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Thin. It felt like Russel was channeling Scorcese's Goodfellas. And that move only highlights how much better Goodfellas was than American Hustle. You can disagree. But we all have gone on quoting lines from Goodfellas for years and years. What will we quote from this movie? What scenes carry the weight of "you think I'm funny, like a clown?" This movie never takes itself serious enough to be memorable. Fun to watch, sure, but it doesn't ever make much of a dent.

I'm surprised so many people were able to convince themselves that they enjoyed the movie. You really get little more than you get from watching the trailer. It looks and sounds nice, and seems to be an interesting glimpse into the period, but nothing really happens. Felt like an overextended short film. The kind that just gives you a glimpse into someone's life, without really taking the character through the paces normally required for a feature film.

The closest thing to a perfect movie that I've found. There's too many great things about it to list here. Here's one interesting nuance. If you want to know the key to the power of Ben Kingsley's performance, it is not actually Ben Kingsley (though he is wonderful). Watch the movie up until Kingsley's arrival and then turn it off. Tell me then what you would think of Don Logan had he never made an appearance in the movie. Watch everyone's reaction at the table when Jackie says "It was Don Logan" who called for Gal. This director created an unbelievable monster of a character in Don Logan before he entered frame. It is in this way that Jonathan Glazer is largely responsible for the character of Don Logan. And why Ben Kingsley was able to spend most of his performance not raising his voice and seem utterly terrifying. Brilliant example of a director defining a character by the other character's reactions to him. Only one of the trillion great things about this film.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Every character seems ripped out of real life. None of them do the things that movie characters are supposed to do. And it adds up to a very authentic feeling story, that makes its point without ever forcing the issue, or resorting to sentimentality. Loved this movie.

Interesting and sad, but not very thorough. Is it just me, or does Herzog never challenge either of the convicted killers on their versions of the story, which is that they didn't kill these people? It feels like he avoided the issue and just let them tell their story, and let everyone else tell their story, and left it for us to figure out. But the big payoff that never occurs is that these two convicted murderers are never forced to face the ugly thing they did. If Herzog is taking the stance that they were innocent, then he should have pushed harder against the authorities. But he doesn't do that either. The effect is just a huge letdown of a movie, where we hear account after account of a needlessly brutal crime occurring, and being bragged about. And then we see the alleged perpetrators claim they didn't do it. The real question of this movie: 'why would they commit these terrible acts to steal a car?' - is never even posed to either of the two people convicted. This seems to me to be too laid back an approach for a story that begs for larger answers.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I don't fully understand the story of this movie. I'm not sure if this is my fault, or the director's, or perhaps that it was intended. But I will say that being an American, it is a very interesting look into a completely different world that feels very real and dynamic. Part of this is just because the movie is about, and shot in Russia. So maybe I enjoy this in the way I would enjoy incredibly candid slides from someone's vacation to Moscow. It would have to be a very bleak vacation, of course. One where they were repeatedly robbed and taken advantage of by members of the police and military. But whatever the cause, I must admit, I enjoyed the movie and found it to be an interesting and authentic-feeling glimpse into a country where life is much more chaotic, unfair, and difficult. A country where roads literally lead nowhere.

Every movie I watch Paul Dano in reinforces what an amazing director Paul Thomas Anderson is. That he was able to get a dynamic performance out of Dano in There Will Be Blood is a miraculous feat when you consider Dano's other work. Being Flynn is case in point. Dano plays the character with a grim seriousness that doesn't help the already melancholy tone of this movie. A role that should have many levels, and be played with some irony to counterbalance the darkness, is instead played with a one-note monotonous sadness. The end result is a character who feels way more sorry for himself than we do, and a story with a big hole where its male lead should be. Robert De Niro is heroic enough to overplay his role, to make up for the void at the center of the picture, and give us some entertainment value. But the end effect for him is that he appears to many critics as conspicuous and flashy. The real culprit is Dano, who doesn't crack a smile for the entirety of the film and who ensures that we don't either.

It's about a man's pursuit of his dream to walk on a tight rope between the World Trade Center towers. The story and characters are compelling enough on their own. But Marsh matches visuals to music in a way that makes this story more a work of art than a retelling. This movie owned me the first time I saw it. And I watch it again from time to time to remind myself how to dream.

I can't remember a movie where I cared so much about what I was watching. Though it moves slowly and inconspicuously, it builds an incredible amount of momentum by the midpoint. I found myself thinking "please please let things work out for these two girls", as if they were good friends of mine. And I'm usually overly critical and not easily drawn in. It helps that Mungui manages to avoid a single false note in the entirety of the film with his direction. Anamaria Marinca plays her very difficult role without a trace of self-pity. This is a truly amazing movie that surprised me.

I saw a SAG screening of this that was followed by a Q&A with one of its stars. Amazingly, despite his presence in the theater, a lot of people couldn't sit through the entirety of the film. The guy sitting next to me was with his girlfriend, and opted to leave and meet up with her afterwards. And these are all working actors who appreciate a good performance even if its attached to a bad script. The movie is really difficult to follow and the characters are very hard to develop an attachment to. This is probably because the movie is an overstuffed adaptation of a much larger work. They tried to fit in too many story lines and to attach too many big name actors. The end effect is that the movie lacks the most important and basic ingredient to a successful feature: a likeable protagonist who we can root for in an understandable goal. It doesn't help that Gary Oldman chose to play Smiley, who would most likely serve as our protagonist, without any emotional reaction to the things he experiences. Another case of no single critic wanting to go out on a ledge against a great cast and director. So they all fall in line to praise a very bad piece of work that no one will remember at all in ten years.

Completely devoid of real human beings and relatable situations. Lots of broad caricatures whose lives and relationships serve only as platform for highbrow one-liners. Clever for no reason and absent of any heart. Stillman is too busy making fun of his characters to ever allow you to empathize with them. I am shocked that critics liked this.

The director, Tate Taylor, knows exactly how he wants the audience to feel about every character and every scene. He leaves almost no room for you to make up your own mind and so the deck continually feels stacked. You're not watching reality unfold, you're watching propaganda. Bryce Dallas Howard's character is set up to represent the racist white south. But her character is so devoid of any redeeming qualities that she feels like a straw-woman, and the effect is that the movie says very little other than "bad people are bad". Most insulting to the audience's intelligence, the last 45 minutes of the film consist of 6 or 7 manipulative tear-jerk-er scenes in a row. Complete with swelling "please cry" music, a forced break up scene, a "group standing up and applauding" scene, and a "crying child saying goodbye" scene. No movie cliche' is spared. I think this would be less objectionable in a film about young lovers, or a boy and his dog. But when you are making a movie about "the help" in the south, a minority group whose story has (according to the premise of the movie) not been told, then you owe it to them, I think, to just tell the story and leave out the "tear-jerk-er" play book. So I'd go beyond saying this is a bad movie. It is a socially irresponsible movie that sets itself up to be something it isn't: the story of "the help". Peeking through all the stupid Hollywood tricks is Viola Davis, whose performance suggests to us that underneath this trite movie was a real complicated story to be told, about real people. It is rare that an actor can transcend material like this, and the movie is worth seeing just for that amazing feat. But besides all this, you know a movie has no interest in reality when the strikingly beautiful Emma Stone, in full makeup and fashionable clothing, is sold as the 23 year old girl who has never been on a date. Change that plot point or change the actress.