By Brian Lafferty

October 15, 2010 (San Diego)--I didn’t do great in my Introduction to Political Science class but there was one thing that stuck with me: gerrymandering. In the three and a half years since I’ve taken that class I’ve been surprised that the issue has never come up significantly. This documentary of the same name thoroughly and effectively explores this overlooked but very important subject. As Bill Mundell of Californians for Fair Redistricting put it, “Gerrymandering is America’s best kept secret.”

By Brian Lafferty

October 5, 2010 (San Diego)--The Social Network is one of the year’s best films. That is not a label I apply to just any good film. What makes this movie special is how everything in it took me in. Very few movies this year engaged me as much as The Social Network. The writing, directing, acting, and every other aspect left me feeling genuinely spellbound. Every person involved gave one-hundred percent effort and it shows.

By Brian Lafferty

September 28, 2010 (San Diego)--Playing until Friday at the Ken Cinema is A Film Unfinished. The title refers to an uncompleted Nazi propaganda film shot in the Warsaw Ghetto in the early 1940s. The majority of the movie consists of footage from the propaganda film. Director Yael Hersonski isn’t content to just show the film. Behind each shot is a story and the narrator goes into deep, articulative, and informative detail into each of them. Diaries from the overseer of the Ghetto and letters from one of the filmmakers are read.

By Brian Lafferty

September 25, 2010 (San Diego)--Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps opens with Gordon Gekko being released from a federal penitentiary in the year 2001. Among the personal items given back to him is his mobile phone, one of those ugly giant cell phones that are an eyesore today but were trendy in the late 1980s. Gekko exits the penitentiary and sees everybody else being picked up, including one ex-convict in a limousine. But nobody comes for him. His face exudes loneliness. Here was a man who was big and rich twenty-five years ago but now nobody cares about him.

By Brian Lafferty

September 24, 2010 (San Diego)--I watched Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole in a packed theater. Much of the audience consisted of parents and kids, many of them ranging between three to seven years old. There was an air of excitement in the theater during the half hour before the screening. But within the first fifteen minutes all the fun was sucked out. By the end, the atmosphere was cold and joyless. I left the screening depressed, manipulated, angry and appalled. This movie is based on a series of children’s novels but it is definitely not for kids. I will feel sorry for parents who will be understandably misled and take their kids to see a movie that will leave their young ones with tears and nightmares.

By Brian Lafferty

September 13, 2010 (San Diego)--“I don’t want to play the character of Joaquin Phoenix anymore,” says Phoenix, the subject of this documentary. “I want to be whatever I am.” That is his explanation for why he chose to give up acting in favor of a rap music career. I’m Still Here, helmed by Phoenix’s brother-in-law Casey Affleck, is a film that you simply cannot prepare for. There are many images you will never unthink. These are not criticisms; as hard as it was to watch, I liked it. I didn’t necessarily enjoy it as I normally would. The documentary sets out and accomplishes what it wants to do and conveys what it wants to communicate. It doesn’t work as entertainment but then maybe that wasn’t the point.

By Brian Lafferty

August 22, 2010 (San Diego)--Patrik, Age 1.5 is formulaic, super-sweet, and very sentimental but I liked it. The movie opened on Friday and is playing at the Ken Cinema until Thursday. I found the structure to be overly predictable and some of the song choices questionable and gag-inducing but it was to me a worthwhile cinematic experience.

By Brian Lafferty

August 8, 2010 (San Diego)—Don’t go into Agora, which was released to theaters on July 30, expecting something along the lines of 300. It is more intellectual and philosophical than that. I like to think of it as a smart person’s epic. There is bloodshed but not as soaked and certainly not as fake. There is love and lust but there is no sex. Alejandro Amenabar has shied away from the obligatory scenes associated with these movies and replaced them with scenes that contain intelligence, relying on the solid writing and great performances.

By Brian Lafferty

July 30, 2010 (San Diego)--Intelligently dumb may sound like an oxymoron but it is the best phrase I could use to accurately describe Dinner for Schmucks. It is at times goofy and stupid but there is always a certain astuteness that permeates throughout the material without coming off as pretentious. The “dinner” doesn’t arrive until the second to last reel and it is a little bit of a letdown but that doesn’t mean the lead-up isn’t hilarious at times.

By Brian Lafferty

"This is one of the best movies of the year." -- Brian Lafferty

July 22, 2010 (San Diego's East County)--Dreams have always been part of  cinema. A common film use is the “it was only a dream” stunt applied to generate cheap thrills and groans (Jaws: The Revenge) or to foment laughter (A Serious Man, An American Werewolf in London).  Dreams have also acted as visually expressive tools to reveal character or relay exposition (Salvador Dali’s dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound). Sometimes, dreams have been used to shock the audience (the movies of Luis Bunuel, particularly Un Chien Andalou, which opens with an eyeball being slashed).

Dreams may be old subjects in motion pictures, but with Inception Christopher Nolan has delivered one of--if not the most--original movie of the year, taking the concept in many new directions I never thought possible.

By Brian Lafferty

July 2, 2010 (San Diego's East County)--There is a scene at the beginning of Cyrus in which John (John C. Reilly) tries to pick up a woman at a party. The problem is he can’t get the words out and gives up. Later, he meets another woman, Molly, (Marisa Tomei) who describes the conversation he had as raw and honest. Those two words are not just true about the failed pick-up: they accurately describe this movie.

By Brian Lafferty

June 24, 2010 (San Diego's East County) -- Knight and Day was a movie that gave me fits. That’s something I did not expect from a movie starring either Tom Cruise or Cameron Diaz. These two stars are reunited for the first time since Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky in 2001. That movie, while not their best, was at least interesting, thought-provoking, well-acted, and most of all, not the least bit boring. The same cannot be said for Knight and Day, which tries to be like James Cameron’s 1994 action flick True Lies but winds up only paling in comparison.

By Brian Lafferty

June 11, 2010 (San Diego) -- I strongly believe in approaching every movie I review with as neutral an attitude as possible, with no preconceived notions as to whether or not I will like it. The A-Team made it simultaneously difficult and easy. It was difficult in the sense that I’m a huge fan of the original series and easy in that the show was not a work of art. The episodes followed a strict formula and contained mindless action, yet it worked because it was entertaining, energetic, and fun. This movie works because it follows in that same spirit that made the show fun to watch.

By Brian Lafferty

May 22, 2010 (San Diego)--In 2001 Dreamworks released Shrek. Based on a children’s book, the movie was an inventive, clever, and witty satire of fairy tales. It was a huge hit and spawned three sequels, the last of which being Shrek Forever After.