#2,001: Veronica Mars

Hey, I cracked 2000 movies watched! Give or take, of course, the huge margins of error on both sides.

The A-Team - ★☆☆☆☆
I can't believe how boring this was. Looney Tunes has higher stakes. They even jammed a terrible 'lost his powers' subplot that gets resolved by turning to Ghandi as an inspiration to kill a bunch of people in with the other incomprehensible nonsense.

Small Time Crooks - ★★★☆☆
Fun, jokey, not much of a heist movie exactly. I was surprised to find it's as recent as it is.

Rififi - ★★★★★
Just great. I hadn't seen it in a while and I think it blurred together with The Friends of Eddie Coyle and maybe Topkapi for me, so it seemed fresh. It may be a little bit of a vanilla story and execution, but that's okay when you're first. It holds up as a solid, exciting, and precise-like-clockwork film.

Le Cercle Rouge - ★★★½☆
I was much more into the first half of this movie in which the team is assembled than the second half containing the heist. It's not a bad heist, necessarily, unless you've -just- watched Rififi.

Probably my biggest criticism though: not enough red circles!

Two lightly spoilery items I enjoyed:
1) How the crooks step over the first electric eye, but to get past the second wall of them, they just do it somehow while we're cut away to the other characters.
2) How they steal all the jewels off their displays, but when they go to the fence it's all nicely laid out on velvet backings and stuff. Must have been a nice afternoon craft project.

Veronica Mars - ★★★☆☆
As a viewer who has never seen the TV series, I still found this to be fun and fairly accessible. There were certainly some lines that I could pick out as references I wasn't getting, but at the same time I probably didn't actually benefit from the 'previously on' type opening sequence. I probably would have cut out the gang stuff and the line by Ken Marino that causes a tiny plot hole.

In the pantheon of movies that continue TV series instead of rebooting them though: pretty good! And better at standing on its own than a lot of those. Maybe a rung below Serenity, and while I really liked Homicide: The Movie, that's probably only because I watched seven seasons of the show first.

#1,996: The Lego Movie

All movies, all Monday!

Monster - ★★☆☆☆
I had a lot of trouble connecting to this movie. Probably because it's tough to sympathize with an unrepentant crazy murderer? It's like a sadder Citizen Ruth.

Hotel Rwanda - ★★★☆☆
An interesting story, well told, that carries the unmistakable look of an early 90's live-action Disney movie. It's a weirdly distracting look for such a serious topic, and the content of the movie makes it seem weird to criticize this part, but here we are.

Two re-watches:

RoboCop - ★★★★☆
I'm hesitant to see the new one, but (a tv-edit) of this was one of my favorite movies as a kid. Still a delight. I was struck by the efficiency of it today. It really clips along. Something to strive for in a movie these days.

Rope - ★★★★☆ I think this is a fun movie. The continuous take thing felt a little clunkier than I remember though. The camera of the time was so huge - today it would be so much easier to produce. And starring Jason Sudeikis. With maybe Tom Hanks as Jimmy Stewart.

And finally:

The LEGO Movie - ★★★☆☆
I've been wondering what the message of this movie is. It seems like the path to success was to do all the 'wrong' things. Maybe it's that everyone everywhere should become their enemies? Also, even though you're making fun of the hero's journey stuff, that doesn't mean you're not still doing it.

I read some thoughts about the movie on the internet, and all I learned is that I don't really like how much the internet churns every new thing into a bland paste each week.

In college, I had a double-decker couch. It worked out fine.

#1,993: All Hail the King

Movie Monday!

Kick-Ass 2 - ★☆☆☆☆
It's easy to see how the producers tried to take a look at the first one to see what people liked about it, and expand on those elements. This movie is jam-packed with terrible scenes that prove they got the what, but not the why. Unencumbered by any hint of fun or character development, all that's left is a snoozy, repetitive plot.

Her - ★★★½☆☆
The promotional stuff I'd seen for this really looked awful. So, I liked it more than I expected. My favorite things were mostly the implied future. Future technology, future elevator decorating techniques, future public transit in LA. Glad that they eventually addressed questions that the beginning prompted.

I guess the ending was inevitable, but a little unsatisfying. I'm not sure what I would have liked better though. Maybe if Theo made a choice?

Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay - ★★★☆☆
What can you do? If it's a movie full of tricks and demos, then it should be a concert film. If it's a movie full of explanations of the man's past and methods, then it's like being told how the ice cube got on the table, and the answer to that is probably going to be, as Jonathan Creek says, "mind-numbingly banal."

This was interesting, but not TOO interesting...

Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King - ★★★½☆
We had a little marathon of all the MCU shorts, mostly punctuated by wondering why there can't be more, and why Agents of SHIELD can't hold a candle to these.

In particular, I liked how this one both undoes a little continuity damage and maybe sets us up for future flicks.

#1,989: American Hustle

More Movie Monday!

Changeling - ★★★½☆
My expectations for this were based on a trailer that I was not remembering correctly at all. I thought it was going to hinge more on whether or not she was right or crazy, and maybe that she thought the boy was an impostor, but her husband didn't. Watching the trailer now, they spell the whole thing out pretty well, so I guess I'm glad I had that wrong.

I think she'd never agree to go on a date with the guy that made her work the day the son was taken.

The Pianist - ★★★★☆ (Rewatch)
I’d forgotten a lot of this since seeing it in theaters. I remembered bits of the ending quite clearly, but not the opening optimism in the face of impending doom that I can imagine feeling myself if it were to happen today. It's easy to see how you might just assume things will work out, how hard it would be to imagine needing to flee your country.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - ★★½☆☆
I was on board with the first half of this movie. Then a switch is flipped and everything went from interesting to easy. Jack is suddenly great at everything and there's no more danger.

Seems like the theme for reboots now is 'how about this character, but with no flaws?' We'll check it out again next month with the sleek new, acrobatic and google-enabled Robocop.

American Hustle - ★★★☆☆
I don't know. Everyone's acting so hard! I'm not sure what it's trying to say. It was fun, but might have been more fun to see as just a movie, without the context of all the nominations.

It's kind of like the A Knight's Tale of 70s crime movies.

#1,985: Premium Rush

Movie Monday!

Blue Jasmine - ★★★☆☆
Kind of like Young Adult, ten or fifteen years on. I suspect this movie may have been a little funnier than it seemed.

Captain Phillips - ★★★½☆
Really wish I could have seen it without trailers and buzz and previews and everything that it got for months and months - felt like I'd already gotten the whole story in advance, but still more engrossing and generally better than I expected.

I think this was the first Greengrass movie I liked.

Don Jon - ★★☆☆☆
Don Jon is what a Kevin Smith movie would be if he had gone to a better, or maybe just more pretentious, school. Julianne Moore was good though.

Premium Rush - ★★★★☆
Mechanically, this works like Hurt Locker. Almost every scene is an exciting street chase.

It's neat how this movie could sustain so much chasing, in contrast to something like a Matrix or Bourne sequel and their boring chase set pieces. Maybe it's because it seems like a bike messenger could get hurt.