Near Dark

Actors:  Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Adrian Pasdar, Jenette Goldstein, Tim Thomerson, Joshua John Miller
Rating:  7 out of 10, this is a really interesting take on vampire mythology.  It was made before the current vampire craze and was one of Katherine Bigelow’s first movies before she achieved fame with The Hurt Locker.  The vampires are shown as a tight knit, totally amoral family led by Henriksen and Goldstein.  There’s none of the stake through the heart or crucifix stuff but they do catch fire in daylight.  They are trying to initiate Pasdar who is not playing along.  It is interesting that this was made shortly after Aliens and has three of the lead actors from that film together again in Paxton, Goldstein, and Henriksen.  I really liked the interplay between these three actors and they carried the movie because Pasdar is just kind of there.  I didn’t really like the climatic scenes because they don’t credit the century old vampires with a lot of common sense but the scenes when the “family” is together is worth the watch.
MVP:  Goldstein demonstrates the same smoldering presence as Diamondback that she showed in Aliens

Do Not Disturb

Actors:  Doris Day, Rod Taylor, Hermione Baddeley, Sergio Fantoni, Maura McGiveney
Rating:  7 out of 10, another of my Christmas.  Day and Taylor continue the real easy chemistry.  They play a married couple trying to settle down in England while he runs a textile firm.  She is trying to set up house in the English countryside and they both are faced with opportunities to cheat on each other.  Fantoni plays a Louis Jourdan look alike who tries to woo Day but earns a right cross for his efforts.  This was one of the last movies where Day was featured as a sexy lead and she more than holds her own.  You can also see her famed love of animals with foxes and goats wandering her English home.  Taylor is solid, as always, and plays the perfect exasperated husband to Day’s occasionally ditzy pronouncements.  This was very light, but highly entertaining 1960’s rom com. 
MVP:  Day, again, as Janet Harper, the funny and sexy harried wife

The Crimson Pirate

Actors:  Burt Lancaster, Nick Kravat, Torin Thatcher, Eva Bartok
Rating:  7 out of 10, if you had asked a fourteen year old version of myself what my favorite movie was I would have enthusiastically endorsed this movie.  I saw this as a very young boy and was captivated by the comedic adventure with Lancaster and Kravat showcasing their impressive physical talents.  Because of his long career it’s easy to forget what a great athlete Lancaster was.  The movie has suffered over time and didn’t hold the same magic for the middle aged version of myself but it still resurrected some very fond memories.  It was kind of appropriate that I watched this on a snowy Saturday afternoon.  The plot is completely nonsensical with Lancaster playing a pirate captain who falls in love with a captive and then has to lead a revolution on a Caribbean island.  When I was a kid I thought the many different inventions used for the revolution were so cool but now they just seemed kind of silly.  Bartok was very memorable and Christopher Lee appears in a small role as well.
MVP:  Lancaster as the charismatic Captain Vallo – “Gather Round Boys!”

The Glass Bottom Boat

Actors:  Doris Day, Rod Taylor, Dick Martin, Dom Deluise, Arthur Godfrey, Paul Lynde

Rating:  8 out of 10, another of my Christmas presents and one that I really enjoyed.  Day was near the end of her ability to play the young ingénue but she and Taylor had real easy chemistry which was in clear evidence here.  Day plays a widower who meets multi-millionaire inventor Taylor when he hooks her bathing suit bottom.  The rest of the movie is a romp with a bunch of very funny actors.  Day is accused of being a Soviet spy amidst a real Soviet spy plot.  It is a really amusing glance back at cold war paranoia and there’s even a spot cameo by Napoleon Solo, which only people my age would understand.  I could have lived without seeing Paul Lynde in drag.  You can see the changing of mores as well as they actually acknowledge non-married adults would get together for sex.  There are also a lot of technological marvels highlighted as Taylor is supposed to be a great inventor.  It was interesting to see a couple things here that were stolen in later movies, like the floor cleaner in Taylor’s kitchen that appears in the 5^th Element. This was a lot of silly fun.

MVP:  Day, again, as Jennifer Nelson at the peak of her craft, likable and sexy

Lynde is Drag Along with Solo

Please Don’t Eat The Daisies

Actors:  Doris Day, David Niven, Janis Paige, Patsy Kelly, Jack Weston, Richard Haydn
Rating:  7 out of 10, I received a bunch of Doris Day movies for Christmas and my wife chose this as the first to see.  It was shot when Day was at the height of her fame and she is incredibly good in this as the housewife mother of four young boys to theater critic husband Niven.  I always admired Day for not shying away from playing mother roles and she seems very at ease with the young actors playing her sons.  She and Niven are an interesting couple with Niven’s cool Englishman paired with Day’s American wholesomeness.  The plot revolves around the forced move to the country from their Manhattan apartment and Niven’s struggle to adapt to being one of the most important theater critics.  There’s not a lot happening in this film but I didn’t mind as it did have two of the iconic actors from the films of my youth at the height of their careers.  I really enjoy seeing the changes we’ve all undergone since this much different time. 
MVP:  Day as Kate MacKay the quintessential 1960’s housewife

Total Recall (2012 Version)

Actors:  Colin Farrell, Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale, Bryan Cranston, Bokeem Woodbine, Bill Nighy
Rating:  8 out of 10, I did not have high expectations for this because I loved the original Verhoeven version, even though it included the acting chops of the Governator. I’m also not a huge fan of Colin Farrell (I mean have you seen Alexander) but it did include Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale so there was no way I was missing this movie. I was totally blown away by the film. Instead of rehashing the same story of the earlier film they went in a new direction with incredibly realistic special effects that were over the top. The story was completely new with the same character names and there were several odes to the old movie, some more obvious than others, which I always like. I’m going to watch both films to catch even more. I love it when a movie surprises me and Total Recall did. All three leads were at the top of their game, especially Beckinsale who proves she doesn’t need to wear spandex to be dangerous. I even liked Farrell who took his character in a completely new direction from Arnold which I liked.  Both of the women in this movie took on the brunt of the action and made Farrell look like a sissy at times.  This was a good flick which I wholeheartedly recommend.  There is an extended version on the blu ray which I watched instead of the theatrical version.  The theatrical version is much better and keeps the pace up.  The extended version dragged in a number of places, obviously the director added back in some things that were rightfully excluded in the theatrical version.
MVP:  Beckinsale as the totally hot and incredibly dangerous Mrs. Quaid

Ted

Actors:  Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel Mchale, Seth Macfarlane, Sam Jones
Rating:  9 out of 10, This movie was an absolute riot, so funny on so many levels. The story of a teddy bear that comes to life and bonds with a Boston loser with an incredibly hot girlfriend.  It was vulgar, insulting and just delightful. It takes a really smart script to make vulgar tolerable and funny and this film accomplishes that nearly impossible task. There are some incredibly funny cameos which I also love. It was irreverent, poked fun at itself,  and even had a huge connection to the 1970s Flash Gordon movie (another guilty pleasure). This was one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a very long time.  Kunis has quietly evolved into a real screen presence and can handle comedy as well as drama which is not easy.  All the actors deserve some credit here because the acting with the computer generated main character was seamless and made you believe Ted was really there.  Some of the funniest bits in this movie are the Boston inside jokes which are hilarious.  I also liked the familiar Boston settings.  This wasn’t as funny the second time around but there were a lot of one line zingers that I missed the first time through as well.  This is certainly not Shakespeare but it is extremely funny, if in a guilty pleasure type of way.
MVP:  Kunis as Lori, Wahlberg’s love interest and bane of Ted

The Bourne Legacy

Actors:  Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacey Keach, Scott Glen
Rating:  8 out of 10, I kind of wondered when they first broke the news about another Bourne movie, this one without Matt Damon.  This one picks up events before the end of the last Damon one and uses that as kind of an envelope to take story in another direction which was kind of interesting.  Renner continues his exceptionally strong series of performances in the lead role. The biggest surprise for me was the appearance of Rachel Weisz who was almost unrecognizable as the female lead. I don’t know if she’s gone under the knife or is just evolving as she gets older but she’s one of my favorite actresses and like I said, I almost didn’t recognize her. She’s still really hot and delivered her usual superb performance. The action sequences were intense and lived up to their Bourne predecessors which made watching these movies almost like being on a roller coaster. My only problem with the movie was that it seemed to be only half a story. Obviously the studio is gearing up for a sequel but they didn’t really finish up the plot for the first movie and that’s kind of cheating. The three very effective movies with the first Bourne trilogy achieved this without stooping to doing this so I was a little disappointed in that; still it was a great movie that I thoroughly enjoyed.  The best part of the movie was the intelligence.  It wasn’t all action scenes but had a reason for everything that happened in a well written plot.  Norton is such a great bad guy – I get the impression he must be some kind of A-hole in person or is just an incredibly gifted actor. 
MVP:  Renner as Aaron Cross ably picks up the Bourne mojo of a skilled assassin with a heart

The Dark Knight Rises

Actors:  Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Matthew Modine
Rating:  10 out of 10, Two nights in a row watching Oldman and Hardy with a dose of Bale thrown in this time.  I’m probably one of the few that didn’t think The Dark Knight, the second movie in the trilogy, was a transcendent movie.  I did enjoy it but never elevated it to the pantheon of movie excellence most fans seemed to have placed it.  Heath Ledger was riveting as the Joker but the movie didn’t connect with me.  I actually liked The Dark Knight Rises much more because it allows Bale to complete the arc of his Bruce Wayne/Batman character instead of making illogical but well meaning decisions as he did in the second film.  The supporting cast in this newest movie was incredibly strong, a hallmark of this series.  The only miss in the cast was Modine who was terrible and completely unbelievable.  Luckily he was rescued by the addition of Gordon-Leavitt who has gone chameleon on us, changing his personae and physical aspect with each new role – (expect very big things from him in future).  There were a couple of issues with the middle third of the movie, ad hoc spinal surgery in a 3rd world prison to mention one and a bizarre battle plan for the climatic confrontation as another.  The movie also wastes Tom Hardy who is unrecognizable and completely masked as the villain Bane.  Hardy is a really good actor but his part could have been played by a stuntman because of the mechanical voice and face covering breathing mask – complete waste of talent there.  Hathaway on the other hand, who reminds me so much of my daughter, is pitch perfect as Catwoman.  She is one of those rare actors that portrays emotions in just a glance.  The ending was pitch perfect – just a great movie.  I absolutely loved this movie and could not believe how fast the 2+ hours sped by.
MVP:  Hathaway as an extremely multi-layered Catwoman, sexy, smart, tough and vulnerable – makes you forget Pfeiffer’s take – no mean task

The Dictator

Actors:  Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris, Ben Kingsley, John C Reilly
Rating:  7 out of 10, a Netflix rental because I’m not a huge Cohen fan but the trailer looked hilarious.  I was truly and pleasantly surprised by how consistently funny this movie was.  So many stereotypes were attacked and exposed that this movie had me laughing from start to finish.  Cohen was prefect as a clueless despot forced to live a normal New Yorker’s existence for a while.  Some of the funniest bits were A-list movie stars portrayed as selling themselves to foreigners.  You really had to pay attention to catch some of the funniest lines and almost hidden cameos.  Cohen is so funny in this type comedy that I wonder why he does the reality shock thing so relentlessly – he has real talent as a comedic actor which is rare.
MVP:  Cohen – as Admiral General Aladeen, so funny when he wants to be and not trying to just shock people

Lawless

Actors:  Shia Lebeouf, Tom Hardy, Jason Clarke, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Gary Oldman
Rating:  9 out of 10, The Bondurant brothers enters cinema history as a collection of entertaining characters delivered by great actors in supremely nuanced performances.  This was another great outing by Tom Hardy who steals every scene he’s in while saying virtually nothing – talk about screen presence.  I think this is what Ryan Gosling is going for in his staring mode but he’s not the actor Hardy is who carries it off with élan here.  Hardy is perfect as the quiet but indestructible head of the family bootlegging business. I’m sure a lot of critics will complain about the mumbling but if they really looked beyond the points of their noses they’d see that he’s made this an effective part of his character. I loved the interplay between him and Jessica Chastain. It takes two really good actors to depict the subtle progress of the romance portrayed here. Guy Pearce is the villain and I was amazed once again at his versatility going from the hero mode in the last movie I saw him in to the totally evil scoundrel here. I’m not a big fan of Shia Lebeouf, especially when he tries to be an action guy, but here he plays a “poser” who’s not tough and it worked.  There was a real texture to this movie which transports the viewer back to depression era Appalachia.  From the previews you would think Oldman played a big part in this movie but I think he had more screen time in the previews than he did in the actual movie.  This movie is a clear win, action, drama, and a serious amount of heart. 
MVP:  Hardy as the indestructible older brother Forrest Bondurant

The Grousers

Actors:  Tab Hunter, Cherie Latimer, Nadyne Turney, Linda Leider, Isabell Jewell
Rating:  2 out of 10, the Grousers AKA The Arousers AKA Sweet Kill was a joke gift from my friend who remembered this from our high school days as a racy film from the “naughty” drive in located in a nearby town.  It acquired the name Grousers when the drive in misspelled the name on its marquee and we were all trying to figure out what a “Grouser” was.  We watched it together on Saturday and marveled at just how bad this movie was and how tame it seemed by today’s conventions.  This was a Roger Corman produced movie with no real plot other than 1950s heart throb Tab Hunter killing girls.  Interestingly this was written and directed by Curtis Hanson who went on to have some real success in main stream Hollywood.  A really bad movie that brought up a lot of really funny memories from my youth.
MVP:  Whoever the actress was who was drying her hair in front of a mirror– still scene stealing