Gregory's Girl (1981)

What starts off as an out-dated high school film set in Scotland about a young man named Gregory and his crush on the new female soccer player on his team turns into a charming and subtle work of art.  It's really a special little film with that right touch of humor and originality to help it stand out.  Bill Forsyth would continue with this unique style of film making with Local Hero two years later.  There's even a sequel to this film that I'll have to check out someday called Gregory's 2 Girls.  Mr. Forsyth might not have made a lot of films in his long career but when they're this good who cares. Grade: A-

Mamma Mia (2008)

Some movies are just pure happiness.  The stage show built around ABBA songs comes to the big screen and it's as appealing as sunshine.  Sophie Sheridan (Amana Seyfried) has never known who her real father is so she reads her mother's diary and invites the three men that could possibly be the one to her wedding: Sam Carmichael (Pierce Bronson), Harry Bright (Colin Firth) and Bill Anderson (Stellan Skarsgård).   When her mother Donna (Meryl Streep) realizes that her three long lost loves have arrived on the island hotel she owns and manages she turns to her two best friends, Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Jane Baranski) to cope.  Simple, brilliantly directed, acting about as perfect as can be, dancing, catchy songs that everybody loves (even if they say they don't): what's not to like.  Sure if you don't like musicals or ABBA this might not be your cup of tea but its such an joyous, silly and unoffensive work of celebration I truly don't know how you could hate it.  Grade: A-

Metropolitan (1991)

Whit Stillman's film debut as writer and director is a comedy of manners of rich college kids going to small cocktail parties during Christmas break.  Tom Townsend is walking home in the cold when he ends up tagging along with a group of friends to a party.  Tom befriends Nick, an opinionated young man that stands out as the most obnoxious of the group and becomes the target of a crush from Audrey, a cute girl he unknowingly is best suited for even though he is attracted to Serena.  This is a charming Woody Allen like film that feels both original and classy.   Would lose the Oscar for best Original Screenplay from Ghost.  Grade: B+

Ladybird, Ladybird (1994)

Ken Loach takes his viewers on a painful true journey of a mother fighting for the right to raise her children.  Maggie Conlan (played with unbelievable rage and passion by Crissy Rock) meets Jorge (Vladimir Vega) at Karaoke night and they fall in love.  A victim of child abuse and a string of bad relationships, she tells him how Social Services took her four children (all of different men) away from her.  It's clear she's not the most stable mothers out there but she deeply loves her kids.  As Maggie and Jorge's relationship deepen and they start their own family, it's clear Social Services will stand in their way.  Maggie's bouts of raging attacks against the people taking her children away (and can you blame her?) only further the couples struggles.  The fact that this is based on true events only condemns England's social services' policies.  True, Maggie isn't the brightest but there must be a different response than ripping apart a family.  What makes this film so powerful isn't just the story but how it's filmed.  It feels like a documentary and because the actors look and sound genuine it only greater impacts the audience's reaction.  Grade: A-

It's Kind Of A Funny Story (2010)

This dramedy directed and written by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck is an adaption of NedVizzini's novel of the same name.  Craig Gliner (Keir Gilchrist), a teenager having thoughts of suicide, checks himself into a mental hospital where he tries to cope with growing up and the pressures placed by his father.  Because the youth wing is under construction he mingles with the adults.  There he befriends Bobby (Zach Galifianakis) and starts a romance with Noellie (Emma Roberts).   There's a lot to praise about this film.  It's funny and inspiring and heart-warming (an when I say heart-warming I mean it in a good way not a sentimental way.)   This is one of the better coming-of-age films I've seen about growing up in these modern times.  Grade: A-.

One False Move (1992)

Billy Bob Thornton and Carl Epperson write a killer film noir southern Gothic tale of two killers on the run and a local good ole boy sheriff of a small down in Arkansas who desires to play detective with the city boys from LA.   It's a gritty and well-made movie directed by Carl Franklin.  Grade: B+

The Rum Diary (2011)

Johnny Depp honors his friend Hunter S. Thompson by bringing to the screen the writer's most personal work.  It's the story of writer, Paul Kemp, who gets a job in Puerto Rico at a local newspaper in the '50s.  While there he befriends a fellow drinker named Sala, experiments with some new narcotics, gets swept away by business man/ developer, Sanderson, who wants him to work for him and falls in love said business man/ developer's girl friend.  Oh, and there's cock fighting too.  I have not read the book although I intend to and I can imagine it's a well-adapted creation.  Director Bruce Robinson does a fine job, producing something that's almost as good as his masterpiece, Withnail and I.   Grade: A-