Coco Before Chanel

Drew's Thoughts:
My least favorite part of biopics is the first 5-20 minutes where you see the subject before they actually did what he or she is considered important for. Coco Before Chanel's writer/director Anne Fontaine must savor those 5-20 minutes when she watches biopics however, because she made a film entirely about Coco Chanel before she did anything notable. This really is a shame because, considering how much interesting stuff did happen in Chanel's life and that she was a person of more than questionable moral character, I think there would have been a good film here had Fontaine pointed her camera beyond Chanel's "first 5-20 minutes."

Tyson

Drew's Thoughts:
Mike Tyson is weird. But he's a weird human being. At least that's what I got from James Toback's (Bugsy) humanizing documentary. The film, consisting mostly of Tyson's rambling, near-gibberish, retelling of his life, reveals that Tyson, while strange, has some good qualities. My image of Tyson growing up was mainly a crazy person who bit off pieces of Evander Holyfield's ears. That image still holds somewhat true but what I didn't realize is that Mike Tyson was one of the greatest boxers to ever fight. He was an immensely talented athlete, coming from a really rough childhood, who quickly clawed to the top of the world and completely self-destructed, and was never able to recover the lost ground. Tyson is an interesting entry into the Dolphin Doc race.

Precious

Colleen's Thoughts:
This movie has been difficult for me to process. My English professor sent us a NY Times article where critical race scholars were going back and forth on the merit of this film. Not being from a black community or a poor community for that matter, I have little background in how I should place this movie.
I talked to my friend Reva who really enjoyed the film. She said she felt like it was an updated version of “The Color Purple” and many other critics agree with her. I also thought she made an interesting point. She said that looking at everything that happens to Precious may make the movie unbelievable for some, but she prefers to see the character Precious as a pastiche, who embodies the plight of many black women.
Do I think that this movie is as great as so many other critics? No. Do I think it is incredibly original and will blow people’s minds? Not really. Do I think it raises interesting questions and gets people to talk about race? Yes. All and all the buzz Precious has accrued is far more interesting than the movie itself. It is a typical American tale in which someone against all odds finds a way to overcome. However, incest, obesity, HIV, and domestic violence are not mainstays of this genre.
For everything this movie had going against it: Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz and a nod from Oprah and Tyler Perry I thought Precious, against all odds, was fine.

Drew's Thoughts:
With everything I heard about this movie, I fought hard to keep an open mind going in and I came out with the film being a little better than I anticipated.
I thought it was a decent movie with the strengths (Gabby Sidibe's performance as the title character and the screenplay) usually overcoming the often poor direction by Lee Daniels. I liked the character of Precious, I thought she was developed pretty well through some funny, well-written interior monologue and the expressive cadence that Sidibe used for the film. She certainly gave the best performance in the movie though the supporting cast is generally decent if sometimes lacking subtlety.
I was, however, underwhelmed by comedian Mo'Nique's performance who has been picking up Best Supporting Actress awards left and right. It's a decent performance, not bad, but I didn't feel like she added anything special to the character she was given. I feel you could have gotten any large, African-American actress who fit the profile and told her to shout every line of dialogue and you would have ended up with roughly the same performance. There isn't much nuance there.
A side note, there were times when Mo'Nique's verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse seemed somewhat comic or cartoonish to me. Maybe I'm just a terrible heartless person (though I definitely felt for Precious so I don't think this is the case) but I found myself laughing a few times and I'm confused whether that was supposed be intentional or not. Because if it is intentional it was a bad decision and if it wasn't it's a fault in execution.
Back to Mo'Nique though, she's a bit better in the final scene, which I found to be similar to Viola Davis's scene in Doubt last year (crying black mothers discussing the difficult, questionable choices of their parenthood,) but where Davis was electrifying and affecting, Mo'Nique is merely serviceable at delivering the interesting dialogue she is given. She definitely doesn't do anything extraordinary with it the way Davis did, and Davis only had one scene to establish herself and develop her character!
Overall though, I was invested in the story and Sidibe's performance as Precious, and I do think it's great that a film like this has been fairly successful in the mainstream. Also, unlike the other recent film about the life of struggling black youth, Precious gives its character a voice instead of Sandra Bullock to speak on its behalf which is definitely worthy of respect whether you care for the movie or not.

The Informant!

Drew's Thoughts:
Though I once had an aquaintance earnestly, and without a trace of irony, assert that Ocean's 11 is Steven Soderbergh's masterpiece and his immortalizing entry into the cinematic history books, I think it's safe to say The Informant! is Steven Soderbergh's best movie since Erin Brockovich and really his best movie period (though I haven't yet seen Out of Sight or The Limey.)
Sporting a hairpiece and a bitchin' mustache, Matt Damon's performance as Mark Whitacre (his best as well) is the bedrock on which the film is built. Damon is a talented actor but takes too many straight man roles in my opinion, but here given plenty of freedom with this character he goes for broke. He plays a total moron but a believable moron. He garners the audience's sympathy and its scorn in all the right places.
Soderbergh, under his cinematographer alter-ego Peter Andrews, bathes the film in the amazing glow of a early 90s occupational training video, situating the film and the characters' mentalities permanately in that epoch in history. Scott Z. Burns's screenplay, adapted from Kurt Eichenwald's book from which the film takes its name, introduces the film with a titlecard stating that what happens in the film is mainly true. Similar to Fargo, how I understand it is that the events are true but the filmmakers give themselves plenty of room to create the characters though they're based on real people. That was definitely a smart choice as Mark Whitacre's idiot/savant buffoonery would come off as purely incomprehensible if played with a strictly serious tone. Whitacre's character arc is really unexpected but well-written, eliciting the gamut of emotion from the audience towards Whitacre.
It was another wise move of Soderbergh's to surround Damon with various character actors whose faces you'll recognize but whose names you will probably not know. Tony Hale (Arrested Development) is particularly great in a brief role.
It's not nearly good enough to be among the five best of the year but it looks solid on Best Actor and Adapted Screenplay noms.

Colleen's Thoughts:
My one word review of this movie is “mediocre.” However, having now spoken my peace, I will say that it had some rather interesting less mediocre aspects to it. As Drew pointed out Matt Damon really carries this movie but he is nowhere near someone like say P.S. Hoffman. Also, the cinematography and set design really do a lot for the mood and atmosphere of the film. I think Melanie Lynskey who portrays Ginger Whitacre has a good shot at getting a supporting actress nom at the Colleen’s. All an all an enjoyable film but nothing too memorable.

Terribly Happy

Drew's Thoughts:
I heard many awesome things regarding Denmark's entry into the Oscar foreign film race this year including comparisons to David Lynch, Hitchcock and the Coen Bros. in thriller mode. Furthermore, the filmmaker Henrik Ruben Genz discussed how the film was conceived to be a modern day western which you know gets me excited.
All those things are true, and Terribly Happy (Frygtelig Lykkelig in Danish) is a pretty good movie. It chronicles a Copenhagen police officer's transfer to a small Danish village after a brief stay in a mental hospital. The officer enters the village, replacing its former marshal, intending to be strict and by-the-book so he can be transferred back to Copenhagen as quickly as possible but, as you might expect, some things go awry. Supposedly some of the events in the film are based on happenings in the small village that the filmmaker and his friend, who wrote the novel Terribly Happy is based on, grew up in.
The film features a good score by Kåre Bjerkø, and some good camerawork as well. It's a solid contender for Foreign Film Dolphin nom and maybe another thing or two.

Harry Brown

Drew's Thoughts:
Ever wanted to see Michael Caine play Dirty Harry? Well now you can. Harry Brown takes the same basic premise of Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino and manages, unlike that movie, to not totally suck balls.
It's not any more subtle or accurate than Gran Torino but it's actually a pretty well made movie, tightly edited/fast paced (the film flies by in what feels like a half-hour) and is also quite violent and bleak.
Instead of puttering around barking inane racist/sexist/classist/homophobic comments as Eastwood loved doing in Torino (you know he did), Caine gives a good performance of as an elderly man not without morality, but pushed to a point where he starts administering his own justice a.k.a. violence on the young criminals causing the deterioration of his neighborhood. Who knew Alfred wanted to be a dark knight so badly?
This film isn't great and probably isn't even good, but it's a testament to what a pulpy story, a great actor and sharp filmmaking prowess can achieve. Plus, there's also some awesome chav accents.

The Blind Side

Drew's Thoughts:
First of all, it's embarrassing that this film currently has a 73% on Rotten Tomatoes and there is a bit of Oscar buzz brewing for Sandra Bullock.
Writer/Director John Lee Hancock takes a (true) story with a lot of problematic issues and whitewashes it into oblivion making it into easily digestible Holiday pap that an audience can sit through and feel like they're learning something without having to go through the trouble of, you know, thinking or asking questions.
Here's a story that begins with Michael Oher and ends with him playing for the Baltimore Ravens yet through the whole 128 minutes the film never probes the character in any depth (there are literally only a handful of instances in the film where he says more than four words of dialogue at a time.) Instead you get the story of the sweet, tough talkin' Southern lady who rescued this lovable oaf (who's only apparent skills are his "protective instincts" making him out to be more like a dog than anything) and just wouldn't give up. The movie is just drowning in a frustrating "momma knows best" mentality. Thank heavens she brought this black boy out of the bad, literally all black world and into the good, literally all white world and she can be a good role model for him since his mom is a crack addict and "can't even remember who his father is."
The film occasionally pretends to deal with hypocrisy such as when the private high school football coach wants Michael to be admitted into the school "not be cause of sports, but because we're Christian" and then Bullock sort of calls him on it later in the film. But the film, a complete hypocrisy in itself, totally sidesteps the real issue at play here, that no one in the movie EVER asks Michael if he wants to play football or even if he's good at it. They just assume he does and is because he's a BIG BLACK BOY!
When Michael chooses to play football at Ole Miss (which the family, die-hard Ole Miss alums, has been basically brainwashing him to pick) the NCAA investigates the goings on to make sure that boosters like the family aren't just adopting underprivileged youth and buying them expensive new cars in order to funnel them into their university's football program, and it's a totally legitimate concern. But the woman representing the NCAA, who is black, is shamelessly written as a villain. And when Bullock's character hears this (she is presumed innocent of the charges) she feels bad and says "you know what? I never asked him if he wanted to go to Ole Miss. I just did everything in my power to get him to choose it" she seems to learn her lesson but when she talks to Michael about instead of fucking asking him where HE wants to go to school she TELLS HIM to go to Tennessee (her arch nemesis that she tried to get him to not pick.) I mean what is the fucking lesson here?
The only silver lining is that Carter Burwell did the score so the music was pretty good, though it's his fantastic work on Where the Wild Things Are and especially A Serious Man that will be worth remembering for your Dolphin ballot.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Drew's Thoughts:
This mediocre to lame children's movie is mildly amusing despite told-a-thousand-times jokes due to it's surprisingly great cast featuring the likes of Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais, Ben Stiller, Hank Azaria, Christopher Guest (pretty funny as Ivan the Terrible) and last year's Dolphin winner Amy Adams. Adams plays Amelia Earhart in the film, looking to Katharine Hepburn for inspiration and giving a fun, confident performance. She's probably not good enough to make it to a supporting actress Dolphin nom, but this is a weak year so you never know.

Bronson

Drew's Thoughts:
I checked out Nicolas Winding Refn's baroque "biopic" of Mickey Peterson a.k.a. Charlie Bronson "Britain's most famous prisoner" (a title he is heartily proud of) because my friend is really into it. It sounded a lot like Chopper, Andrew Dominik's (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) first film, which I like. And it is quite a bit like Chopper but probably inferior to it.
I don't really know too much about Bronson, other than he is/was a favorite of the British tabloids, and you aren't going to really learn that much about him from this film. The film is more concerned with style than communicating "facts" as most biopics tend to do. Considering how rote the "biopic" has become it's somewhat refreshing though light on content. Refn moves the film between "real" events and Bronson, with his bald head and circus strongman mustache, giving a surreal, circa-1900 one-man show of his life to an enthusiastic, packed theatrehouse. Tom Hardy, who plays Bronson, has a profoundly creepy presence in these scenes making them some of the best in the movie. Hardy is sometimes sardonically humorous and other times ferocious and frightening but absolutely manic the whole way through. Refn provides similarly manic direction with lots of bombastic classical music cues and some bold, ornately designed sets.
Really the main reason to see this is Tom Hardy's performance which is something like Christian Bale's magician in The Prestige playing a maniacal mutation of Daniel Plainview, The Joker and Capt. Jack Sparrow. Having seen Hardy in interviews and RocknRolla, he definitely transforms himself into a giant, psychotic, raving asshole. He relinquishes any personal vanity and dives head first into the role.
However, the script is pretty thin, the raucous film barely runs 82 minutes, making the film more of a showcase for the performance and production design rather than any sort of in depth study of the man. Though, there may not be that much depth to the man in the first place. The main thing I learned is that Bronson wants to be famous and for all I know that's the only motivating factor of the real Bronson's slew of violent in-prison tantrums. For some reason mysterious to everyone else, he only seems satisfied when he's wreaking havoc in one way or another.
Tom Hardy is good and could maybe be a dark horse contender for a Best Actor Dolphin nom, but for him to have a real chance to get in there I think Firth or Bridges or one of the other highly anticipated male leads will have to falter. The film will be worth remembering for Art Direction, Sound and maybe Makeup categories though.

District 9

Drew's Thoughts:
The premise of South African summer sci-fi flick District 9 is an interesting one. At some point during the 80s an alien spacecraft essentially "breaks down" over Johannesburg. Long story short, the South African government and society treat the aliens as "illegal aliens" (a-ha moment everyone?) and set up a hooverville to "temporarily" place them in called District 9. The film is shot in a faux-documentary-style about the best it's ever been done, using scholars and news broadcasts to explain the history of District 9 and all the various social issues of the slum over the past 30 years. Once you get past the rich back story, it turns out what is currently happening is a lot less interesting.
It is difficult to pinpoint why I didn't care for this movie. Maybe there's just an inherent problem in telling a fictional story like a documentary (though a number of Christopher Guest movies can prove that wrong), maybe it's the lead's cartoonish performance, and that he amounts to being the only non-peripheral character in the film, maybe it's because the aliens look kinda fake. Maybe it's all those things. The lack of character-development is a big problem, and I'd also say, despite the good premise, the story is pretty thin.
The main dude played by Sharlto Copley gets alien fuel spit in his face which starts turning him into an alien so he goes on the search with other aliens to find more fuel so he can be human again and the aliens can leave (because that's all they've been wanting to do the whole damn time, but they're out of gas apparently). Here the documentary style really does not work, things don't really make all that much sense and the fake "shaky" camera just gets to be really bothersome rather than effective.
I would've been into some kind of "help the aliens escape" action movie, that might be fun, but you are only given one character, and he's a sucky character who I didn't care a stitch about, so the whole movie turns out be a big bore after such an interesting start.
It's pretty rare I ever encourage remakes, but if a more talented filmmaker were to take this premise I could see a cool movie there.

A Serious Man

Colleen's Thoughts:
I was looking very forward to A Serious Man, the latest from the Coen's. Despite not being a huge fan of Burn After Reading I thought since this one has been called autobiographical it might be interesting. Also, many Coen brother movies, have a charm about them that is difficult to describe (Raising Arizona and The Big Lewboski are the ones that come to mind). I crave this charm and despite recent disappoints I go in expecting it.
I have to say I was fairly disappointed. The more I think about it the more I think the film has some redeemable qualities but all and all I just wasn't impressed. It didn't seem like they had much of a story to tell and if you don't have a story why tell it? I think the film failed mainly in the area of entertainment. A good movie should entertain and I was pretty bored halfway through the film. The movie had a very cynical and apathetic tone which isn't always bad but in this movie was quite lame. After an odd and, I must admit, intriguing intro you are introduced to Larry Gopnick. Larry is having what seems like no end to life problems. He is a good guy and tries to do good so you want better things for him. His, kids his wife, his brother, his work all bring different mundane challenges for him. This is about the extent of the film.
Deakins did a fine job with the cinematog. I thought the lead actor Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnick did a good job with the role and you truly did think he was a good guy even though he was a total putz and somewhat of a wuss.
All and all the film was ok. If you don't know much about Jewish culture you may learn something but that is about the extent of it.

Drew's Thoughts:
The Coen brothers' latest is a tale concocted straight out the Book of Job. The film centers on Larry Gopnik, who "tries to always do right", as his life begins to crumble around him in strange and often hilarious ways. Michael Stuhlbarg plays Larry and his performance is central to what makes the film work. Stuhlbarg finds the right balance between eccentricity and playing the "straight man." Gopnik's essentially a sweet guy, hard working, moral, always taking on the burden of others (to the point of nearly being a complete wuss) and with each new obstacle he becomes increasingly panicked, wondering why this is happening to him but trying to still deal with it in an upright manner. He looks for answers anywhere and everywhere, visiting three Rabbis in the process, and never receives a satisfactory answer. Or any real answer really.
Though Colleen found the film to be boring, I was quite entertained. A lot of the fun comes from the push/pull between the comic and the dark, tragic elements (take Carter Burwell's creeping, minor-key score, for instance). Seeing Larry get increasingly over his head, scrambling to make sense of it all, was fun and reminded me a bit of the Dude's misadventures, though where the Dude got an ultimately zen-like movie consistent with his demeanor, Larry gets a frantic, less benign film.
This is also one of the weirder Coen brothers' movies. It's not as upfront about the weirdness as, say, Barton Fink but there's the ambiguous opening scene, set in a past century, and strange existential happenings, both central and peripheral to the film, that you might expect to be in a Charlie Kaufman screenplay.
The Coens in their later years have found more and more humor in fatalism, futility and misanthropy and A Serious Man fits right in there. Though the audience is taking pleasure in Larry's disorientation, the Coens disorient the audience (probably taking pleasure in it) by telling their comedy like a mystery--where the audience scrambles to put the pieces together just like Larry. Though I'm not sure if it's one of the best films of the year, it is good. And I'd like to see it again soon, not necessarily to relive favorite moments as is usual with the Coens' work, but just to try to figure the film out a little bit more.
Even if some of the PFA members don't end up being big fans of the film I hope they'll remember, come Dolphin-time, Jess Gonchor's detailed, pitch-perfect circa-1967 Art Direction work and also some of Roderick Jaynes's best editing yet. The film is edited quite tensely for a comedy and there are a number of sequences where the Coens... I mean Jaynes devises some inventive editing.

Bright Star

Drew's Thoughts:
Jane Campion (The Piano) excels at the period piece so I was curious to see this film about the doomed romance of poet John Keats and his "bright star" Fanny Brawne. I liked the film quite a bit more than I expected mainly due to Abbie Cornish who gives the best female performance I've seen this year. She's remarkable as Fanny, giving a very confident, expressive performance. Without her the film could not have achieved as much success as it did. Paul Schneider (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) was also good in his supporting role as Charles Armitage Brown, sporting a credible Scottish accent and a newly expanded waistline. He always has a great presence in movies, but this is the most "demanding" role he's taken and he does a good job adding a bit of humor (and mean-spirited quips) to the film. Ben Whishaw was also good, but I guess he had maybe the less interesting character in my opinion compared to the other two.
I liked that the film wasn't a Keats bio-pic (not that there'd be anything wrong with that) but was a well-written, affecting romance and their relationship drives the film rather than his poetry. The film drags a little 3/4s through when it becomes inevitable that Keats will die and it's just a matter of time. Though I guess that was the reality of it.
Technically the film is quite sound. The costumes were good and the cinematographer Greig Fraser made good use of lighting. The purple wildflowers were beautiful as well.

Colleen's Thoughts:
A fan of Keats (especially "Ode on a Grecian Urn") since high school I was looking forward to the movie Bright Star. I knew before I saw the film that Keats had a very interesting story for a poet of this time, he was poor and in debt (because of his dead father and sick brother) and was not of the aristocratic class. In that day and age just one of those two bad marks would bar you from being a poet people read and cared about. He is the exception to the rule of the famous Romantic poets. However, this movie seems to care very little about any of that. It is all about his passionate love relationship with Fanny and she is clearly who the film centers on. It was a bit melodramatic and heavy but nevertheless a thoroughly enjoyable film. Jane Campion clearly knew what she was doing so there are no glaring mistakes or complaints.
I loved the cinematography and art direction. My friend Val, who saw the movie with us (she got us in for 40 cents each woohoo!) said that the movie looked like a poem. I thought this was a very intelligent comment. A movie about one of the most famous poets in Romanticism should look like a poem. The English country is beautiful (by the way it takes place in Hampstead Heath which as Lizzie, mom, Drew and I know is now a beautiful posh area where lots of rich folk live) However, at this time it is a quiet area outside of the city with lovely flowers and lakes. I liked that the indoors of the houses didn't look too extravagant, even people with money like the one's in the film did not really have all that much to show off. I loved the shots through the windows.
I also LOVED Paul Schneider's (All the Real Girls) performance. I had no idea it was him and I really thought he was a native Scot or Brit. You hated him when you were supposed to and liked him when you were supposed to. I wish that the character of Keats would have been a little bit more fully formed, for instance I really like the scene where he is pacing in the rain and gets mad at Fanny and Mr. Brown but Keats (Whishaw) isn't given many lines or scenes where he can do a lot. I still thought Whishaw was good though. Abbie Cornish also was very good and is def a front runner along with Penelope for this year's best actor. She acted like a young woman passionately in love and I also respected her, sometimes those two are hard to pull off together. I also loved the little red head girl, best child actor of the year so far. And of course, I can't NOT talk about the ADORABLE tuxedo cat that plays such a prominent role in this film. He/She is so cute and would fit perfectly in the Kenny clan. I wanted to take him/her home after the film with me.
All in all this was clearly one of the best Dolphin films this year and will make a strong showing in the Colleen noms.

Julie and Julia

Drew's Thoughts:
The bright side of the latest piece of crap by Nora Ephron (You've Got Mail, Hanging Up) is that a funny Meryl Streep performance is intercut throughout it. There really isn't much reason to watch this other than to see Streep, unless maybe if you're into cooking or if you are looking to punish yourself with watching the demonically annoying "Julie" part of the story. Probably the less said about the movie the better.
In this wintry state of potential Best Actress nominees I think Streep is guaranteed a nomination at the next Dolphins. She is good in this and fun to watch but it's definitely not Sister Aloysius-level so I don't anticipate her claiming a Dolphin the second year in a row. Still, she got me to watch the whole movie and, well, if she doesn't deserve a nomination for that then I don't know what she would deserve one for.

Colleen's Thoughts:
This was not a good movie. There isn't much more to say; Drew said what needed to be said. I will say that I thought the Julia Child's part was actually quite fascinating. Streep was good of course. They should have just made a biopic of Julia Child. The movie did inspire me to try and make something new, I made chocolate cream pie and it turned out quite well. I also loved seeing Paris, so Julia in Paris was fun for me to watch.
I think we can all agree that if Drew doesn't like Amy Adams in a movie than it must be a bad performance and it was, although she didn't have much to work with. Her character was a total brat. She acted like her life was a living hell because she worked for the government and had to live in Queens of all places. BooHoo I have to live in urban New york! A good smack in the head and change of perspective probably would have done her a lot better than cooking 524 (or so) recipes in 365 days.

Antichrist

Drew's Thoughts:
As the unofficial PFA president I sometimes take it upon myself to test out a movie to see if it's worth recommending to the Dolphin voting body. Also it was the night before Halloween and I felt like watching a horror movie.
Lars von Trier's (Dogville, Dancer in the Dark) bitterly divisive film Antichrist debuted at Cannes earlier in the year to cries of outrage over it's graphic, brutal imagery. Von Trier's infamous cinematic philosophy "a film should be like a pebble in your shoe" has morphed into something more akin to "a film should be like a rusty, 19th century handdrill boring a hole into your shin."
The film centers around a Seattle couple whose young toddler crawls out the window to his death while the couple is having sex. The woman played by Charlotte Gainsbourg (the film only has two characters--neither has a name) is emotionally and mentally devastated and goes in and out of consciousness in a month-long hospital stay. Her husband played by Willem Dafoe is a psychologist, and seems more interested in treating her like a grief-stricken patient than a grief-stricken wife. Upon his advice that facing the pain head-on is best, the couple set out to Eden, their cabin out in the remote wilderness as he attempts to get her to follow his bullshit therapeutic "tests" (including drawing a triangle on piece of paper). As the movie goes along there's all sorts of strange surreal nature imagery (including a fox that hisses "chaos reigns") and pseudo-symbolism as it becomes increasingly apparent the woman is seriously fucked up in the head though the man doesn't realize it until she completely and violently snaps. What follows from there is all the controversial stuff, seriously brutal, graphic violent images that you can't unsee. Stuff that made my body twinge with pain while watching it. Pretty horrifying stuff.
Though many critics have a love it or hate it attitude, I'm pretty in the middle on it. The film succeeds on an experiential level; the actors, especially Gainsbourg, give entirely fearless performances which is commendable, Anthony Dod Mantle's (Slumdog Millionaire) strange, warped cinematography is cool, and it's just an intense experience overall. Where the film fails though is in all the intellectual/philosophical content. It hints at philosophical/historical references of witchcraft (which the woman was researching for an abandoned thesis) but it's all so thin and underdeveloped it was pretty pointless throwing it in there. Not having a sturdy philosophical base harms the film. If von Trier had just left it as a story of a woman rapidly deteriorating mentally and her husband who is too up his own ass to help her then it may have worked better devoid of the worthless subtext.
In closing, considering I am the biggest von Trier fan in the PFA and my reaction was fairly middle of the road I'd probably recommend the PFA not watch this movie. That time would be better spent watching Dogville or Dancer in the Dark.

Mary and Max

Drew's Thoughts:
Mary and Max is based on a true story, and I think making an animated film based on a true story is a really interesting (and possibly original?) concept. I'm guessing there was a large degree of poetic license taken in telling this "true story" but the emotions and characters still feel very real.
The thing I commend about this film, and it's Oscar-winning writer/director Adam Elliot, is it doesn't pander to kids. It's not even a movie kids should really be watching. It's not that the film takes pleasure in making animated characters curse and act "adult" or something like that (the content is probably about a PG-13) but it tells a story that will resonate with, most likely, only teenagers and adults.
The premise is very simple; by chance, a young Australian girl, Mary, and an obese New Yorker in his 40s, Max, become pen pals. They share their collective love of chocolate and Noblets cartoons and confide in each other about their equally lonely, friendless existences.
The story ends up focusing more on Max which is a wise move because I felt his character had a little more depth (and he's much older meaning he has a lot more experiences to share) and also he is voiced fabulously by Philip Seymour Hoffman. The story moves in unexpected ways (maybe due to it being based on truth?) which is a credit to the film. The premise seems like it could wear thin but Mary and Max develop such a real relationship and their characters are developed so well, that the film gets by just fine on it's writing and more importantly on how genuine it is.
It seems like maybe through animation a filmmaker can avoid the audience's preconceived notions of the kind of people the characters are. I know I might be grossed out if I saw a 350 pound man stuffing his face with chocolate hotdogs, but when I see an animated version? Not so much. Instead though, you feel really sympathetic for both Mary and Max, and they each go to some surprisingly dark places in the film. Ultimately, the film is pretty touching which is always rare with animated films (not necessarily because they're animated though).
I've heard rumors of a Best Animated Film category at the Dolphins this year and I'd say at this point Mary and Max is definitely the one to beat. I wouldn't be surprised if it reached outside the animated category for noms though. It's a competitive category but Mary and Max could possibly get an Original Screenplay nom and maybe Score as well but that's another tough category. One category I feel Mary and Max should not be forgotten in, and maybe should even win, is Best Sound. The sound design in the film is phenomenal and really contributes to its "realness." When Max is sitting in his apartment typing you hear noise from the streets leaking in, for instance; the film takes great pains to create a true world, a strange world but a true one and sound is a big part of it. And of course this being animated there's no on location sound recording, it's all created specifically by the sound designer for the film.

Colleen's Thoughts:
At the very beginning of the Mary and Max screening I would say the word which best described how I felt about the movie was worried. The narrator says “poo” within the first few minutes and I was very concerned that this might be a movie which, to my horror, relished in its own quirkiness. I was wrong.
Somewhere during this film I became extremely emotionally attached to the characters. Since Drew and I discuss films together after seeing them he said a lot that we both talked about and thus some of my opinions were already voiced by Drew. For example, I think it was an amazing idea to make this true(ish) story in animation. I am startled by real life Max-like people on the bus or walking to school practically everyday. Quite frankly, if in the movie I saw a human Max collecting toe nails in a jar and eating chocolate hot dogs I would cringe!
Instead, Max is a lovable character (shout out to Phil) and the depth of his and Mary’s “outsiders” friendship is really touching. Also, I am a fan of anyone who has a life goal of having an endless supply of chocolate. Although, Max is out there, the script and the voicing make the characters incredibly relatable. I wish Mary’s climactic dramatic scene would have been executed better (the song during it is AWFUL). I think what the film does best is it develops a relationship between these two people that is truly humane and genuine. When there is a snag in their relationship you feel for them. I think the ending of this movie is incredibly satisfying and tears were running down my cheeks. Mary and Max is different, engaging and truly heartwarming.

The Hurt Locker

Drew's Thoughts:
Director Kathryn Bigelow should probably get some special prize for making the first good film about the US's misadventures in the Middle East this past decade. After so many failures I doubted it was even possible until a good 10 or 15 years from now. That said, The Hurt Locker is good movie not a great one. Though it still manages to be one of the better war pictures I've seen, nowhere close to Paths of Glory or The Deer Hunter but still leaps and bounds above the usual Windtalkers/We Were Soldiers fare.
The story focuses on a small team focused on disarming I.E.D.s a.k.a. bombs. After the previous team leader dies, Jeremy Renner (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) joins as the new leader. Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty play the other two soldiers on the team. The acting in the film is generally pretty good, Renner suits his character embodying a thirst for the madness of war and a put-on informality. Anthony Mackie is nicely understated, finding working with Renner a constant source of frustration. Guy Pearce is also great in his much-too-small role.
The Hurt Locker mostly avoids politics, wisely I think. The film becomes a matter of experience instead of an agenda; furthermore, it deals with the madness of war without being satirical. Renner’s character is talented at his work but far too unprofessional in the wake of such serious circumstances, which continually discomforts Mackie’s character. What’s interesting though, is one doesn’t really get a sense if war has changed Renner into a madman or if he’s there because of a desire for, or addiction to, danger that existed far before he joined the military.
Bigelow's real talent exhibited in the film is her masterful control of intensity. What’s great about The Hurt Locker is the characters don’t necessary act like they’re in extraordinary situations. Even though nearly everyday they’re on the brink of death, it becomes routine. Bigelow and the actors create a sense of naturalness, everydayness, in the midst of terrifying situations. When Renner has difficulty disarming a bomb he expresses his frustration in a fit of swearing, the way someone might if they lock their keys in their car. The important thing is Bigelow never goes too far to show this naturalness. It just is.
In spite of this acclimation to danger, the soldiers are scared and Bigelow directs each military operation with an engaging and tightly wound tenseness—rattling the viewer by a slow application of pressure rather than loud explosions.
The film is at its weakest when it’s not focusing on military operations. A subplot involving one of the soldiers and a military psychiatrist (played by Christian Camargo, who is seriously the bastard child of James Woods and Marc Anthony) is pretty worthless and unnecessary but fortunately only amounts to two short scenes. Furthermore, there's a sequence later in the film that intends to develop Renner's character's hysteria but it ends up pushing the limits of believability that the film did such a good job creating elsewhere.
This year looks to be a fairly weak one cinematically and though it’s far from classic material, The Hurt Locker is a good, worthwhile picture and I imagine it could be one of the main contenders for the Dolphins, at least in the technical and director categories.

Donna's Thoughts:
Before watching this film I didn’t know what the title meant. I now know that sergeants on duty in Iraq speak of explosions as sending you to the “hurt locker”. Sergeant William James played by Jeremy Renner, Sergeant Jt Sanborn played by Anthony Mackie and Sergeant Owen Eldridge played by Ben Geraghty are a team assigned to the Explosive Ordinance Disposal (E.O.D.) Jeremy is the staff sergeant and plays the role extremely well. In 2005 he starred in Neo Ned which received many awards at festivals. His performance in Hurt Locker makes me want to look Neo Ned up. He also starred in The Assas. of Jesse James riding along Affleck and Pitt. I believe he could be nominated for an academy but the subject of the film doesn’t lend itself to a wide audience.
The screen writer Mark Boal was inspired by real events. Watching Sergeant William James remove a bomb purposely placed in a dead body of a boy, a friend who would ask him to play soccer made me look away from the screen.
Anthony Mackie’s performance was okay. Being trained at the Julliard School of Drama and acting in 8 Mile and Million Dollar Baby. I judge his performance in Hurt Locker as mediocre. He was outshined by Ben Geraghty who starred in Bobby a few years back. Ben‘s character is a sergeant not liking being a part of Sergeant William James’ life.
The film has a good beginning. I especially liked the part of a single suicidal bomber who has changed his mind and begs Sergeant William James to dismantle the bomb. The bomb has several padlocks attached to a metal frame around the man’s body and of a course time is running out.
There is some footage of the mother of Sergeant William James’s baby back home that I feel adds another dimension to the story. I would recommend the film, however, many of my friends don’t have the stomach for real war.

Joe's Thoughts:
I was very excited to see the Hurt Locker after my man Colbert kindly invited director/producer Kathryn Bigelow onto his show, in which she discussed her new film, "The Hurt Locker". The film opens with the discussion of how sometimes war can be used as a drug by the soldiers who take part in it. The film does a great job of taking one story and proving its point. But what i really appriciate about this film is that its not trying to make a statement about the iraq war, which i thought it might, it simply focuses on it's story at hand. Which revolves around a young man who needs danger and loves the idea of having many lifes including his own in one hand, and a ticking time bomb in the other.
The film keeps you totally on edge the entire film, as it goes from one adrenline rush to another, which i think is another great tool used by the film. As the lead character is going from one needed rush to another, the audience is as well. Which leads to the movie getting its message across. But what the movie also does really well is showing how this addiction does not mean this characer is evil, as we see him getting the caprie sun and having fun with the dvd kid, Even though this man was putting so many people at risk for a selfish need he was a caring a loving character and not one dementional at all. And its hard to hate him beucase while he is taking uneeded risks, he is diffusing bombs and in a way saving lifes.
The direction from Bigelow is impressive as we defentily feel like all the soldiers who surround the crazy lead, and the script is pretty good as well. I was also really impressed with the acting from three members: Jeremy Renner, gives a great preformence as the big headed sarg who needs his war fix, he was perfect for the role and may get some dolphin love. The African American Anthony Mackie was also very good at playing the frightened but strong soldier, look for him at the joes in the supporting actor category. And of course our beloved Guy Pearce puts on a show, but then dies in two minutes, one may think the movie might go on a downward spiral with the death of guy but thankfully this isnt the case.
With all this praise there is however one big flaw within this film, as before mentioned the movie goes from one adrenline rush to another as its trying to make its statement clear, but to me it almost makes its statement too clear, as the movie beings to get somewhat repetative, there are variation to some of the bomb defusing scenes, and there is the sniper scene and the scene in the back allies in the dark, but to me still to much repetition keeps the film from being very great, but still is a very very solid film.

Star Trek

Colleen's Thoughts:
You don’t need to be anywhere close to a Trekie to enjoy the new Star Trek movie that came out this spring. The plot of this Star Trek is that all the members of the original Start Trek show are just being recruited into Star Fleet. You get a glimpse at their pasts and learn how they became involved in the exploration of the final frontier. The word “entertaining” best describes this film. The dialogue isn’t fantastic and often cheesy and Chris Pine, who plays Kirk, does get on my nerves, but I found myself smiling throughout the film. The actor playing Spock, Zachary Quinto, did a great job with the character and it was fun to see the original Spock, Leonard Nimroy, in the movie. Also, Simon Pegg went all out with the few scenes he was in. (Unfortunately for Pegg he was sharing his scenes with weird “e-wok-esque/jar jar binks” creatures which were just silly). I don’t think it will make a strong showing at the Dolphins this year, but all in all it was a fun film. Star Trek is a good movie to lift your spirits and distract you from school or work.

Drew's Thoughts:
I'd describe my Trekkie status as not disliking Star Trek but not necessarily liking it either. It always seemed like an interesting premise/concept but the execution of the various TV series and movies left much to be desired in my opinion. Thus, my reaction to the news of J.J. Abrams's reboot of the series was pretty apathetic. Based on Colleen's review though, I figured it would be worth watching.
J.J. Abrams doesn't use much subtlety in telling the story but he manages to hit all the proper points to excite and engage the audience. Though the plot and dialogue are laden with cliches, the film manages not to get bogged down in them.
By far the worst element at work was the acting, the worst offender being Karl Urban as the doctor. He moves through every scene with his brow permanently furrowed and an unchanging scowl plastered across his face. Every word he speaks is steeped in a hilariously misguided "cynical" tone. Bogart he most definitely is not. Urban's performance had the makings of a great, campy performance if, you know, he actually realized how bad he was. Unfortunately, the best performance (Simon Pegg as Scotty) gets a scant amount of screen time.
The best element is the set design, which opts for a minimal amount of CGI. Obviously there's a fair amount of CGI in the film but it seems that the design department was consciously looking to the past, creating something more akin to Alien than the new Avatar-style bullshit.
Star Trek is not one the year's best films and though it's no Dark Knight, it's probably the best popcorn movie you'll get this year.

Joe's Thoughts:
I watched the first half of this movie, and don't have any immediate plans for watching the second half.

Moon

Drew's Thoughts:
I'll say it right up front, I think Moon is a great movie. I watched it again to see what'd I'd think after knowing all the twists and I still thought it was a hell of a picture.
The story revolves around Sam Bell, played by Sam Rockwell (Snow Angels), who mans a space station on the moon with only a computer, GERTY (voiced perfectly by Kevin Spacey), to keep him company. He works for a company that harvests Helium3 on the far side of the moon (which supplies the world with 70% of its energy in the film) and he's got two weeks left on his 3 year contract and things start getting strange.
Sam Rockwell who is more or less the only actor in the film, gives an absolutely brilliant performance and is surely the one to beat for the Best Actor Dolphin this year. I don't want to give anything away because it seems best to watch the film knowing as little about it as possible but Rockwell gets inside his character Sam Bell and manages to find how Bell would react in so many different circumstances making for a seamlessly real performance. More than just authentic, Rockwell's performance is incredibly engaging, natural, heartbreaking, and humorous. Just tremendous overall.
Rockwell isn't the only one who deserves commendation though. Writer/director Duncan Jones crafted a very interesting sci-fi story and then took a small budget of about 5 million and made one of the best looking sci-fi movies I've ever scene. The story is very tightly told and edited and the production design is fantastic. What I really liked was that the space station didn't seem like it was hermetically sealed off. It looks like it is lived in. There are skuffs, scrawled post-it notes stuck to everything, dust, grimy tape wrapped around the rungs of ladders etc. Furthermore, Sam Bell hangs out in slippers, sweat pants and an old t-shirt like any person does when they're at home alone. Sci-Fi isn't a genre I'm usually predisposed to liking, though there are many sci-fi films I really like including this one, but Duncan Jones treats his material like it's real so there isn't any disconnect with the audience despite the outlandishness of the tale. Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain) also composed a moving, fitting score for the film that is certainly deserving of a nomination.
I don't want to say any more and leave the film still shrouded in a bit of mystery but it's a really fantastic film and should be high up on the "to-see" list.

9

Drew's Thoughts:
Based on his Oscar-nominated short film, Shane Acker enlisted the talents of John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly and Tim Burton as a producer to expand the vision of his short into a feature length film.
Like Mary and Max, 9 avoids for the most part being a "children's movie" despite it being animated. Most young kids would probably just get confused watching it, cause I know I was. The film sort of plays out like The Terminator or The Matrix meets A Bug's Life. The characters of 9, these weird sack doll things, are fighting in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by machines. The story doesn't make a whole lot of sense but I like that the dolls are ragged and the machines are rusty and physical degradation pervades the animation design.
The title character played by Elijah Wood (each character name is a number 1-9) leads the effort against the machine and the dolls find that feuds within the group pose a threat just as much as the machines do. It's all somewhat standard post-apocalyptic stuff. The dialogue-less short was pretty good because, while the story was lacking, it had atmosphere and was only ten minutes long. With the full length they try to give explanations to why things happened, which the short avoided, and this movie fumbles those explanations pretty thoroughly. While I wouldn't say 9 makes many big missteps, aside from the weak story, and the animation is good, it also plays too much by the rules to stand out or seem special. Rather than being flawed but interesting like the original short, it's the usual mediocre, nonsensical sci-fi movie in animated clothing.

Coraline

Drew's Thoughts:
I was looking forward to seeing this because Henry Selick wrote, directed and produced it. Selick directed The Nightmare Before Christmas which is one of my favorite animated movies, and one of my favorite Christmas movies too. Anyway, I didn't really know much about the movie but I expected it to be pretty good.
I was pretty much wrong though. The story is ludicrous. The heroine, Coraline, finds a small door that leads to a portal, not into John Malkovich's mind, but into a much more boring alternate world of button-eyed people. There isn't much more to it than that, Coraline ends up needing to rescue her parents from Teri Hatcher who wants to sew buttons to her face and free the souls of these ghost children (who remind me of the ghosts in the Lemmiwinks South Park episode) which are trapped in marbles or something. I'm guessing maybe Neil Gaiman, who wrote the novel on which the film is based, is to blame for this crap?
Selick doesn't escape blame either though. Besides the flimsy story and bad dialogue, Selick gets atrocious performances out of his two main actors Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher. It's a bad move to cast them anyway, but apparently Selick paid no attention to actually directing their voice performances. All Fanning can do is sneer stupid, cliched lines like a prepubescent Juno (though thankfully not quite as annoying as that sounds) and all Hatcher can do is pretend to cackle maniacally and sound like Lois Lane. The guy that played the boy kid sounds exactly like Scott Tenorman too causing me to wonder if South Park was actually a big influence on the film.
The animation was pretty cool but I mean, there's just no saving the rest of the movie. I wish Selick had stuck with working on The Fantastic Mr. Fox instead of leaving to make this piece of crap.
Full disclosure though: I fell sleep for a significant portion of time in the middle of the movie, in which case it's possible that Coraline triumphantly achieved cinematic greatness that far surpasses Citizen Kane and The Godfather but there's no way I'm gonna go back to find out.

Up

Joe's Thoughts:
“Up”- Made Me Want to Throw “UP”

I’m just kidding, as much as id love to follow in the footsteps of president drew dahles attempts to take reviews on pixar films to an all time minimal, I feel being this my first review of the year I owe our dear readers a great deal more. So here we go. Pixar scorched the silver screen with its debut film Toy Story, which was released in 1995. It depicted the lives of living toys that belonged to a boy named Andy. Before this film was released I felt the same way as director John Lasseter did, that when I indeed shut the door to my room to attend beockman creek primary my toys magically came to life, and as my sister has admitted to feeling the same way I think its safe to assume the majority of people with toys gave them some sort of life. And what happened when they came alive, each toy had a specific personality that somewhat related to who they were. This led to a great tale in which Lasseter utilizes every aspect of every toy, be it size or shape. He takes us into a new world in which we all had been to before, and puts a creative spin on it. Another terrific Pixar movie is one entitled Monsters Incorporated. Now, we all know monsters live in our closets or under our beds, and when the lights go out they groan and moan with lanky teeth and sharp claws in an effort to make us scream. What we didn’t know is why these monsters haunted us into the late evenings of our youth. Thankfully in 2001 pixar explained to us that monsters put us through agonizing pain simply because these monsters needed us to power their buildings and cars and houses. Director Pete Docter (who also directs UP) takes us into a new world in which we all had been to before, and puts a creative spin on it. And we all believe in super heroes, but what do they do at home? Or when the run out of steam? Luckily director Brad Bird introduced us to the domestic life of super heroes in his film The Incredibles. We see elasti-girl station ally vacuuming the entire house, while the Mr. Incredible lifts the couch with one hand. It’s a world we’d already been to, but with a new creative spin. That is when Pixar is at its best. When it takes hold of common old ideas, and brings creative life to them. UP does not do that. The story follows an old man who loses his wife, and when near certain eviction, he hatches a scheme in which millions of balloons turn his house into a flying boat. While this idea is clever, not much comes of it, or at least director/co-writer Docter chooses not to make much of it. Instead his main character lands on an unknown island with a child companion, where they find this magic bird thing that is being hunted, and of course the kid grows to love it and wants to save it. Where was this in my childhood? Or everyone else’s childhood? This wasn’t something that haunted me or took up my afternoons. Without much of a story the laughs for the movie have to rely on one-liners normally delivered by the kid, and they are disastrous. For example, he asks the old man if he should dig a hole before or after he takes a shit, only to reply it was suppose to be before. These awful jokes spew for the kid’s mouth the entire movie. The one clever thing, besides the flying house, was the invention of the device, which allowed dogs to speak. This creative idea had much potential only to prove to be minimal as many stereotypical dog ideas where used, which in turn led to an original idea becoming unoriginal. One can simply guess how exactly the story will end, I would say a half hour into the movie. There are however two things in which I thought were great aspects of the film. The score, though played a billion times, was memorable and maybe if it’s a weak year could be up for a nomination. And the best part of the movie was the cute relationship between the main character and his wife. Near the beginning of the film there’s essentially a 15-minute silent film that documents their lives together, and its really good and promising, and then she craps out and dies, killing the best part of the movie, and essentially murdering the movie all together. When is pixar going to get back to its old ways, in which it takes ideas we all cherished when young, and puts new and creative ideas into them, maybe next summer with Toy Story 3? I guess if I had to I would give UP a D+.

Donna's Thoughts:
Pixar Animation Studios released Up in May of 2009. This story about a grumpy old man named Carl Fredrickson and an overeager wilderness explorer, Russell reminded me of my life in the past and possibly in the future. Ellie, Carl’s wife has a dream about moving to Paradise Falls in South America. Of course many obstacles come in the way of her dream. I can certainly see this. We’re safer in doing “what is right” rather than take a risk to fulfill a dream. Ellie passes away never reaching Paradise Falls. I certainly relate to Ellie seeing myself doing “what is right” and being stuck in the suburbs the rest of my life. Carl isn’t in too much of a predicament. The city is growing around his house and he is unwilling to sell. I don’t see the city of Portland surrounding my house, so Carl should have looked at the bright side. As Shady Oaks Retirement Home sends their greeters to kidnap Carl after an angry mishap, he launches his house into the air with thousands of helium balloons. This is extraordinary, but when they come to hall me off to Shady Oaks, I won’t go willingly. (take note children)
I really enjoy Russell the wilderness explorer. I had a student that epitomizes his character. He is trying to find a way to get his merit badge for “assisting the elderly.” No one considers themselves as “elderly”. I know I never will! It’s a difficult badge to fulfill.
The story then enters a hard to believe point. An antagonist, Charles Muntz, is looking for the “flight less bird”. On their way to Paradise Falls Russell attracts the flight less bird with his candy droppings. Russell reminds me of Jack Black in Tropic Thunder. He just uses a different “candy”. The whole charades of Muntz, the unique bird and his dog pack is only entertaining to dog lovers, but I’m in the minority with dogs. I can see why Pixar went that direction. There are sentimental parts like when Carl looks at the empty journal pages behind Paradise Falls, when Russell returns Kevin to her chicks (the name Russell gives the flight less bird is Kevin which is a typical choice for a 10 year old boy), and of course when Carl takes the place of Russell’s father at the boy scout ceremony pinning the grape soda cap on Russell which earlier in the movie was pinned on Carl by Ellie. I laughed, had tears in my eyes and smiled throughout the movie and the best part is, it whisked me away from reality for 90 minutes.

Drew's Thoughts:
Joe's comment that when the wife dies the movie is murdered was hilarious but also somewhat of an overstatement. I think what amounts to roughly the first half hour of Up is a pretty good movie. The old guy and his wife make a cute couple and they are pretty enjoyable to watch; even after the guy is living by himself, the movie is still kinda funny. I laughed when the old man tells the business man, who looks like one of the agents from The Matrix, to "cut your hair, hippie!" or something like that. The score is pretty good too as Joe mentioned.
So anyway, I liked the first half hour of the movie but then Up self-destructs so immediately and so thoroughly it erased most of the goodwill it had already earned. Once the house lands in Paradise Falls the plot, jokes and characters wear thin instantly. And I'm not sure why we're supposed to care about that fat Asian kid/dumbass or find him to be anything but grating.
The movie starts out heartfelt with some emotional depth, something the viewer can connect with but devolves into unfunny jokes and unexciting action sequences, and any time the film refers back to the emotional moments it chokes on all the surrounding stupidity. I wish Pete Docter would have had the balls to make the whole movie with the same tone as first half hour because I think he would have ended up with a pretty good piece of work.
Still, even with its problems its a vast improvement over Ratatouille and WALL-E. Each year I face a choice on whether to give the new Pixar movie a shot (cause after all they gave me Toy Story and A Bug's Life) and I thought I was at the end of my rope this year but Up gave me just enough good stuff to not give up just yet. I guess I'll wait until Toy Story 3 to see if it's time to start ignoring Pixar altogether.

Nothing but the Truth

Drew's Thoughts:
Filmmaker Rod Lurie (The Contender) is back in political thriller mode with Nothing but the Truth. The film is fictional but based on real events regarding a journalist publishing an article leaking the identity of a CIA operative. After the article is published the reporter, upon refusing to reveal her source, is jailed for aiding a criminal in a matter of national security.
I wasn't sure how the film was going to turn out going in but the film ended up being pretty good. Nothing but the Truth doesn't have the powerhouse cast of The Contender, which had great performances by Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges and particularly Gary Oldman, which limits the overall potential of the film. Nevertheless, the script is pretty solid and engaging throughout and the cast turns in a decent, though far from extraordinary, performance. The central performance by Joe and Phil nominee, Kate Beckinsale, is about as good as her limited talents allow her to be and Alan Alda's vain attorney is probably my favorite performance of the bunch. Vera Farmiga, one of the worst things about The Departed, is miscast though; she's given a character with loads of tough talking dialogue and she can never really sell it. Despite all the swearing she does, you can never actually feel the ferocity that's supposed to be there.
The film plays out like a pseudo-mystery with the continuing question being who was the source of the leak in the first place. When it is finally revealed it left me thinking, confused, which is one of the better compliments I can pay the film. I'm still not sure how I feel about the plausibility of it, but regardless of that once you know who the source is, it causes you to totally reevaluate all of Beckinsale's actions and wonder if it was really a matter of principle after all, and who was it that she tried so hard to protect, the source or herself.

Donna's Thoughts:
I’m not going to give much time to review this film as it was a 2008 drama film that never made it to theatrical release because the Yari Film Group filed for Chapter 11 protection. I was intrigued by the inspiration behind the screenplay, Judith Miller. She was jailed for contempt of court keeping secret the person who revealed a CIA agent. Kate Beckinsale’s performance as Judith is good but Vera Farmiga, the CIA agent, outshines Kate. The ending was surprise. I didn’t put the clues together but does that surprise any of you? The middle drags on as days go by in jail. Since it won’t be up for any nominations, I’ll quit here.

Where the Wild Things Are

Drew's Thoughts:
I've been waiting to see Spike Jonze's third film for quite some time. Jonze's work on Wild Things apparently began some ten years ago, and while initially set to direct what became last year's Synecdoche, NY, he handed the directorial duties over to Charlie Kaufman when the opportunity to finally get Wild Things into production came up. The production was obviously a complicated one that would take some time, experimenting with the technology to get the wild things right and so on, and this already lengthy production dragged on even longer due to a number of high profile battles with the studio.
Jonze is revered for his resourceful, inventive visual style and pitch-perfect comic timing. He makes all the crazy things in Charlie Kaufman's mind come to life better than anyone else. Something else Jonze does masterfully that often gets overlooked, is the way he works with actors to develop characters. He's directed Nicolas Cage, John Malkovich, Chris Cooper, Cameron Diaz and arguably John Cusack, Catherine Keener and Brian Cox to career best performances. Those performances all created characters who are fully formed and emotionally resonant. Jonze works his magic again with the wild things, which are essentially big furry suits with computer animated faces. Yet, they feel so real and I definitely got a little misty-eyed watching them. Their expressions are so nuanced and affecting it's a wonder they are products of a computer program. This is, of course, due in part to the phenomenal voice acting by Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper, Paul Dano, Lauren Ambrose and especially James Gandolfini as the lead wild thing, Carol. The fact that Jonze pulled together those voices, guys in giant hairy suits and CGI to make these incredibly life-like beings is nothing short of a cinematic miracle.
Max Records performance as Max which the story centers on was pretty good I thought. Not up there with Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, Dillon Freasier in There Will Be Blood, or the girls in In America but still impressive in that he didn't seem like he was acting, often the downfall of child actors. Something that could bother some viewers is that Jonze and co. have no problem making Max a bratty little bastard. Carol, the head wild thing, acts as Max's wilder double, mercurial, pouty and impulsively violent. Max initially identifies himself in Carol upon their first meeting but grows to find Carol's brattiness difficult and tiresome. There isn't a strong driving plot in the film which has it's pros and cons. I'm happy they didn't make it into standard children's fare by making a bad guy that they have to fight against because that would seem really inauthentic in light the material but at the same time the screenplay could have been stronger and delved more deeply into the character's minds and the conflicts of their relationships. That said though, there are some great lines and it's fun to watch to the wild things banter back and forth.
I think in my anticipation for the film I lost sight that it still is a children's movie. It's a phenomenal children's movie and certainly one adults can enjoy and be impressed by, but there isn't the depth there you expect from "adult" masterpieces. The wild things are all touching and expressive but they weren't given quite enough to express to completely satisfy an adult viewer. This can't be blamed entirely on the film itself though because after all this is based on a 10 sentence long children's book so the depth wasn't there in the first place. Visual mastery is top notch and a strange, bizarre vision is made into reality just like the book, but the film doesn't fill in that lack of depth absent in the book. It's not necessarily expected that it fill it in, but I feel that was the key element needed to elevate the film to full blown masterpiece status.
After the first viewing, I feel Where the Wild Things Are is a staggering directorial achievement worthy of much well-earned praise but the film as a whole, while good, doesn’t quite command that same level of awe.

Colleen's Thoughts:
In my opinion, Drew was far too generous with his review. I agree that the visuals in this movie are fantastic and the wild things really couldn't look any better. Also the cinematography surrounding the wild things is magical, breathtaking and definitely worth looking at again.
However, Max is an asshole. While I agree that it is alright for Max to be bratty he was way too much of a jerk too me and where the film was asking me to sympathize with him (his igloo being broken, having to lie on the floor and entertain his poor mother)I almost laughed. What a BRAT! It brought me back to babysitting days when I thought "If I was your parent I would be MORTIFIED!" Yes, it is ok for Max to be somewhat of a brat, especially if he is to undergo a transformation (which again was laughable) but the character was a liar and devoid of sympathy even when he was with the wild things. I also disagree with Drew in Max's acting, while it was great at some points at other points it really did feel "acty."
Alright enough with the rant, like Drew said it was a children's movie. Going in expecting to be totally impressed the way I was after seeing Adaptation was asking far too much. I also think that since Jonze usually teams up with screenplay mastermind Kauffman that I was expecting the screenplay to be somewhat on par with that work, which again, was asking far too much. (The visuals and not the screenplay are clearly the strength of this film).
The major positive besides the visuals is the voice actors. I totally agree with Drew that their performances were PERFECT for their characters. They were fun to watch and entertaining to the children. I especially liked Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O'Hara and Chris Cooper. Cooper was especially fun to watch and listen to in my opinion.
In closing, Where the Wild Things Are is a fairly typical children's movie with visuals that are anything but typical. If you are looking to be impressed by visual creations and mind-blowing backdrops (as well as some great voice acting) this is the film for you, but don't go in expecting much more.

Joe's Thoughts:
I read an interview not to long ago in which spike jonze (director of Wild Things) was discussing his approach to his most recent film. Though based on a worlds famous “children’s” picture book, Jonze stated that his plan was to make a film for adults. This led to many problems as the studio pictured his picture to be the stereotypical “children’s” film. And while the film may contain elements and ideas taken from childhood, and the protagonist is a child, the film contains thematic themes and great one liners in which children cannot understand, thus leading to a film which caters to adults. Where The Wild Things Are is not a “children’s” film, or if it is, it certainly didn’t feel like one to me. No child can fully understand the theme between gandalfini and Max (even though they may live it, they don’t fully realize what it means or they wouldn’t act that way). No child can understand the comedic greatness that comes from such characters as the chicken. Maybe this film will go down in history as a “children’s” movie but in my mind no child can fully take what is offered by the complexion of many elements of the film.
That being said what holds this movie back in a way is the simplistic story, but one cant expect much as the book contains only a handful of sentences. But this is the only major flaw I see in this film. I thought it was a fucking great movie. I was cracking up nearly the entire time, Chris Coopers chicken was splendid, and I think it was dano playing the goat, but who didn’t have a friend like that goat. I mean every time I had dirt clad war some little pisser was crying off in the distance that he was hurt. Catharine O hara and Forest Whittaker were a great couple leading to many laughs as she contemplated eating max the entire film. The movie was a riot. And even beyond the comedy some complex scenes with deeper meanings arose. My favorite scene in the entire film was when gandalfini was destroying the houses; I felt the characters pain as his lover KW had just walked out on him. And while his character proved to be somewhat of a “brat” throughout the film and in the scene mentioned above, that was something for the audience to understand and dislike. As my fellow dolphin member Colleen did. We were supposed to view those two characters as “brats” why do you think they were the only characters who couldn’t understand bob and terry. They were too uptight and unable to take a joke and relax, and that’s why people in their lives were walking out on them, because they were just being “brats”. Which both characters realized to some degree near the end of the film, in which Gandalfini howls and Max runs home to his mom.
Another element which leads to many laughs is how Jonze uses his Wild Thing characters, utilizing them in every aspect, they can knock down trees, build amazing tunnels, they sleep in giant dog piles, all fun ideas from Jonze and company, which lead to many laughs. And the voices were played to perfection, Forest Whittaker creates a great character with his loomy low voice, and Catharine O’Hara creates a witchy character with her high pitched crackling voice. Dano’s poor and helpless goat is amazing and perfect for the character and Chris Cooper, wow!
In closing I agree 100 percent with my other dolphin members in the sense that the CGI/Puppets were a miracle, and obviously the movie would not have been quite what it was without being able to see the emotion in the characters faces, but that’s not what makes the characters so great, its starts with there individual personalities and the lines written for them and in that sense Jonze creates amazing creatures, aside from the great cinematic CGI/Puppets. The cinematography is pretty great, especially during the scenes which take place at night or day for that matter. Oh, and I would have to side with Drew on Max’s acting.
A very great movie, and I cannot wait for more from Spike.

A Prophet

Drew's Thoughts:
Jacques Audiard's latest film follows Malik, a young, possibly innocent, Arab man's stint in a Paris prison. Unlike most prison films that document an inmate's escape, or attempt to anyway, A Prophet witnesses a prisoner becoming ensnared in the environment around him. The thought of escape never crosses his mind, only how best can he succeed inside the prison.
Told with raw, unflinching intensity and realism, with a touch of surrealism as well, A Prophet is a character driven exposé akin to The Wire. Racism, corruption and mafia rivalry all factor in without overpowering character and plot development. I don't want to say much about the film because it's best to just experience how it unfolds for yourself. I will say, however, that the script is quite good and Audiard does a good job directing as well; and that the film's final half hour is a total tour-de-force and satisfying finale that the film slowly and unexpectedly builds to.
In a weak year for supporting actor, the French Rutger Hauer, Niels Arestrup's performance will be worth remembering. He plays Cesar Luciani, a mafia higher up operating from prison. His intense, volatile portrayal pulls no punches and never once courts the audience's sympathy. The lead actor field looks to be much trickier but Tahar Rahim's central performance is also good. Very naturalistic and without a trace of vanity, his assured performance is expressive without being "dramatic".
I see potential in A Prophet to be a film the PFA might be in unanimous favor of; it could be one of the big Dolphin contenders this year.

In the Loop

Drew's Thoughts:
It’s interesting having watched In the Loop and Nothing but the Truth within the span of a few days cause in a way they’re alternate universe versions of the same similar movie. Both feature political power plays, leaking of supposedly secret information, people getting chewed up in the gears of political machinery and, of course, careerism galore. The biggest difference is that In the Loop is funny.
The film contains a massive amount of characters and to the credit of the director, script and cast, each of the characters, even the smaller ones, come out seeming like people rather than plot points. Speaking of plot, there is one but I couldn’t exactly tell you what it is. There is a secret US war committee and falsified intel and somewhere in the middle of it all an ineffectual, low-level British cabinet member embroiled in the mess. The film moves at a dizzying rate, making the viewer work extra hard to follow all the ins and outs of US/UK political relations. The film uses this briskness to its advantage, however; even when you aren’t exactly sure what’s going on, the film is bristling with so much energy that one can’t help but get caught up in it.
The cast is solid with Tom Hollander playing the pathetic cabinet member at the center of the story, Peter Capaldi as his creatively, usually nonsensically, foul-mouthed boss and Chris Addison as a new, motivated assistant who doesn’t realize what a complete dumbass he actually is. David Rasche (who you’ll remember from Burn After Reading) is the best of the more peripheral (read: American) roles. He’s what boils down to the film’s antagonist and is brilliant as the clever and conniving head of the war committee. He’s responsible for a lot of the film’s funniest moments at least partially cause he approaches the dialogue in a different, more subtle way than much of the other cast.
The film is such a whirlwind that at the end I was surprised I spent the last 100 minutes watching it. Furthermore, it left me wanting to revisit it soon in the hopes of catching more of the lightning fast dialogue.
Though it may have some stiff competition in the adapted screenplay category this year, I think In the Loop will be worth remembering in the winter when the Dolphin ballots are made out. I can’t say it’ll be there when things are all said and done but as far as things go now, it’s the best movie I’ve seen this year.

Colleen's Thoughts
I will preface this review by saying it has been a while since I watched this film and I should probably see it once more before this dolphin season is over. In the Loop is a fun movie with lots of laughs. I really enjoyed Tom Hollander's performance. He was a refreshing look at a mid-level politician who isn't a conniving arsehole, or an intelligent hero. He is probably a better picture of what a typical politician is like. I found myself rooting for him despite his incompetency. At times, the loud mean Peter Capaldi was a little much for me and silly rather than funny or witty, at other times he was spot on. I especially love his pro-Scottish remarks (I won't give anymore of the best line in the movie away).
I disliked Chris Addison and his whole affair part of the movie, it felt a bit tacked on and I think the movie would have been better doing away with it.
All and all In the Loop was an enjoyable film and I smile often thinking back on it. I also loved its quick pace; it was refreshing after all the slogging mediocrity of the dolphin year so far. The dialogue is quick and so it is one I can definitely see getting more out of the second time around.