The Place Beyond the Pines

I didn't understand the characters' motivations for a lot of The Place Beyond the Pines, but the cinematography was nice, the music worked, and I really liked the triptych format and being able to find out what happened sort of "after" the movie.

I liked the way this movie looked. It was kind of old-school/gritty, but it was really well-shot. The music was interesting, and I liked the format of the movie, how it started out with Luke's story, and then the "passing of the baton," as the director put it, changing to Avery's story, and then AJ/Jason's. I liked that we got to see what happened with their kids, kind of what happens "after" the movie. That's one of the main reasons I was interested in seeing it.

The Wolverine

The Wolverine looked good, but there was a lot of nonsensical stuff going on, and there wasn't enough substance to justify a movie.

I didn't have any interest in seeing The Wolverine. Roeper said it was good, but the trailer just didn't sell it. Okay, Wolverine loses his healing power, and he has to get it back. And then he gets it back, I'm sure. Great. What's the point of the movie, exactly? Turns out there wasn't one, because that's all there was. It looked good, and I like Wolverine just fine, but there wasn't really any reason to make this movie. It came across as just a thing Wolverine did one time, without there really being any meaning to it. I guess it would've worked fine as a comic story arc, or a TV episode or something, but there has to be something more for it to work as a movie.

The Host

The Host had some good ideas, and it did hold my interest for the entire time, but the writing, score, and characters pretty much ruined it.

I probably wouldn't have rented this if I had known it was a Stephenie Meyer (author of Twilight) book. I didn't find out until I already had it, and by then I figured I might as well go through with it, anyway. Roeper didn't review it, and IMDb didn't really like it, but I was hoping maybe it would still be okay. It wasn't. The music was overbearing and melodramatic. It was too exaggerated for what was going on, and it really brought you out of the experience.

The Guard

Not everything they do in The Guard works, but it's still a funny movie, and Gleeson and Cheadle are fun to watch.

The first thing I noticed about The Guard was that I couldn't understand what they were saying, so I had to turn on the subtitles. They were definitely the worst subtitles I've ever seen. Super obtrusive, covered stuff up, and didn't even get all the dialogue. The movie was pretty funny, but a lot of things were kind of a swing and a miss for me.

Kiss of the Damned

Kiss of the Damned has great cinematography and music, but the writing and acting really bring it down. 

When I saw the trailer for this movie, I loved the music, and I like Milo from Gilmore Girls, so I was pretty much hooked. Roeper didn't review it, but at least one person on IMDb said it wasn't terrible, so I watched it. It turned out to be pretty interesting. The best part about it is the music. It's really good. All the songs fit the scenes perfectly, and the parts of it that are original score are amazing.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Like all the HP movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is well done. It looks polished, the acting is good, and the story is creative. This one was definitely boring in places, but it kept me interested for the most part.

I like the Harry Potter movies. I've never read the books, and I don't really see any reason to, but I used to watch the movies when they hit a network TV channel for the first time. I think I even saw one of them in the theater. They're always well done; they look great, the acting is good, the story/things in it are creative. I totally screwed up the series for myself with this one, though. I knew I had seen HP 1-5, and I thought there were only 7 movies in the series. I thought Deathly Hallows 1 and 2 were movies 6 and 7. So, since I'd seen 1-5, I thought it was time for Deathly Hallows. How very wrong I was.

56 Up

56 Up was interesting, but I wouldn't try to watch it all in one sitting, and they should've delineated the classes more clearly.

For anyone who doesn't know, the premise of the "Up" documentaries is to take a bunch of people, and interview them/put out a documentary every 7 years, starting at age 7. Initially I think it was supposed to show contrast in socioeconomic status, and I think they should've stuck with that. My biggest problem with it was it didn't delineate clearly enough between the rich kids and the poor kids. I really had no idea who was who, with the exception of the one rich girl who never had to get a job.