——The Missing——

(B+)

Overall this is a very good and interesting movie, spoiled only by its overlong length and Ron Howard’s tendency to shoot specific scenes for the Academy. Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones are great, as is the child actor who plays Dot, Blanchett’s younger daughter. The movie does a lot of things right and is well shot overall, but every once and a while things get a little too PC for my tastes. Obviously Ron was influenced by The Searchers, but no one in this movie has quite the un-PC intensity of John Wayne’s Indian hating even though the Searchers was made in a much more PC time. The captured daughter suffers no more than some harsh physical abuse but never anything too intense; even in a scene where she’s about to be raped one of the Indians captors comes out of nowhere to save her. Cate and Tommy Lee seem to resolve their differences a little too easily also, but overall I did like most of the movie and really enjoyed it despite its flaws.

——Dirty Ho——

(A-)

This Gordon Liu movie has a pretty entertaining plot and a lot of really cool set pieces. It’s only hampered by one bizarre sequence that seems a little out of place and overly weird in which a gang of weird fighting semi-transvestites (one fights only by biting) tries to capture Liu’s character.

Skip that sequence (well, fast forward to the guy who bites and then skip the rest) and you have a really great movie in which a petty thief Ho gets involved with a rich trader (Gordon Liu) who just happens to be hiding the fact that he’s a kung fu expert, and just happens to be hiding the fact that he’s a prince. By a series of coincidences Ho gets entangled with Liu who does everything he can to hide from him who he really is, until he is finally revealed and then trains Ho to help him get back to the palace (one or more of his brothers doesn’t want him to be there when his father names the successor to the throne).

My personal favorite scene is one in which Ho tries to attack Liu and Liu, still hiding his identity, claims that a lute player is his bodyguard and then helps her move her body around so that it appears that she is really a kung fu master. The whole thing is rather ingenious and a whole lot of fun. Other notable scenes include a showdown against an army of archers in a ruined city and a two on three fight at the end that’s really amazing. Besides the bizarre semi-transvestites this is must see kung fu.

——Love Actually——

(B+)

I actually really liked this movie and it for the most part really works as a collection of many different stories of love. The only problem with it is that there are just too many stories going on, and the director/writer Richard Curtis should have known where to restrain himself. If I were doing it there are at least two stories I would definitely cut out: One involves a dopey not so attractive Englishman who can’t get laid and who’s solution is to go to this mythical place called America, where his British accent will be so cool that he’ll instantly get laid. He goes to Wisconsin of all places, and not only does he prove his theory true but he gets four girls, who all happen to be drop dead gorgeous, all live in the same house, sleep in the same bed and all want him. Uh, yeah, right. Keep dreaming. Not only that but when he comes back to England he brings with him Shannon Elizabeth and Denise Richards for his friend. Completely unnecessary in this movie.

The other useless plot thread involves two movie stand-ins who fall in love while pretending to fuck each other. Not only is that the extent of the plot, but I also had a hard time believing that someone would spend a month actually setting up a sex scene with stand-ins. Other than some nice nudity for the guys who were dragged to the movie with their wives/girlfriends there is nothing to this sequence outside of the anecdotal.

Obviously the sequences with the big name actors get a lot more attention and are a lot more realistically drawn out. Hugh Grant is great as the Prime Minister who falls in love with his saucy house maid, Emma Thomson is wonderful as a wife who watches her marriage unravel as her husband (Alan Rickman) falls for his younger secretary, Liam Neeson has an unusual yet great plot as a widower whose dealing with his son’s grade school crush on an American girl, and Laura Linney has an especially touching plot as a woman who can’t be with the man of her dreams because her institutionalized brother. Trim the fat and you have a really great chick flick that even the guys can get into.

——The 39 Steps——

(B-)

Alfred Hitchcock can obviously do no wrong, so it’s too bad that I can’t say the same about the writer. This case of mistaken identity spy thriller suffers from the fact that only about 1% of the plot actually moves along because of character; the rest seems to move all because of coincidence. If this didn’t happen, or this didn’t happen, or this didn’t happen, yadda yadda yadda, we’d have no movie. One or two of these moments are OK and even welcome, but when the entire film depends on them the experience kind of falls apart for me. I just couldn’t buy it, or really care. This is for Hitchcock fans only, the rest should stay away. North by Northwest is a whole lot better anyway.

——Welcome to the Dollhouse——

(B)

I really enjoyed most of this movie, but for it to really work Todd Solondz has to become a lot less cynical human being. The problem with this movie is that the character at the end is really no better or no worse than she was at the beginning of the film. And she was pretty damn shitty at the beginning. I don’t care if she found a way to better herself or if she went mad and blew up the school, I just wanted to see her do something to change her situation by the end. Even when she tries to make those life changes life has a way of kicking her in the ass right back to where she was. When she decides to date a boy, he leaves. When she tries to find her sister to redeem her mistake and become a hero her sister is found without her and once again steals away the spotlight. While I really liked Solondz’s character work I was really bothered by the fact that the ending didn’t really go anywhere. Although I enjoyed the last hour and a half I felt like it had also been wasted. Good, but not quite as good as Happiness.

Also, despite not really seeing much of anything Thanksgiving week, I’ve had a pretty impressive month. Here’s the numbers:

In November,

Movies Seen: 43
New Movies Seen: 40
Movies Seen in Theater: 8

For the Year,

Movies Seen: 326
New Movies Seen: 221
Movies Seen in Theater: 52