The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, 1953. Dinosaur smash.

Directed by Eugène Lourié. Written by Lou Morheim, & Fred Freiberger, based on a story by Ray Bradbury. Starring Paul Hubschmid, & Paula Raymond, with Cecil Kellaway.

Concept: The inspiration for Godzilla. A
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: There are a few bad shots, but for the most part the monster looks pretty cool. B
Acting: C
Music: B
Enjoyment: It's weird how much of the movie is spent on the character trying to convince people he's not crazy. Why did they think that would be entertaining? C

GPA: 2.1/4

"Daffy Duck and Egghead"

"Daffy Duck and Egghead" (short), 1938. Daffy Duck is hunted.

Directed by Tex Avery. Written by Ben Hardaway. Starring Mel Blanc, & Danny Webb.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: A
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: A
Enjoyment: I understand this is a remake of a black-and-white Porky cartoon. If I'd seen that one, I might not rate this one so highly, but who knows. As it is, of the cartoons represented in the comprehensive "Golden Collection," this one clearly marks the beginning of Looney Tunes' greatness. It's the template for half the cartoons they ever make, and it's copied for good reason. A

GPA: 2.8/4

Doctor Who #39: The Ice Warriors

Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors, 1967 (the third story of seven from season five). Scientists trying to stop a new ice age discover buried Martians.

Directed by Derek Martinus. Written by Brian Hayles. Starring Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, & Deborah Watling.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: F
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: There are some nice enough sets and costumes, but the sound is unbelievably horrendous. F
Acting: F
Music: D
Enjoyment: Boring. It's a terrible script, realized so incompetently that a lot of it is literally painful to watch. F

GPA: 0.8/4

Watchmen

Watchmen, 2009. Retired superheros are mysteriously attacked.

Directed by Zack Snyder. Written by David Hayter, & Alex Tse, based on a book by Dave Gibbons, & Alan Moore. Starring Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, & Patrick Wilson.

Concept: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: Great design, and some terrible effects. B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: Snyder's slow-motion is annoying, and the action scenes are boring (luckily there aren't many of them), but for the most part he did surprisingly well by just taking what was on the page and putting it on screen. It should have been a miniseries, though. The book is episodic, and they follow the book's structure, so it feels like the movie was edited from a miniseries. A

GPA: 3.0/4

[update of a previous post - original is here]

We Are the Best!

Vi är bäst!, 2013. Some kids form a crappy band.

Written & directed by Lukas Moodysson, based on a book by Coco Moodysson. Starring Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, & Liv LeMoyne.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: How do you even judge the music in this movie? I'll just say it works. B
Enjoyment: It feels very natural, especially for a movie about/starring children. And it's pretty fun, too. B

GPA: 2.7/4

Foxcatcher

Foxcatcher, 2014. A crazy rich guy buys wrestlers, is crazy.

Directed by Bennett Miller. Written by E. Max Frye, & Dan Futterman. Starring Steve Carell, & Channing Tatum, with Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, & Vanessa Redgrave.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: B
Pacing: D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: B
Enjoyment: Very unsettling. There's a remarkable degree of craftsmanship to create that effect. I wish there wasn't. D

GPA: 2.8/4

Love Is Strange

Love Is Strange, 2014. An elderly couple is forced to live separately while apartment hunting.

Directed by Ira Sachs. Written by Sachs, & Mauricio Zacharias. Starring John Lithgow, & Alfred Molina, with Marisa Tomei, & Charlie Tahan.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: C
Pacing: It's slow and deliberate. It got me pretty impatient, but at the same time it has a graceful sort of rhythm to it, and strongly contributes to the poignancy of the movie. A
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: A
Enjoyment: There's a scene where Alfred Molina's character is giving a piano lesson, and his instructions to his student - to stick to the rhythm and not embellish - could be the director's instructions to his editor. This film moves and breathes like a piece of classical music. The plot is simple and predictable, but the form and texture give it a kind of beauty. B

GPA: 3.1/4

Survivor: Season 20

Survivor: Season 20, 2010. A reality game on a Samoan island.

Created by Charlie Parsons. Starring Jeff Probst.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: n/a
Music: C
Enjoyment: A solidly good season, despite having a couple of the show's more unpleasant to watch contestants. It's an "all-stars" season; experienced players are so much better at this game (and there are so many of them by this point), it's a wonder they ever bother casting new players. B

GPA: 2.2/4

Space Janitors: Season Three

Space Janitors: Season Three, 2014-2015. A group of misfits work at a rebel base on an ice planet.

Created by Geoff Lapaire & Andy Hull. Directed by Lapaire. Written by Hull, Brendan Halloran, Lapaire, & Evany Rosen. Starring Halloran, with Tess Degenstein, Rosen, Pat Thornton, & Scott Yamamura.

Concept: C
Story: Whenever the plot shows up, the humor stops (probably because the cast is at their funniest when they're improvising). F
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: D
Acting: C
Music: D
Enjoyment: There are a couple good episodes, and quite a few bad ones. Still a lot better than Red Dwarf, though. C

GPA: 1.7/4

Selma

Selma, 2014. Martin Luther King Jr. leads demonstrations in Alabama.

Directed by Ava DuVernay. Written by Paul Webb. Starring David Oyelowo, with Carmen Ejogo, & Tom Wilkinson.

Concept: C
Story: B
Characters: Great for the lead, but most of the supporting characters are background or plot devices. B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: Mostly great, except for one prominent awful song. B
Enjoyment: I can imagine this having been a disaster if someone like Spielberg had directed it. DuVernay spends a lot of focus on Oyelowo's performance, and it's one of the all-time best performances I can recall seeing, subtle and completely captivating. They've made a movie that might have been a history lesson or an inspirational-true-story-cliche into something as powerful as the subject deserves. B

GPA: 3.0/4

X-Men 2

from my 100 Popular Movies Marathon, part 47 of 100



X-Men 2, 2003. The US military tries to kill superhumans.

Directed by Bryan Singer. Written by Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris, & David Hayter; story by Zak Penn, Hayter, & Singer. Starring Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, & Ian McKellen, with Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn, Brian Cox, & Alan Cumming.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: C
Enjoyment: Pretty boring. Most of the ending is a mess. It could have been a lot worse, but it's sad that this is considered to be one of the better X-Men movies. C

GPA: 1.8/4

This Is Spinal Tap

from my 100 Popular Movies Marathon, part 46 of 100



This Is Spinal Tap, 1984. An aging rock band goes on tour.

Directed by Rob Reiner. Written by & starring Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, & Reiner.

Concept: D
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: Overrated. There are some very funny scenes, but not enough to sustain an entire movie on their own. C

GPA: 2.1/4

Oscar nominees

Here, for my own convenience, is a list of Oscar-nominated feature films that I haven't seen yet (see the full list of nominees here):

on video now or before the Oscars
- Finding Vivian Maier: documentary [now]
- Begin Again: song [now]
- The Judge: supporting actor (Duvall) [January 27th]
- Nightcrawler: writing [February 10th]
- The Tale of the Princess Kaguya: animated feature [February 17th]

in a nearby theater this weekend
- American Sniper: picture, writing, actor (Cooper), editing, sound x2
- Selma: picture, song
- Foxcatcher: directing, writing, actor (Carell), supporting actor (Ruffalo), makeup
- Into the Woods: supporting actress (Streep), costume design, production design
- Unbroken: cinematography, sound x2

has a remote chance of coming to a nearby theater
- The Imitation Game: picture, directing, writing, actor (Cumberbatch), supporting actress (Knightley), editing, production design, score
- Inherent Vice: writing, costume design
- Two Days, One Night: actress (Cotillard)
- Still Alice: actress (Moore)
- Mr. Turner: cinematography, costume design, production design, score

everything else
- Whiplash: picture, writing, supporting actor (Simmons), editing, sound
- Song of the Sea: animated feature
- Citizenfour: documentary
- Last Days in Vietnam: documentary
- The Salt of the Earth: documentary
- Virunga: documentary
- Leviathan: foreign film
- Tangerines: foreign film
- Timbuktu: foreign film
- Wild Tales: foreign film
- Beyond the Lights: song
- Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me: song

"365"

"365" (short), 2014. 365 one-second cartoons.

Written & directed by Greg McLeod, & Myles McLeod.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: C
Music: B
Enjoyment: It sounds like an awful idea, but the thing is, a good artist can apparently squeeze a lot into one second. Every one of the cartoons is interesting, a lot of them are funny, and a few are even emotional. B

GPA: 2.4/4

"Little Red Walking Hood"

"Little Red Walking Hood" (short), 1937. A wolf harasses a girl.

Directed by Tex Avery. Written by Cal Howard. Starring Elvia Allman, Mel Blanc, & Tedd Pierce.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: A
Enjoyment: Maybe it's just because I've been watching so many mediocre early cartoons over the past few months, but this was a lot of fun to watch - even when they were making references over my head. Tex Avery was insane. B

GPA: 2.8/4

Ida

Ida, 2013. An orphan learns about her parents before becoming a nun.

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. Written by Pawlikowski, & Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Starring Agata Kulesza, & Agata Trzebuchowska, with Dawid Ogrodnik, Jerzy Trela, & Adam Szyszkowski.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: A
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: A
Enjoyment: It maintains a distance, like a Kubrick film, which means you don't get emotionally involved, or really know what's going on in a character's mind until after they act on it. What's interesting about that is that it works - one of the only films I've seen not directed by Kubrick himself that takes that approach and succeeds. B

GPA: 3.5/4

The Skeleton Twins

The Skeleton Twins, 2014. Estranged, depressed twins get back together.

Directed by Craig Johnson. Written by Johnson, & Mark Heyman. Starring Bill Hader, & Kristen Wiig, with Luke Wilson, & Ty Burrell.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: B
Dialog: A
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: A
Music: C
Enjoyment: Great comics, improvising against a serious backdrop. It's not particularly good film-making, but these are some brilliant (and easy to overlook) performances. B

GPA: 2.6/4

Mad Men: Season Four

Mad Men: Season Four, 2010. A 1960s ad agency struggles to stay in business.

Created by Matthew Weiner. Directed by Phil Abraham (3 episodes), Michael Uppendahl (2), Jennifer Getzinger (2), John Slattery (2), Lesli Linka Glatter (1), Scott Hornbacher (1), Lynn Shelton (1), & Weiner (1). Written by Weiner (10 episodes), Jonathan Abrahams (2), Erin Levy (2), Tracy McMillan (1), Keith Huff (1), Brett Johnson (1), Lisa Albert (1), Janet Leahy (1), Dahvi Waller (1), Andre Jacquemetton (1), Maria Jacquemetton (1), & Jonathan Igla (1). Starring Jon Hamm, with Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Jared Harris, Aaron Staton, Rich Sommer, Kiernan Shipka, Robert Morse, & Slattery.

Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: A
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: C
Enjoyment: Not as solid as season three. It takes a while to get going. But some of the mid-to-late season episodes are great. B

GPA: 2.9/4

White Heat

from my 100 Popular Movies Marathon, part 45 of 100



White Heat, 1949. An undercover cop infiltrates a dangerous gang.

Directed by Raoul Walsh. Written by Ivan Goff, & Ben Roberts, based on a story by Virginia Kellogg. Starring James Cagney, with Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly, & Steve Cochran.

Concept: A
Story: A
Characters: Most of them aren't much, but Cagney's and Mayo's characters more than make up for it. A
Dialog: A
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: A
Enjoyment: This movie's kind of amazing. It's like The Wire: The Movie (minus the corruption). Granted, it is a classic, but I'm still confused that it isn't more well known than it is. A

GPA: 3.7/4

"Homeless Hare"

"Homeless Hare" (short), 1950. Bugs Bunny's hole is on a construction site.

Directed by Chuck Jones. Written by Michael Maltese. Starring Mel Blanc.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: A
Enjoyment: Underwhelming and forgettable. C

GPA: 2.2/4

"So You Think You're Not Guilty"

"So You Think You're Not Guilty" (short), 1950. A jackass fights a traffic ticket.

Written & directed by Richard L. Bare. Starring George O'Hanlon, with Phyllis Coates.

Concept: D
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: C
Enjoyment: Not funny. D

GPA: 1.6/4

Diamonds Are Forever

Diamonds Are Forever, 1971. Diamonds are smuggled to make a death ray.

Directed by Guy Hamilton. Written by Richard Maibaum, & Tom Mankiewicz, based on a book by Ian Fleming. Starring Sean Connery, with Jill St. John, & Charles Gray.

Concept: D
Story: F
Characters: F
Dialog: D
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: D
Acting: D
Music: C
Enjoyment: After You Only Live Twice, I wouldn't have expected the series to be able to hit a new low so soon, but they managed it. D

GPA: 1.1/4

Enchanted

Enchanted, 2007. A Disney princess is sent to the real world.

Directed by Kevin Lima. Written by Bill Kelly. Starring Amy Adams, & Patrick Dempsey, with James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel, Rachel Covey, & Susan Sarandon.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: Some are fun, some are awful, none are good. D
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: C
Enjoyment: It balances a fine line between emulating Elf, and emulating bad 90's romantic comedies. It usually tips to the former, although it's never half as good as that movie. C

GPA: 2.2/4

[update of an earlier post - original is here]

The Wire: Season Two

The Wire: Season Two, 2003. A backward police department investigates port smuggling.

Created by David Simon. Directed by Ed Bianchi (2 episodes), Elodie Keene (2), Steve Shill (2), Thomas J. Wright (1), Dan Attias (1), Tim Van Patten (1), Rob Bailey (1), Ernest Dickerson (1), & Robert F. Colesberry (1). Written by Simon (6 episodes), Ed Burns (2), George Pelecanos (2), Joy Lusco (1), & Rafael Alvarez (1). Starring Dominic West, Lance Reddick, Idris Elba, Sonja Sohn, Wendell Pierce, Deirdre Lovejoy, Clarke Peters, Chris Bauer, & Amy Ryan.

Concept: C
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: A
Enjoyment: It's been a little too long since I watched season one (more than two years). The characters this season seem more likable less unlikable than I remember. But also, half the show feels like it's just set-up for season three, which is frustrating. B

GPA: 3.0/4