17 Movies and 1 Book

I'm making these quick-quick since I'm behind so very far and want to be caught up asap. 1-13 are from 2009. 14-18 are from 2010 (well, the McEwan was begun in 2008, I think--sad state of my reading affairs).

1. Away We Go (2009): Smug. Smug. Smug. And some more smug. Piled up on a whole lot of smug.

2. Funny Face (1957): Eh. Fine and I understand why Streisand was praised and whatnot but boring and long.

3. The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933): A J. pick. Odd.

4. W. (2008): Frightening that we let this man run the country. Kudos to Josh Brolin.

5. Paris Blues (1961): Love me some Paul Newman. Wish this movie were more cohesive.

6. The Duchess (2008): Eh. Not the movie it could have been and not the movie it should have been. I don't want to watch a movie of this marriage.

7. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948): Another J. pick. Eh. Not very interesting.

8. The Edge of Love (2008): A strange little movie with a lot of pretty people. Could have been better but wasn't completely terrible.

9. Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009): Completely acceptable fluff. Except that they dropped the Leslie Bibb as villain thing before it played out.

10. The White Countess (2005): Loooooooooong. There are much better movies about China during the war.

11. Last Chance Harvey (2008): Sad little movie. Not teary sad either.

12. Sherlock Holmes (2009): Could have been more but is very very very good.

13. Brick (2005): Good, solid movie with an interesting grasp on language.

14. Up in the Air (2009): One of the best crying scenes ever. And, beyond that, an excellent movie with excellent performances. The end needed to be rearranged a bit but I'll get over it.

15. Igor (2008): Yuck.

16. Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001): McEwan may be a genius. The book is beyond beautiful. I still loathe Briony with every bit of my being and my hopes that the ending to the book would be drastically different than the movie were dashed but I have to give it to McEwan: that's true to her character and he made me hate her.

17. It's Complicated (2009): Wonderful. I can't even pick my favorite thing. Everyone is brilliant in it (little Office guy almost steals it). The story is solid. It's hilarious and poignant and blah blah blah everything I want a comedy to be.

18. Body of Lies (2008): Hmpf. I'm still waiting on a good post-9/11 terrorism movie. You know, the one without the pounding over the head about everyone being culpable. Subtlety people! That said, DiCaprio and Crowe are excellent in it.