2007 Non-Oscar Films To See

Very Chinese, very classic Ang Lee. It's really hard to describe what exactly Ang Lee's style IS, but I can almost always identify it. I can physically feel the slight, soft spoken man behind the camera. He owns his subtleties. I usually can't stand watching movies for longer than two hours but this one kept me mesmerized. I felt like I was walking a tightrope alongside Tang Wei as she practiced her fluid movements of espionage. Ang Lee keeps the line of vision taut with tension, angular, lucid, and, yes, very Chinese.

I like Baumbach, I think he does his own original thing and sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn't but I'm always, I don't know, interested to see what happens no matter how boring the movie gets. His originality saves this movie from becoming a failure, and by detecting the glimmers of genius beneath the massive heap of failure sort of made it all worth watching.

Wow, that girl is a killer bitch. THE underrated movie of the year and easily the most evocative. The story is deceptively simple but the editing and camerawork keep the tension going in a somehow cerebral way. Worth watching again and then some.

Um, I've seen it all before, just not in India. Other than that everything else is the same. Quirky family dysfunction, check. Softcore indie music, check. Disillusioned man in arrested development, check. Muted but variegated colors, check. Looks like I'm in a Wes Anderson film, all right. I used to not be so annoyed of this. Looks like I used to be a more patient person.

I have never in my life seen a documentary as magnificent as this - engrossing all the way through, paced meticulously, beautiful camerawork, insightful interviews, adorable children, breathtaking artwork. Amir Bar-Lev manages to capture footage of Marla that makes her look almost idiotic that the audience is supposed to question her capability of doing this. Bar Lev mostly keeps his opinions out of his documentary (as contrasted to the omnipresent Michael Moore...blegh) but the few times he actually steps into the camera and speaks it's always carefully introspective and highly respectful. He has grown to care about these people, particularly the mother, and I can feel his pain resonating through the camera when he was forced to perform the "confrontation". I want to keep my opinions out of this review but it's obvious the father doctored them up, probably without the knowledge of the mother. The reporter was kind of a bitch in the way she said things but she was the one that brought up the best points. But seriously, why the heck should it matter so much? The paintings are beautiful no matter who painted them, and I seriously want to buy a couple hundred and put them up in my house because of the sheer freedom and rapture they evoke. This was originally just supposed to be a documentary about modern art but it escalated rapidly into much more than that. It makes the documentary much more evocative but the director's hesitations are palpable...I empathize entirely. The modern art elegy could have been just as beautiful because I am in LOVE with those paintings.

Steve Wiebe is my hero. I love real-life documentary that offers no commentary and just lets the characters speak for themselves.

I love how this movie doesn't know what it wants to be. Teenage awakening ala social satire or horror film? So it decides to be both. While critics may complain about the lack of technique and restraint, Teeth's identity crisis mirrors Dawn's own grapple with her self and her dentated vagina. It's kind of funny, kind of scary, REALLY gross when you're staring at the mangled bits of penis, and kind of female empowering. Jess Weixler was a really good choice for this role because her blank face and bulging eyes offer a perfect palette for a girl who can't find herself. The ending was unconventional, not wholly unexpected, but a little bit cathartic.

Barely a Woody Allen trace to be found but the two sexy men more than make for it :)

It's like the poor man's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead...with hotter actors.

Totally didn't guess that romance between Adam Brody (SO CUTE) and Meg Ryan. I think it tries to be cleverer than it is but all in all it's not a bad movie. And I'm glad to see Meg Ryan's duck lips have swelled down to people-size.

I feel so insomniac just thinking about it. It's kind of magnificent, actually, with an artist's eye for details and a horde of beautiful women. A little 8 1/2, actually, except in a passive, glam-voyeur kind of way.

As a nonfan of Wong Kar Wai, this wasn't as plodding as I thought it would be. I mean, Norah Jones falls pretty flat as an actress but her role didn't require anything much anyways. But this movie was too passive, too non-emotionally invested to draw any real interest from me.