#72: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. This is the foreign language film that is the first in a trilogy. Based off novels of the same name, this film is in the Swedish language but yes, is subtitled. It is currently available on DVD and instantly on Netflix. Hollywood has already gotten it's greedy little hands on this gem of a film and is remaking it and will be released in 2011. Why can't we just think up our own original films instead of taking other countries ideas and making them our "own". I am not a fan of remakes (until you read my next review). Anyway...this is a fantastic crime thriller. I got so incredibly invested in the story unfolding that the 2 hour and 20 minute run time flew on by and the fact that I was reading the movie completely went right past me. I didn't know where it was going, and for that I love how the whole thing concluded. Sometimes it's hard to tell if a performance is good in a movie like this...because I don't speak their language. But Noomi Rapace came off as what I believe a very strong performance and she stole the movie! I don't know if she really was that good...but from what I could read from her performance...she was excellent! I cannot wait for the next chapter of the film, The Girl Who Played with Fire. Critics Grade: 87%. My Grade: A-.
#73: Let Me In. Well here we have a Hollywood remake of a Sweedish film called Let the Right One In. This is the exception to my disgust of remakes...because this is one hell of a good movie! Not a perfect re
make, I still like the original better but they stay fairly true to it's source material and doesn't try to dumb this down for American audiences. It's a deep film, it has a slightly disturbing tale. It has very vague similarities with Twilight...but those films are nowhere near the brilliance of this movie. Let Me In is dark and slow in pace. It doesn't try to dazzle us with vampire related visual effects. It tells a story between two lonely children (well one of them is a child...the other is sorta a child) who befriend each other. There aren't any big moments that will really entertain the younger audiences. This is a vampire type film that's more for adults or at least mature teenagers, and young twenty somethings. It's almost an artsy like film. It has a wonderful story, and some AMAZING direction and cinematography. The main stars of the film, the two children...are just phenomenal leading this film. Both are worthy of award attention. They play kids like kids are supposed to played. Not all fancied up and smart talkin' like they make so many kids in movies these days. You feel bad for this little boy. I don't know...this is a GREAT movie. Not 100% as good as the original film...but still a very very worthy remake. Critics Grade: 87%. My Grade: A-.#74: Frozen. Won't spend much time on this one. Frozen is a film about 3 college aged friends who go skiing...long story short...they end up stuck on a ski lift way up high with no one else around and the ski lodge has closed for the week. So now they must find a way to get down, while avoiding the harsh cold and the wolves below. This movie COULD have been kind of cool but in actuality...I really didn't like it. The main girl was just painful to listen to most of the movie. One of the characters makes a really stupid decision and ends up getting ripped to pieces. Then we have to sit there and listen to the other two bitch and moan the rest of the movie and it's just so hard to listen to. The movie is really disgusting at times and not at all tense...at least it was not for me. Maybe for others, just...I was kind of bored. A movie like this, if done right, could have been suspenseful...but no. It actually has a pretty cool premise, it just never lives up to the promise it had. Needed a better cast, slightly bigger scale, and just more thrills. Not a truly terrible movie in my eyes...but I really didn't care for it just because it swung and missed at a great chance to be quite cool. Critics Grade: 61%. My Grade: D+.
#75: The Winning Season. This is a small film that I barely even heard about...thank you Cox on Demand. It was released early in September in a select few theaters but is als
o playing on Demand under the "In Theaters" section. I thought this is a nice little gem of a film. It has independent written all over it. It's by no means perfect and the whole movie isn't as engaging as maybe as it could have been for me...but overall I thought it was a charmer of a movie. It's about a washed up dad who is coaching a high school girls basketball team (not his daughters) and has to whip them into shape to be good. Yeah...cliched of course but the writer and cast at least try to be fresh with this idea. Led by the amazingly underrated Sam Rockwell...how he hasn't at least been nominated for an Oscar is beyond me. He won't get one for this film, but he shows his talents well in this role. I liked the chemistry between him and these girls. It was real and believable. It had moments of being kind of funny but overall it's dark comedy. I thought it was pretty good. Not great, but definitely worth the 2 hours I spent watching it. Critics Grade: 53%. My Grade: B.#76: She's Out of My League. This comedy came out way back in the beginning of 2010 and I'm just now watching it on 2010. I rented it through Netflix...kind of expecting to not like it very much. Well I can't say that I loved it, but I was just slightly pleasantly surprised by the movie. It's riddled with cliches....nerdy guy get's the hot girl. A story that I'm sure so OFTEN happens in real life. But that's why it's a movie storyline. Movies aren't reality. I thought the film had a pretty good cast and there were more than enough moments that I chuckled. I never really laughed out loud at anything but it had some very amusing parts. But in the end...it's just another campy cliched romantic comedy that we see at least....5 or 6 of these a year. For me...it was just OK. I had a good time watching it...wouldn't really sit through it again...but as a one time viewing it was entertaining enough. Critics Grade: 57%. My Grade: C+.
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