Category: Monday Morning Movie Reviewer

And capping our independent film day comes this movie that maybe isn’t so independent as it got a wide release back in December and has done decent business at the box office. Mostly because people are connecting to Michelle Williams’s excellent portrayal of Marilyn Monroe. What Works: Michelle Williams. She’s this movie’s selling point and…

Rolling on along with our independent movie day comes another film in (very) limited release. It’s called Pariah and is the story of a young black lesbian struggling to find love in Brooklyn even though her very religious mother (played by Kim Wayans in a dramatic role) doesn’t approve at all. What Works: Kim Wayans…

For those that haven’t heard of this move, or have and don’t remember it, this is Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut and it takes place during the Bosnian War. It’s almost impossible to really talk about this movie without also talking about Jolie herself as you can bet NOBODY would be talking about it if Jolie…

Anyone can take one look at this Mark Wahlberg thriller (dumped into the Friday the 13th slot in mid-JANUARY no less) and tell it’s going to be generic. They can listen to some random thug threaten his wife and Wahlberg scowl “Don’t you ever talk about my wife. You go near my kids, I’ll kill…

Most of you haven’t heard of this film (and probably won’t be too inclined to look it up after this review) but it’s a small, scratch that, VERY small film that stars Jodie Foster, John C. Rielly, Christoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet as dueling sets of parents who get into it when their sons get…

After seeing this movie occupying a low spot on my best of the year list, many already know I like it. Still, let’s review it for shits and giggles. What Works: The last third of this movie really, really delivers. Some of the sequences are so beautiful, I thought this movie was a worthy successor…

This alien invasion movie is lucky I didn’t see it before I made my “Worst of the Year” list because it undoubtedly would have been on it. The Darkest Hour is like any other generic “Aliens are invading!” movie you’ve ever seen except that it’s set in Moscow (and I would be amazed if it…

I ranked this movie about a Manhattan sex addict as one of the best twenty I saw last year, and that might have been too generous, but I still think it’s worth watching (as long as you’re not with your parents). What Works: Carey Mulligan–too often Michelle Williams’s sleep walking sister–gives the most alive performance…

This movie is dog shit. I hate to start off the new year with such a bad movie, but here it is. [I’m using today to clear out some of the movies that I technically saw last year but haven’t gotten around to reviewing yet.] What Works: Nothing. This movie is one of the absolute…

It seems like everyone in America saw this movie already this weekend (who knew Tom Cruise could still pack houses like that?) but for those that didn’t…let me muddy the waters of if you should go or not by saying this is a solid B movie. If you like cartoonish action movies (I prefer darker…

One of the movies that opened during this busy Christmas week, and also (unfortunately) one of the least successful at the box office. It might be a one-joke movie (it’s literally in the title) but it turns out that that one joke is a pretty good one. What Works: Matt Damon instantly elevates this story…

I’ll be right up front in saying I enjoyed this movie. It may not be the movie I was hoping it would be (it was directed by the amazing David Fincher after all), but I feel it did the best possible job it could have with the book’s source material. I haven’t actually read the…

At the risk of severely angering any European or African fans of Alabama Liberal (all…well I was going to say “all two of them” but there are probably as many people on other continents reading the site as those in Alabama itself), I have to admit right off the bat that I was a little…