Control

Control-The pacing's a bit off,too often slowing down at odd moments and Curtis' motivations behind his depressive behavior and eventual suicide are a bit blurry.The story lacks depth-hopping from one event to another with a general lazy attitude towards exposition,as a result the movie plot-wise feels shallow and uninspired.What makes it a film I can wholeheartedly recommend though,is the excellent cinematography and acting.The images are profoundly picturesque and it shows that much thought went into picking the best angle and lighting for every scene.And as for the performances,Sam Riley carries the role with a rare magnetism more often found in more mature actors-scene to scene he establishes just the right amount of detail,neither too forced nor inattentive-he's just effortlessly terrific here.

National Treasure:Book of Secrets-This movie is so detached from reality it deserves its own alternate universe-but I expected that walking in,so I nodded along brainlessly as Nic Cage performed fantastic things like kidnapping the US president an breaking into the White House without much trouble.It's sad to see Hellen Mirren wasted into a cookie-cutter role that could've easily been filled by any talentless pretty face.And I'm seriously appalled at the movies Cage chooses to make nowadays-he's definitely equipped to take on tougher characters like he did in Leaving Las Vegas and Adaptation,but instead prefers more of this blockbuster garbage that seems to make him less of a respectable actor anyone can take seriously.

Trade-Made of straight-to-video stuff,it starts off promisingly but quickly turns into a predictable story too bent on sharpening the good/evil contrast.The only thing that kept me watching was the portrayal of how these sex traffickers operate-it's all dangerously complex and discreet,and makes for a fascinating subject.Like how "customers" bid online through a website intelligently disguised as some sort of family/home-building corporation,guarded with passwords and special accounts accessible only through specific links.Additionally,the part about how these activities were linked to the government could've been expanded to something more intriguing,but was dealt with like a poor afterthought.

The Good Night-A Charlie Kaufman film except without the beautiful strangeness or compellingly human characters-so what's left?A bunch of intolerably whiny self-absorbed characters in a film that succeeds neither as a typically straightforward drama or anything more imaginative.HOW THE FUCK this still managed to be such a wretchedly unfunny and bland film even with Simon Pegg and Martin Freeman (a combo that,by right,should've been explosive),along with heavyweights Danny De Vito and Penelope Cruz in it-is truly one of the year's biggest conundrums (but with a shit script like this?Humph,maybe not)-best summed up by a New York Post reviewer-"The sort of movie you forget even as you're watching it."

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+In preparing for an upcoming holiday in Vietnam,I stumbled upon this informative article about scams directed at traveling foreigners.