That's just like jello on springs.

There are movie stars... and then there are movie stars. And then there was Marilyn Monroe. By 1956 she had already accumulated wealth and fame, as well as three husbands. In the summer of that year, she and that newly-acquired third husband, playwright Arthur Miller, made a trip to England. But it was no honeymoon. The two traveled to England because Monroe was set to work on a film called The Sleeping Prince (later changed to The Prince and the Showgirl). This is the subject of a new movie by Simon Curtis, My Week With Marilyn, based on the memoirs of Colin Clark.

Check the rhime.

As with many things, I am often a bit behind the curve when it comes to music. (My car radio is always locked on the oldies station for example). I caught on to hip hop when I was in middle school, at the height--or just after--of gangsta rap. And as with other genres, I find something I like, then work backwards. The first time I heard of A Tribe Called Quest was catching the video for "Award Tour" on MTV sometime in the early 90s. I was in love. It was not the aggressive and bleak stuff coming out of Compton at the time. It was laid back and jazzy; the video was sepia-toned. I bought the album, Midnight Marauders. That was their third album and, as I said, I had to catch up by going backwards.

Please, no more days.

At the very beginning of Lone Scherfig's One Day, a character is doing something that, say, if you've ever watched another movie, pretty clearly foreshadows a major incident later in the film. That the movie then jumps back about 20 years, just about confirms it.

It ain't over 'til it's over (or at least when the credits roll).

Baseball people, and that includes myself, are slow to change and accept new ideas.

--Branch Rickey

Late in Bennett Miller's Moneyball, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) asks Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), "How can you not be romantic about baseball?" That's true of course because it is the most revered of American sports. Football may have the most fervent fan base. Basketball may be the most globally popular. But baseball is still America's pastime. And in a lot of ways it still has a lot of trouble letting go of some of its traditions.

Life, Interrupted

Beginners begins with an end. (How's that for a sentence?) Oliver Fields's father, Hal, has just died. Three years earlier, his mother passed. In the interim, Hal had announced to Oliver that he's gay (and secretly had been his entire life) and thus proceeds to frequent dance clubs, join gay social groups, and even get a much younger boyfriend. He's finally living the life he never had the chance to do openly.

We're no angels.

Are our lives made up of completely random moments, chance encounters and happenings motivated by nothing but our own choosing? Or is there some greater plan we must inexorably follow to its predetermined conclusion--a fate? It may be impossible to know (though I do have my theories), but in the world of The Adjustment Bureau, it is certainly the latter--and then, well maybe, the former.

Shiny, happy people...

You want your Oscar picks? I got your Oscar picks. (Along with who I think should win.)

The Illusionist... will not win.

Once, twice, three times a lady.

Or:  Three Weddings and No Funeral

It may be either in spite of or because of his status as Hollywood's most loveable curmudgeon that Paul Giamatti has turned into a bit of a national treasure.  While movie everymen throughout the years--whether it be Jimmy Stewart or Jack Lemmon or Tom Hanks--have displayed the ideal that exists within all of us, the externalizing of the leading men we all think we might be, Giamatti shows us the flaws we all actually have.  He often aims for melancholy before gregariousness.  He's a bit schlubby and walks too hunchbacked.  His characters don't always treat women well, but in their heart of hearts they certainly mean to, though weakness and selfishness often get in the way.

The butter wouldn't melt, so I put it in the pie.

Seemingly, at the end of every year, I hear how poor a year it was at the movies.  From diminishing box office returns to a mere dearth of quality cinema, it's been a sad refrain that 2000-and-whatever was a down year for the industry.  And each year, at least from a critical standpoint (box office performance means little to someone who is spending his own money actually going to all these movies), I'm incredulous at the assertion.  When it comes time to make my year-end list(s), I often find myself sad at the exclusion of certain films because I can never find enough room for them and excited at the prospect of exploring the movies on other writers' 10-best lists that I hadn't had the pleasure (and opportunity) of seeing.

But as 2010 wound down, it seemed apparent that it actually was a weak year for movies and only slowly was I able to compile a list of movies I thought fit to include on such a list.  Make no mistake, the movies that did finally end up earning their way onto the list are all terrific films and I'll stand by all of them, but on the whole, I would describe the 2010 movie year as... "Meh."

"The cars crawl past all stuffed with eyes..."

It's oftentimes we're too preoccupied with carving out our own particular niches in life, going through the protocol of life, to realize that the point of life is actual living. Each day is a series of exchanges, business and otherwise--signed contracts, verbal agreements, shook hands.  We set aside one group of priorities for others.  For Zinos Kazantsakis, it seems as if that is all he does in Fatih Akin's Soul Kitchen.