February's Diet

Instead of an enormous, cumbersome list at year's end, I'll report on what I watch monthly. I leave you to count the carbs ("The Secret of My Success"). The pictures I saw in February, per The Scout's diary (January's is available in the archive):

"Half Nelson" (A) (Director: Ryan Fleck, 2006. Diary note: Ryan Gosling's subtle portrayal of an addict in anguish is an absolute triumph in Ryan's Fleck's powerful independent study about a teacher adrift within a self-destructive internal dialectic, idealism and fatalism in constant strife.)
"Pink Flamingos" (A) (Director: John Waters, 1972. Diary note: If Joel and Ethan Coen squeak out a fart in an arthouse now and then ("The Big Lebowski," "Raising Arizona"), then Baltimore's John Waters unloads a stink bomb in the aisle with more than equal aplomb. Awfully offensive, but awfully hilarious, "Pink Flamingos" is a genuinely and gloriously independent exercise in bad taste about bad taste.)
"21" (B+) (Director: Michael Apted, 1977. Diary note: The third installment, and second update, in the "Seven Up!" series is a wonderful snapshot of the lives of fourteen subjects in London at 21 years of age.)
"Anatomy Of A Murder" (B+) (Director: Otto Preminger, 1959. Diary note: Jimmy Stewart and George C. Scott captivate as counsels for the defense and prosecution, respectively, in an edgy, lengthy courtroom joust to the unforgettably jazzy score of Duke Ellington.)
"Breach" (B) (Director: Billy Ray, 2007. Diary note: Chris Cooper, as a notorious government turncoat, commands a tense, electric espionage procedural.)
"The Last Seduction" (B) (Director: John Dahl, 1994. Diary note: Linda Fiorentino is superbly nasty in a knotty neo-noir that ties up loose ends a little too neatly.)
"Letters From Iwo Jima" (B) (Director: Clint Eastwood, 2006. Diary note: Elegant in execution and, at heart, humanistic, the superior, but not transcendent, segment of Eastwood's diptych is a compassionate eulogy to an enemy.)
"Pan's Labyrinth" (B) (Director: Guillermo Del Toro, 2006. Diary note: A ghoulish fantasia deficient in emotional potency, but an eerie treat, nonetheless.)
"Polyester" (B) (Director: John Waters, 1981. Diary note: Waters' forte, depravity and dysfunction (see "Pink Flamingos," an essential), strikes suburban Baltimore in this hilarious, more accessible satire.)
"Babel" (B-) (Director: Alexandro Gonzalez Inarritu, 2006. Diary note: Brilliant in fragments, ambitious in sum, but faint in effect, with the basic message lost in translation.)
"Down To The Bone" (B-) (Director: Debra Granik, 2005. Diary note: Vera Farmiga is exquisite as a supermarket cashier and housewife with a mild substance addiction and, despite her few close calls, doesn't downward spiral at near the velocity the conventional addict of say "Requiem for a Dream" or "Sherrybaby" would; and so the melodrama is less sensationalistic in degree. But the abrupt denouement is inadequate.)
"A River Runs Through It" (C+) (Director: Robert Redford, 1992. Diary note: Symbolism strains an otherwise simple, spiritual tone poem.)
"Sherrybaby" (C+) (Director: Laurie Collyer, 2006. Diary note: Maggie Gyllenhaal spits ire in a gutsy, if savage, stint as a scrappy addict in recovery, but the junk script is only a schematic, flimsy and transparent.)
"The Fabulous Baker Boys" (C) (Director: Steve Kloves, 1989. Diary note: A few lively notes, namely Michelle Pfeiffer's escort with a sultry voice, in an otherwise static rendition of an old riff.)
"Flags of Our Fathers" (C) (Director: Clint Eastwood, 2006. Diary note: Masterful in war, weak in message.)
"Legends of the Fall" (C) (Director: Edward Zwick, 1994. Diary note: Beautiful, but, in essence, a vapid epic.)
"Starman" (C) (Director: John Carpenter, 1984. Diary note: Sympathetic interplanetary tourist snatches the resemblance of a widow's late spouse in a harmless, derivative thriller, and Jeff Bridges, in a monotonous simulation, is his own ventriloquist dummy.)
"This Film Is Not Yet Rated" (C) (Director: Kirby Dick, 2006. Diary note: A self-congratulatory polemic. Bombards the Motion Picture Association of America's Jack Valenti, subordinate Joan Graves and a corrupt, clandestine process, all easy targets, in a madcap witch hunt with stylish, punchy graphics and sensational gimmickry.)
"20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" (C) (Director: Richard Fleischer, 1954. Diary note: As much of a commercial phenomenon once upon a time as "Pirates of the Caribbean" is, currently, in modern multiplexes, and almost as much of a pointless slog, too, as that noisy contraption.)
"The Witches Of Eastwick" (D+) (Director: George Miller, 1987. Diary note: Fun, in theory, and exquisitely shot, but stormy in execution.)
"Logan's Run" (D) (Director: Michael Anderson, 1976. Diary note: Absurd dystopian thriller with obsolete special effects, kitschy sets and campy, if laughable, histrionics.)
"The Secret Of My Success" (D) (Director: Herbert Ross, 1987. Diary note: Inescapably a generic formula comedy of the 1980s as, per script, Michael J. Fox's graduate sidesteps all plausibility in a tiresome charade to succeed.)
"Tommy" (D) (Director: Ken Russell, 1975. Diary note: The album deserves better, much better; not Russell's tragic, garish camp.)
"Date Movie" (F) (Director: Aaron Seltzer, 2006. Diary note: Clueless. A rambunctiously awful commercial attempt at spoofery.)
"Second Sight" (F) (Director: Joel Zwick, 1989. Diary note: Idiotic, childish nonsense.)