My Date with Drew (2004)

IMDb plot summary: Ever since the second grade when he first saw her in E.T. The Extraterrestrial, Brian Herzlinger has had a crush on Drew Barrymore. Now, 20 years later he's decided to try to fulfill his lifelong dream by asking her for a date.
Directed by Jon Gunn, Brian Herzlinger and Brett Winn. Starring Brian Herzlinger and Drew Barrymore.


This is a fun, quirky little documentary with one very clear goal: for its protagonist to get a date with Drew Barrymore. This movie wouldn't have worked if our protagonist wasn't such a fun personality. He admits his plan would be easily seen as stalkerish, but he's so pleasant and easy to like that we really want to see him succeed. I also really liked the scene where he is RIGHT near Drew at the premiere of Charlie's Angels 2 but is too scared to really talk to her. He's very easy to relate to, and I can certainly imagine acting that way around my celebrity crushes. The movie moves along quickly enough that the search never gets boring, and the final scene was thoroughly satisfying. 3.5 stars.

Best Part: I loved following all the different, creative ways they used to try to get Drew's attention.
Worst Part: The scenes with him calling his ex-girlfriend felt weirdly out of place, tone-wise, with the rest of the movie.
Flickchart: #655, below Confessions of a Shopaholic and above Being John Malkovich.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)

IMDb plot summary: Pirate Captain sets out on a mission to defeat his rivals Black Bellamy and Cutlass Liz for the Pirate of the year Award. The quest takes Captain and his crew from the shores of Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London.
Directed by Peter Lord and Jeff Newitt. Starring Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, David Tennant and Imelda Staunton.


While not the best thing to come out of Aardman, this is still extremely entertaining. The story is ludicrous but in a very fun way, with an elaborate storyline involving Queen Victoria and Charles Darwin as villains. The jokes are silly and frequently over-the-top, but they hit just the right nerve for me in their silliness. Not as solid as I'd like it to be, but I had a great time watching it. 3.5 stars.

Best Part: "That's no scientist! That's a girl guide!"
Worst Part: There are definitely a few eye-rolling anachronisms, such as the pirate ship making a car-backing-up sound. Not a fan.
Flickchart: #534, below Mary and Max and above Lo.

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

IMDb plot summary: The story of a forbidden and secretive relationship between two cowboys and their lives over the years.
Directed by Ang Lee. Starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.


Yet another movie I didn't expect to be applying the term "boring" to... But this movie just did not grab me in any way. Maybe it's the cowboy theme, I don't know, but I kept waiting for a really excellent moment. I got a couple near the very end, but by then I had long since given up on enjoying or being interested in the movie. The problem, I think, is that we really hardly get to know our characters at all, and even their interactions together don't give us much information. It's hard to connect with a character over his forbidden love when the longest interaction you see between the two is a fight an hour and a half into the movie. I had no clear sense of the characters, much less about how they related to each other, and, therefore, didn't care about their story at all. 1.5 stars.

Best Part: The aforementioned fight scene was actually very moving. For the first time that movie I understood who the characters were in relationship to each other.
Worst Part: Seriously, did that first sex scene confuse anybody else as much as it did me? There was no build up whatsoever. It was just, "We're cowboys together. We don't talk to each other or know much about each other. TIME FOR SEX."
Flickchart: #1394, below Cars and above The Robe.

Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

IMDb plot summary: A reporter pretends to be Jewish in order to cover a story on anti-Semitism, and personally discovers the true depths of bigotry and hatred.
Directed by Elia Kazan. Stars Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield and Celeste Holm.


This is a really interesting, well-done movie about prejudice. A lot of the time, classic movies about social issues like this end up being extremely preachy and though this veers into that a little tiny bit at the end, primarily it just tells a very interesting story. I am very much in Gregory Peck's shoes at the beginning of this movie, in that I have never really been in a position to feel prejudiced against. I thought it was fascinating to see the little ways in which it impacted his life - nothing overt and explicit, but seeing people react to him differently, things that he took for granted before being suddenly unavailable to him. I found this film moving, interesting, and well worth the Oscar win that year. 3.5 stars.

Best Part: I really liked the moment where the people at the elevator got all awkward around him and even though nothing was overtly *wrong* with it, you could tell that he knew exactly why they were uncomfortable, and he couldn't bring himself to leave with them.
Worst Part: Could not even tell you how little I cared about that romance. My inner cynic is alive and well.
Flickchart: #521, below Mister Roberts and above The Birds.

Submarine (2010)

IMDb plot summary: 15-year-old Oliver Tate has two objectives: To lose his virginity before his next birthday, and to extinguish the flame between his mother and an ex-lover who has resurfaced in her life.
Directed by Richard Ayoade. Stars Noah Taylor and Yasmin Paige.


I am almost certain I can say that it hasn't been since Charlie Barlett have I seen a coming-of-age movie I liked so much. I'm a huge fan of Richard Ayoade's acting work in British TV, and it's wonderful to see him produce something that is both this moving and this funny. It's quirky, but not at all in the American indie quirky manner - it never feels too cute for its own good. In its quirkiness, it feels genuinely like real life and the awkwardness of teenagerdom. The characters feel like the sort of uncomfortable, confusing people you encounter in real life. I think it's a sign of the Britishness of the movie that instead of the snappy one-liners American films are known for, the characters hem and haw and say awkward things, which, in all actuality, is what people usually do anyway. Both the humor and the dramatic moments ring very true. This is a delightful, fascinating movie about teenagers and I certainly hope Ayoade is encouraged to do more writing and directing work. 4.5 stars.

Best Part: I absolutely LOVED the character of the father. I feel like that's a character we don't see that often in movies.
Worst Part: I can't think of one at the moment. I'm sure there must be one, but that's how much I liked it.
Flickchart: #202, below Much Ado About Nothing and above Sita Sings the Blues.

One, Two, Three (1961)

IMDb plot summary: Comedy about Coca-Cola's man in West Berlin, who may be fired if he can't keep his American boss's daughter from marrying a Communist.
Directed by Billy Wilder. Starring James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin, and Arlene Francis.


This is not Billy Wilder's best film. It's not as snappy or witty as some of his other movies. However, for me, even the less entertaining Wilder movies are still vastly more fun than many other comedies. I really enjoy Cagney in this role - the speech patterns most associated with fast-talking gangsters translates beautifully into Wilder's quick-paced dialogue. I am probably going to have trouble differentiating this from Wilder's other lesser work smovies in the coming years, but if I ever pick it up and watch it again, I know I'm going to have just as much fun watching it. 3 stars.

Best Part: The 20-minute segment toward the end where Cagney's running back and forth to prepare Otto is really fun. I love the fast pace.
Worst Part: I can't say exactly *what* it's lacking, but something about the plot structure is off.
Flickchart: #682, below The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and above The Dresser.

Cracks (2009)

IMDb plot summary: A look at the lives and relationships among girls at an elite British boarding school.
Directed by Jordan Scott. Stars Eva Green, Juno Temple and Maria Valverde.


When I started this, I had horrible flashbacks to last month's viewing of Loving Annabelle, which was a very similar set-up: clearly inappropriate relationships between a teacher and a new student at an all-female boarding school. However, this movie actually had a *story* to it, and it ends up going in a very disturbing, but interesting, direction. The character of the teacher becomes more and more fascinating as she is revealed, and I found myself getting caught up in the story. Although the ending left me a little hazy about who exactly I was supposed to view as the central character of the story, I thought it was a pretty entertaining little thriller. 2.5 stars.

Best Part: How much I thought I was going to hate it and then it turned into a much better movie than I thought.
Worst Part: Well, it is very overdramatic most of the time. It's not a GOOD movie, it's just much better than a bad movie.
Flickchart: #1247, below A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and above Galaxy Quest.