Recent Movies I Have Liked

I’ve seen a glut of good movies lately (which has been a welcome change from the summer, what with The Island and Mr. and Mrs. Smith), but I’ve been remiss in making recommendations here. Here’s a quick rundown of movies I’ve seen in the past month or so that I’ve liked.

A History of Violence

Don’t be fooled by the title: there is a lot of violence in this movie. It’s one of the tensest movies I’ve ever seen, and that led Amanda to say afterward that she felt like she was going to throw up during most of it. It’s a very deliberately paced, brilliantly written character study with little flecks of grey matter around the edges. The violence will probably prevent it from getting a Best Picture nomination, but it’s on my shortlist (with Crash) for best film of the year.

The Corpse Bride

I was kind of let down after seeing this, because I was basically expecting A Nightmare Before Christmas. The story was cute and the approach to the material was perfect, but the songs fell short of the brilliance of Nightmare. Upon further reflection, I’ve come to terms with the fact that not everything can be an instant classic, and I think I can say that I liked this for what it was. I’d say this would be this year’s Best Animated Feature if I hadn’t later seen…

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

This is the kind of movie (along with Toy Story and Monsters Inc.) that I can’t wait to watch with our child(ren), should Amanda and I ever decide to procreate. This is a genuinely funny and original story with the best acting that I’ve ever seen by Plasticine. If Dreamworks really wants to compete with Pixar on quality, they should drop the Shrek-sequels and crappy knockoffs and just give Nick Park a huge pile of money. This was the second-most fun I’ve had at a movie this year, after…

Serenity

I never saw Firefly (though it’s on our Netflix queue as I write this), but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the hell out of Serenity. I had a big dumb grin on my face for the first third of this film, a puzzled-but-intrigued look for the second third, and a worried look of concern for the last third (then a big dumb grin again as the credits rolled). People in the theater clapped after it was over. The last time that happened was at the opening credits of Revenge of the Sith (but not at the end credits).

Serenity is the kind of movie that I’ll buy the day it comes out on DVD and then watch three times before the week is out: it’s that good, and that much fun.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

I became a big Murrow fan in my televison class during spring semester senior year, and watching the footage of him taking on McCarthy inspired my term paper on the Fairness Doctrine. There’s not a whole lot about the episode in the film that I didn’t already know, but there’s something about seeing it that makes it more real (score one for the television generation). David Strathairn gives an awesomely understated performance that really communicates the internal struggle Murrow had with deciding to go ahead with the McCarthy broadcast; I especially like the Don Hollenbeck subplot.

Amanda and I watched Network for the first time on Friday night and, as expected, we had a hard time seeing it as satire since it all came true. Seeing Good Night, and Good Luck only two days later was a sad reminder of just how far television has fallen in this country.