Busy month, so I didn’t get to watching as many films as I would have hoped. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is as beautiful as it is poetic, quite possibly Julian Schnabel’s best piece. Lars and the Real Girl only reinforces my love for Ryan Gosling’s acting, putting two of his films (Half Nelson and this) in my top favorites. I also watched Annie Hall again, it’s been years, and can’t believe how similar Larry David’s comedic prose are to Woody’s. To think the two will be in a film side-by-side next year really gets me excited.

• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly ★★★★
• Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead ★★★
• Lars and the Real Girl ★★★★★
• Atonement ★★★
• American Gangster ★★★
• Reservation Road ★★
• Annie Hall ★★★★★

Totally forgot to post these. No time to go in depth. Definitely check out Lust, Caution and Into the Wild.

• Mulholland Drive ★★★
• Into the Wild ★★★★
• Oldboy ★★★
• 30 Days of Night ★
• The Hoax ★★
• Lust, Caution ★★★★
• Arrested Development Season 3, Disc 2 ★★★★
• Blade Runner: The Final Cut ★★★

Another month goes by, some more movies were watched. Noah Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding shows his interest, or perhaps experience with dysfunctional families but is no Squid and the Whale which I love. Gone Baby Gone was a job well done in the writing department by Ben Affleck but I wish they didn’t cast his brother Casey; looking at his face ruined the film for me. Peter O’Toole shows his slightly funnier side in Venus, the sad story of a an old, dying man that falls in love with his best friend’s young niece. Fracture got lost in the mail and never showed, The Kingdom was a surprisingly good “kill every terrorist in sight” flick and I was hugely disappointed in Across the Universe (how more cliche can The Beatles get?). Finished up season two of Arrested Development which in my mind is the funniest sitcom that ever hit the television.

• Margot at the Wedding ★★★
• Arrested Development: Season 2, Disc 3 ★★★★★
• Venus ★★★★
• Gone Baby Gone ★★★
• Fracture
• We Own the Night ★★
• The Kingdom ★★★
• Arrested Development: Season 2: Disc 2 ★★★★★
• Across the Universe ★★

You can also check out an RSS feed of my rental queue.

I’m going to start posting a list of the movies I rented each month from Netflix. January was a busy month with the start of the semester so I didn’t rent as much as usual. I also am going to post the star ratings I gave each film. King of California has no rating because it sucked so hard I stopped it 20 minutes in and same goes for Puddle Cruiser which I didn’t even watch and returned the next day.

• King of California, 2007
• Ratatouille, 2007 ★★★
• Halloween, 2007 ★
• Puddle Cruiser, 1996
• Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, 1983 ★★
• Powaqqatsi, 1988 ★★
• Chronos, 2004 ★
• Bizarre Foods: Disc 1 ★★
• 3:10 to Yuma, 2007 ★★★★
• The Kingdom, 2007 ★★★

You can also check out an RSS feed of my rental queue.