Movies 61-70: Starting to get better

And we're back. Plus, if I'm awake enough when I finish this, we'll also have a "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" review.

70. "The Kingdom": The beginning and ending hint that Peter Berg wanted to do something interesting here. The problem was that the middle was so unbelievably predictable and formulaic that it made those portions feel like nothing more than a missed opportunity. They've certainly got a talented cast, but they're stuck playing people who are more archetypes than characters, and a few of the Jamie Foxx scenes seem overly manipulative, trying to force emotions that the film never really earns.

69. "Becoming Jane": Nothing really bad here. The problem is, I can't really remember much about it at all. Passable, but completely forgettable.

68. "Spider-Man 3": This isn't a bad film, but it is a massive disappointment. Back in 2004 I made the case that the second film in the series deserved Oscar consideration (It wasn't in my top five, but it was certainly close). This one just feels crowded and disjointed. Putting three villains in one film is overkill. I get that this might be the last one, at least with the original cast and directors, but that doesn't mean they have to try to throw in the kitchen sink. Enough of the talent that made the second (and to a lesser extent the first) so special keeps the film from falling into "Shrek 3" territory, but I was hoping for greatness from Raimi. This wasn't it.

67. "Sweeney Todd": Two quick notes on this one. The sound might have been bad at the theater I went to (if not, they should really have tried to allow the audience to catch more than every third word of the movie's most clever song). Also, I'm not a huge musical fan (well, at least traditional musicals). But, overall, I'm just not getting the love here. It had some solid performances, and beginning is great, but I'm not seeing what had everyone raving here. What exactly did I miss?

66. "Bug": This film works, to the extent it does, only because of Ashley Judd's performance. Some of the descent into paranoid delusions comes a bit fast, but Judd makes it believable, selling what had to be a difficult role. As far as horror dramas go, I'd take it above "28 Weeks Later."

65. "Sunshine": You can see potential brilliance here. You can see what Danny Boyle was shooting for. You can see enough to wish he'd gotten it right. The film just never coheres enough to really see the vision. It's too bad. There is a lot of potential here, and Boyle has shown in the past that he is up to the challenge.

64. "Planet Terror": A somewhat entertaining watch once, but nothing I'll rush back to. At the very least it runs with the dumb fun vibe and produces something that is, quite often, actually fun. The acting and dialogue are suitably over-the-top as is the gore. By far the more entertaining half of the "Grindhouse" pair.

63. "Interview": Steve Buscemi's film about mind games shows that Sienna Miller can indeed act. She arguably outperforms even Buscemi himself. But in the end, I'm just not sure there's enough here to justify placing higher than this.

62. "Lake of Fire": One of the single biggest disappointments of the year. Great reviews. An interesting topic (a level-headed and supposedly at least somewhat even-handed look at the abortion debate). And then I watched it. To start off with, the film itself is kind of a jumbled mess. Parts are only loosely connected to what is around them, with little in the way of transitioning or flowing in any kind of logical order. The movie's bigger sin, though, is that it arguably hurts the chances for a serious, thoughtful debate on abortion, something the film pretty much explicitly said that we need. For roughly 30 minutes of the film's 2 1/2-hour runtime, you see people on both sides of the issue discussing the central question of when does life begin. For this time, it is compelling and just a notch below the film that will be the top documentary on this list. Unfortunately, it has a fascination with the fringe groups on the right that advocate killing abortion doctors and in some cases even have done so. Some of the stuff is interesting, but it so dominates the movie that it is only going to reinforce some of the stereotypes that help prevent the kind of debate that the movie says we need.

61. "Sicko": Michael Moore's latest film never matches "Lake of Fire" at its best, but at the very least it is what it is, for better or worse. Yes, the Cuba stunt was unnecessary to the film and smacked the kind of gotcha showmanship that Moore is known for but which also sometimes really hurts the quality of his films. Still, the first half is effective at telling the horror stories some people have had with the health care industry. It's a call to action of some kind, whether or not you believe Moore's solution is the right one.