Sunday, December 19, 2010

More flicks!

Here's another batch of 2010 movies that didn't make the top ten list.


The Ghost Writer
is a satisfying political thriller about a guy (Pierce Brosnan ghost writing the former British Prime Minister's memoirs. It's pretty obviously supposed to be Tony Blair, and it involves some secret information. It takes on a bit more weight with what's going on with Wikileaks.


The Green Zone does a nice job of mixing a non fiction story with a fictional action film. It's based on a non-fiction book about the search for WMDs in Iraq. I don't know how much was changed to avoid possible libelous accusations and how much was just changed to be an action movie.

In some ways, I liked Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I liked that he didn't simply retell the story but made it into a sort of a sequel. I also enjoyed how the movie is based more on The Jabberwocky than on the Alice stories. Back when I taught English, my students were required to memorize and recite a poem. I always got a kick out of the kids who picked The Jabberwocky. So that's what I liked. But I didn't dig the visuals - 3D sucks - and the pacing didn't work. I think it's because Johnny Depp played the Mad Hatter, so he had to have a bigger role than was necessary.


Do you want to see something totally different? And I don't mean just random stuff that you can't understand making it different. I mean a story that is told in a different way. Watch the Korean movie Mother. It's a story of the mother of a mentally disabled boy. the boy is accused of murder. It's just... different.

Greenberg was one of those movies that had a better trailer than a movie. It looked like it would be a cool little independent movie, but I found it to be unsatisfying. There have been several small movies made by actors that I didn't care for, but they won be over. Ben Stiller didn't in this one. It has it's good parts, but overall it didn't work.

Chloe was OK, but I honestly don't remember too much. If I hadn't written it down, I wouldn't have remembered seeing it. So take that review for what it's worth.

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