Against The Hype

In alphabetical order, the movies released in the US this year that I caught this month, then all the others beneath the jump:

BLACK SWAN, ’10: Aronofsky’s mastery of body horror prickles the skin. Other scare tactics, dance clichés, flat character types unimpressive

I AM LOVE, ’09: Lavishes on Tilda’s face and body as it does on hairdos, garments, cuisine. But we see, not feel, as she (and plot) unravels

THE SOCIAL NETWORK, ’10: A new story (Facebook-era entrepreneurship) witticized zippily through old idioms (loneliness of power/fame/riches)

TRON: LEGACY, ’10: Dramatically conflict-free; no human in sight. Scant SFX-on-rails action better than D.O.A. exposition that drags forever

ALIENS, ’86: Still enraptured by its tension, weight, mutating missions, fullness as sequel. Removed scenes make theatrical cut less urgent

BALL OF FIRE, ’41: So dowdy are its professors and mobsters, Stanwyck’s saucy wits unchallenged, though she slips nicely into “vulgar” role

JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, ’96: Still a cherished fairytale of adventure and song, imaginatively visualized. Lumley, Margolyes savvily camp

LA JETÉE, ’62: Haunting visions of apocalypse and lost wonders. Yet don’t all obsessives have this girl, all time-travellers have this end?

MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ, ’71: Trainwrecks falling in love—volatile Cassel, desolate Rowlands. Lets them enjoy selves. A New York, New York whose love I believed

MR SOFT TOUCH, ’49: Trenchantly amoral humor on poverty (and wife-beating, natch) rubs shoulders with sentimentally clichéd narrative

REMEMBER THE NIGHT, ’40: Stanwyck, too smart by half to be naïve bad-girl, opts for restive observation and snark. Great warmup to THE LADY EVE

THE BLOODY OLIVE, ’96: Beautifully lit, deliciously farcical short on the noir genre’s requisite twists. See it!

THE RED BALLOON, ’56: Light and bouncy as title object, but path traced is wholly predictable. Coda reads oddly like a widower on rebound

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, ’09: Dares to be terminally sour on childhood neglect and destructiveness; misses a few chances for visual aplomb

ZELIG, ’83: A hit-and-miss lark of a mock archival-footage documentary, though Allen as actor can’t quite pull off “human chameleon”