Kinsey (2004)

For a movie about sex, they picked the most unattractive people in Hollywood.  Jesus.  I realize that all of these people are great actors but that should not be a license to flash your junk everywhere.  /shudder

This was the legitimate Christy pick for April.  I missed March, so I watched Buying the Cow early and this one is going to squeak in on the last day, so if you're a Christy-pick fan (and I have to assume you are since I've never received and email or comment stating otherwise), you're in luck.

This is a dramatization of Dr. Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson) and his attempt to scientifically study human sexuality.  An entomologist by training, Dr. Kinsey becomes fed up with hearing the outrageous myths and outright lies perpetuated about sex and decides to apply the principles of the scientific method to finding out the truth.  It was incredibly controversial for the 1940's, and even today in some circles. Aided by his wife, Mac (Laura Linney), and his team (Peter Sarsgaard, Chris O'Donnell, and Timothy Hutton), Kinsey takes the anonymous sexual histories of hundreds of people across the country and uses them to compile a statistical analysis of behavior.  Along the way, he jeopardizes his marriage, his career, his friendships, and his health.

Dr. Kinsey's work was invaluable as a study.  His book helped countless people who were struggling with desires they had no one to talk about with to feel more normal.  That being said, the movie was utterly cringeworthy.  I find it difficult to be around someone with an obsession.  It's great that people have a cause, but when they don't shut up about it, it gets incredibly tedious and awkward.  The movie doesn't attempt to shy away from the awkwardness at all.  It tries to shoehorn some blurb about love in right before the end credits, which I found a ludicrous attempt to make this movie relateable to people who went in thinking it was going to be a romance.  It's not.  It's a biopic.  If you're still interested in it, by all means, watch the movie.  Just be prepared.

Vampires (1998)

  I love this movie.  It's not a great movie in any category.  It's not a great John Carpernter movie, it's not even a great vampire movie, but I love it.  I think the idea of it is pretty decent, I like the portrayal of the main vampire (even if he's kind of a mouth-breather because of the fangs), and I like the dialogue between James Woods and his pet priest. 

Jack Crow (James Woods) and his team are vampire hunters for the Catholic Church.  They travel around the country killing nests of vampires, typically one master and a bunch of drones.  Things start to go wrong when they put down a nest of drones but can't find the master.  He shows up that night and lays the entire team to waste except for Jack and his friend Montoya (David Baldwin) who run.  Jack grabs Katrina (Sheryl Lee), a hooker the vampire fed on, because she has a psychic link to the master until she is completely turned.  Through her visions, they learn that the master vampire is looking for a Catholic relic somewhere in the Southwest.  Their new priest, Father Adam (Tim Guinee), reluctantly tells them that the master is Jan Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith), a former priest who was turned into a vampire by an exorcism gone wrong.  The artifact he is searching for is the cross used during his ceremony that will give him immunity to sunlight.

It's a fun, violent movie and one of a handful that I can throw on after a bad day that always makes me smile.

Spellbound (1945)

  I've been trying to watch this movie since Thursday and finally got it finished yesterday.  This is in no way a dig on the film, which is excellent.  That's just how busy I have been lately.  But whatever.  None of that matters.

As the picture says, this is Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound and it is suitable only for adults.  Not because it's raunchy but because it's very heavily-laden with psychiatric terms.  Unless you want to explain retrograde amnesia and fugue states to your kids, in which case, knock yourself out.

Dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) is a staff psychiatrist at Green Manors.  Her boss, Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll) is retiring and being replaced by Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck), a young, hot psychiatrist.  Constance immediately feels a connection to Edwardes, despite finding out that he's actually an impostor.

Yeah, see, he remembers being somewhere with the real Dr. Edwardes but can't for the life of him remember what happened to him or why he had come to steal his identity.  Constance has to help him piece together who he really is and what happened to Dr. Edwardes before he is arrested for murder.

I hate to say anything negative about Hitchcock but this one really seems dated.  A lot of the psychoanalytic theories he uses here are no longer regarded by modern therapists as valid and it comes off a little silly.  I will say that suspense-wise it is top-notch, as always.

Lockout (2012)

   This movie had no right being as good as it was, considering that it's basically Escape from L.A. in space.  It was hilarious, well-paced, and entertaining from start to finish.  This is a great example of something being more than the sum of its parts.

Snow (Guy Pearce) is a former CIA operative wrongly accused of treason and espionage.  He is bounced through a kangaroo court and sentenced to 30 years in stasis on the newly launched space prison MS-1.  But, there is an option presented to him by his "good cop" (Lennie James) which is to rescue the President's daughter (Maggie Grace) who has been taken hostage during a humanitarian mission gone horribly wrong. 

I have never liked Guy Pearce in any role I have seen him in, except for his minor spot in The Hurt Locker, but this movie single-handedly reversed that opinion.  Finally, we have returned to the wise-cracking action hero of yesteryear, a character less concerned with factual accuracy than he is with witty one-liners.  I tend to like Luc Besson movies with the notable exception of La Femme Nikita but, as much as I wanted to like Colombiana, it was lacking that certain something.  Lockout fills the void beautifully and will be making a reappearance on my shelf as a blu-ray sometime in the future.

V for Vendetta (2005)

I love this movie.  I love everything about this movie.  I would consider it a perfect film.  Watching it is akin to a religious experience, if your religion happens to be Anarchy.

Sometimes I feel like a serial killer (I know, I know, but bear with me) because the first time you watch a really great film it's like a high, an incredible euphoria, but so fleeting because the next time you watch it that feeling is gone.  This is when I generally force others to watch, so I can feed from the joy on their faces, a contact high if you will.  V for Vendetta is one of those rare films that doesn't lose the high for me.  I can revel in every scene like cinematic catnip.

For those of you who don't know this movie, shame on you.  Fix that shit.  Immediately.

Evie Hammond (Natalie Portman) lives in a London of the future, a London ruled by fear.  After a terrifying outbreak of disease, the country has cut itself off from the rest of the world and grown ever more dependent on its increasingly oppressive regime.  That is, until one night out past curfew, Evie runs afoul of two secret police and is rescued by a mysterious man in a Guy Fawkes mask named V (Hugo Weaving).  V is out to take the government back for the people in as violent a way as possible, and get some vengeance for himself as well.

It is stunning and one of my top three favorite films of all time.

Buying the Cow (2002)

  This was supposed to have been the Christy pick for March but I didn't ask her for it in time.  I wish I could say it was worth the trouble...

I can say it's not a completely shitty film.  There were parts during the beginning that I thought were funny and I commend Ryan Reynolds on his willingness to get almost completely nude on film.  Those are the positives.

The negatives are that it starts getting repetitive with the jokes about halfway through.  That's when I started fast forwarding.  There's a homophobic subplot involving Ryan Reynolds' character that I found grating and I thought the performances of all the actors were one step shy of cartoonish.  You may like that sort of thing.  I didn't.

David (Jerry O'Connell) and his girlfriend Sarah (Bridgette Wilson) have been dating for five years when she gives him a deadline (ultimatum) of popping the question.  She leaves for New York to do a job for two months and at the end of that time she expects an answer, or more properly, a question.  David is freaking out because he has still never gotten over a girl he saw for a moment at an airport when he was 15, a girl who he never saw again.  His two best friends (Ryan Reynolds and Bill Bellamy) try and help him with their own conflicting advice.

I don't really agree with the premise of the movie because I don't put a whole lot of stock into the concept of marriage in general.  Taking that away, I found it to be a half-rate comedy with more stars than it deserved.  If you want a better variation on the theme, watch Love Stinks.

The Usual Suspects (1995)

  I'm finally up to U! Yay!  This isn't the first in my collection to start with the letter U (that would be Under Seige) but it is the only one I'd ever seen only once before. 

It's such a twisted tale.  Granted, it's hardly worth the spoiler rating now, seeing as it's over 15 years old, but I won't say anything just in case.

Five career criminals are pulled into a line-up in New York City.  They all feel railroaded since this is not the first time they have been rounded up and forced to go through the rigamarole of questioning only to not be charged.  They decide to pull a heist together as a "fuck you" to the NYPD, which leads them out to California, which leads to another job, which eventually leads to a burned out boat, a bunch of dead people, and one survivor with a tale so convoluted, it defies belief.  At least it does for the customs agent (Chaz Palminteri) who is trying to tease out the truth.

It really is a gripping movie, even if you're aware of the man behind the curtain as it were.  Incredibly suspenseful and featuring a virtuoso cast, this is a must-see movie.  If you've never had the chance, do yourself a favor and pick this up.

Anonymous (2011)

Nominated for Best Costume    This was an interesting idea for a movie, told in the most depressing way possible. 

The idea is that William Shakespeare was actually an illiterate actor (played by Rafe Spall) and that he took credit for the works because the actual author was a lord, the Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans), and unable to publish because of his station.  The Earl was in constant disfavor with the Queen's top advisor, William Cecil (David Thewlis), despite being his son-in-law, and thus was not granted any leeway.  He hires Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto), a contemporary writer, to be his voice but Jonson is put off by the idea.  His overreaching friend Shakespeare seizes the opportunity and runs with it.  Meanwhile, the Earl is trying to keep William Cecil and his son from nominating James I of Scotland to succeed Queen Elizabeth I (Vanessa Redgrave, and in flashbacks, her daughter Joely Richardson) in favor of the Earl of Essex (Sam Reid), one of Elizabeth's bastard sons.

This is where it starts getting depressing if you're at all familiar with the line-up of English royalty.  A number of accusations are made, including ones of murder, that would be outright slander if any of these people were still alive.  There's a big reveal that, frankly, didn't need to be said.  It doesn't really add anything but another level of creep-factor to the film.

As a production, it is very good.  Crisp, well-paced, even if there are a little too many characters for my taste.  As a concept, as I've said, it's interesting.  Overall, I was not a fan.  I did not care for it in any way, in fact, and I would not recommend it to any of my friends unless I secretly wished them ill.

50/50 (2011)

  I threw this one in my queue after the Golden Globes nominations because I will watch Joseph Gordon-Levitt in anything. At the time, I was a little surprised this didn't get a single Oscar nom. After having watched it, I will agree that it probably doesn't deserve any. It's still a good movie, just not quite at the level where I thought "Hey, this deserves some statues." 

Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a normal 27-year-old dude whose world is rocked when he discovers that he has a rare form of cancer.  His best friend (Seth Rogan) is quick to capitalize on the diagnosis, playing for sympathy with every girl he sees.  His mom (Anjelica Huston) is distraught.  His artist girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) has no idea how to cope.  Not that Adam does, either.  He gets a fresh-from-school therapist (Anna Kendrick) to try and help him muddle through dealing with chemo, trying to relate to others, and generally coming to terms with the idea that he might not make it to 28.

It covers a lot of ground, from funny to sad, and is based on a true story.  I didn't know that last part until I looked it up on IMDb.com a couple of minutes ago but everything in it feels genuine.  I would definitely recommend this if you're looking for a film that will make you feel better about your own life.  Unless you have cancer.  Then you can watch whatever you want.