Last Five Movies

Army of Shadows (1969)
Jean-Pierre Melville's long-lost, second-to-last movie, which received its first American theatrical release just last year. A departure from his usual cops-and-robbers theme, this time detailing the efforts of the French Resistance during WW2. It's a shame no one got to see it for almost 40 years.

BTW, a bad week for European "New Wave" directors, with Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni dying within a day of each other. They might be missed. Maybe.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Worst...Harry Potter movie...Ever. At least this one solves the problem that previous Potter films had of being too complexly plotted by not having a plot at all. The Girl claims they omitted about half the book. And the movie is still two and a half hours long! That's some quality writing.

Premonition (2007)
Finally: A movie version of that episode of Dallas where it turns out it was all a dream, with a non-funny bit of Groundhog Day thrown in for good measure. Terrible.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
One of those movies that must just be fantastic as a book, full of imagery and symbolism, that's almost impossible to translate into a movie. Still, it's a pretty good movie, if you can buy the premise of a serial killer with the world's greatest sense of smell. (See what I mean about it being better as a book?)

Yeah, like you didn't see this coming:

The Simpsons Movie (2007)
After 20 years in the making, you would think this would be the greatest Simpsons episode ever. It's not, but it's still funnier that most of the last couple of years' episodes. The computer-rendered backgrounds give the cartoon a surrealistic feel that's quite jarring from the hand-drawn TV episodes. It allows for a lot more action. The jokes are just about non-stop. And there's one of the most subversive misdirection gags of all time, in which you actually see Bart Simpson's penis. (Seriously.) My one quibble: no Gil. Oh sure, Arthur Crandall and Gabbo make an appearance, but no Gil.

Maybe this movie wasn't as good as I thought. Check it out anyway.