Policeman

Nadav Lapid 2011

I didn’t see many Israeli movies this year but this was definitely the best I saw.  It was also one of my all-around favorites of the year (list forthcoming).  It’s follows two stories, and part of the fun of the movie is watching them develop and come together, so I won’t say anything about it.  But it captures something very deep and sad at the heart of contemporary life – more true of Israel and Tel Aviv, but probably also true of many other places.

Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows

Guy Ritchie 2011

Uncle’s observations were more salient than mine: 1. there are indeed many moments in the film when it seems certain the two leads will make out. 2. the smartest joke is Watson as the first person in the history of automobiles to drunkenly exclaim “I’ll drive!”

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Brad Bird 2011

The film doesn’t make sense (at all) but it’s still pretty fun. If you are considering bringing a flask of bourbon to the theater, I would advise you to do so.  But caveat emptor: I like bourbon.

Anton Checkhov’s The Duel

Dover Koshashvili 2010

An adaptation of a novella, very much like a novella, it more or less washes over you and then it ends, and then you think about it for a few days hence.

Carnage

Roman Polanski 2011

Not particularly cinematic, but not exactly theater on film either.  You get to see four great film actors (John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz, Kate Winslet and Jodie Foster) working with excellent material (an adaptation of Yazmina Reza’s play, The God of Carnage, about a meeting between two sets of parents following a scuffle among their respective sons), directed by one of the greatest living directors in the world.  I’d rather have seen it as a play in the theater, but given that I didn’t, and that I might not, I’m glad I got to see it like this.

Taking Woodstock

Ang Lee 2009

Demetri Martin and an excellent supporting cast do a good turn in this family drama set upstate New York during the eventful summer of ’69.  Ang Lee brings a little something more to everything.

Blue Steel

Kathryn Bigelow 1989

Jamie Lee Curtis and Kathryn Bigelow work extremely well together, and the movie starts out great.  Then everything goes nuts and you want to scream at the picture.  Oh, and Ron Silver is a sweaty man.

Grizzly Man

Werner Herzog 2005

I mentioned at a dinner party that I thought this was a funny movie and everyone looked at me like I had just skinned a puppy. So I watched it again.  It definitely is funny but in fairness I’m not sure funny is the best way to describe it. “Incredible” probably does it better justice.  It’s just that Herzog has such a good sense of humor.

Heavy

James Mangold 1995

Watched COPLAND the other day and was like holy crap, this was James Mangold’s second movie? Pretty fucking good.  What was his first?  (Hint: it was the movie I am reviewing now.)  And then I watched it.  And then I was like: huh?

m/s/e/a/k  points out that Mr. Mangold has a thing for fat losers and drowning girls.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Niels Arden Oplev 2009

First half was boring – probably trying too hard to be true to the book – but it picked up in the second half when it also became a buddy film.