United States of Leeland

This is a great movie. I love how it shows that everyone involved in the incident and Leeland's life had flaws. You sympathize with him, you know he wanted to do the right thing, but that doesn't make his crime okay. Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is still wrong. The chronology could be a bit confusing (showing a girl in a Leeland flashback and having the scene end with her in the present), but there was really no other way to tell the story. If you knew everything up front it wouldn't have been as powerful.

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Someone at work had just seen this one and was not amused which got me to rewatch it to see if maybe now that I'm older I'll have a different feeling. Nope. Maybe it's just schadenfreude, but I love this movie. I love that Solondz didn't cop out and make one bit of her life easy. I love the way the little girl dances when they start a home scene. I love how you feel sympathy toward Dawn, but that doesn't stop you from laughing through the whole thing. And I love the way it ends. I thought I might get some new insight rewatching at after at least 5 years of having not seen it, but all it did was reinforce what I'd already known.

Pieces of April

I really liked this one. There isn't much to say about it, it's fairly straightforward. Nothing really unique in the story, dialogue or cinematography, it was just a nice film. The supporting characters were all well-developed and the mother had a great performance.

Little Miss Sunshine

When I first heard about this after Sundance I was really excited. I thought it sounded great, but I never had a chance to watch it until now. And it was a let-down. The movie itself was good, but I think I let the hype get to the best of me. People were talking about how it was so original and that it was the best movie ever. I think those people ruined it for me. It was an indie flick that went mainstream, that's it. It had an indie style and a story that's been told before (the dead relative in the car goes back to National Lampoon's vacation - maybe further). It was good, but it wasn't anything groundbreaking as I had been led to believe.

Jersey Girl

I'm glad I wasn't able to see this until recently. I remember a lot of controversy over Kevin Smith doing a romantic comedy, worries about it ruining his career and the whole Gigli II aspect of it. Well, I didn't see it as a rom com. I looked at it as a father and a daughter with a romantic subplot, Clerks 2 proved to me that Smith still has it and Lopez was in it for about 15 minutes. I refused to see it for a long time because I didn't want to see the career-ending flick of one of my favorite directors, but I convinced myself that a true fan has to take the good with the bad - or at least form her own opinion. It was certainly a departure for Smith, but it wasn't a bad movie, in fact, I enjoyed it. And I think that the critics saying it's not a true Smith film because it's a different style are sort of missing the point. He showed that he's able to make movies that appeal to people other than his frat boy fan base: that's growth and last I heard it was good to not pigeonhole yourself into something "safe."

xx/xy

This was described as a complicated romantic comedy, but it was none of the above. They say it's about three people involved in a complex relationship who meet up again many years down the road and see if they can pick up where they left off. It was really about two immature people in a relationship who cheated on each other, then called it quits. Many years down the road the couple and one of their old friends meet up while they are all married or in committed relationships and try to be friends despite the fact that everyone knows the original man still loves the original woman. There is no concrete ending, which can work well in some films, but it did not work here.

thirteen

I thought this was a good film. The acting was top-notch, Hunter even picked up a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her role. There has been a lot of criticism about the unbelievability of the characters, but I think those critics missed the point. Not everyone is exactly like those two girls, but if you take away the illegal activities and strip the film down to its basic message I think every girl can see herself in Tracey's place. At that age most are trying to rebel and hate their parents. Mothers are left wondering what she did wrong and where her little girl went. Should she be a parent or should she try to stay in the girl's life as a friend? That said, there are people that age who do the things that Tracey and Evie do. But, there are also kids like Mason and Tracey's pre-Evie friends who would never do them and can't understand why anyone would. The film does show that not every teenager uses drugs and steals, it's in the background but it's there.