Anton Chekhov's The Duel - 7/10: A film based on the novella of the same name follows a lout, trying to escape any sort of responsibility in his lifem including his just-widowed girlfriend. As he plans his retreat he runs into issues with the people around him, one of whom eventually challenges him to a duel. I liked this film; the characters were great and while the acting was far from perfect, one guy in-particular, they did well enough to not be distracting. My biggest complaint is it felt a little rushed; I would have liked more strife in the time leading up to the duel, but it is challenged/accepted/completed in way too short of a time frame.
Monsters - 7.5/10: I liked this more than I expected. It's an apparently low-budget (ddid not really look it) film, based in a world where an alien probe has fallen in-between the USA and Mexico, creating an infected zones where the aliens are essentially trapped (though they do wreak havoc outside of the area here and there). This follows the story of a guy escorting his bosses daughter home from Mexico and in a lot of ways it's more of a character piece on these two people than it is a full-on sci-fi alien flick, but that's ok with me as I liked the characters. really, they could have made the threat anything and it would have been ok, aside from one, presumably allegorical scene near the end. The ending was my biggest disappointment with the film, but it was not enough to soil the rest of the experience for me.
The Social Network - 8/10: A pretty fun ride. There is not much else to say, since so much has been said already, but I thought Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg was phenomenal and I loved watching him every time he came on screen; by far the best written and best acted character in the film. I thought most everyone else did well, but this was all about Eisenberg/Zuckerberg. I have no idea what that chick from The Office/I Love You, Man was doing in the movie, she was a stupid character and really just a distraction. Anyway, hard not to have fun with this, though I was hoping to enjoy it more than I did; still, a good time overall.
October (Octubre) - 7/10: A Peruvian film about a money-lender that ends up with a baby on his doorstep, coming from one of the many prostitutes he sleeps with. A very quiet, odd little film with some funny moments and quirky characters. I really liked the main actor, he was excellent, even though he had minimal dialogue throughout and while the overall story and plot development was a little thin, the characters were enough to keep me interested.
Rubber - 5/10: A film about a tire (yes a tire, like from a car) that becomes sentient and goes on a murderous rampage. I have to admire this film for what it tries to do, unfortunately the jokes get tired after a while. I would have loved this film if it was only 30 minutes or so, but 90 minutes of this far too much. Since you have a tire as your protagonist, which cannot speak, they use a fake audience directly in the film for exposition a lot of the time, along with some of the other characters along for the ride; again, this was interesting and funny for the first few times it came up, but was a dead horse by about halfway through the film. Anyway, definitely an interesting watch, but not a sustainable idea for a 90 minute film.
KT