Death of a Cyclist (1955)

A tense drama of love and ethics. Hitchcokian glamor and foxy Spanish people. Plus awesome clothes, modernist furniture, and Paul Klee paintings. Shit, why aren't I watching it again right now? I'd like someone to do a comparison of the mustaches here and the ones in Solo Sunny.

Black Swan

Loved it. Will never touch my cuticles again. The gritty backstage world of ballet--the cold, concrete hallways, and how ballerinas score the bottoms of their slippers, and stuff like that--was what made the freak show parts more freaky. People called it campy, but the characters make perfect sense together.

Social Network

Yes, it's great. The music, the acting, the script. How they made that shit interesting is a miracle.

Inception

I don't care if it makes sense if you think about it for about nine hours, or if the elevator bit was marginally cool. This movie is fucking STUPID. The goddamn bombastic music alone was enough to induce migraines. Juno woman is here, being boring.

Middle Men

"Wow, David Arquette does a GREAT Luke Wilson." Long silence while this terrible movie plays. Credits roll. "Oh, wait, that IS Luke Wilson!"

Art School Confidential

Pretty bad. OK, there is ONE funny bit: The cop who goes undercover as an art student and whose crude paintings of cars make him a star.

Solo Sunny (1980)

In the seventies, German men had some serious mustaches. This is the story of some of those mustaches, though the star is a bohemian nightclub singer who's part Nico, part Little Edie from Grey Gardens. Breezy, affectionate, sexy, sad, and perfect. A+.

Megamind

So fucking good. I think it bombed. I guess the public, like me, assumed it was something they'd already seen--a stale Incredibles do-over. It's not. The script is ridiculously tight and funny. Will Ferrell never better.

Man is Not a Bird (1965)

An impoverished Yugoslavian copper mining town is the stage for this freeform portrait of ... wait, come back! Yes, this is a hard sell. And it has hardly anything of a plot, but so much life that it flashes by effortlessly.

Pigs and Battleships (1962)

Dr. Strangelovian surrealism in post-war Tokyo, made by a young (at the time) former assistant to Ozu. A kiss-off to the proprieties of his elder. B+.

Tokyo Story (1953)

Scott Kuhlman told me to watch this. I didn't want to, though it's considered the masterpiece of director Yasujiro Ozu. A slow, stately build-up to heartbreak. Magnificent.

A Colt is My Passport (1967)

A world-weary Japanese hit man is on the run. Wanted to love it. Measured, tense, stylish, and full of motion at first, it becomes by the end ludicrous and boring.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One

Excellent. It's not about plot, which is the same in every Harry Potter book and movie. It's impressionistic, a ribbon of adolescent moodiness. It out-Twilights Twilight. The characters turn out to be far more durable and likeable. They blatantly taunt the rival franchise with a scene of young people in hoodies running through the forest.

Twilight: Eclipse

Makes no sense because it has nowhere to go. The first two films pretty much wrapped up the love story. Bella in love was sexy. Bella dithering is irritating.