Movies 2006-2008

Note: You may have to click on this title to see the table below — sorry.

Below are my ratings for the movies I’ve seen in the past 2 years. Criticker has this neat feature that lets you export your rankings. If you haven’t set up an account, you should. My username there is “newlikegrace” so look me up.

Score		Film Name	Review
98		Little Miss Sunshine
97		Juno	Ellen Page is amazing. J.K. Simmons is amazing. Michael Cera is great. Allison Janney is great. Jason Bateman is great. All this excellent casting mixed with a wonderful, quirky story makes for one outstanding film.
96		300	One of the best and most beautiful action movies I’ve ever seen.
93		V for Vendetta
93		The Darjeeling Limited	At first glance I think I felt a little bored or underwhelmed. But there were flashes of substance enough to make me realize that several more watches and this one could be one of Anderson’s best.
92		The Departed	Excellent idea for a plot and some really great (subtle) camera work. DiCaprio does a really great job and Nicholson is, well, Nicholson.
87		Breach	Chris Cooper shows why he should have more starring roles, as his performance has everything to do with why this movie was engaging, dramatic, and smart.
84		Ocean’s Thirteen	Much better than the second, it’s another simple revenge story with a great cast.
81		The Prestige	Batman vs. Wolverine, as Alfred watches. I loved it.
80		Lucky Number Slevin	This was surprisingly great. I didn’t hate Hartnett… much.
80		The Bourne Ultimatum	Excellent, perhaps better than the first two. Could have had a better ending, in my opinion.
79		Hot Fuzz	You really have to know what you’re getting into. I expected a comedy and was disappointed for the first 1/2 hour, until I realized that it’s a lot more like Shaun of the Dead than I’d expected. Simon Pegg is great.
78		Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	Best of the series so far.
78		Stranger Than Fiction
73		Enchanted	Amy Adams rescued this movie from itself when it strayed too far into being the very thing it tries to parody, and Patrick Dempsey rounds it out nicely. Pretty enjoyable.
73		Live Free or Die Hard	John McClane is a serious bad ass. And this one is different enough to be worth a new movie, yet similar enough to carry the name. Pretty good job. (It could’ve been a lot worse.)
72		Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
72		The Da Vinci Code
72		Superbad	I love Michael Cera and I laughed a lot. It’s some pretty filthy language, and the cop scenes are sort of stupid, but Cera is gold and makes it worth watching.
72		Casino Royale
71		Inside Man	I rewatched this, and liked it a lot better. Clive Owen is a bad ass. It could have been better in places, but it was a pretty good story overall.
71		Into the Wild	This guy was an arrogant, naive, spoiled jerk. For me, what made the movie was Hirsch’s performance of that character and the ideas of what he ended up learning, sort of by mistake, through his journey. That the movie didn’t point you in one specific direction concerning how to feel about him was a plus, also.
68		Spider-Man 3	I had fun while watching, but there’s nothing here I’m going to take away and remember as being anything more than mediocre.
68		The Illusionist
67		The Devil Wears Prada	Surprisingly entertaining.
67		X-Men: The Last Stand	I just like X-Men, okay?
66		The Break-Up	I don’t typically love Vince Vaughn, but this movie gets points for being a little bit creative and for not caving in to the easy ending.
64		Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan	Way over the top, but also hilarious.
62		Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest	Weakest of the three, but Depp is great and the story is entertaining.
61		Dreamgirls	Better songs would have made this movie much better.
61		Bridge to Terabithia	Very well done for what it was, for the most part.
61		Cloverfield	Points for creativity with the camcorder style, and for the character “Hud” and his dialogue. But when it was all over, it was just another movie where a monster destroys stuff.
61		TMNT
60		Transformers	I’ve got a long list of things that were entirely wrong about this movie and only two things that were great: Shia LaBeouf and Optimus Prime. I guess I enjoyed it because of them and in spite of almost everything else.
59		Superman Returns
59		Over the Hedge	Sometimes you’re in the mood for an animated kids’ film, and when you are, this one does a good enough job.
58		Deja Vu
57		Children of Men
52		Night at the Museum
51		Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby	Somebody forgot the plot.
50		All the King’s Men	A great idea. So very boring. Too much going on.
45		Evan Almighty	I love Steve Carell and I like Lauren Graham well enough, but I’m absolutely sure that this movie did not need to be made.
41		King of California	This movie made me want to go to sleep and/or eat at Chuck E. Cheese.
32		No Country for Old Men	I’m tempted to give it a much lower score just because there are so many 90s in the screen to the right. I will admit that Tommy Lee Jones is great, Brolin does well enough, and Bardem is a hell of a bad guy. The plot, however, wanders, then takes a dive and leaves the separate plots dangling in space, with a few extra scenes that add nothing to the movie whatsoever. “And then I woke up.”
30		Failure to Launch	And yet… no failure to suck.
20		Lady in the Water	Paul Giamatti saved it from sinking below a 20 but this was too far beyond my suspension of disbelief or my will to care.