Two Movie Reviews (with the patented ILIM "Spoiler free guarantee")

I got a couple of movie reviews for ya'.

Michael Clayton – George Clooney is fabulous. He’s the rare superstar who inhabits a role so fully that you almost forget he’s a superstar. He was very, very good in Syriana, and I dare say, even better in Michael Clayton. Tilda Swinton is also amazing as the (clichéd) single career woman who is willing to sacrifice too much for advancement - I smell an Oscar (or at least a nomination) for her here. Clayton showcases complex characters, well acted with a wonderful script to boot. If there’s a flaw, it’s the second act, which was a little to cops and robbers for my tastes. But the first and third acts make up for the second by a country mile.

In the Valley of Elah – is not the feel good movie of the year, but it is well worth seeing. Tommy Lee Jones plays a father whose son returns from Iraq (without saying anything to his parents about being back home) and then goes AWOL. Jones goes to look for him. On the surface, it’s a film about the Iraq war, but in point of fact, it’s a film about fathers and sons, or, more aptly, about parenthood. It’s a fine conversation about the obligations that one generation owes to another. It seems we get worse as we age and that we fail to meet our responsibility to those who will follow us. True enough. Elah is not hard to watch (it isn't a war film with gory battle scenes it is more of a whodunit), but it isn’t easy either (if I weren't such super manly man, I might have even teared up during a scene or two, but I assure you that I did not tear up during a couple of scenes). Jones is great. Susan Sarandon is almost given a role to play and does a lot with her underwritten character, and I didn’t even recognize Charlize Theron until I saw the end credits, but she was solid as well. I don’t get the sense that Elah is doing extremely well at the box office, but I recommend it to you without reservation.