Movies 2010, Week 5

January 31-February 6, 2010
I managed to slow down on the movies a little this week.  THANK GOD!  I have way too much work to be shoving in 2-3 movies per day.
40) Diabolique. 1954 French film about a wife and a mistress who team up to kill the third party in their love triangle.  Things unravel amazingly.  The end was awesome then took it away a bit by continuing a few minutes more.  A bit slow at times.  Did you need to extend that scene so much?  Probably not.  3.8 stars
41) Wait Until Dark. Audrey Hepburn film about a newly blind woman whose husband has a doll some criminals want terribly.  Really, really thrilling at times but bumbled through some of the early moments of the film which made it drag.  Such an elaborate plot, unnecessarily so.  Pretty satisfying end, though!  3.5 stars
42) Love Happens. Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart star in a film about a widower and a florist who meet by chance.  Mildly interesting open but all the "surprises" were alluded to multiple times so that you guessed them half an hour before they delivered.  Predictable.  I really wish Aniston would find a new role.  Sigh.  3.1 stars
43) Double Indemnity.  Billy Wilder directs and co-writes the screenplay for this thriller starring Barbara Stanwyck and about a woman and an insurance agent who plan a murder and all the things that go wrong.  Pretty awesome.  I heart Stanwyck!!  I can see why this won 7 Oscars.  4 stars
44) Rebecca.  Hitchcock classic starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine about a woman who marries a widower and finds his first wife's memory still runs the house.  Infuriating.  Rather long until you got to the twist but the last third was pretty awesome!  4.4 stars
45) Crazy Heart.  Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhall, Colin Farrell, Robert Duval team up for a film about a down on his luck country music star and his issues with lost fame and love.  The Bridges/Gyllenhall love story line was pretty gross and overplayed.  The story line with Bridges and Farrell and even w/Duval were much more interesting.  The last third of the film didn't quite hit the right notes and played a little too trite.  Still worth watching and I can see why Bridges was nominated for an Oscar.  3.9 stars
46) Sliding Doors. Gwyneth Paltrow stars (with a sliding British accent-- in and out) in a film about the effect of an instant and how a woman's life changes as the result of simply missing or catching the train.  You see parallel story lines for the same woman.  Sometimes it's interesting, sometimes confusing, sometimes exasperating, eventually a little boring.  I didn't really care what happened to the characters at the end.  The ending was a let down.  3.3 stars
47) Amreeka.  Indie film about Palestinian immigrant mother and son who come to America unaware of the ways their lives will be changed, especially with the war in Iraq just beginning.  Interesting and sometimes funny.  I loved the main character.  Still I don't know that the story line gelled like it needed to.  The end was just a stopping point rather than a conclusion.  3.8 stars