Lost in Translation. Aptly named; something didn’t make it from the inspiration to the screen. Just kind of wandered and didn’t do much for me. I like Bill Murray and I was expecting a lot from this movie, especially given the reviews.
Contact. I really wanted my money back on this one. Over time I’ve come to understand that there are two different cultural mindsets & ways of thinking about “contact with extraterrestrial intelligences”, one of which derives from standard science fiction and assumes that contact with ETs would be akin to contact with a previously unknown human culture, the other of which is a woo-woo semi-spiritual semi-religious belief system about conspiracies, aliens as special/spiritual guides or leaders for humankind, and the conflict between True Believer who believes in aliens and alien abductions & crop circles versus skeptical people who would say “Cite?”. I was expecting the former and got the latter. Also, the main character at no point gains a toehold and manages to succeed or take control of any situation she is in; it was like the worst of old gothic paperbacks like Mary Roberts Rinehart. Damsel in perpetual distress.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Not so fantastic. Good execution but the story itself was sort of all over the place. Slow-moving. Interminable. Eventually boring.
City of Lost Children. Unwatchable. Weird for the sake of weird. We ejected the DVD and went on to watch something else.
Sunshine Cleaning. Had high hopes for this one, from the same folks who made Little Miss Sunshine, but somehow it never gelled into any kind of compellng story.