THE KILLER INSIDE ME (2010)

This film is based on a Jim Thompson crime novel that Stanley Kubrick wanted to develop as a movie in the fifties, calling it "probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered", but instead hired Thompson to write The Killing.  There was a version in the seventies that changed the setting, and presumably cut much of the violence, that starred Stacy Keach, Frank James from The Long Riders.  This version however stars Casey Affleck from TAOJJBTCRF (IMDB even claims Andrew Dominik almost directed this), alongside a very impressive supporting cast including Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Simon Baker, Elias Koteas, Ned Beatty, Tom Bower, Brent Briscoe, and Bill Pullman.  The plot concerns Sheriff's Deputy Lou Ford, a young man in small town Texas whose 'gee whiz' and 'aw shucks' demeanor hides the heart of a brutal monster; he finds himself surrendering to his most base impulses when he gets involved in murderous blackmail schemes that slowly lead to his complete transformation from human being to hellspawn.  Now don't go taking that literally.  Nothing supernatural here.  But Lou Ford is a very, very bad man who does very, very bad things to people, especially women.  This movie might make you afraid of Casey Affleck.

THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID (1972)

Another Jesse James picture?  What makes this one different?  This film from director Philip Kaufman has a narrow focus, concerning itself mainly with the titular event, which showed up as the finale of The Long Riders, but is portrayed much differently here and serves as the bulk of the film.  James is one of our twin protagonists, the other being Cole Younger again.  Jesse James is played by Robert Duvall (same year as The Godfather) but again his depiction is far cry from what might be expected.  This James is ignorant, careless, sloppy, fanatical, shortsighted, petty and seems to have become such a great outlaw solely by luck and good company.  Cole Younger, by far the wiser of the two, is played by Cliff Robertson who is best known nowadays as Uncle Ben in the Spiderman Trilogy.  Dirtier and grimier than most westerns, with loads more period language thrown in to boot, this film seems more authentic even when its differs from history.

THE LONG RIDERS (1980)

Jesse James's time as the leader of the James-Younger gang is the focus of this crowd-pleasing adventure about robbing banks and trains, wooing women, and defending southern honor against Yankee devils.  Its such a good time that its almost a shame the story follows history and ends with pretty much everybody dead or in jail.  This film stands out for a number of reasons.  Walter Hill's stylish direction makes use of gratuitous slow motion and even more gratuitous (not to mention copious) squibs during the gunfights which resemble his mentor Sam Peckinpah's bloodbaths like The Wild Bunch, and his decision to shoot in Georgia makes this the greenest, lushest, most verdant western I've ever seen.  The period score by Ry Cooder is also fantastic, particularly the opening number played over oneiric footage of the men riding through endless green fields with the sky bright above them and his rendition of 'I'm A Good Old Rebel' which sounds much better here than it did in The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford when Jeremy Renner sang it.  But the most notable and famous feature of this film is the cast: four sets of actor brothers playing four sets of outlaw brothers.

THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (2007)

The internets claim that when Brad Pitt signed onto this film he had it put in his contract that the studio could not modify the title.  That may be the first thing he did to ensure the greatness of this movie, but the second and more important thing he did is give a brilliant performance.  Pitt as Jesse James is a far cry from what might be expected from the man known as the Robin Hood of postbellum Missouri.  He is not a noble leader of a band of merry men, and he does not steal from the rich to give to the poor; he is boss to a hired pack of thieves and killers, and he steals because that is what he trained to do as a youth in the Civil War and he knows nothing else.  In the last year and so many months of his life that this film dramatizes, James is a paranoid psychotic, murdering in cold blood anyone who might conspire to turn him over to the authorities despite also trusting worse and worse men in his desperation to recruit a posse, with violent mood swings such as a sobbing fit immediately following the extended needless beating and interrogation of a thirteen year old boy.  He is not Robin Hood.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

This film is the old-fashioned antidote to other hyper-modern summer super hero blockbusters like Green Lantern where even the super hero's super suit was CGI.  How old fashioned is this movie?  There's a character with a red skull for a face and they used makeup instead of CGI.  Not old fashioned enough?  There's an Alan Menken musical number with war bonds sales drives, pretty girls in costumes twirling flags, fireworks, confetti, signing, dancing, and Hitler-punching; plenty of Hitler-punching.  Still not old fashioned enough?  This film actually has a trailer at the end of its credits; previews of coming attractions used to be shown after films, trailing them as it were, which is how they got the nickname 'trailers'.  Trivia!

IRONCLAD

This film was dropped into a limited, barely-advertised theatrical run almost at the same time it was abandoned on DVD and Blu-Ray with...  well, what's less than no fanfare?  Negative fanfare?  That's not really quite right, because it's not exactly as if people were out in the streets yelling and banging pots and pans together about how upset they were that it had been released.  Indifference!  Obscurity!  What could doom such a film?  Is it terrible?  Nope.  Its not bad.  Not bad at all.  Paul Giamatti is King John of England, that mean bastard you might remember from almost any version of Robin Hood even the one where they are animals, and he hopes to kill everybody in England that remembers he signed the Magna Carta so he can enjoy life the way it used to be.

DAY OF RESURRECTION (1980)

The internets claim this was the most expensive Japanese movie ever made at the time it was released, and it was a huge flop.  Bummer.  The cut in America was missing about an hour and was retitled Virus so it would be more obvious what it was about, but it came at the tail end of the epic disaster movie craze so nobody was interested.  People are always worried about germs or parasites or viruses or some kind of creature they can't see that wants to gobble up their insides: ebola, SARS, bird flu, swine flu, turtle flu, etc.  Hopefully this movie will find a larger audience especially since it's available for free.  Early on in the film title cards lay out the stakes for us: A super-virus leaves only 843 people left alive on Earth.  How did it get this bad and where will it go from here?

KWAIDAN (1964)

This movie won the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival, so at least some anthology films (sometimes called portmanteau films) used to enjoy more popularity than they do now.  No frame story this time, just four ghost stories; the title means 'ghost story' but it is untranslated in America.  I don't know why they translate some foreign movie titles but other times they don't.  Why isn't Yojimbo just called Bodyguard?  Oh forget it.  This movie is very colorful and theatrical, drawing on rich traditions of the stage, with gigantic sets depicting all sorts of natural and unnatural occurrences in vivid, expressionist bursts of artifice and design.  The stories are all slow-burns, even the abbreviated final story, that rely more on mounting tension and creeping suspense than blood and guts or things jumping out at you suddenly.

THE TREE OF LIFE

This film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.  Director Terrence Malick has only made five films in forty years and is considered even by the standards of reclusive, eccentric directors to be very reclusive and eccentric.  In 1973 there was Badlands, in 1978 there was Days of Heaven, in 1998 The Thin Red Line, in 2005 The New World, and now this.  Instead of Malick's signature idiosyncratic style being applied to seemingly conventional stories (young lovers on the run, young lovers on the run, WW2, Pocahontas) this film is Malick's style applied on top of... Malick's style.  Almost completely formless, its like being 'felt at' for two hours and twenty minutes.  The well-conveyed and diverse feelings are accompanied by classical music and spectacular images of things both mundane and cosmic, of history both personal and celestial, but just like certain pieces of divine natural beauty, say a double rainbow, the film is ultimately weightless.

CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS 3D

If you see one film about caves this year, make it this one.  If you see one documentary this year, make it this one.  If you see one 3D movie, make it this one.  I haven't seen any other cave movies or documentaries this year, but at least in the 3D category, this film far surpasses the likes of Drive Angry: Shot In 3D and Priest which are the only other 3D films I saw this year.  Let me spoil the 'plot' as it were: there are cave paintings in France that are over thirty thousand years old and we are going to look at them and talk about them.  If you don't think you would enjoy a virtual reality tour of a very large cavern, with some interviews and a side trip or two thrown in, then you probably wouldn't.

EDEN LOG (2007)

This pick from Schifty makes me wonder where he finds these movies in the first place; it's not like you can tell Netflix to only show you things that weren't released in theaters.  Or that you only want to watch something if nobody else in the world has seen it.  The only two requirements for a Schifty's Pick are 1) he recommends it to me and 2) I haven't heard of it until he recommends it.  Anyway, this film is a European production, mostly French, but don't worry all the dialogue is in English.  At least all the important dialogue is in English.  After a few minutes of grunting and writhing in the mud with total darkness only occasionally punctuated by a strobe light, the story begins in earnest, with an amnesiac wandering a subterranean power plant full of mutated workers, hunted rebels, and incompetent soldiers.

THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950)

This film noir uses a little less flourish than others.  No music, except for the opening and closing sequences, with over a hundred minutes of soundtrack-silence.  No looming shadows, no thick clouds of smoke, no rooms lit by a single swaying light bulb.  Here, the devil is in the details.  Showing how all the pieces and players aligned to pull off a million dollar jewelry store heist, and the real difficult part, everyone cooperating afterward to divvy up the loot.  You might call this movie 'hard-boiled' because one of the main characters says things like "Why don't you quit crying and get me some bourbon?"  And that's to another man.

HORRIBLE BOSSES

I always admire the guts it takes for a movie to have a title that lends itself so easily to mockery.  Every critic who didn't like the film and needs a snappy headline practically has all his work done for him.  Luckily this film passes that test, and is not horrible.  Three friends with severely dysfunctional workplaces decide to off their superiors, but in a movie-inspired twist (Strangers On A Train and Throw Momma From The Train are both mentioned; this movie unfortunately features no trains) that they worked out with their murder-consultant, they will be swapping targets with one another to avoid being obvious suspects.  Sex, drugs, murder and nobody learns any lessons?  Should be great.

MR BROOKS (2007)

When I was watching this movie I almost became convinced that they had made it ten years earlier, 1997-ish, and then just forgot to release it until 2007.  It has Kevin Costner, William Hurt, and Demi Moore in starring roles?  Doesn't sound like the late 2000's.  The only hole in my theory was Dane Cook playing the fourth lead until I remembered that he's been acting forever; I first saw him as Dennis Rodman's sidekick in Simon Sez in 1999, which has the dubious distinction of being #83 on IMDB's Bottom 100 List at the time I write this.  I guess it doesn't really matter when this movie was made.  It got made.  It got released.  I watched it.

TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE (1990)

This film has an interesting pedigree.  Its based on a TV anthology series created during the resurgence of that genre in the 1980's; there was the new Twilight Zone, Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories, the new Outer Limits, Monsters and more.  Eventually even kids got in on the action with Are You Afraid of the Dark? and people who thought these stories couldn't be told properly without copious gore, liberal cursing, and tons and tons of tits had HBO's Tales from the Crypt.  But enough TV talk, what does this movie have?  The frame story is a modern day take on the Hansel and Gretel legend, the first segment is based on a Arthur Conan Doyle short story (sorry, no Sherlock), the second segment is based on a long unpublished Steven King short story with a script by George Romero so it couldn't possibly be the worst (spoiler it is) and the last story is, I don't know, a documentary about when some guy met a gargoyle.  If that's not enough to pique your interest, just wait til you find out all the people in this.

FAREWELL (2009)

This film is quite accurately described by Netflix as the 'thinking man's spy thriller'.  It has a lot more in common with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy than it does with Goldfinger.  In the early 1980's a Soviet Intelligence Colonel, thoroughly disillusioned with the broken promises of his government, starts leaking information in an effort to bring down the USSR.  Because the information he wants to leak concerns the network of Soviet spies in the Western world, especially their intelligence agencies, he decides to leak the information through an unusual channel: a French engineer working in Moscow who smuggles the information back home to Paris and passes it along to a friend in the DST, the domestic intelligence agency of France, thereby completely bypassing the already comprised traditional foreign intelligence routes.  If that description already scares you, then you should know it only covers the first ten or fifteen minutes.

THE STAR CHAMBER (1983)

Netflix is probably recommending this movie to a whole bunch of people right now, what with its theme of 'avenging the miscarriages of justice.'  The examples of the law failing to right wrongs provided here are much more outlandish than merely a mother murdering a child.  A man who enjoys murdering old ladies for their welfare checks is released scot-free because the detectives improperly searched his trash for the gun, and a pair of child murdering pornographers are let go because the unpaid parking tickets that led to their initial arrest were actually paid off so they never should have been pulled over in the first place.  Judge Michael Douglas is fed up with all the criminals being set free to commit more crime so he joins a shadowy cabal of judges led by Hal Holbrook who hire hitmen to take out the thugs that the court system is just powerless to stop.  Guess we know how they feel about the death penalty.

RUBBER (2010)

Although all the dialogue may be in English, make no mistake, this film is foreign.  If the credits full of French names didn't tip you off, you could probably figure it out once the action starts.  Two stories blend together: one is about an audience watching the events of the film from a distance with binoculars.  This story does interact with the other story occasionally, but its mostly isolated and sort of a modern day meta-version of a Greek chorus.  The other story, and by far the stronger one and the one with deservedly more screen time, is the tale of a rubber tire cast off somewhere in desert, which suddenly and inexplicably gains sentience, malevolence, and telekinesis (another character calls it 'psycho-kinetic').

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

Owen Wilson is trapped in a bad movie, but through the magic of the titular time & location he takes whimsical journeys to another more charming if insubstantial movie.  Wilson starts the film in Paris with his fiancee, a never less enjoyable Rachel McAdams, and her parents; her dad is played by Kurt Fuller, a generic businessman on a generic trip to Paris for a generic corporate merger, who has probably the best line in the film although its better edited in the trailer.  Most scenes between Wilson and anyone else in Paris save for the first lady and a fetching shop clerk have conversations with him like this:

Owen Wilson:  I like fun.   And nice things.
Anyone Else:  Fun is stupid.  Nice things are stupid.  You are stupid.  Everything is stupid.

Wilson escapes this army of straw-men, which includes a bearded Michael Sheen who is not nearly as fun as a bearded Michael Sheen should be, by wandering the streets drunk until strangers in a chauffeured Peugeot pick him up and whisk him away.  The rest of this review might count as a spoiler. 

THE TEN (2006)

Non-horror anthology films also tend to be under-appreciated.  People really must not like learning new names every few minutes.  This movie is basically The State: The Motion Picture, even more so than Wet Hot American Summer because this movie's format most closely resembles the sketch comedy style of television.  You get one story for each commandment, although the link isn't always super clear, along with interstitial tales in front of giant prop copies of the commandments.  Including a short animated sequence and a lavish show-stopping musical number with all the characters and more, there is a lot happening in only 96 minutes so you definitely won't get bored.