I'm kind of surprised that this movie hasn't been advertised more. I haven't seen any trailers on TV, and the only one I saw in the theaters was only a week before it opened. It's a little strange, because it's actually quite good—the dialogue, in particular, was clever and drily funny. What's more, it had a very bankable cast: Josh Hartnett as the lead along with Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, Stanley Tucci, Morgan Freeman, and Ben Kingsley. I mean, come on, how could a movie with Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley fail to be good? Well, whatever the reason for the lack of promotion, I hope that the word-of-mouth spreads fast enough to keep this film in theaters for a few more weeks, because it's one of the better films I've seen in the past year. If you're into gangster movies at all, check this one out.

Viewed: 2006-04-10 | Released: 2005-04-06 | Score: B

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I decided to continue my reading on American history with Dee Brown's classic about the plight of the American Indian. It was an amazing read, informative and engaging. At times, though, it was almost too effective—the entire book is written from the Indian perspective and the stories Brown tells are heartbreakingly tragic. Despite the fact that I already had some knowledge of the ways in which the Indians were mistreated I still found myself surprised and outraged at some of the episodes Brown related. I'd recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the American West, but be prepared for some heavy subject matter.

Started: 2006-02-23 | Finished: 2006-04-07

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If you're the type that likes to organize and analyze, you can pretty easily split the caper genre into two groups: the ones where the audience is told about the plan beforehand and the ones where they aren't. The former type can get by on action sequences and gadgets, but the latter has to be a little smarter—it's crucial that the misdirection works well. A good caper movie can give you all of the pieces of the puzzle and still surprise you in the end. I'd say this was a pretty good one. It was well-written with an interesting premise and the performances were all pretty solid. Christopher Plummer was particularly good (which is no surprise, really), as was Denzel Washington. Apart from my normal pet peeve about accents (Clive, man, I love your work, really, but you should really stick to English roles) my only real complaint is that the movie made me overthink things. Really, the plot was a pretty straightforward caper, but there were lots of little details—a large poster in the background of one scene, the music under the opening credits, several lines of dialogue pertaining to race and religion—that had me expecting a plot twist involving terrorism or something. I guess I was paying just a bit too much attention, but that's alright since it didn't really diminish my enjoyment of the film.

Viewed: 2006-03-31 | Released: 2006-03-23 | Score: B

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It's quite likely that you haven't heard of this movie. In fact, the only reason I knew about it is because I knew some people who worked on it. Overall, I'd say I liked it. I don't generally enjoy "message movies," because the themes being portrayed—in this case, the effect of the proliferation of guns on American society—are often pushed into the foreground at the expense of good storytelling. This movie didn't totally avoid that problem, but I think that the quality of the performances was enough to offset the fact that the script was a little shaky. All of the principal actors did a good job, and I particularly liked Forest Whitaker and Donald Sutherland. I've also been noticing Linda Cardellini more and more lately—I think she's pretty talented and I found it a little unfortunate that her storyline wasn't developed more. It was a little hard to see how it fit with the rest of the film. From a technical standpoint, it seemed a little obvious that the writer-director was new to filmmaking, because he chose to use a lot of what I call "film school" techniques. Some of it worked, like the way the different storylines had different film textures and color balances. On the other hand, some of the camera angles and cuts kind of bothered me. Still, I think that the film does what it sets out to do, which is to spotlight an issue that we as a culture are currently dealing with. I'm not sure that I completely agree with the standpoint the film seems to take, but it's a subject that certainly merits discussion. If it comes to your local indie theater (and you can check the release schedule at the film's web site), you might want to check it out.

Viewed: 2006-03-25 | Released: 2006-03-21 | Score: B

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I got the feeling while watching this movie that the filmmakers were doing something brilliant but that it was going over my head because—as is so often the case—I wasn't familiar with the source material. Having had a few days to do a little digging, I think I was right. What the writer and director has done here is take a book that is widely regarded to be unfilmable (Laurence Stern's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman) and restructured it in such a way that it works brilliantly on film. Rather than try to put the novel on film, what they've done is captured the spirit of the novel by making a movie about making a movie about the novel. (Is your head spinning yet?) The book is described as a self-reflexive, stream-of-consciousness satire full of both low-brow bawdy and more intellectual, meta-literary humor that still manages to ask some serious questions about the limits of self-knowledge and deliver some touching scenes of paternal love. And that's exactly what you get from the movie. The more I think about it, the more I like it. Now, to go get myself a copy of the book.

Viewed: 2006-02-25 | Released: 2006-01-26 | Score: B

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I think what keeps bringing me back to this series—aside from the fact that I already own it—is the characterization. Hornblower is keenly aware of himself and the events of his life so, rather than each story standing alone, the echoes of all of his past adventures continue to be heard as he matures. You get to see how he grows. It's really great writing. Plus, you get to read lots of cool nautical terms like "sternsheets" and "mizzentop."

Started: 2006-02-12 | Finished: 2006-02-22

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As you may know, Judi Dench was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her performance as the woman who first brought nudity to the West End stage. I'd say the nom is well deserved. Of course, Dench could do just about anything and it would be good, so it's not terribly surprising. Bob Hoskins and Christopher Guest were also quite good and between the three of them there were some truly hilarious scenes. Much of the film focuses on the shows themselves, nudity and all, and while a real show like that would come off today as hokey and gratuitous, in the context of the film it was kind of endearing—sort of a glimpse into a time that was more innocent despite the tragedies brought about by war.

Viewed: 2006-02-19 | Released: 2005-12-08 | Score: B

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I really hated the last two Woody Allen movies I saw in the theater. In fact, after we saw Anything Else, Juliette and I decided that was it, we weren't going to see any more Woody Allen movies. So when we heard about Match Point we were a little skeptical, despite the overwhelmingly good reviews it was getting. We were so wrong. It was easily one of the best films we've seen over the past year. The writing was excellent, the locations were beautiful, and the acting was, for the most part, brilliant. The story managed some of the most incredible tension I've ever seen in a movie and the resolution leaves you both satisfied and uncomfortable. Probably the lowest point of the film is Scarlett Johansen's acting, but even so this is probably her best work. In fact, I'm not even sure that the relative shallowness of her performance—relative to the other actors, that is—wasn't on purpose, because it works pretty well for the character. I wouldn't have thought I'd have so many good things to say about a movie by Woody Allen but this one was just amazing.

Viewed: 2006-02-11 | Released: 2005-12-27 | Score: A

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The 2006 update of The Pink Panther has been receiving generally bad reviews. This review will not break that streak. I think part of the problem for me was that I had reasonably high expectations based on the fact that I thought Steve Martin looked really funny in the previews. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie was only OK. In fact, the funniest part of the movie wasn't even Martin, it was Jean Reno. Reno's deadpan performance as Clouseau's sidekick, Ponton, was the highlight of the film, for me. And the low point? That would be Beyoncé. I honestly cannot figure out why she keeps getting cast in movies. Sure, she's good-looking, but not enough that it makes up for being completely terrible at acting.

Viewed: 2006-02-10 | Released: 2006-02-09 | Score: C

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Once, back in high school, my stepdad and I had a conversation about great American presidents. Like a lot of people, he thought quite a bit more of Thomas Jefferson than George Washington—in his words, Washington was "just a general." As much sense as that appraisal made at the time, it was ultimately unsatisfying because there must have been some reason that Washington was the first president instead of Jefferson, or other eminent politicians of the time like Madison or Adams. In fact, it is exactly this problem that is the central question of His Excellency. I found it to be an excellent read—informative and engaging while also being easy to absorb. Separating the man from the mythology that has grown up around him over the past two centuries is no mean feat, and Ellis does a good job of presenting him as a human figure. In addition to the subject of the book, I also found it interesting to see the biases that different historians have. Ellis presents Jefferson and John Adams and their respective parties in a very different light from the way Stephen Ambrose portrays them in Undaunted Courage and To America. Clearly, one writer can never give you a complete picture, but I'm starting to get to the point where I feel that the breadth of my reading is giving me a wide enough reference to read with a more critical eye.

Started: 2006-01-30 | Finished: 2006-02-07

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