Prometheus

Rating: 9

There's a huge gap of movies I can't remember during the time I neglected the blog but I'm catching up on a few that stood out and deserve a mention. First: Prometheus.

It totally lived up to my expectation which is a feat since there were six months of trailers leading up to it. Ridley Scott turned me into a SciFi fan with Alien and Blade Runner and is a master of most genres.  Prometheus is horrifying and beautiful.

Flight

Rating: 9

Methinks it will get some Oscars, and methinks it deserves some.

Cloud Atlas

Rating: 7

The good: The sci-fi / future sequences are mesmerizing and it's a wonderful vehicle for Tom Hanks. Certainly the best I've seen him in a long time. All the actors play multiple characters and they seem to be having a blast.  The bad: Enough with the face prosthetics! They are nothing but distracting("Hey, that's Susan Sarandon with a fake nose!! Wait, is it just a fake nose or a fake chin too? What does her real nose look like? Perky, as I recall...." etc, etc, says Hilary's brain about a frillion times during Cloud Atlas) and until technology catches up which I'm sure it will eventually and quite frankly I can't figure out why we're not there yet except maybe we are and this is just a personal pet peeve I can't get over, which is my friend Edge's theory.

All in all, worth seeing.

Argo

Rating: 8

Almost as good as The Town, with bonus appearance by Walter White!

Sinister

Rating: 9

Not perfect but still scared the crap out of me.

The Master

Rating: 6

Sad to day how disappointed I was.  As a devoted PT Anderson fan and closet Scientology conspiracy theory observer I guess my hopes were a bit high.  Having said that, cinematography was stellar, music gorgeous and performances captivating.  Though Joaquin is getting high props for his work, his presence was so unpleasant I couldn't wait for him to exit the screen. The jury's still out on whether that constitutes a great performance or an overwrought one.

Looper

Rating: 8

Enjoyed everything about the movie except JGL's distracting face prosthetics.  For more on this topic, see my review of Cloud Atlas.