More Movies: Little Miss Sunshine, The Prestige, and the Libertine

Little Miss Sunshine: Steve Carell, Craig Kinnear, Alan Arkin. The little girl in this is wonderful, just like everyone said. All the cast is flawed. All the characters are flawed. Each has a trauma on the way to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. Its a road film and its a good one. The timeline of the script gives it tension, the incredible bad luck that befalls the road trip makes the tension. It keeps getting worse. Deeply damaged characters must contest with a world that seems intent on breaking them. Despite the minimally heroic salvation at the end, none of these characters are lovable. Yes, even the little girl. But they're all likable.

Alan Arkin wins as usual as the granddad. Carell is warm and subtle in a genuine acting role. His comic style is underplayed and winning. I don't like him, and I liked him.

See it.

The Prestige: Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, . Clever story about competition, between friendly rivals. The competition goes wildly wrong in this twisted, and convoluted story. There is some really winning acting in this and not by my girl Scarlett who was merely ok. The rest of the cast was brilliant. The clever story is not so clever and the acting saves it.

In a close one ... See it.

The Libertine: Johnny Depp and a cast of unknowns. The women in this movie were brilliant and of course Johnny Depp in the lead role was too. An historical story of a lecherous, drunken, artistic arristocrat proves a winning movie indeed. All the reason that I can figure that this movie didn't receive bigger notices, was that it was about a character who lacked character. A well formed, if slightly long, sympathetic screenplay serves to explain how someone with so much could destroy themselves in such a way. The seeming celebration (for a while at least) of the license and lesciviousness of the lead character must be why it wasn't lauded more.

Don't watch this with the kids! Don't expect to like him ... but,
See the Libertine! (Unless you're offended by lewd and crude because while more is suggested than showed, there's a lot of wickedness in this movie!)