Movies

I don't usually talk about movies here, but I've happened to see a lot of films this summer. Feel free to offer your opinions in the comments section.

Best to Worst:

(500) Days of Summer
I can't say enough good things about this movie. Walking out of this last night, a friend said he thought it was a really good chick flick. I disagreed, saying it's more of a guy's movie about love. Told from the male viewpoint, it illuminates so many of the things about women which frustrate us. Saying they don't want anything serious, but acting in a way which makes us want something more serious. Saying they don't want a relationship, and then starting a relationship with someone else. But this is just one part of this wonderful movie. It's funny, but in an honest and intelligent way. The acting and directing are superb, particularly in one scene which takes place in Ikea. As my uncle wrote on his blog, "this is a movie that turns the aisles of Ikea into the kind of halcyon romantic destination that Woody Allen gives 'Manhattan.'" Go see it this weekend.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Yes, I know it left out some key parts of the book, but this is one of the better HP movies. Remember when this book came out, and a lot of attention was given to the romances going on? The movie uses the frivolous romantic scenes to break up the heavier drama going on everywhere else. It's carried by great performances from the older actors and actresses, particularly Alan Rickman playing Snape.

The Proposal
My friends made fun of me (still do), but I really wanted to see this one and I wasn't disappointed.

Up

The Hangover

Angels and Demons
I was gullible enough that the twist at the end surprised me, otherwise this would be lower on the list.

Brüno
A disappointment after Borat, but a lot of the same humor.

Away We Go
I love The Office and John Krasinski, but this movie sucked. The film gave me no reason to care about the main characters, and after a lot of jumping around, a few laughs, and some emo scenes, I didn't know what the point was.

Additionally, while both of these movies came out last year, I saw them recently and enjoyed them immensely:

Man on Wire
It has a 100% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it's easy to see why. It's a documentary which tells the story of how the Frenchman Philippe Petit illegally walked a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center. But it says so much more about what the towers stood for and what drives people like Petit.

Gran Torino
Has Clint Eastwood directed a bad movie recently? Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers, and Gran Torino are some of the best movies I've seen. As Manohla Dargis wrote in the NYT review last December, "few Americans make movies about this country anymore." It's an elegy for the American auto industry and the American economy in general, and I recommend it highly.