Tom & Alissa

I’m Not There
Well, I don’t think we expected that this would live up to the hype, but it certainly did. I’d heard that it got “tedious”, but I didn’t find it to be tedious at all. It’s absolutely great, even if you’re not a Bob Dylan fan. Cate Blanchett is brilliant. (In case you’ve been living in a hole, this movie is sort of a riff on the life of Bob Dylan - six actors play different parts of his persona, which are shot in different styles.)

Matrix Reloaded
I finally got around to watching it. You know, it’s not great cinema, but the car chase almost makes up for it.

Woman on the Beach
This is a tragicomedic Korean film that kind of plays like a Woody Allen movie, only not at all American. The movie director goes off to a seaside beach to finish writing his movie, brings along a friend, who brings along his girlfriend, and hijinks ensue. Nobody’s actually going to see this movie, though, so I don’t feel like I need to say too much more. It wasn’t awesome, but it wasn’t bad.

Se7en
David Fincher is a very evil genius (seriously, the man scares me) and apparently I’m working my way backwards through his movies. This is brutal but excellent. I’m glad Brad Pitt made them keep the ending the way it is, even though it’s bleak. A serial killer works his way through the seven deadly sins as he systematically knocks off his victims. Not for the faint of heart or stomach.

Matrix Revolutions
Some of this I really loved, and some of it just bored me (mostly the Zion bits). The fight scene at the end was worth waiting for.

Still Life
A Chinese film by the director of The World, which I did like. This is mostly a tale of people looking for things they’ve lost. There’s also some demolition of a town that’s about to be submerged. I think I liked it, but it pretty much defines “slow foreign film”, so if you’re not into that, beware.

In Bruges
Press screening. Funny and so politically incorrect. The acting is great. My review is here.

Kicking and Screaming
Not the Will Ferrell one, the Noah Baumbach one. What do you do when college is over? It’s wall-to-wall talking, and as many have said and I will repeat, Baumbach can do dialogue like nobody else. Also, Jason from Gilmore Girls is in here, very young, and that just made me laugh.

Boss of It All
Lars von Trier makes a comedy about a Danish out-of-work, pretentious actor who gets hired to be the “president” of a company because the real president of the company has never let on that he’s the president, preferring instead to pretend that all the bad announcements are handed down from the “boss of it all”, who works in the US. Sticky situations ensue. I like this kind of experimental stuff (he let a computer pick all his camera angles), but most people probably wouldn’t enjoy it that much.

Catch Me If You Can
We’d both seen this before, but gee, what good fun, and I think better cinematically than a lot of Spielberg’s films (though I do usually enjoy them, because that man can entertain!). Plus, a great score.

And I watched these on my own:
Helvetica
Really quite interesting - less about the font and more about controversies in design and aesthetics around the world, plus a lot about modernism and post-modernism in there. Definitely a must-see if you’re into design.

The Nanny Diaries
This was better than I expected, but not as good as the book. They changed the plot a ton - which is completely understandable. I really liked the look of the film - vibrantly colorful - but I think it flew along too fast. In any case, not bad.

La Misma Luna
A press screening, and it doesn’t come out until March so I can’t say much.