Michael Clayton - $10

Michael Clayton was a very good movie.

I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this movie. Looking back it's hard to explain exactly why, I just really liked it. George Clooney was great, Tilda Swinton put in a fantastic performance and Tom Wilkinson was almost flawless. Of all the things I like about a great movie it's individual acting performances that usually stick with me most, this one had plenty.

Besides the great performances Michael Clayton brought an intriguing mystery and unravelled it brilliantly.

I liked the look of this movie and the writing was the kind that made me want to stop and rewind a few times to listen to dialogue over again.

All in all, this is a great one. See it soon if you haven't yet.

I put this on my 'Watch It' list and give it a full value of $10.

Gone Baby Gone - $10

It is officially the year of Casey Affleck as I have now watched two movies in succession where he has blown me away.


Gone Baby Gone is a heart wrenching story of a missing girl and the desperate search for her by family, police and a private detective named Patrick Kenzie. Kenzie is portrayed brilliantly by Casey Affleck who could very well have gotten an Oscar nod for this role. He's already up for supporting actor for his equally marvelous role in The Assassination of Jesse James... and as good as he is in that he is ever better in this movie.

Gone Baby Gone was directed by Ben Affleck who also had a hand in adapting the screenplay from the novel by Dennis Lehane, writer of Mystic River. Set in Boston, this story gave the Boston native the unique ability to make it authentic and with his choice of casting his brother Casey in the main role and using local people as extras the authentic Boston feel comes through perfectly. Ben has destined himself to be known as "the other Affleck" now though as this movie is yet another piece of evidence that the acting talent is clearly stronger with Casey in that family.

Gone Baby Gone is not to be missed. I can't think of a single thing that the movie makers didn't get right. The mood is dark and engaging, the writing is fantastic as the story and characters are developed quickly and deeply, the music is as haunting as the story, and several of the acting performances were among the best of the year. I was left thinking about this movie for a long time afterward.

See this movie and do it soon. This is a nearly flawlessly told story and is the best movie of 2007 in my books. (I'm gonna have to redo that best of 2007 list.)

Gone Baby Gone is on my 'Watch It' list and I give it a full value rating of $10

Paris Je T'aime - $10

If you love movies you owe it to yourself to see Paris Je T'aime. This was one of the most rewarding, moving, and fun movie watching experiences I've ever had.

If you have not heard of Paris Je T'aime you need to know a few things first. This is not really a movie at all, it's a collection of 18 short films related to each other only in that they all take place in Paris and all have love as their theme. These two commonalities were enough for me to feel like the entire film was one big experience rather than 18 individual experiences.

Not all the films were amazing to me but the more people I talk to the more I realize that everyone seems to have a different take on which were great and which were duds. That's really part of the magic of Paris Je T'aime, as long as you don't arbitrarily hate all short films I can guarantee you'll thoroughly enjoy at least a few of the stories told here.

The most impactful ones for me were the real life love stories such as the husband who is about to tell his wife he is leaving her when she announces she is dieing, in that moment he alters his entire life plan and chooses to take care of his wife. As she fades away he falls back in love with her more deeply than ever before. There is also entertainment to be found in some of the strangers short films including one about two mimes and another about a vampire falling in love with a tourist.

Paris Je T'aime features many great directors such as Gus Van Sant, the Coen brothers and Alfonso Cuaron, and an impressive list of actors, Steve Buscemi, Elijah Wood, Natalie Portman, Willem Dafoe, Rufus Sewell and Catalina Sandino Moreno, I could go on but there's nothing quite as affective at losing a readers interest like a list.

Paris Je T'aime will not be perfect to anyone but it will be enjoyable to everyone. Go and watch this today if you haven't seen it yet.

This is unquestionably on my 'Watch It' list and I give it full value at $10, it's not perfect but it's worth every penny.

The Darjeeling Limited - $10

Wes Anderson has once again created an engaging story that is both hysterically funny and deeply emotional. This may be his best movie yet.

This story takes place mainly on a train travelling through India called The Darjeeling Limited. Among its passengers are the three Whitman brothers who have not seen each other in the year since their father's death. One of the brothers, Francis, has organized this reconnecting trip for his brothers with spiritual experiences scheduled on each days laminated itinerary. While the brothers make a valiant effort with each scheduled attempt at creating a spiritual experience, it isn't until the trip seems a total failure that an unscheduled event actually does give the brothers the experience they crave.

Adrian Brody, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson play the Whitman brothers, Peter, Jack, and Francis, and Brody fits in impressively with Anderson's movie making style, one that is quite unique and that Schwartzman and Wilson each have experience with. For most people there is something very hit or miss with the subtle, witty and pause-filled dialogue that Anderson writes. For me it hits the bulls eye, or home run or target, or whatever metaphor you prefer. The Darjeeling Limited had me laughing and moved, sometimes at the same time, by the broken relationships of its emotional broken characters.

While the writing and humour are often subtle in Darjeeling the major themes of the movie are anything but. Three brothers on a journey together each having brought their belongings in their fathers old luggage (baggage) which they haul around with great effort throughout the whole movie. There are no big surprises or twists in this plot but the story is still captivating.

Visually the train setting allows Anderson to use some enthralling cinematography where at times the world is going by on the outside and at others the train itself is going by and must be caught. Frequently used are Anderson's characteristic slow motion sequences and long moments of holding a single shot.

The performances in Darjeeling are pitch perfect, the look of the movie is detailed and fascinating and the writing is as good as any Anderson has done to date.

I enthusiastically put The Darjeeling Limited on my 'Watch It' list and give it the rarely awarded value of $10.

Grizzly Man - $10

Grizzly Man is as good as a documentary gets. It is moving, inspiring, truthful, shocking and breathtaking. This movie truly gripped me throughout my viewing of it and for days following.

Grizzly Man is a documentary by Werner Herzog about a man named Timothy Treadwell. Treadwell spent several months of the year, every year for 13 years, in a remote area of Alaska heavily populated by grizzly bears. Treadwell filmed over 100 hours of footage and would tour and speak to school children about the bears he had come to know. All this until he was killed by one of the Grizzlies he's dedicated his life to protecting.

Herzog has compiled Treadwell's footage and watching Treadwell interact with the grizzlies is astounding. While he does not live alongside them or touch them he is in close proximity to them regularly with a surprising lack of aggression from the bears considering their reputation.

What I took away from Grizzly Man more than anything though was the respectful and yet honest portrait of Treadwell that Herzog has created. He does not shy away from showing the footage of Treadwell that makes him look unstable but he also shows many examples of the compassionate side of Treadwell, a man who had clearly pulled further and further away from the "human world" as he called it and escaped fully into a life he created for himself among these animals.

Grizzly Man is a movie I will never forget and is likely the most engrossing documentary I've ever seen.

I put Grizzly Man on my 'Watch It' list and give it the rare, full value rating of $10.

Half Nelson - $10

Dan Dunne is an inner-city junior high school teacher in Brooklyn who is trying to inspire his 13 and 14-year-old students to see history as more than just dates and events.

Dan is a living example of the worldview he is teaching his students; a worldview that sees history not just as individual events but as the slow change brought on by opposing forces. Though Dan is in control in the classroom, his personal life is very much out of control due to a serious drug habit. Drey, one of Dan's troubled students, catches him in the act after school and an awkward and yet touching friendship is started.

Half Nelson is a great character movie. Several of the acting performances are subtle and powerful but none as much as Ryan Gosling's portrayal of Dan Dunne. The Academy got something right for once by picking out his performance in this small festival movie and nominating him for best actor. They got it wrong by not giving him the award but at least hey recognized his work.

This movie was an intense look at a person who is teetering on the edge of control trying to deal with his inability to change the world around him.

Great writing and directing compliment the solid performances in Half Nelson which is also rounded out by a fantastic sound track. This is a movie that should not be missed.

I emphatically put Half Nelson on my 'Watch It' list and give a value of $10.

Little Miss Sunshine - $10

This is a great movie and I am a better person for having watched it.

In Little Miss Sunshine we watch a unique family going through a lot of changes. Richard is a failed motivational speaker, Sheryl is on her second marriage, Grandpa sleeps on the couch after being kicked out of his seniors complex, Uncle Frank moves in after attempting suicide as the doctors recommend he not be left alone, 15 year old Dwayne hasn't spoken in 9 months and 7 year old Olive dreams of becoming a beauty queen.

Through a series of circumstances each of these people ends up in a Volkswagen van together in order to get Olive to the beauty contest of her dreams, Little Miss Sunshine.

This movie is full of impressive performances, at first glance Grandpa's inappropriate comments and drug addiction seem to sum him up but as we see more of him we realize he is at times a caring Father and loving Grandfather. This is really the kind of lens I saw each character through, I am given an impression of them early on and then this story proceeds to blow that impression away.

Little Miss Sunshine challenges our human tendency to hastily judge people through well developed characters that are brilliantly written and even more impressively performed. It is hard to pick out just one actor to praise from Little Miss Sunshine, however, the performance which impressed me most was that of Steve Carell. Carell plays Uncle Frank and this has to be considered the most subtle role of his young film career. Carell is funny as well as moving which is also a fair summary of this entire movie.

Little Miss Sunshine is one of the best movies of 2006 and hopefully the first of many that will be brought to us by first time screenwriter Michael Arndt. I enjoyed this movie from start to finish and I did something I'd never before done, I watched it a second time the next day before returning it.

You need to see Little Miss Sunshine, it is unquestionably on my 'Watch It' list and I give it a value of $10.

2001: A Space Odyssey - $10

2001 is a movie about human potential, about how we've evolved. It is a movie that touches on the amazing capabilities and the dangers of our advancements. 2001 is not an action movie and it's certainly not typical science fiction. The legendary Stanley Kubrick directs this unique look into the past and future of the human condition and he does it with immense skill and near perfect execution.

Kubrick gives his audience fair warning that they are in for something different when he opens the movie with the word OVERTURE against a black screen and has you listen to an orchestra warm up for 4 minutes. A fellow fan told me that it's as if he is telling the viewer to sit back and slow down because you're in for a whole new kind of movie experience.

2001 takes you from the dawn of man to what was the distant future in 1968, 2001. Though it's not entirely clear at what stage this movie is actually in 2001 as the year is only mentioned in the title.

At the dawn of man a mysterious monolith appears on earth in an area where some advanced apes live. One of these apes learns to use a tool shortly after the monolith's arrival and a separation from other animals begins for these primates. It is never stated what involvement the monolith plays in this great moment in human history. There is much speculation as to Kubrick's point, possibly that the ape was given an idea by it in some direct way, maybe merely seeing the monolith caused the ape to realize that not all was known to him, prompting him to think in ways he never before had.

Fast forward to the future where humans travel to space with the ease that we go on vacation today, spaceships carry passengers the way a plane transports you today. Gravity is created on the ships and on the spacestations by keeping them revolving. Humans have taken full control of their tools and are doing things never before imagined. In this way, unlike two other space centered stories in the same era, Star Trek (1966) and Star Wars (1977), 2001 takes great pains to make its space travel plausible. It is even rumoured that NASA copied and implemented some of the technology portrayed in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Compared to it's more commercial science fiction counterparts, 2001's imagery is astonishing, the special effects and cinematography are spectacular and even if its slow pace and unique style don't interest you, it is worth watching for the imagery alone.

In the future a discovery has been made on the moon and is being kept under wraps by scientists from the United States. The implications of this find are clearly immense though the object itself is not revealed to the viewer for some time. We follow a team to the moon whose mission is to find out just exactly what this is. In a scene that may be the best I've ever watched, this team slowly approaches the object which was buried under the moon's surface and has been dug up; it is the monolith. An examination of the monolith, paralleling the apes examination of the same, shows that it is sending a signal to Jupiter.

Fast forward further to the future as we follow a mission to Jupiter to follow the signal and learn who or what is receiving it. This mission is being carried out on a state of the art spacecraft, one with a computer guiding all major functions of the ship. This computer has never made an error, it has a name and even seems to have a personality; the computer is HAL. HAL is the first tool created by humans which may be capable of more than them. But HAL makes an error. This causes a conflict between HAL and the scientists on board as they attempt to disconnect some of HAL's functions. HAL kills all of them but one, Dave. Dave manages to regain control of the ship and continue to Jupiter where this movie once again shifts gears dramatically.

While approaching Jupiter Dave finds the monolith. Upon seeing it Dave is hurled through light and colour and comes out in a room where he sees himself as an older man, this older man sees himself as a dying man and this dying man sees the monolith. The movie ends on a shot of a fetal human cocooned in a bubble and floating in space. The next stage of human development?

This movie was well written, well acted, well directed: frankly it was well made in every conceivable way. 2001: A Space Odyssey is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest movies of all time and I must admit that having finally seen it, I agree.

I wholeheartedly put this movie on my 'Watch It' list and give it a value of $10.

Studio 60 - $10

Ok I know this is a tv show but there is a precedent on my site for reviewing tv. Also this review is less of an actual review and more of a plea. A plea that you watch this show.

Studio 60 is the best thing on TV right now, in my opinion. The writing is clever, funny and moving. The acting is brilliant as the characters have all been developed well and it's only a few shows into it's life. This is a well made show, not hype or emotional manipulation but solid. I have looked forward to it each week since watching the premier.

The reason I'm pleading with you to watch it is that I've heard it may be cancelled. It may have been a mistake by NBC to put it up against CSI Miami, as inferior as that show is to Studio 60 in every way. But the reality is that they are apparently considering scrapping it.

So please, try it. You don't have to like it or agree with me but watch it once and decide. Skip the predictable, cookie cutter, not-worthy-of-your-time CSI Miami and watch the best thing on TV right now.

Watch It, Mondays at 10:00 PM on NBC.