Movies from the year not seen in the theater

Alright so the goal is to see as many movies as possible during the year in the theater. Well things don't always go as planned, I have got a heck of a lot of tables and not enought hours in the day so NetFlix has become my new best friend. Below you will find a list of the movies I have seen from the year not in the theater. Each entry will be accompanied by a brief review. Perhaps with more time I will provide longer reviews, especially for the movies I really like.



Gone Baby Gone (GRADE A)
This was great, top to bottom, inside and out, great. Cudo to Ben Affleck for making a great movie and Casey Affleck for making it great. Story, script, sets, filming, acting, no weakness here. Even the ending left the audience with something to talk about days later. Aces all around.

Talk To Me (GRADE B+)
Very good movie, not great, but very good. Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejior are excellent, no surprises there, Cedric The Entertainer throws in some timely comedic relief, good story, strong script, very enjoyable.

We own the Night (GRADE B+)
I had high hopes for this movie and it is not as if they were dashed or anything, dissappointed is not the right word, I guess I just didn't agree with some of the choices the director made. Joaquin is money, I don't think I need to say anything about Robert Duvall. I did not get enough Walberg, which kind of bothered me becuase the movie was billed as a co-star cast, but it was really Joaquin's movie. Which I don't have beef with, I guess that is my point is that I kept waiting for the movie to shift into 6th gear, but it never got our of 5th. Good, but not great.

Hitman (GRADE B+)
As I said earlier I am not a hard man to please. What's more I feel even better about this movie, because initially I thought Timothy Olyphant was a mistake, but he made me eat my words. Very good video game adaption, which rarely happens, but this script was helped by the fact that the game has some very cinematic elements to it. Even Desmond from Lost makes a cameo appearence.

Pride (GRADE B)
Terrance Howard is moving into that rarified air of give me a half-way decent script and I can make it my own. This movie was not Coach Carter or Lean on Me or any of its predecessors. It was its own style of movie and that is becuase Terrance has learned to be assertive without being loud or abrassive. He and Jamie Foxx are very similar in that regard, they just have presence and take up space without crowding everyone else out of the scene.

Superbad (GRADE B)
A lot of the really funny scenes were in the previews, but there were still a couple of gems. Too profane for my tastes which will keep me from ever owning this movie, but there were definately some funny scenes here. Talented group of writers and actors here.

Shooter (GRADE B-)
It doesn't take much for me to be happy. A decent story, with some good acting and a bunch of cool action sequences and consider me pig in slop. I am officially a Mark Wahlberg fan (notice how avoided calling him Marky Mark).

Next (GRADE B-)
Jessica Beil again, still hot. Nick Cage is Nick Cage, I mean you know whaat you are getting with a Nick Cage movie, but the premise was interesting enough. I have to knock the movie somewhat becuase the ending is about as weak as they come.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (GRADE C)
Whatever Jessica Biel is hot and "the scene" was definately worth the netflix rental. This movies also had some pretty good physical comedy. I mean it wasn't great, but I could see Sandler and James teaming up again, they have good chemistry.

Vacancy (GRADE D)
No matter how hot Katie Beckinsale is or how much I like Luke Wilson, I can't stand horror movies, I just don't like any parts of them. This one is no exception, there were moments of intensity where it felt more like a thiller and less like a horror flick, but even in that it was weak.

Still have to see -

Disturbia
Sicko
Rescue Dawn
Rush Hour 3
War
The Assisnation of Jesse James...
Resident Evil Extinction
Charlie Wilson's War

Final List for 2007

So I realize I am a little late in getting this list out, but better late than ever right. So here it is all the movies I saw in theater during 2007. All in all it was a pretty good year, I would not say banner, but the movies did cover the spectrum, brilliantly crafted dramas, intense action, cutting edge special effects movies, and of course comic book flicks. This year featured some of the greatest performances I had seen in a while and some I would rather forget, some all time huge dissappointments and some really nice surprises, a few standouts, but a lot of very blah movies. In the end I can't complain too much, so without any futher delay here you go...

1. American Gangster (A)
2. The Bourne Ultimatum (A)
3. No Country For Old Men (A)
4. Michael Clayton (A)
5. 300 (A)
6. Black Snake Moan (A)
7. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (A-)
8. There Will Be Blood (A-)
9. Breach (A-)
10. The Kingdom (A-)
11. I Am Legend (B+)
12. 3-10 To Yuma (B+)
13. Reign Over Me (B+)
14. The Great Debaters (B+)
15. Live Free or Die Hard (B+)
16. Zodiac (B+)
17. Mr. Brooks (B+)
18. The Grindhouse (B+)
19. Ocean’s Thirteen (B)
20. The Simpson's Movie (B)
21. The Transformers (B)
22. Hot Fuzz (B)
23. Shoot'Em Up (B)
24. The Brave One (C+)
25. Eastern Promises (C+)
26. DOA: Dead or Alive (C+)
27. Daddy’s Little Girls (C+)
28. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (C)
29. Spiderman 3 (C)
30. Smokin’ Aces (C)
31. The Condemned (C)
32. Ghost Rider (D)
33. Shrek the Third (D)
34. National Treasure: Book of Secrets (D)
35. Pathfinder (F)

No Country For Old Men

Wow, that is all I can say, wow. The Coen brothers make good movies. My boy Chris described this movie as the companion piece to Fargo, which is pretty much right on the money. In the way that Fargo gave us a sneak peak into life of North Dakota police woman trying to solve a series of violent crimes while she is six months pregnant, No Country For Old Men takes into the life of an aging sherrif, Tommy Lee Jones, trying to cope with how Texas has changed over the years and if he is still the man to do this job.

No Country For Old Men is more about Sherrif Ed Tom Bell and his struggle to make sense of a world gone crazy than it is about satchel full of money and all the parties going after it. Though the story mostly is centered around the $2 million that Llewlyn Moss, James Brolin, finds and tries to get away with while Anton Chigurh, Javier Bardem, and bunch of Mexican bad guys try to track him down. Most of the action may be about this cat and mouse game, the sotry of Sherrif Bell is always apparent, his is the first and last voice we hear in the movie and his wit and demenour carries the film.

In stead of talking about all the things that are great in this movie, which are a plenty I will instead offer my one slight crytique. I would have perferred some back story on Brolin and Bardem's characters. These two did a majority of the running and gunning in this movie, asisde from Bardem being described a pschyopath and Brolin as a vietnam vet we don't get much about how they know how to do what they do. But again that is my one slight annoyance, other than that this movie was great, an excellent must see and definately top five this year.

GRADE - A

There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood is the story of oil-man Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York, who is so utterly consumed by being a self made success that he cannot see anything else and cares little for the collateral damage that results from his ambition. Plainview starts out as a man operation prospecting for precious metals as he begins to make money he adds to his staff and moves from silver and gold to the black gold this country has come to rely on. Plainview describes himself as a straigh talking oil-man who cares about family, he has unofficially adopted the son of one of his deceased employees, and faith. Plainview is an experts at exploiting the emmotions of small towns that are eager to reap the benefits that come with have an oil mill on their land. Plainview would not be able to do what he does if it were not some a least a small amount of greed on behalf of the towns folk, but his unapologetic tenacity steam rolls anyone that would try to stand against him or next to him for that matter.

My feelings for the story and movie at large aside, enough cannot be said for Day-Lewis' performance. It is not difficult to see why he takes so much time between movies, there is no Daniel Day-Lewis on screen there is only Daniel Plainview. There are few if any actors that are more committed to their craft. Day-Lewis becomes his roles, he eats sleeps and breaths his characters and this performance is another knotch on his belt, another example of what the highest level of acting looks and feels like.

As a movie There Will Be Blood got a little too full of itself for me. It like Anderson, writer and director, was so proud of this story he did not feel the need to explain much of anything. Like for example were the Sunday boys twins, we assume so, how did Plainview deduce his brother was a fake, did Plainview care more about oil than his son. I understand that many of these questions were probably answered and I am just too slow to pick up the sublety of the story, but did everyhing have to be cryptic and understood. However as pretencious as the movie felt at times it was not enough for me to be too harsh. This was sophisticated story telling and it is important to have this kind of varitey in the type of product Hollywood produces.

GRADE - A-

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

So yeah I saw this movie, I saw the first one as well. I can't be mad at the movie, becuase shame on me for wanting anything from this movie or franchise. I guess I am a little frustrated that I saw this instead of Charlie Wilson's War, but at the time I had no idea that was movies was going to get some much love and I didn't think I would be as dissappointed in this movie as I was.

I really don't want to give a synopsis of what this movies was about becuase honestly I don't really want to expend the effort and in truth it doesn't really matter. National Treasure: Book of Secrets is less about the story and more about the outrageous escapes and puzzles throughout the movie, same as the original. I guess I was a little more lenient with the first movie becuase it was sort of new, but this movie made no effort to do anything different. Nick Cage and Justin Bartha are an amusing duo, but no terribly funny. There were a bunch of heavy weight actors, Voight, Harris, Keitel, even Helen Mirren shows up, but in the end it just wasn't enogh to save this movie from itself.

I wish I could suggest this movie as a fun pop corn flic that you can watch and turn your brain off, but honestly you will be bored 40mins in and your brain will actually fight you back. I guess if you catch in on capable you can put it in on in the background.

GRADE - D