Peter Sellers' phone call to the Russian premiere is the greatest monologue in film.
The Keep: My mom rented this last time I was there because she vaguely recalled it being neat back when she saw it in the eighties. I...would have to disagree. (I'd also seen it before but had only vague memories of it). So these Nazis set up shop in a Romanian castle where some dude imprisoned the ultimate evil or something and being Nazis they can't leave well enough alone and they let it out and it starts killing dudes one by one. This could be cool if it was done right, but done right is something that it is not. This is early Michael Mann, he was purely about visuals, and plot, well, maybe it would happen eventually if he felt like it, maybe it wouldn't. What is there is rambling and incoherent, the ostensible hero sits on his hands for most of the movie with breaks only to: bang the main chick after exchanging about five words with her; get shot up by Nazis and fall off a cliff; miraculously save the day at the last minute despite not doing much or displaying much in the way of character. To be fair, some of the color contrasts and lighting are striking, but anything Mann does right aesthetically is undermined by the fact that someone really, really needed to take away his fog machine privileges. Jesus you don't need to use that in every scene. What a mess.
The Departed: I would've hated the ending if not for Mark Wahlberg. Wow, I never thought I'd say that. Anyway, it's Scorcese, he might make a movie I don't care for once in a while (organized crime is a subject that rarely interests me), but he's consistently good at drama and was in top form here.
The A-Team: Big dumb action movie that operates on the premise that if you keep throwing shit at the audience they'll never get bored, what is this thing you call pacing? Nonstop action is not necessarily good action. Bleh. I can't wait 'til Hollywood's eighties nostalgia fixation stops being profitable for it. [Note: the brother put this one on, was not a Cid pick. In case anyone was prepping "what were you expecting?" comments.]
Terribly Happy: Random foreign movie rental. I don't remember why Netflix recommended this one to me, but I can't help but feel someone was having a laugh at my expense. It's about this cop who gets posted in a small town where the locals deal justice in their own way and don't like outsiders interfering. So basically it's Hot Fuzz with every ounce of humor drained out of it. And it's Danish. (I suspect this latter statement is redundant.) And the protagonist is mildly psychotic and accidentally smothers a woman to death and gets blackmailed into joining the creepy inbred yokels. God, what a depressing trainwreck of a movie.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Usually see the Narnia movies with my parents because it's basically nostalgia mode for my mom. I read 'em once, but so long ago that I retain only vague impressions and details. Dawn Treader I remember being the most fun because it was all about exploring the unknown and seeing weird places. If there was a plot in there somewhere I must've blinked and missed it (man, they barely even pretend that there's actually anything opposing the heroes to motivate the journey), but this isn't a big deal since the appeal was adventure for the sake of adventure. Sometimes it's alright to look at, sometimes it's just a jumble, but at least it's better than the last one, about which I mainly just remember Caspian screwing up a lot and there was a big battle at the end for some reason. And we get more of Simon Pegg as a swashbuckling mouse this time, so there's that. One of those largely inoffensive movies that mostly evaporates from your consciousness once you're out of the theater. I can't help but feel the directors take a very by-the-numbers approach, and wonder what the movies would've looked like done by someone with real vision.
