I saw these movies a long time ago

GONE BABY GONE
This is an entertaining, twisty-turny thriller. Some reviewers compared it unfavorably to Clint Eastwood’s most recent efforts, but I’ve always been put off by Eastwood’s overly simplistic, black-and-white morality, as well as his obvious emotional manipulation. I thought this movie was more nuanced. It’s a very strong directorial debut, and hopefully a sign of good things to come for Ben Affleck.



WE OWN THE NIGHT
I was overall disappointed by this movie. I’ve been following the director, James Gray, ever since I saw Little Odessa, but none of his more recent films have lived up to the promise of that debut. Actually, the only other film he’s done besides this one is The Yards. Which is not to say that We Own the Night and The Yards are bad movies – far from it. They’re just not as good as I’d like them to be.
Somehow this movie ended up being boring and felt like it was dragging. That was unfortunate because it has some of the strongest stand-alone scenes I’ve seen in any film this year. There are a couple drug stakeout scenes that are insanely intense – the kind of scenes where it takes all your willpower to stop from shouting out, “Look behind you!!!!” There are also some really strong scenes between Joaquin Phoenix and his girlfriend, played by Eva Mendes, including the often-talked-about opening sex scene. But the pacing is wrong, or something, because the movie as a whole didn’t flow well.



NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
I thought this movie was quite good, but far from the best movie of the year as so many people are proclaiming. As with everything the Coen Brothers do, it’s startling in its precision. I really won’t say much more about this movie, except that yeah, the haircut bothered me. I liked the period detail – I remember well those scratchy, horrible plaid couches (we still have one in our family room). I think this movie probably contains more than I can absorb in one viewing (as all their films do – I was even underwhelmed by The Big Lebowski on my first viewing, as hard as that is to believe). So I’ll hold off on further commentary until I see it again.