Catching up

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada: Story of one man's quest to piss off another.

Cronos: Early Benedicio del Toro film; the body horror is less understated than in his more recent material, but it's still a disturbing and strangely touching take on the vampire theme.

Barton Fink: A tale of creativity, hypocrisy, and why it's not a good idea to get on the wrong side of an insurance salesman.

The Reader: Better-than-I-expected adaptation of the book. An intelligently ambiguous story about the German people's difficulties in coming to terms with the Nazi past.

The Ladykillers: Saw this right after seeing the West End play version of it. The film is less laugh-a-minute, but has more in the way of sinister atmosphere and visual humour; it's also really interesting to see what the King's Cross/St Pancras area looked like in the 1950s.

The Time Traveler's Wife: Somewhere, there's a plagiarism lawsuit waiting to happen involving this film, and everything Steven Moffat's written for Doctor Who.

Movie count for 2012: 20