MOVIES FOR THE WEEKEND

Nothing in the theaters this week. I have no intentions of supporting a dead pedophile by paying to see This is It!

From Netflix I have the Woody Allen/Larry David team-up Whatever Works. And I also rented Raising Arizona, which inexplicably, I don't seem to own for some strange reason. My wife still hasn't seen a few key, early Coen entries, so we'll be doing some catch-up over the next few weeks.

I still need to finish up a new DVD round-up and my review for A Serious Man.

UPDATED: TOP 20 OF 2009

Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 (A+)
Michael Mann’s Public Enemies (A+)
Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are (A+)
Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (A+)
Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man (A+)
Pete Docter’s Up (A+)
Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah (A+)
Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck’s Sugar (A+)
Ramin Bahrani’s Good Bye Solo (A+)
Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! (A+)

Jody Hill’s Observe and Report (A+)
Zack Snyder’s Watchmen (A)
Henry Selick’s Coraline (A)
Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (A)
Bobcat Goldthwait’s World’s Greatest Dad (A)
Todd Philips’ The Hangover (A)
Tony Scott’s The Taking of Pelham 123 (A)
Cary Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre (A)
Sam Mendes’ Away We Go (A)
Marc Webb’s (500) Days of Summer (A)

WHAT DO TERRY GILLIAM'S DREAMS LOOK LIKE?

Excitement builds...

CURIOUS...

I liked Donnie Darko. It's not one of my all-time favorites or anything like that, but it's a heady brew. But I liked Southland Tales even more, even if it was hardly perfect. It's a big fat mess to be perfectly honest. But it was also extremely ambitious, very entertaining, very surreal, and loopy as all hell. And those last 30 minutes are just ridiculously fun to watch. Over-stuffed and super self-indulgent, Southland Tales is the ultimate "nobody told the director No!" movie. As such, some of it works, some of it doesn't, and you're left with a schizoid vision. Richard Kelly's newest thriller, The Box, looks like his most accessible movie to date. I still hold firm in the belief that Kelly's screenplay for Tony Scott's underrated masterwork Domino is piece of genius writing. I mean that. I think The Box could be neat (I don't know the twists so no spoilers please...) but I don't want Kelly to succumb to the studio system the way it seems he might be. But if he does, all I ask is that he keeps his edge.

HOPE IT'S FUN

I love the entire ad campaign for this movie.

QUICKLY

I went to see A Serious Man today, the new film from the Coen Brothers, and as per usual, I was blown away. I can't wait to watch it again and start discussing it in this space. It's one of the richest films of the year, and easily one of the best. Daaark. So funny. So tight. So precise. So Yiddish. It's a perfect movie the more I think about it.

I had a big DVD weekend, so in the next few days, look for a DVD round-up, with the likes of Land of the Lost, Sin Nombre, Management, and Drag Me to Hell up for discussion. I liked them all, some more than others. Sin Nombre was definitely the best of the bunch. And I think that Land of the Lost is destined to become a stoner/frat classic. It's hardly great (it's a mess to be honest), but it made me laugh. A lot.

THIS IS RICH