My Grade	Movie Title	My Review
A	25th Hour
A	About Schmidt	I loved Jack Nicholson in this because he wasn't Jack Nicholson.
A	After Life	I thought this was delightful. Nice exploration of Memory.
A	Amelie
A	Cold Mountain	Nicole Kidman and Jude Law are excellent, but Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Natalie Portman somehow seem anachronistic, and Renee Zellweger feels miscast. Great cinematography; little surprises and/or unexpected reactions; nice script. Disturbing acts with animals, though, and there was no ASPCA statement in the ending credits.
A	Cyberworld 3D
A	Deliverance	I did rewatch this the day I said I would, when Kat asked about it. I downgraded it from A+ to A, because I thought the last fifth of the movie could use some more work (the part after they emerge from the river), though as Kat says there were good moments near the end as well (e.g. when Jon Voight suddenly breaks down crying at the busy dinner table).
A	Dinosaur	A rescreening of a favorite. Once you get beyond the fact of prepubescent dinosaurs that talk accordingly, you're home free. Fantastic CGI. Some of the characterizations are strained, but it is after all a Disney movie. And those carnosaurs are such one-dimensional brutes…
A	Eyes Wide Shut
A	Fog of War, The	An historical documentary formed around interviews with Robert McNamara, supplemented by archival footage of his days as Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson (as well as earlier events in his life). The parallels between Iraq and Vietnam are startling, although McNamara, unlike Rumsfeld, seems the more thoughtful and ethical person, at least given the nature of the office. The structure is that of eleven deceptively simple "lessons", which I forget, but go something like "Trust your instincts" and "Empathize with your enemy." As for Vietnam, McNamara comes off, surprisingly, as something of a reluctant peacenik, in counterpoint to LBJ’s warmongering. The film features images of many of the original documents involved in the historical events, and, strangely, almost poetic images of falling bombs, napalm, and Agent Orange. For once, I can honestly say that I loved the Phillip Glass score, which was richer and unusually "less minimalist", if that makes any sense.
A	French Lieutenant's Woman, The	An always-see-never-saw movie. I had no idea that there was a contemporary part to it as well as the costume-drama part.
A	James and the Giant Peach
A	Lawn Dogs	I like this kind of movie a lot. Quirky, dark humor, with some odd and/or slightly discomforting scenes involving children and dogs. Great performances by Sam Rockwell and the little girl. But the supporting characters (the mother and father, the neightborhood teens) are too stereotyped.
A	Life Is Beautiful	I didn't find Benigni as annoying as I was led to believe, although I do recall his antics from his Oscar year. Then again, I actually liked Jar Jar Binks, too..
A	Life of David Gale, The
A	Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring, The
A	Made-Up	What a clever and thoroughly enjoyable film. The cosmetologist daughter of a former actress (Brooke Adams) makes a "project" of her middle-aged mother, in hopes of reuniting her with her estranged husband. Meanwhile, the actress's older sister, an aspiring filmmaker, undertakes a documentary project of the daughter's makeover project. As if that's not enough, another member of the documentary team, who's also an aspiring filmmaker, chooses to make a documentary of "the making of.." the (sister's) documentary. Got that? If it sounds gimmicky, yes, it is, but in this case the form serves the function beautifully. Cameras are knowingly and surreptitiously left running when the subject being filmed is unaware of, or even hostile toward, being filmed. It's these raw moments that are, of course, the most revealing---in video veritas, as it were. The actress is unknowingly captured while watching earlier footage of herself. Tables are turned; the filmmaker sister, who has secretly and unabashedly filmed her actress sister as she's dressing herself, is indignantly surprised to discover that the fellow filmmaker has secretly filmed the two sisters as they're having a strained and sensitive argument. The two cameras of the two documentaries are sometimes---intentionally or unintentionally---trained on each other, filming the same scene from opposite viewpoints---in at least one case, both surreptitiously. The point-of-view gimmicks are secondary---there is a real story going on (themes of beauty and aging and so forth). There are some standard, documentary-style, one-on-one interviews, usually self-referencing earlier behavior, as a way of vaguely expository explanation. And at times, you'd swear you were looking through the meta-camera (?---i.e. the camera of the director of the film called "Made-Up"), when you were being asked to believe one of the two documentary makers was behind that camera. I think these detracted from the overall impact, but they are by no means major obstacles to enjoyment. The humor is icy sharp and almost always grows naturally out of the situations and predicaments. Brooke Adams, Tony Shalhoub (who also directed), and Eva Amurri deliver great comic performances (as when Tony, a restaurant owner drawn into the film, is given a few lines to rehearse on his own). Gary Sinise is also excellent, but is underused---appropriately, as his character's main motivation is to avoid getting "caught" on film.
A	Man Who Wasn't There (2001), The
A	Master and Commander	There's a second part to the title, but I don't think non-sequels should have two-part titles. First of all, I can't remember that second part, and second, I'm sure it added nothing to what---my at-a-glance understanding of the film?? Nice cinematography.
A	Memento
A	Minority Report	Some great scenes and shots (dare I say "Hitchcockian"?) and an overall engaging story; generally excellent. The only things that prevented my giving this an A+ were some minor flaws (stuff like continuity, anachronisms or reverse anachronisms, implausible escapes---the usual) and that feeling of too-many-endings, though it does end properly.
A	Monsoon Wedding
A	Monster
A	Monsters, Inc.
A	Mulholland Dr.
A	Open Your Eyes	As for Open Your Eyes (Marimba Taco or whatever...), I was surprised how virtually identical Vanilla Sky was to it. I'm giving Open Your Eyes a slight edge over its remake, however. Things I liked better in the original: 1) P. Cruz is an actress/masked-mime rather than a dancer, which makes more sense viz-a-viz the real vs. the manufactured reality, with her "mask" a nice touch; 2) his business partners were irrelevant; they were never shown, but when they were mentioned, they seemed more ominous and he more paranoid because they were a faceless force (so to speak); 3) Life Extension was still an American company, not a Spanish one (leave it to those wacky Americans). Well, that's all I can remember now; a couple of things I liked better as done in Vanilla Sky, but the films are so identical the differences are extremely minor. I also had the advantage of having seen Vanilla Sky twice---can't say how I might have reacted to Open Your Eyes in a virginal screening of this story.
A	Princess and the Warrior, The
A	Radio	This was a pleasant surprise (went to see Mystic River but got the time wrong). Very well done, from great performances by Cuba Gooding Jr., Ed Harris, and supporting characters, to an intelligent, anti-cliché treatment. Didn't play the race card, or played it very subtly, as if below the surface (this was late '70s in the South). The cliché of the Southern sheriff who roughs up the innocent black man is entertainingly turned on its head. The bad kid who has a change of heart was done well too---nicely understated. It was nice to see the real-life Radio and coach as the ending credits were playing.
A	Road to Perdition	Thoroughly engaging. Only a couple of minor issues involving the credulity of Jude Law's apparent prescience, but this film is so very good looking and the contemporary suspense music is so wonderfully sublime, succeeding despite the '30s time period of the film, I'm willing to overlook them. I'm not a fan of gangster movies, but here gangsterism simply provides context; it doesn't interfere with the real, more interesting story.
A	Rob Roy (1995)
A	Sense and Sensibility
A	Simple Plan, A	A rescreening of a favorite. This is a very nicely done movie with ethical and moral stuff to think about, even. Good performances all around, especially Billy Bob Thornton (a favorite actor).
A	Tape	Wonderful acting, wonderful script. Which is fortunate, as there isn't much else, given the setting. Top notch.
A	Thirteen	The humiliation, the anguish, the embarrassment, the desire to fit in, the peer pressure, the exaggerated life-and-death significance of casually occurring everyday events---I took time out from all that to watch this movie, and hey, I'm not alone! Thirteen-year-old girls have many of the same problems. This film, co-written by the young actress playing The Bad Girl (Nikki Reed), has a very authentic feel to it, not just in the dialogue, but in the situations and emotive content. Holly Hunter plays the too-hip mom, doing the well-meaning but nevertheless embarrassing things that well-meaning, too-hip parents do. She gives an excellent performance, as does Evan Rachel Wood, the young Good Girl Gone Bad. Both are superb in the intense, heart-wrenching scenes near the end of the film, with the troubled teen out of control and near total collapse. Synchronicity Sidenote: at one point, Tracy runs over to a poster of Christina Ricci on her friend's wall and says, "I love you, Christina Ricci!", when earlier that evening I had watched a movie with Christina Ricci in it (The Man Who Cried).
A	Treasure Planet	A return to form for Disney, after the dreck that was "Atlantis". The outer-space-ifying of a Victorian classic somehow works. It's opulent Disney, with even some more-than-one-dimensional characters thrown in.
A	Truth About Cats and Dogs, The
A	Vanilla Sky
A	Whale Rider
A	Winged Migration	This Oscar-nominated documentary about bird migration is like no other movie or nature special, except maybe that Jeff Daniels movie where he flies an ultralight aircraft with some geese or something---I haven't seen that---because that's what this movie is. It's astonishing footage of migrating birds taken from the birds' perspective---no special effects. Caution: there are a few sad moments, nature and life being what they are, so if you have a soft spot for animals, cover your eyes.
A	Zelig	I really liked this and thought it was inventive, like the dropped frames, audio quality, etc.; don't remember those kinds of touches in Forrest Gump.