The X-Files: Season 3

Continues the strengths of old seasons, diversifies storylines.
4 Stars out of Five

Dark City

Creepy and otherworldly, which is what a sci-fi movie should be.
Five Stars out of Five

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Shouldn't be within the franchise because it suggests something contrary to what it purports. Still good fun.
3 Stars out of Five

I Killed My Mother

Like a high school essay perfectly transferred into a film. Hopeful.
Four Stars out of Five

The Descent: Part 2

Undermines every aspect of the first films. Realizes none of that film's strengths and creates a bad, standalone piece of trash.
1 Star out of Five

Garden State

Fun and meandering. Soporific in a good way.
4 Stars out of Five

Film Socialisme

Actually kind of tepid, other than the photography.
3 Stars out of Five

The Descent

A film that exists on many levels other than the monsters in the cave. More psychological and vague than a summary might suggest. Fun, but textured.
Four Stars out of Five

Oz: Season 2

Continues the strengths of the first season.
Four Stars out of Five

The Descendants

Not as grating as the trailer made it seem, a charming tale with more optimism than you'd expect, and more depth as well.
Four Stars out of Five

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

A befuddling, but rewarding, slow-paced thriller. Tight, vast.
3 1/2 Stars out of Five

Oz: Season 1

A solid, creepy, and political show. Grizzly, but rewarding.
4 Stars out of 5

Tiny Furniture

Unsure of its morals and its universality, but trenchantly personal, occasionally smart, and novel.
3 Stars out of 5

Trust

Despite an attempt to tackle a really serious issue, and despite some pretty good performances, TRUST falters because of abandoned plots and ideas, an overspecific villain, and reluctance to dig deeper.
Two Stars out of Five

Bad Day at Black Rock

BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK gets it. There is not simply a western here, not simply great performances, not simply a clever plot. Instead, there's an understanding of these events and action under a greater scope. There's a dreaminess to the actions. A stranger with one arm enters an old western town. Paranoid, and expecting the worst, the townspeople begin to threaten him, and he coolly goes about his business, speckled with vicious townspeople attacks in between. What's shown here is the dying western, incompatible with the new, odd world which consists of war and scope. Great.
Bad Day at Black Rock: ★★★★

Alien 3

With a style distinctly belonging to David Fincher, this debut feature, which also stands as part of the Alien franchise before ALIEN VS. PREDATOR days, is a cynical and dreary film. I would like to say that Fincher's version is good, but it isn't even that, for, in his debut being part of a greater mythology, Fincher seems to abandon any of the sensibilities of the ALIEN series. More concerned with the standings between the grimy men of the prison colony Ripley crash lands on, and insisting on creating a dark world to begin with, Fincher betrays any sense of the franchise that existed previously. If the film were any good, who would care, but Fincher traps himself by beginning the film with his own twists, but having to devolve into the monster picking off people one by one storyline. In eventuality, it appears that Fincher's changes are an attempt to make something other that ALIEN 3. But, for what it is, the film is boring, nonsensical, and formulaic.
Alien 3: ★★

Monster House

MONSTER HOUSE is a timid but entertaining piece of cinema. Heavily influenced by 80's movies where kids figure out what's up in the neighborhood, a trio of timid but entertaining kids investigate the house across the street, which is inhabited by a cranky old man who runs everyone off his lawn. Nearing Halloween, the two boys lose a ball on to the old man, and, frightening the old man, give him a heart attack. They surmise that without the old man, the evil house is growing angry, and, literally possessed, the house begins to devour anyone that comes onto the lawn as if adopting the old man's sensibilities. Seeking help from a legendary video game player, the older sister's punk boyfriend, and even the police, the kids make a trek to uncover the evil of the house. It's an unashamedly ludicrous movie, a little poorly paced, but charming and eventually revealing a couple of creepy, early 20th century imagery.
Monster House: ★★★

Boondock Saints

THE BOONDOCK SAINTS is a film that goes nowhere. Telling of a couple of Irish, inexplicably skilled crooks, the film employs a myriad of showy scenes, but the style behind those scenes only comes out of the same wantonness that created the plot of overly-religious, crazily skilled Irish vigilantes. Sprinkled with scenes of Willem Dafoe operatically overacting to the crime scenes the Boondock Saints leave behind, each of these scenes, which consist of the shoot-up by the Saints upon some obligatory bad guy, and then Dafoe's crazed re-staging of the crime. What the film lacks though is any intent. The Saints are doing what they're doing because it makes for some cool (but repetitive) scenes, but those scenes aren't centered around anything tangible. It's like a continual, vicious cycle of intent. The shoot-up scenes exist because the Dafoe scenes need to, which exist because the filmmakers have to have showy scenes, which exist because the Saints are vigilantes, which exist because there needs to be shoot-up scenes. Beyond that, the film is weak, for its shoot-up scenes aren't good enough to stop the film from being pretty boring and predictable, devolving into a formula, and eventually, a transparent attempt at copying other, better films with off-key characters. The thing is though, you actually have to be skilled in order to create a convincing loon. These characters all look too dumb to exist.
Boondock Saints: ★1/2

2011: How Many Films?

January: 60
February: 31
March: 21
April: 26
May: 22
June: 42
July: 23
August: 10
September: 23
October: 30
November: 27
December: 24

So, 339 films for the entire year. I was short some, but August screwed me over quite a bit. Also, I count an entire season of a tv show as a single film, or a single entry, thus, in terms of hours, I'm surely over 365. I watched an average of 28 films a month.