B3DA #4: At the Movies

The theme for today's blog is advice. The best advice I've been given?

You want to be a writer? Write.

This does not bode well, since it's 9pm, I'm dead tired, and was looking for an easy way out of this post. But, as well you know, I want to be a writer and, well, if I didn't take my own best advice you'd have nothing to read and I'd have to hang my head.

I promised you some reviews, didn't I?

Well, Source Code was excellent. Set in the unspecified future, a terrorist has planted a bomb on a train and is threatening further attacks on the city of Chicago. Captain Colter Stephens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the key player in a military experiment called "the source code" which allows him to enter the body of one of the train's passengers for the final 8 minutes of his life. As you can imagine, repeating the same 8 minute scene ad infinitum with slight tweaks and variations is hard work, but if there's a director more adept at navigating plot, layering the narrative and heightening thrills without adding confusion is working today, I haven't found him (or her). Jones' films are difficult to talk about without giving too much away (if you haven't caught Moon yet either I recommend you do), but between great direction and a fantastic lead performance from Gyllenhaal it's already one of my films of the year.

Limitless was so-so. Bradley Cooper earns his first leading role as layabout author Eddie Morra. He runs into an ex's brother, who gives him a mystery drug which heightens motivation, creativity, ability - everything. After acquiring a stash of his own, he sets about making his life remarkable. For a while. Between fast-edited montages of awesome, things suck a bit, but then they get better again. Et cetera, et cetera. It's pretty fun, if a little heavy on the doomsday prophecies, and you never really care whether Eddie's going to make it out of it all alive. An ideal weekend watch if you can rent it cheap with a bucket of ice-cream.

Call me crazy but I'd never seen a Matthew McConaughey film before. The Lincoln Lawyer is a crime thriller based on the book by Michael Connelly. Though courtroom dramas and the crime genre in general isn't really my scene, this certainly held my attention. Mick Hallar (McConaughey) is, shall we say, a gangster's lawyer, on the case of a billionnaire's son who is on trial for beating up a prostitute (Ryan Phillippe). McConaughey is pretty likeable as the shady litigator, and although the film feels quite long it had plenty of kinks and double-bluffs. Plus, his license plate is NT GLTY. Do you think you can beat that?

As always, you can find my film talk and (properly thought-out) reviews over on my film blog, Uncultured Critic. I'll be giving away copies of Blue Valentine on DVD later this week, so watch this space!

Which films have you enjoyed lately?