Case 39 (2010)

Case 39
Grade: B- (Watch it)
Review: Less scary than The Ring but with a more kick ass demon girl. This was fun to watch.

Devil (2010)

Devil
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: Although directors squeeze everything out of the pathetic story by one hit wonder M. Night Shyamalan it is not sufficient to save this movie. Hey Shyamalan: "I see dead career".

The American (2010)

The American
Grade: C- (Rent it)
Review: If you like a boring George Clooney traveling to a Italian village, being paranoiac, and doing nothing, this is your movie. I didn't mind the good looking Italian actress. Overall I was disappointed in this adaptation.

The Other Guys (2010)

The Other Guys
Grade: C (Rent it)
Review: A mediocre comedy. Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg do a good job having fun with their detective roles. Nothing groundbreaking but it has enough laughs to justify a rent. There is a serious activist message during credits.

The Social Network (2010)

The Social Network
Grade: A (Watch it)
Review: This is one of the best movies of the past few years and it will be a serious Oscar contender. Movie does a great job of capturing mundane legal depositions of multiple challenges to Facebook ownership, and mixes them with the story of Facebook creation. A must see movie.

Machete (2010)

Machete
Grade: B+ (Watch it)
Review: A kick-ass anti-hero movie. Great cast and Robert Rodriguez having fun with brutal violence and nudity without a meaning (that includes an iPhone coming out of a human cavity) makes this a crazy ride fun to watch.

South of the Border (2010)

South of the Border
Grade: C+ (Rent it)
Review: One sided portrayal of some of the south American leaders; nevertheless interesting and worth watching.

Vampires Suck (2010)

Vampires Suck
Grade: C (Rent it)
Review: Stupid funny parody of a stupid movie - Twilight saga.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Grade: C+ (Rent it)
Review: The sequel to the cult film Wall Street unfortunately doesn't deliver. First Shia LaBeouf was a poor choice to cast for Wall St power player. Movie attempts to mix the story of Gordon Gekko with the biggest Wall St bailout by (aka robbing of) taxpayers during the 2007/08 financial crisis. Neither is done very well and soft heartened Gordon Gekko is not that compelling.

The Special Relationship (2010)

The Special Relationship
Grade: A- (Watch it)
Review: Excellent dramatization of relationship between two of the most important progressive leaders of the western world Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Both leaders reformed their own party, successfully led their respective country from the center, and got re-elected by a landslide. They both realized the left and right politics are outdated concepts that don't have a real meaning to post-cold war contemporary people. In the international affairs they where the leaders defending human rights. Movie is a little harsher on Tony Blair, at points presenting him - unfairly - as willing to do anything to advance his political career and legacy.

The Town (2010)

The Town
Grade: B (Watch it)
Review: Decent crime drama. Good cast and acting, good story and directing. I think it is time to forgive Ben Affleck for Gili.

Get Him to the Greek (2010)

Get Him to the Greek
Grade: B- (Watch it)
Review: Funny comedy dealing with showbiz and record publishing. Russell Brand shines and basically carries this movie.

Ondine (2010)

Ondine
Grade: B (Watch it)
Review: Very well executed life drama of divorced fisherman. Movie starts as a cute fantasy and ends as a thriller. I enjoined it.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Man som hatar kvinnor) (2010)

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Grade: C (Rent it)
Review: This is way overrated by critics. Good cast, relatively good story (sometimes slow) but it is worth a rent.

Casino Jack and the United States of Money (2010)

Casino Jack and the United States of Money
Grade: A- (Watch it)
Review: An excellent expose of corruption that is still going rampant in our political system. Movie explores GOP operative and lobbyist Jack Abramoff from his student days until his well publicized demise that brought down disgraced GOP majority leader - and dancer - Tom Delay. Movie shows how corruption pushed legislation encouraging sweatshops and human trafficking that forced employees to have abortions in the Northern Mariana Islands (so much for pro-life stand). During his days of lobbying operations related to Internet Gambling and Indian Casinos it is fascinating how Jack's operation abused the good will of religious groups and prayed on the gullibility of family values voter.

Solitary Man (2009)

Solitary Man
Grade: B (Watch it)
Review: This is a nice drama/comedy. Michael Douglas does a good job playing Ben a once successful dealership owner. Some of the cast is better than others. Movie had the potential to be great if it explored little more the sentimental side of the character relationships; it rather stays superficial resulting in impersonal conclusion.

City Island (2009)

City Island
Grade: A- (Watch it)
Review: Astonishing! Warm, funny and sad movie about a dysfunctional family with secrets. Innocent yet serious social drama. No special effects, no big budget blockbuster, but I guarantee it that it will make you laugh and move you at the same time. Even some of the hyperbolic dialogues seem natural.

The Expendables (2010)

The Expendables
Grade: B- (Watch it)
Review: The Expendables is a good old style guilty fun action movie. A bunch of tough guys go out and kick some bad guys ass. What's not to like?!

Salt (2010)

Salt
Grade: B (Watch it)
Review: A well done spy thriller. From the first minute this movie is full of good action. Movie keeps the adrenaline high till the end. Very entertaining.

Harry Brown (2010)

Harry Brown
Grade: C (Rent it)
Review: I'm a sucker for vigilante movies but this was not that good.

The Art of the Steal (2010)

The Art of the Steal
Grade: B- (Watch it)
Review: Fascinating documentary about the destiny of Albert C. Barnes's more than $25 billion private art collection (that among others includes 181 Renoirs, 69 Cézannes, 60 Matisses, 44 Picassos, and 14 Modiglianis). Movie explores the power plays of Pennsylvania political establishment and other power-brokers in the effort of breaking Albert C. Barnes's will.

Death at a Funeral (2010)

Death at a Funeral
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: Major comedy giants try hard to make another funny movie about a funeral but unfortunately they fail. The movie and its jokes are predictable. On top of being unoriginal it delivers very few laughs.

Date Night (2010)

Date Night
Grade: D- (Skip it)
Review: Steve Carell and Tina Fey not so funny in this movie.

Dinner for Schmucks (2010)

Dinner for Schmucks
Grade: D- (Skip it)
Review: This was really pathetic. Not funny.

Inception (2010)

Inception
Grade: B (Watch it)
Review: Original idea, great special effects, good cast, good directing equals good movie. Movie explores Existentialism in original manor but comparison with Matrix is inevitable. While Inception is not as good as Matrix it is still an astounding work of art.

The Losers (2010)

The Losers
Grade: C+ (Rent it)
Review: Zoe Saldana is hot (had to be said). Surprisingly it was fun action movie to watch. Simple action with straightforward story.

Splice (2010)

Splice
Grade: D- (Skip it)
Review: Another debacle of Adrien Brody. The interesting ethical problem of inter-specie cloning is reduced to an unwatchable movie.

Predators (2010)

Predators
Grade: D- (Skip it)
Review: I'm a big fan of the franchise but this was truly awful. Story doesn't stay faithful to other movies. Poor acting by everyone (Adrien Brody sucks). Movie starts with promising premise, but it turns into an hour and a half running sequence that we are to believe some humans can rival Predators (even Arnold couldn't measure up to them :-))

Grown Ups (2010)

Grown Ups
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: Not funny. It seems that Adam Sandler might need to sell few more things to the devil to get his mojo back.

Greenberg (2010)

Greenberg
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: Way overrated by critics. Attempts to be a dark comedy but it only succeeds to be dark and boring.

The Road (2009)

The Road
Grade: B (Watch it)
Review: Flawless execution of this powerful story. Movie happens in a post-apocalyptic world. Earth is devastated, vegetation and crops are dying, civilization has disintegrated. Cause is not explained but it really doesn't matter. Story follows a son "The Boy" and father "The Man" walking toward the coast. The remaining rare survivors have been reduced to brutal survivalists that seek everything that can be used as food including other weak humans; sometimes enslaving them for later consumption.
Although movie doesn't have a single violent scene, viewer is terrorized and shaken by the implied violence and suspense. The son and father are suspicious and avoid everyone. Actors do an amazing job of portraying these isolated characters in a situation where death is far from the worst or scariest option. In fact death is an option constantly considered. The father training his son how to pull the trigger using the last two bullets is a chilling scene.
The director does a great job - without using special effects - creating this grayish landscape that is terrifyingly realistic.
If I was to critique one thing in this movie it is the unexplored relationship between "The Man" and his wife during few flash backs. It is evident that she decided to leave/die but it is not clear why is it relevant to the story. In retrospect I feel that the intent was to show that during hard times whether that is war, concentration camp, or post-apocalyptic world, we are only left with our memories (some good, some bad). This is not for everyone.

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Hot Tub Time Machine
Grade: C+ (Rent it)
Review: Definitely better than the idiotic title would suggest. Some cast members are better than others but in this genre it didn't matter. Overall funny, flawed but worthy a rent.

The Crazies (2010)

The Crazies
Grade: C+ (Rent it)
Review: Flawed but worthy a rent. Well directed remake dealing with risk associated with handling biological weapons. 28 Days Later (2003) remains the king of this genre.

The Wolfman (2010)

The Wolfman
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: Incredible waste of talent and money. Poor directing, poor character development, and a story with ridiculous Shakespearean twist.

Dear John (2010)

Dear John
Grade: D (Skip it)
Review: It had potential but went nowhere. Very poorly executed adaptation of Nicholas Sparks novel.

Crazy Heart (2009)

Crazy Heart
Grade: C+ (Rent it)
Review: Crazy Heart is way overrated movie but it is worth renting. Jeff Bridges is good (though not Oscar worthy) and Colin Farrell is on for only few minutes so he could not mess it up too much.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

A Nightmare on Elm Street
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: This remake is just a poor imitation of the original. The original was not that great either so skip this one.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Sherlock Holmes
Grade: B- (Watch it)
Review: New take on classic hero. An entertaining and action filled movie.

Valentine's Day (2010)

Valentine's Day
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: Annoying cast members, annoying story and retarded message equals an irritating movie.

Legion (2010)

Legion
Grade: D (Skip it)
Review: God loses faith in Mankind, and sends his legion of angels to bring on the Apocalypse. For some reason (it remains unanswered) an unborn baby needs to be saved from God's zombies and angels with "titanium" like material wings, and high tech weapons. Movie ends without answering important plot questions and with cheesy battle/dialog between Archangel Michael and Archangel Gabriel.

Invictus (2009)

Invictus
Grade: C+ (Rent it)
Review: Unfortunately Clint Eastwood takes one iconic figure like Nelson Mandela, the end of the South African apartheid, and one of the most dramatic sporting events ever - the 1995 Rugby World Cup Final; and reduces them to a timid movie. What should have been an inspiring movie ends up being a slow, emotionless, and with no peaks. Good cast and strong topic makes it still worthy.

In the Loop (2009)

In the Loop
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: Way overrated by critics. Unintelligent and unfunny political satire of UK/US government rationalization of going to war. Saying curse words is funny for the first five minutes, the rest is unbearably boring.

Spread (2009)

Spread
Grade: C+ (Rent it)
Review: A movie exploring the concept of mimbo (or himbo). As much as Ashton Kutcher is annoying, he does a good job playing a young man going after older successful woman (I guess it came easy ;)). Overall entertaining movie but ending was predictable.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Iron Man 2
Grade: B- (Watch it)
Review: A decent sequel. High octane superhero action movie. Robert Downey Jr does a great job playing the narcissistic Tony Stark. Some of the crew seems unnecessary but overall well executed.

The Messenger (2009)

The Messenger
Grade: B (Watch it)
Review: Very powerful and emotional soldiers life drama. Story follows two Army Casualty Notification Officers dealing with mission of bearing the bad news to the loved ones of fallen soldiers. Great acting from the leads and supporting actors. No political statement just moving, humorous, and very human portrait of the grief and struggle.

Daybreakers (2010)

Daybreakers
Grade: B- (Watch it)
Review: Very interesting premise of a fast developing vampire society dealing with scarce food resources - humans. Even in this society the corporate monopoly has profit rather than common good in mind. A vampire movie that is not romantic and with gay vampires. These vampires respect classic horror rules: they love blood, eat humans, get killed by the sun, you cannot see them in the mirror, and they try to avoid getting impaled.
The story and directing is strong; but some action sequences seem forced and the ending bloodshed seems unnecessary.

It's Complicated (2009)

It's Complicated
Grade: C+ (Rent it)
Review: Terrible premise; but astonishing actors like Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin make this watchable and entertaining.

Edge of Darkness (2010)

Edge of Darkness
Grade: B- (Watch it)
Review: Good acting and exciting story. Mel Gibson does a great job playing a cop who's looking for his daughters killers. The conspiracy theories make this thriller very exciting, but while the ending is brutally righteous it leaves few unanswered questions that make you feel there was a little more to this story.

Green Zone (2010)

Green Zone
Grade: B (Watch it)
Review: A fiction that is sadly too close to the tragic reality of the Iraqi war case. This is an action/thriller movie, but marketing this movie as an action movie was a moronic decision. The core of this movie is attempting to get to the heart of how unreliable intelligence about WMDs was cherry picked and used to start a war. An unnecessary war that has caused the loss of American life and wealth; it has cost us more than 1 trillion dollars and undermined our moral high-ground, our credibility and foreign policy for decades to come.
Movie explores a handful of fictitious characters who clearly have the corresponding real person (the name in the brackets is the real person).
- An opportunistic war cheerleader journalist (aka Judith Miller) who was used as a useful idiot by the administration to make the case for war.
- Incompetent administrator (aka Paul Bremer) who disbanded Iraqi Army and singlehandedly helped the start of sectarian violence and prolonged the conflict.
- Veteran intelligence officer (aka Jay Garner) who was pushed aside and his warnings and ideas for managing post occupation Iraqi were ignored.
- The “reliable” Iraqi informant (Rafid Ahmed Alwan aka 'Curveball') a conman that simply lied to German intelligence in order of getting his immigration status (green card) fixed.
- Main character (aka Richard "Monty" Gonzales the Army chief warrant officer charged with finding the WMDs) who believes in our reason for going to war but quickly becomes disheartened by false intelligence as he visits an empty site after an empty site.

Repo Men (2010)

Repo Men
Grade: D (Skip it)
Review: A futuristic dystopia where health-care is really out of control. An organ transplantation is reduced to a high interest equity loan; if you don't pay than organ is repossessed and patient dies. Even if we let Goldman manage health-care it is unlikely it would degenerate to this unrealistic scenario. Movie has some gory scenes that serve no purpose. The ending twist is interesting but unfortunately doesn't make up for the unrealistic boring story and poor acting.

Brooklyn's Finest (2010)

Brooklyn's Finest
Grade: C- (Rent it)
Review: An interesting cop story with huge potential. It follows independently the life of three NYPD cops; a street cop few days before retirement (Richard Gere), an undercover cop deeply infiltrated into a drug gang (Don Cheadle), and a narcotics officer (Ethan Hawke). Each characters is struggling with their demons and dealing with their specific family challenges of a cop life. The movie builds up these stories (similar to Crash) but unfortunately after all the build up it delivers a conclusion that seemed rushed and unsatisfactory.
You would expect something better from Antoine Fuqua the director of the Training Day. I sincerely hope he doesn't start delivering bomb after bomb like M. Night Shyamalan.

She's Out of My League (2010)

She's Out of My League
Grade: C (Rent it)
Review: Nothing memorable but it had some funny moments. It is worth renting.

Cop Out (2010)

Cop Out
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: Tracy Morgan tries hard but unfortunately this is not funny.

Shutter Island (2010)

Shutter Island
Grade: B- (Watch it)
Review: Flawed but worthy. It was fun and suspenseful to follow the characters. Scorsese directed this well; however the book adaptation doesn't seem right and sometimes was very hard to follow all the side characters. After first part of the movie it became predictable. Overall an interesting movie.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

The Men Who Stare at Goats
Grade: C- (Rent it)
Review: Very few funny moments. Incredible waste of A class cast. I guess it mocks and increase awareness about black physiological operations and torture in military.

Up in the Air (2009)

Up in the Air
Grade: A- (Watch it)
Review: An outstanding achievement; excellent story, script, acting, and directing. The whole cast did a superb job. George Clooney is a natural playing a corporate downsizing professional, Vera Farmiga is excellent in her role (BTW: She is incredibly sexy), and Anna Kendrick is really convincing as an inexperienced, overachieving and idealistic annoying young worker. Simple, yet very powerful life drama. Although it probably lacks memorable dialogs, with no second wasted on nonsensical fillers, and every scene being very natural (probably too real for some) you cannot help it but feel that the result was very elegant.
This is by far the best 2009 movie - I feel bad that I didn't watch it earlier. It just shows how bad marketing and unattractive title work.

The Young Victoria (2009)

The Young Victoria
Grade: B- (Watch it)
Review: A biopic with flaws but worth watching. Queen Victoria ruled for more than 63 years; longer than any other British monarch before or since, and her reign is the longest of any female monarch in history of the world. I wish the movie focused more on Victoria's actions and influence. Even the interesting relationship between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert which was a big political power trip manufactured by King Leopold I of Belgium - unfortunately got trivialized to few points and few ballroom dances.

The Stepfather (2009)

The Stepfather
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: The movie is not that bad as much as unoriginal and predictable. It just seems a bleak imitation of classic thriller masters. Boring.

Good Hair (2009)

Good Hair
Grade: C+ (Rent it)
Review: I started watching this movie thinking that I'll stop after 5 minutes in. To my surprise the movie ended up being entertaining, but most of all it was educational. I was surprised by the "black hair" industry treatments and the high expense (north of $1000) a black woman incurs on trips to the hair salon. The most shocking thing was that each hair treatment means getting exposed to toxic materials that very frequently result in scalp and skin burns. The other interesting fact was that importing human hair from India is a big business. Definitely better than you'd expect.

Couples Retreat (2009)

Couples Retreat
Grade: C (Rent it)
Review: Forgettable, but it had its funny moments. Movie tackles important issues with a simple message: there is a reason why couples are (end up) together; staying true to ourselves is the only way to maintain the relationship. However when this message comes from Vince Vaughn (to quote the movie - the ass) you cannot take it seriously.

Halloween II (2009)

Halloween II
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: Rob Zombie failed in this sequel to follow his successful and original take of Halloween remake. Halloween II is a boring unoriginal slasher with misplaced Hitchcockian movie devices. Unfortunately Rob Zombie killed Michael Myers.

The Fourth Kind (2009)

The Fourth Kind
Grade: D (Skip it)
Review: Transparently fake. Truly awful movie. There should be a law against deceptive marketing campaigns.

The Blind Side (2009)

The Blind Side
Grade: C+ (Rent it)
Review: Based on a true story, but movie doesn't seem as real. It attempts to deal with similar social issues as Precious but it is harder to connect with average person when the main character is one in a million athletic talent. It is worth watching.

Avatar (2009)

Avatar
Grade: B- (Watch it)
Review: Braveheart meets smurfs. This movie probably has/will advance 3D technology of video making; however the story is shallow, predictable, and offensive.

Love Happens (2009)

Love Happens
Grade: D+ (Skip it)
Review: This is an odd attempt to combine a romantic comedy with a tearjerker; unfortunately it delivers neither.

Whiteout (2009)

Whiteout
Grade: D (Skip it)
Review: Awful and boring even during a transatlantic flight.