A month of movies: October.

Due to work and more work and lack of sleep and everything else I haven't really been able to go to the movies the past month, or to update this blog for that matter. The way things look this won't change in the next four weeks either, but fret not: Sometimes around the end of the year, things should get livelier again. Until then, watch "Blue Valentine" (trailer) if you haven't already and have a fine Sunday evening!

The short -
Go and see: /
Well worth watching: Blue Valentine.
Also deserving a chance: /
Average: Nowhere Boy (DVD).
If you're into Scandinavian films: En Familie (A Family) (DVD).
Forget about: TRON: Legacy (DVD).

The long -
The rules: Only movies seen at cinemas during the month referred to in the post title and recent DVD releases (which will be noted as such) are eligible. This excludes films seen on video or television. Also excluded are movies from festivals, which may or may not get treated in separate posts. Premieres and previews, however, are fine. The reviews are listed in alphabetical order. Finally, ratings are given on IMDB's 1-10 scale. These rules, likely to be broken at the discretion of yours truly, solely exist because no rules are fun, and we cannot have that here, now can we?

Blue Valentine. This film's main strengths clearly are its sense of reality and the fantastic acting by the two leads Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling. It's amazingly well written, featuring dialogue so believable it appears to be taken from a documentary. And a documentary it is, in a way, showing the inch-by-inch decline of the love between two common people. 8/10

En Familie (A Family) (DVD release). There is a very simple reason why this movie doesn't compare well to other recent family films such as "The Kids Are Alright" or "Blue Valentine", discussed above: people don't take like that. A lot of the dialogue, especially between the two leads (whose acting generally is quite good), is contrived to the point of making it very obvious that this is fiction - which doesn't work very well for a drama aiming at realism. Additionally, the soundtrack is horrible. 5/10

Nowhere Boy (DVD release). Regular biopics that don't attempt to break out of their tight mold are somewhat boring. This is no different, telling the story of young John Lennon up until his first glimpse of fame. Sepia colouring, a strict continuity and adherence to the historic matter - it's what you'd expect and simply not enough. 6/10

TRON: Legacy (DVD release). What a load of stupid. This sequel takes everything that made the first Tron so special, especially the sound and graphic design, and then shits all over it. What was once revolutionary, the look and style of the digital age brought into film, is now a fest of easily exchangeable CGI drivel. Additionally, the film misses no chance to break its own internal logic, dispelling any chance of creating some suspension of disbelief in the viewers. 3/10

Previous months of movies: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September.