True Grit - The Coen Brothers latest film is a bit of a slow burn. Like all their pictures it looks fantastic and is loaded with great performances. Jeff Bridges wreaks drunken havoc in the lead role while Hailee Steinfeld is pitch perfect as Mattie Ross, an overly mature fourteen year old looking to bring her father's killer to justice. The stage is quickly set and then we get what seems to be about an hour of character development, consisting of mostly talk. Overall the movie is sadly a bit of a snoozer. Thus, it starts off rather unremarkably and gets rather boring very quickly. It is sad, because had the story been stripped down by the talented Coens it could have been amazing. Instead, we get a great looking piece of inert art. That said, the last half hour is a hyper rollicking bit of action. However, even that seems to come off wrong, as if they were so bored with the first hour of the film that they just wanted it to get over as fast as possible. Oh well, even a lesser Coen film is better than most.

Rated PG-13 for violence
The Grade: B-

Little Fockers - Another holiday season gives us the third installment of the Meet The Parents series. This is a mildly amusing movie that doesn't break any new comic ground but will satisfy you if you're a fan of the previous two. The title is a little bit of a misnomer since the kids (Daisy Tahan & Colin Baiocchi) are really only a minor part of the film. In a lot of ways, the storyline echoes back to the original film with the conflict between father-in-law Jack Brynes (Robert De Niro) and Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) taking center stage. The comedy is both physical and Three's Company style and would probably ultimately fail unless it had the cast to pull it off. After De Niro and Stiller (who can probably play their roles now in their sleep) you have the stalwarts Teri Polo and Blythe Danner; the deliriously goofy Barbara Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, and Owen Wilson; and the newbies: Jessica Alba, Laura Dern, and (are you kidding me?) Harvey Keitel. In the end, everyone in it is better than the material they are allowed to work with but they make the best of a not-so-good situation.

Rated PG-13
The Grade: C

Black Swan - Darren Aronofsky has created a fever dream of a film but at the same time it is a frozen fire. Natalie Portman stars as a ballet dancer trying to secure the lead role in a production of Swan Lake. The problem is she has to deal with an overprotective mother (Barbara Hershey), a demanding artistic director (Vincent Cassel), a jealous older dancer (Winona Ryder), and a rising rival (Mila Kunis), or does she? What is real and what is not? That is a question that never really gets answered in an obvious way. Don't get me wrong, this film is interesting from start to finish, however, we've seen a lot of this before. Rosemary's Baby comes to mind. That said, the direction is exquisitely tight and the visuals are dead on. The acting is mostly first rate but at times (probably on purpose) dramatically over the top. All in all, if you're a fan of Aronofsky you'll definitely like it (however I don't think it worked as well as his last film The Wrestler). If you're coming in cold though, you might leave cold, since it plays out in an inevitable sort of fashion. It is a chiller of a thriller. A literal mind f---- of a film.

Rated R for strong sexual content, disturbing violent images, language, and some drug use.
The Grade: B+

Hemingway's Garden of Eden - Ernest Hemingway's writing style is best described as lean and manly,and this adaptation of his unfinished novel entitled Garden of Eden has a lot of that going on, intermittently. Director John Irvin has assembled a precise vision of what the great writer wanted but for some reason it just doesn't all work. The actors (Mena Suvari, Jack Huston, Caterina Murino) are all game to play their roles but each is confined to a stereotype. Mena is the devilish girl who likes to act like a man in bed, Jack, the sensitive writer who'd like to write something robust, and Caterina Murino, the beautiful heiress. The visuals are nice and earthy - mostly of French Riviera beaches - but there is a smallness to the whole thing that makes you feel that it was all shot on locales a quarter mile from each other. Plus, structurally, the story starts oddly with a montage of a wedding of the two main leads, and within the first minute, we ask ourselves, why the heck did these two ever get married in the first place? From there it turns into a battle of the sexes that unfolds rather predictably until we see the "great new short story" the writer is working on come to life on the screen - literally. Yes it is kind of awkward and is about a father and son hunting an elephant and it comes off as well as it does here in my review. In the end, I did feel that the film had good moments and some great lines of dialogue but not enough to make a lasting impact.

(Playing an exclusive engagement at Gaslamp 15)

Rated R for sexuality and some nudity.
The Grade: B- / C+

Noteworthy Films Also Opening This Month

The Kid's Grow Up (exclusively at the The Gaslamp 15)
The King's Speech (exclusively at Hillcrest Cinemas)
Tiny Furniture (exclusive engagement at The Ken Cinema)
The Tourist (everywhere)