Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 2

With how much effort was put into giving this story its full due, I wish they could have taken more care with the earlier films to leave in more of the flavor, instead of cutting them to boney plot.

All stories must end.  This end is fitting enough.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 2
2011, 130 minutes, directed by David Yates

"Hogwarts is threatened.  Do your duty.  Protect our school!" - Professor McGonagall

Captain America: The First Avenger

It all seemed so superficial. Nothing ever presented much of a challenge to the heroes; Captain America is never nicked by a bullet, none of his team is ever hit by the blue rays, etc. The one meaningful death was a godawful slip and fall into a huge ravine, ala Snow White. With lasers that disintegrate an entire human upon any impact, you'd think at least some of them would have picked up a glancing shot. But no, the only thing any of the bad guys can manage to hit is the shield, and that metal is somehow immune both to bullets and disintegration rays.

(Bullets they explain away when the shield is introduced, but the disintegration rays are just assumed. The movie would have been much shorter, though better, if the first one of those that hit the shield had disintegrated it and its bearer, and Steve Rogers' friend would have taken on the role as Captain America with more humility and better equipment. Or swap it around so the friend is the first Captain America and Steve has to follow in his footsteps.)

As it is, it seemed very much to be a superhero product of the 1940s: unfortunately simple and out of its time.

Captain America: The First Avenger
2011, 124 minutes, Joe Johnston

A Film Unfinished

Found reels of a propaganda film from Nazi Germany show contrasting scenes of staged prosperity with real poverty in the Warsaw ghetto, May 1942, not long before it was destroyed and most of its inhabitants sent to their deaths.

But this isn't shown in isolation.  To complement, contrast, and counter the propaganda film, the documentary producers use the incredibly-detailed diaries of the Jewish superintendent of the ghetto, as he was ordered to take part in and witness filming.  They also include comments from survivors viewing the film (and recalling the filming), German reports and records, and even transcripts of testimony of one of the cameramen, the only one of the filmmakers ever uncovered.

With the film never finished, the purpose of the contrasting scenes may never be known, but the film nevertheless gives vision to the final days of a half million Jews starving in the three square miles of the Warsaw ghetto.

45 years later, an outtake reel was found, with repeated takes of "documentary" scenes until the Germans considered them realistic enough, along with images of the cameramen caught in each others' lenses.

You should see this.

A Film Unfinished
2010, 88 minutes, directed by Yael Hersonski

The Bounty Hunter

Mr. Whoever stars as an ex-cop-turned-bounty-hunter who's tasked with bringing in his ex-wife.  Jennifer Anniston stars as the ex-wife reporter who's stumbled upon police corruption and must convince her ex to help instead of turning her in for the bounty.  Hilarity and some action scenes ensue.

You know, Jennifer Anniston is a good actress, and what's-his-name does a good job, too.  I enjoyed the film on a Saturday afternoon at home.

The Bounty Hunter
2010, 110 minutes, directed by Andy Tennant

Rampage

Yes, it's an Uwe Boll special. But it is everything it presents itself to be. Knowing what I did going in, I have no complaints with the outcome.

Rampage
2009, 85 minutes, directed by Uwe Boll

Jurassic Park III

Oh my God this is stupidly cheesy.  Moar species, moar raptors, moar smarts.  Moar moar moar.  Any hints of unpredictability are gone; the special effects drive the plot.  Such is the sad fate of part three of many a trilogy. And heaven forbid they get funding for a fourth.

Jurassic Park III
2001, 92 minutes, directed by Joe Johnston