Inaugural Ticket Stub feature -- I've decided to keep closer track of my movie-viewing here on TAI, since this is the closest I've ever come to keeping a regular "journal," and of course it's all for your edification/amusement/holy pursuit of procrastination, so sit back and enjoy. I saw 48 movies in a theater in 2004, and while most of them appear in Nat's excellent movie diary, I'd like to do my own capsule reviews since, believe it or not, we're not always in total agreement. :)

So far in 2005, I've seen The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Ocean's Twelve. I am a total Wes Anderson groupie, thus I loved TLAWSZ even more on this second viewing. Anderson has a way of crafting a miniature, gimcrack universe populated by semi-likeable weirdos that utterly charms me. Sure, others find this dull, precious, or just plain annoying, but I'm a sucker for magical realism and to me his movies are all about misfits creating their own more colorful version of reality. I love the music, I love the bizarrely nostalgic sets and costumes, and I especially love how the dialogue swoops erratically from goofy ["Hook this thing up and make me a latte"] to poignant and revealing ["What happened to Jacqueline?" "She...never really loved me"]. This one comes it at #2 on my all-time Wes List, after Rushmore, of course. (A)

I would've given OT a much higher grade if the last third of the movie hadn't fallen apart. I had heard mixed reviews and didn't have very high hopes for the flick -- but then it started out witty, cleverly plotted and paced, moving along winningly...to the point where I was ready to declare it better than the first installment. But right after the big meta-Julia Roberts scene, which I liked, it comes crashing to a halt and the plot ceases to make sense. Nat and I puzzled over the plot twists all night and ultimately decided we didn't care enough to sort them out, and neither did Soderbergh, apparently. Like all his movies, the ending feels abruptly tacked-on, and the glitzy camaraderie of the preceding two hours quickly fades. Disappointing. (C+)

Update: Saw Kinsey for the second time last night, and once again it gets an (A). Liam Neeson is so engaging as the nerdy yet sexually free professor, and Peter Sarsgaard leads the supporting cast as the eager yet sly research assistant/boytoy. Laura Linney is great as usual, though her role is a bit small. Most importantly, Bill Condon manages to evoke the repressive post-war era and make subtle comparisons to our own without being dull, preachy, or obvious, a feat in the biopic genre.