The Duellists (1977)

I enjoyed this far more than I anticipated I would. It's neither a genre nor a time period that I am generally interested in, so I was pleasantly surprised by how fascinated I was by this story. Despite being one of those stories that spreads over several years, it doesn't sprawl - it tells each segment's story quickly and concisely, and moves on to the next. I can't even pinpoint exactly WHAT about this story captured me, as it doesn't delve into characterization all that much, and that's generally what I like in movies. So I'm just going to say I liked this movie and leave it at that, since this is not the most coherent of reviews. 3.5 stars.

Best Part: I found the ending extremely satisfying.
Worst Part: With all the genteel British and French accents around them, it was always jarring whenever Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel actually spoke.

Flickchart: #485, below The Wrath of Khan and above Caddyshack.

The Yellow Handkerchief (2008)

A little indie road trip drama that is extremely contrived and completely unoriginal, but not wholly *unpleasant* - there's just nothing really to see here. Kristen Stewart's acting is as lifeless as I was led to believe (I'd never actually seen her in anything), the plot doesn't make much sense, and William Hurt's character is uninteresting to watch. Honestly, the only character I cared about was Eddie Redmayne as an extremely awkward teenage boy (much more excited about seeing him in Les Miserables now), but he was the fourth billed character and certainly the least important of the three we followed most of the time. Disappointing, because I would easily have watched an entire movie with him as the central figure. Instead, I just sat patiently and waited for it to go somewhere. 2 stars.

Best Part: I'm going to have to go with that teenage boy character. He was easily the most captivating part of the film.
Worst Part: With William Hurt's back story all hyped up the way it was, the final reveal was extremely anticlimactic, and even shots of the two teenagers crying as they listened to it weren't enough to convince me otherwise.

Flickchart: #1250, below Deceived and above The Proposal.

Ulysses (1967)

...What on earth did I just watch?

I have a relaxation thing I do when I'm trying to go to sleep: I listen to an audio dramatization of something or other. As I listen, I create mental pictures of the scenario being acted out, but make everything as ridiculously literal as possible. If one of the characters tells the other, "You're like a lion," I adjust my mental image to make that person a literal lion. This engages my brain just enough that I don't wander off and start obsessing about my day (which is what keeps me awake the most at night) but not enough that I stay focused on it, and I drift off to sleep.

Watching this movie was surreal, because that was what happened. Every metaphor was shown to us in literal form on the screen, especially once it hit the section with the hallucinations/dreams/whatever the heck those were. But what is a relaxing mental exercise in my mind is creepy and bizarre and awkward to follow visually in a movie. That point is when the movie lost me. I was mildly interested in the story up until that point, and then I got almost 30 minutes of rambling dream sequence. That finally ended, but the movie never really won back my trust or my interest. 1.5 stars.

Best Part: Everything up until 45 minutes in.
Worst Part: Everything after 45 minutes in.
Flickchart: #1346, below Soylent Green and above Robots.

Marathon Man (1976)

This thriller takes a little while to get going, but once it does, it's fascinating. The beginning feels disjointed and hops around all over the place without giving me a good sense of who or what I was supposed to be paying attention to most. However, about halfway through the movie, everything comes together and the story starts to pick up a little. There are still a lot of awkward moments and some flaws in the story, but overall it turns into a pretty entertaining suspenseful story. 2.5 stars.

Best Part: Dustin Hoffman's reactions seemed to me to be very realistic. Obviously I've never been in this situation, but he acted exactly like I have always thought most people would under these circumstances - more paranoid and panicky than most every-day-guy-thrown-into-a-tense-situation movie characters.
Worst Part: There were several moments where it felt like the tension was being ramped up in a way that felt false to me - the scene where two old people simultaneously recognize Szell was one of those scenes. It didn't really contribute much to the story or the plot, it was just there as a mood thing, and it didn't work for me.

Flickchart: #806, below Runaway Jury and above Miss Potter.

Take Shelter (2011)

I loved Michael Shannon in Bug, and I love him in this. As the story progresses and I saw him alternatively giving in to the compulsions he felt and trying to explain them away, I really came to care about that character. Jessica Chastain does an amazing job in her role as well - in fact, pretty much all the acting in this movie is fantastic. The ending is left a little more ambiguous than I'd have liked in the context of this particular story, but, you know what, it didn't really matter because everything else in the movie was so powerful, it would have taken a lot for the ending to ruin the rest of the movie for me. 4.5 stars.

Best Part: The scene where she's begging him to open the shelter door. So tense.
Worst Part: As I said, I'm not quite sure about the ending. It left me uneasy. But that's my only real complaint.

Flickchart: #286, below Sense and Sensibility and above Music & Lyrics. So, uh, sandwiched in between two Hugh Grant movies.

Interstate 60: Episodes of the Road (2002)

15 minutes into this movie, I was completely befuddled. What kind of movie were they trying to make? Its set up is reminiscent of a 1960s live action Disney movie, but it clearly wasn't made for children. It's awkward and cliched and cheesy and bizarre... and yet it has an inexplicable charm. Even as I was yelling, "WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? THAT PART DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!" I was kind of rooting for it. Part of that has to do with the fact that James Marsden makes a great hero, even when he's surrounded by nonsense. I ended up kind of liking this movie in spite of itself. Would I recommend it? Oh, heck no. It's sometimes painfully awkward to watch. But am I glad I watched it? ...Kind of.

Best Part: I was kind of captivated by the story featuring the mother chasing her son into the drug city. It's bizarre and awful, but definitely something I will remember.
Worst Part: All the mysterious saging around (and that's "saging," as in a pretend verb form of "sage") Christopher Lloyd and Gary Oldman do got real old, real fast. The movie became much more interesting when they weren't in it.

Flickchart: #836, below Amazing Grace and above The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Never Let Me Go (2010)

I hesitate to say much about the plot here, because it's only revealed a little bit at a time, and it was a good 40 minutes in before I *really* realized the extent of what was going on, and I'd hate to alter that experience for anyone. So I will just say this is an incredible little story about humanity and love and life. The casting choices were interesting, as well... the three main characters were played by two actors who I find incredibly engaging in everything they do and one who I nearly always despise. But Keira Knightley's smug demeanor works *for* her in this movie, and the three of them work together to form an incredibly interesting group of characters. I'm not even sure where to go with this review right now, because while I have all these emotional reactions to the movie, they're hard to articulate. I'm afraid this is going to be one of my less coherent movie blogs. I will have to try and revisit this again sometime. 4 stars.

Best Part: Andrew Garfield plays the most wonderful awkward introvert characters of all time. Between this and Boy A, I'm more than a little in love with him.
Worst Part: While the beginning and end of the movie are beautiful and fascinating, the middle part is a little bit more difficult to be interested in.

Flickchart: #291, below After the Fox and above M. Butterfly.