Michael Diner

Tries too hard to be cool.

It feels to me like either you are either completely charmed by the A-Team's noisy style and attitude or you aren't. I was not. I liked Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson. Cooper's star is rising. I did not like the noisy, stupid, superficial, look-how-fake-and-animated-that-explosion-is style of action that director Joe Carnahan utilizes. Why can't you just actually blow something up? Even Michael Bay action sequences are better than this. At least they kind of look like they are actually happening. I'm really not much of a fan of light, silly action comedies, because I find that you need an especially charismatic cast or an unusual style premise to successfully execute those. The A-Team has neither. It was not funny nor was the action even mildly exciting. The plotting...I kind of commend it for getting mildly complicated without getting confusing, but it was mostly standard "accused of a crime they didn't commit" junk. Truly nothing special, and there isn't enough wit or charm to make you forgive the film its stupidities.

'Insomnia' may be the least impressive of director Christopher Nolan's films (admittedly, I haven't seen his debut film, 'Following'), but the fact that it is directed by Nolan means that it is still a minor masterpiece. With the exception of 'The Dark Knight', it is the most straightforward Nolan film, with the most linear storytelling. It's a much more standard thriller than 'Memento', but it is beautifully shot and tautly told by Nolan. To date, this may be the last truly great performance that Al Pacino has given. And Robin Williams is also almost unexpectedly excellent; with the one-two punch of 'Insomnia' and 'One Hour Photo', he certainly cornered the market on "creepy". I can't wait to see Williams walk on the dark side again.

http://braidedthreads.blogspot.com/2008/09/dyou-know.html ...Juno, like a lot of other Independent films of the last 6 or 8 years, has that heavily marketed independent feel. That coming-of-agedness. That whiplash of the ironic and the adorable. These are smart films that unroll predictably before our eyes, winking knowingly at us while also trying to appeal to the pocketbooks of a wider audience. I am thinking of such recent films as Thumbsucker, The Squid and the Whale, and the little movie that could: Little Miss Sunshine. In fact, if you watch the trailers for these films back-to-back, their marketing campaigns will suddenly seem embarassingly derrivative.

Well-deserving of its Academy Award nominations and best-screenplay win, Juno is more than another indie teen romp. Ellen Page is believable as a teenager who deals with an unplanned pregnancy with very real emotions and actions. There are great performances, especially from Allison Janney as Juno's exasperated but loving stepmother. The soundtrack is great, too.