SKYFALL

The best Bond movie in the last ten years was probably X-Men: First Class or maybe Michel Hazanavicius's deft parodies OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio.  The last three Bond films have been surgical procedures, designed to remove any last trace of fun, color, or personality from a franchise built on them.  In this film, right from the beginning I knew I was in trouble.  Bond opens a door and finds a room full of bloody murdered agents.  Ah, the childish fun of a Bond movie!

THE MASTER

In 1950, a drunk named Freddie Quell meets a writer named Lancaster Dodd who is starting some kind of religion.  The plot of writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson's latest masterpiece sounds simple enough, but the structure of this story is very unusual, because this is Freddy's story and not Dodd's.  Dodd's story would be more logical and orderly, probably with an emphasis on names, dates, facts, and figures.  No, this is Freddy's story.  So the timeline is hazy.  You only hear most characters names once or maybe twice.  We hear Freddy's name over and over again but the other characters are known mostly by their place in the hierarchy.  There is no conventional three act structure to this story.  Lots of scenes moving this way and that, from one place to another just like Freddy.  From one scene to the next he might be across the country or across the world.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

This review (filled to the brim with spoilers) is more about analysis than convincing anyone to see the movie, since I'm assuming that everyone and their mother already saw it.  For that reason, instead of rushing this review I thought I would take my time, see the film a few more times, and maybe have a little bit more to say.  The Dark Knight Rises does not rise above The Dark Knight.  Well, yeah?  Its not as good as the last one.  That's a hard act to follow.  The Dark Knight is one of the best films ever.  Sometimes I try to estimate how many times I have seen that movie... just in theatres.  The Dark Knight gave us the most iconic villain since Hannibal Lector since Darth Vader since Frankenstein's Monster.  This movie exists comfortable and confidently in the shadow of its predecessor.  Its a good movie, and a good conclusion to the trilogy.  I liked The Avengers, but this movie I went back to see again.

PROMETHEUS

In Space, God Will Punch You

Aliens is one of those movies that people talk about, alongside The Godfather Part II, The Empire Strikes Back and The Dark Knight, as a rare example of a sequel that surpasses the original film.  Well if the Alien franchise got so lucky the first time, it made up for that with everything since.  Alien 3 was famously over-budget and underwhelming, Alien: Resurrection proves you shouldn't let French people or Winona Ryder anywhere near venerable horror-sci-fi franchises, and the less said about the Aliens VS Predator films the better.  The series already went off the deep end with clones and mash-ups, and although other series like Friday the 13th and Leprechaun have the option of sending the monster into space for later entries, they don't have that luxury here.  Going back in time is not usually the strongest move for a long dormant franchise so how about a prequel!  Even a shitty movie couldn't do much damage to the franchise at this point, and it's important to note that, because this is a shitty movie.

LA GRANDE ILLUSION (1937)

Can you say too much about La Grande Illusion?  When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, it was propaganda minister Josef Goebbels #1 mission to see every copy of this film burnt to ash.  You really have to hand it to the Nazis.  They were fucking evil.  This movie only contains two major German characters, and they are both heavily sympathetic.  Why did the Nazis want it destroyed so badly?  To put it in the kind of simple terms a Nazi could appreciate, this film is humanity, and the Nazis, and all those that would destroy art or knowledge, are inhumanity.