Age of Consent

Mason plays unfortunate artist trapped on beautiful Australian island with only his paintings, genius dog, and gorgeous nude model to keep him company. Tonally torn between comedy and introspective drama. Beautiful cinematography and great performances from Mason and Mirren dragged down by obnoxious supporting cast and still worse closing song.

Australia

Two romance novels squeezed into one unbearably long film. Luhrman proves that he is just a romantic Michael Bay, and like Bay, he delivers a few unexpected poignant moments. Kidman delivers one of her most irritating performances and is out-acted by an incredible aboriginal child and Jackman’s impossibly talented torso.

Walkabout

Longtime cinematographer Nic Roeg directs one of the most beautiful films ever shot and introduces the world to the often nude Jenny Agutter and the ever Aboriginal David Gumpilil. Like Salo and Cannibal Holocaust, includes nude teenagers and real animal slaughter. Unlike aforementioned films, it’s visually stunning and emotionally resonant.

(500) Days of Summer

that uses nonchronological - Honest romantic tragicomedy - editing a bit excessively. Avoided R-rating by euphemizing ‘blowjob’ but gets away with ‘anal girl’ and ‘took a huge shit on my face, literally.’ Despite obtrusive editing and music will resonate with anyone who has had a relationship end bitterly. Autumn, funny.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

Effects genius Tatopoulos directs third Romeo & Vampire film. Backslides both chronologically and qualitatively but maintains tradition of destroying Bill Nighy’s head. Fans of Star Wars III will enjoy the mediocre dialogue and predetermined ending. Culminates in battle of Helm’s Deep and brief voiceover designed to justify casting Fake Beckinsale.

World's Greatest Dad

Baumbach-esque tragicomedy analyzes hypocrisy and grief. Williams shines in role reminiscent of his Will Hunting performance. Daryl Sabara matches Williams from what may be the douchiest child role ever. Abrupt ending detracts from otherwise expert script. Poor editing and music cues hurt film, though not as badly as mismarketing did.

The Brothers Bloom

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels gets fake Wes Anderson treatment. Irritatingly dark and twisty plot weighs down what feels like a light film. Runs into problem of ‘If it’s a con, we called it. If not, lame.’ Aside from brooding Brody, quirky characters are the highlight, especially Rinko Kikuchi and Robbie Coltrane.

For All Mankind

Fails to mesh attention to beauty with narrative drive. Awkwardly paced educational piece rather than entertaining true story. Shots of Earth, though surely breath-taking when photographed become old quickly. Footage of space walks and lunar landing are most compelling, but ironically look less real than special effects footage of today.

Not Quite Hollywood

Compelling documentary about Ozploitation films of ‘70s and ‘80s Australia. Tarantino and others provide expert commentary throughout. Made more compelling through quick ballsy editing and well selected clips from all films discussed. Contains more female nudity than any other R-rated film plus one necessarily lengthy shot of John Holmes’ penis.

Inside Deep Throat

More than just a nice way to watch porn guilt-free. Covers topic thoroughly from both sides while intercutting just enough deep-throating to offend conservatives and disappoint teenagers. Entertaining use of subplots relating not to the subject, but rather to the documentary itself. Message: pornographers get weirder as they get older.

The Girlfriend Experience

Soderbergh casts porn star in experiment that effectively combines editing of Limey with honesty of Bubble. Casting choices and cinematographic style add to realism and tone of film. Sasha Grey is really not bad, but performances of male leads are certainly not as penetrating as those of her previous co-stars.

Five Obstructions

Von Trier forces filmmaker Jorgen Leth to repeatedly remake a 1967 short film but applies rules designed to trick Leth into making Dogville. First four remakes are impressive but documentary footage between them is tedious and only serves to justify Von Trier’s final, ‘meaningful’ obstruction. Obstruction #6: Hire an editor.

Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo

Most loyal to text and consequently most tedious to watch Christ film. Spends hours on Jesus (Taylor Lautner’s grandfather) furrowing his unibrow at oblivious Italians. Handles the crucifixion quickly and tastefully, making it the antithesis of Gibson’s Passion. Clearly the work of the man who went on to direct Salo.

Doomsday

Combines worst parts of Resident Evil, Timeline, and Road Warrior in attempt to create film with self-fulfilling title (which ironically is unrelated to plot). Pseudo-Beckinsale delivers decent performance which can’t help but stand out in a washed up land where Malcolm McDowell is king. Makes the Reaper virus look desirable.

Public Enemies

Bale and Depp waste their talent in least compelling gangster story ever. Cinematographer apparently wore shock collar so Mann could zap him if he accidentally framed shots properly. Capped off by misused digital effect far less enjoyable than a hole in the head. Title refers to producers of this monstrosity.

Dead Again

Branagh makes sincere effort to be Hitchcock and fails miserably. Tolerable acting unable to save film from countless failed attempts at suspense. Third act plot twist seems clever compared to rest of film. Saving graces include quirky bit performance by Robin Williams and intensely comedic age makeup on Andy Garcia.

Youth Without Youth

Coppola uses this experimental melodrama to prove that he doesn’t only make good movies. Painfully slow but made bearable by interesting premise and decent performances by Roth and Lara. Impressively captures the feeling of dreaming during the third act. Pity that this dream portion follows a long and boring day.

Death Race

Remake filled with so much testosterone that just watching it builds muscle mass. Only similarities to original 1975 film are character names and intense feeling of guilty pleasure. Features relatively solid story and fantastically executed stunts and effects. Action sometimes becomes too ridiculous, but then, the title is Death Race.

The Hurt Locker

Simultaneously brooding and breath-taking, recreates the harshness and excitement of war without accidentally killing the audience. Made more incredible by Renner’s phenomenally nuanced performance. Employs Reitman’s frequent celeb cameos technique to great effect. Somewhat forced scene at end kept in despite change from equally ambiguous original title, ‘The Cereal Aisle.’

Up in the Air

Reitman hybridizes his previous films into a flaccid pseudo-comedy that emulates American economy by being bleak and frustrating. Various celebs try to bail it out but cannot from the confines of their 30 second roles. Even Clooney runs out of fuel halfway and coasts on in a dissatisfying melancholy mess.

State of Play

Unsatisfactory remake of BBC miniseries. Added subplot features Crowe trying to protect college buddy, Affleck, from his own bad acting. Plot-based conspiracy film with passable but unremarkable performances from A-list cast and Affleck. Further marred by mediocre cinematography, likely caused by constant struggle to fit Crowe’s lion mane into frame.

Doubt

Julie and Julia try to figure out Capote’s habits without dirtying their own. Excellent performances from lead players steer film to emotional excellence. Suffers from ‘clearly still a play’ syndrome despite addition of single exterior scene featuring award nominated performance from Viola Davis’ mucus. Certain to cause countless unwinnable debates.

Star Trek

Fun film about lens flares and how red matter can be used to create plot holes in space-time. Compelling actors distract from fallacious screenplay. The most logical character(s) launches Kirk into space for being irritating, and later jeopardizes Starfleet for sake of potential future friendship. Warning: Film Not for Vulcans.

10 Things I Hate About You

Classic adaptation in which a television actor hires his Australian doppelganger to aide in his shrew-taming endeavors. Though dialogue was modified from source material, Shakespeare’s famous paint balloon scene was portrayed with great loyalty. One of only a few chick flicks that straight guys can safely admit to liking.

300

White leader defies legislature and sends undersized force to fight symbolic battle against brown people. Similarities to real events totally coincidental. Weak story made up for by outstanding visuals and brilliant use of slow motion. Probably responsible for more men joining the military or discovering their homosexuality than any other film.

The Double Life of Veronique

Beautiful film that moves even slower than the molasses that was smeared on the lens to tint the whole thing gold. Features impressive performances from several Irene Jacobs and a couple of womannequins. Well thought out meditation on spirituality and the interconnectedness of human beings, eyeball rings, and finger strings.

Sherlock Holmes

RDJ and Jude Law discover that an evil genius has turned London into a Dan Brown novel. Peppered with clue-leaves and the tails of clue-rats, completely indecipherable hints designed to make the viewer feel not clever enough. Pseudo-intellectual film made entertaining by good actors and occasional sequences of 300 slo-mo.

Nine

Segues poorly between compelling acting and flashy music videos. Fergie delivers fantastic performance prompting suspicions that everyone else acted down to make her look better. If Rob Marshall’s goal was to create a barely passable schizophrenic remake to mirror his character he succeeded admirably. Disproves math: 8 1/2 > 9.

Watchmen

Not actually a movie, but rather a collection of scene reenactments glued together by rough semblance of plot. Modifications to source material include consolidation or elimination of several subplots, expansion of single frame into soft-core porn scene, increased frequency of blue penis appearance, oh, and complete rewrite (improvement?) of ending.

Julie & Julia

Streep again delivers a performance that is perfect save for the fact that the character she expertly portrays is extremely irritating (Capote Syndrome). Adams does not. Poor pacing and unresolved third act conflict outweigh abundant adorability. Will likely only live on through the millions of unread blogs it will inspire.

District 9

Clever retelling of apartheid that incorporates every video game weapon ever conceived. Bonus points for originality of story and for impressively goopy body explosions. Negative points for silly transformation plot aspect and arbitrary use of documentary footage. One of only seventeen films in 2009 to use the Avatar/Transformers/Terminator Salvation robot.

48 Hrs.

Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte deliver unconvincing performances as a black guy and a white guy. Blunt attempt at ‘racism is bad’ message blends perfectly with clichéd buddy cop story to create a film so juvenile that it may just justify the grammatically incorrect use of punctuation in the. title.

Avatar

Visually orgasmic reformatting of old story into fantastical new world. If C.S. Lewis can do it to Jesus, why can’t Cameron do it Pocahontas? Pervasive political message tries and fails to detract from special effects extravaganza. Not for people who hate beauty, excitement, or Native Americans. That said, ‘unobtanium,’ really?