-written by Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn - so I expected sort of a Swingers vibe and for it to be surprisingly funny. I was wrong.

the muppet movie

James Frawley - 1979

Hey Wow! Kids movies of yore moved very, very slow!

Saturday, February 20, 2010

beverly hills chihuahua

Raja Gosnell - 2008

Stupid, but the kids enjoyed it.

life lessons (ny stories)

Martin Scorsese - 1989

We didn't end up watching the other two shorts from NY Stories, but this one was always my favorite - so great.


Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Friday, February 12, 2010

public enemies

Michael Mann - 2009

"Heat" is one of my favorites. This was good, but not great.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

sunshine cleaning

Christine Jeffs - 2008

Why do I love Amy Adams?

finding nemo

Andrew Stanton - 2003

On the big screen downstairs - the kids jumped when they saw the shark.

Rarrr!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

the hurt locker

Kathryn Bigelow - 2009

Really, really good.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Thursday, January 28, 2010

crimes & misdeanors

Woody Allen - 1989

So good, but wow did 1989 look bad.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Saturday, January 23, 2010

catch me if you can

Steven Spielberg - 2002

So good. How is this the same guy who did Munich & Schindler's List? The quandary of Spielberg.

Friday, January 15, 2010

into the wild

Sean Penn - 2007

Haunting. The storytelling is amazing - I like how the cuts between the two ends of the story get quicker as the movie goes on. Even though you know the ending, it is still tragic. The moment where he realizes that the river is too difficult to pass is so sad, and then he just has to wait to die. The final lines he writes - that happiness is only happiness when shared, is so sad it hurts.

The early part of the movie feels so exciting, so much what I wanted to do when I graduated college; but by the end, when you see the result, my life feels pretty good. Hal Holbrook is so good and you know his character knows that Alex isn't coming back.

They all know he isn't coming back, except him.

butch cassidy & the sundance kid

George Roy Hill - 1969

Amazing film. Love it. My just-about-once-a-year viewing. This time: on Blu-Ray!

Monday, January 4, 2010

Sunday, January 3, 2010

me, myself & irene

Farrelly Brothers - 2000

I don't know that I would ever have thought this was a movie made in 2000 - it has nothing of the past decades cues. Fascinating.

Love Jim Carrey's kids in this, hilarious.

invictus

Clint Eastwood - 2009

Amazing story, but I found it a bit boring. I was also exhausted and arguably should not have gone to a movie on New Years Day.

marley & me

David Frankel - 2008

Wanted to have a better first movie of the year, but this was it. For what it was, it was fine. Jennifer Aniston still hot and funny, Owen Wilson still funny, dogs still cute. Great.