The last couple weeks

I'm going too see The Wrestler tomorrow, but I don't see how Mickey Rourke can have a better comeback performance than Jean-Claude Van Damme in JCVD. It's an incredibly honest performance that doesn't shy away from the embarassing nature of the work he's been doing for the past ten years.

Speaking of great performances, Michael Shannon is finally getting recognition for an incredibly intense short role in Revolutionary Road. Shannon is the new master of the intense scary role after similar turns in Bug and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

There's something a little too simple about Ron Howard's films that makes me dislike most of them, and this is definitely on display in Frost/Nixon. I did love Frank Langella though.

The Reader is very solid and very professional, but doesn't make me feel much of anything at the end.

Savage Grace has a dreamlike quality that reminds me a lot of early Todd Haynes films like Poison and Safe. I love the way the ending makes you question a lot of the earlier scenes in the film as you wonder how reliable the narrator has been.

Not the revenge you thought you were getting

After the first hour of Revanche I thought I could tell where everything was headed, but it undermined my expectations, leaving me awestruck by the honesty of its performances.

The Godfather minus all the bits that made you like The Godfather

Gomorrah fails as drama because evil, especially systematic evil, is terribly undramatic.

Oh No! Tom Cruise

Valkyrie is is a collection of many of my favorite character actors given far too little to do, oh and Tom Cruise is in it too.

Instead of the movie diary this year I am going to try to make one sentence reviews of everything I see in 2009. This idea will probably be abandoned as soon as I get bored of it.