Monday Reviews: In the Silence Before Twitter...

Before I opened my account in the late spring, I was as dismissive of Twitter as the next snob, thinking it was good mostly for alerting your friends that you were having trouble finding a parking spot, or that your latte was cold and you were running late, or that you were totally over your AP Government teacher. That's me, eating crow. I've really enjoyed the coerced concision, the exposure to other voices, and the opportunity to file very short briefs about the movies I see, to register first impressions and/or to take the place of longer reviews. As we move on from the Fifties and find out what the fall and winter hold in store, I've gone back and supplied Tweet-sized reactions to all the U.S. releases from 2010 that I screened before I added this extra feature of the site. Remember, too, that I now include these at the top of the dedicated page for each film on my main review site.

Accomplices (09, B): A perfect festival surprise, handling two-track plot with rare ease; well-acted, well-told within a conventional form

American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein (09, C+): Finkelstein well worth trying to penetrate but filmmakers haven't done it; structure too loose, POV too cautious

Chloe (09, D+): Moore's and Seyfried's ideas about their characters come to nothing as script and direction freefall into cheapness

Delta (08, C+): Artfully lensed, with some creeping power, but too many moves swiped from Festival Handbook of Slow-Build Morbidity (full review)

The Eclipse (09, C–): Not without its brooding chills and can't fault the leads, but adds up to precious little, and Quinn's embarrassing (full review)

Fish Tank (09, B+): Arnold gets such charge from images, actors, sounds; even when this one lapses or wanders, she brings it back with kick

Get Low (09, C–): First shot's a tone-setting keeper, but there's no movie beyond a mood and a rote climax; acted well but not memorably

The Ghost Writer (10, B): Early mastery of form and tone falter in the last third, but for spindly craft, nothing matches it right now

Green Zone (10, B+): Earns some gripes for stalled characters and naïve payoff, but very forceful, especially climactic triple-chase

How to Train Your Dragon (10, B+): Lilo & Stitch helmers reprise bouncy wit and keen feeling for child-animal rapport; inspired use of 3D

I Love You Phillip Morris (09, C): Everyone tries, but tone too flippant, and smug about its risk-taking; McGregor's sweet, Mann underused

Let It Rain (08, C+): Passable, but feels too much like it's still in idea stages: "What if we based our story loosely on Ségolène..." (full review)

Mother (09, B+): As in many Korean peers, piecemeal structure is problem and thrilling gift; for every bald patch, a staggering surprise

My Neighbor, My Killer (09, B+): What extraordinary doc lacks in finesse and structure it nails in emotional candor and eyewitness value (full review)

Prodigal Sons (08, A–): Brave, deft, top-level documentary; takes huge risk pairing transgender with mental illness, but it pays off

A Prophet (09, B+): No gainsaying Audiard's scene-level genius or the aliveness of his films, but genre feels trapped by overfamiliarity

Red Riding: 1974 (09, B–): Doubt I'll proceed; self-important air despite mid-grade plotting, and distractingly smudgy photography

The Runaways (10, B–): A literally unbeatable opening with nothing to match its verve, but good acting, worthy subject, artful moments

The Secret in Their Eyes (09, B–): Diverting mystery plus a bravura sequence shot, but ropey, a bit salacious, and stuck in Law & Order mold

The Secret of Kells (09, B): So gorgeously detailed and creatively designed it barely seems like the classroom dilution it essentially is

Shutter Island (09, D+): Undercooked scenario in grotesque grapple with overbaked presentation; Clarkson survives, Scorsese drowns (capsule review)

Summer in Genoa (08, C): Unclear why Winterbottom wanted to redo Don't Look Now but less ambitiously, with dangling ghost threads (full review)

Vincere (09, D+): I confess low tolerance for high-gloss Italian bathos, but nothing sustains the wailing, opportunistic spectacles

Finally, in case you still aren't a Twitter reader, and Lord knows I'm the last person to criticize a conscientious objector to any form of modern technology (including, you know, the car, the microwave, and the cellphone), I'm providing one last tip-off here to my recent reviews of last year's Venice Film Festival champ Lebanon (still playing at Chicago's Music Box), a highly rhetorical but affecting war film; the unusual, insinuating, zombie-flavored indie Make-Out with Violence, which Facets or someone ought to book for a midnight-cult run; the Australian import The Square (now on DVD), which I found disappointing but many fans of pulpy suspense will probably enjoy; Nicolas Winding Refn's Valhalla Rising (now playing at the Siskel Film Center), a stunted aspirant to Aguirre's mad throne; and the chintzy-looking The Last Exorcism (currently in commercial release), which increasingly spurns internal consistency but has much more up its bloodied sleeve than you might be guessing.