A Year of Movies

Week 8: Feb 19, 2010 to Feb 25, 2010
Total number of movies watched: 11

86. All the Pretty Horses -- A beautiful movie at times. Reminded me quite a bit of No Country For Old Men (or rather, since NCFOM came out afterwards perhaps it's the other way around). Obviously, since both were based on novels written by Cormac McCarthy, I might have picked up on the similar language used in both.

87. Glengarry GlenRoss -- An excellent movie with some brilliant performances. I was completely sucked into this movie and now that I've seen it, I wonder why I hadn't seen it before.

88. Secret Window -- A Stephen King story turned into a good, eerie movie starring Johnny Depp (as a writer!). Gotta love movies with writers as main characters! I've seen this one before, and have always liked it. Did you notice the camera seemingly passing through the mirror on the wall at the beginning of the film? Are we watching him or his mirror image?

89. Casablanca -- A classic. I've only seen it once before, but I truly enjoyed all the performances. A good romance. What more is there to be said that hasn't already been said before?

90. The Birds -- Another Hitchcock, and one I hadn't seen before. In general, I liked it well enough, but it's not one of my favorite Hitchcock movies. I think I was expecting more--and the ending really didn't do much for me.

91. Possession -- A charming romantic movie starring Paltrow and Eckheart (I really should make sure I'm spelling their names right!) and based on the novel by A.S. Byatt. It was a quiet movie, very sweet and I particularly liked the ending. One of those movies I probably wouldn't have watched if not for my attempt to broaden my horizons during this "Year of Movies", but I'm glad I did.

92. Public Enemies -- While Johnny Depp and Christian Bale both did excellent jobs in their roles, I felt the movie was just a bit too long.

93. Mr. Brooks -- I was impressed by this enthralling, intense movie. Costner and Hurt did a wonderful job working together. I love the scene where they're both in Costner's car, it's raining, and they're waiting for Dane Cook's (who did a great job in this too) character to join them. He needs to cross the street and he almost gets hit by a passing car, (which is what they hoped would happen just seconds earlier) and the way they both laughed.....very funny. Demi Moore's detective had sooooo much going on in her part of the story, but it all tied in nicely with the rest of the movie by the end. I'd like to see a sequel to this--but since it didn't do very well at the box office.....it probably won't happen. That's too bad. I'd love to see more of these characters.

94. Blue Thunder -- Remember when there seemed to be a helicopter in every movie / TV series? Blue Thunder, Airwolf, Riptide, Magnum PI.... Now, I'm missing all of those and wondering when these all will be made into movies a la Charlie's Angels, The A Team etc.

95. From Dusk Till Dawn -- The first time I saw this movie, I didn't know what it was! Action? Vampire? It was like two halves of different movies mashed into each other with a beautiful Selma Hayak very nicely stitching the two parts together.... I like this funny, gory movie. It's just a good time movie. (And now that I've seen it again, I'm curious about the cop at the beginning of the movie--isn't he the same cop character who appears in Kill Bill 1/2, and Death Proof and Planet Terror..?)

96. Shooter -- I really liked this action movie. If memory serves it's based on a novel by Stephen Hunter...(if this is wrong I'll have to come back and edit the name). In watching this with the director's commentary on, I was surprised by his attention to detail.

A single favorite? No, sorry, not this week. I'd put Glengarry GlenRoss, Secret Window and Mr. Brooks near the top of the list.

Whew. I'm almost caught up. Just a few more weeks and I'll be able to finish these posts shortly after I finish each week--and hopefully be able to include just a bit more on each entry. I've slowed down a bit too on my movie watching--I was at a 50/month pace in Jan/Feb, but I'm running closer to a low 40 total this month (March).

So, have I watched any of your favorites? Drop me a comment and let me know.