I have mixed feelings about this film. On one hand, this has got to be one of the best cat-and-mouse chase movies ever made. It's super tight, lean, and tension-laden. However, there's a big caveat that sticks in my craw much like it does with other people by the end of this film.

As you've probably heard people saying, the ending is somewhat unsatisfying while the bulk of the picture is absolutely stunning. I'll try my best not to give away the ending. It's not a twist, nor a convenient wrap-up that we are all too accustomed to in modern cinema. Instead, the ending opens us up to the helplessness of Tommy Lee Jones' character, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. And he's what's stuck in my craw.

Tommy Lee is on the case after finding a series of murders and a drug-deal massacre in his quiet, West-Texas town. He's trying to put the pieces together while average country-man Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is trying to get out of town with his innocently found $2 million in drug money. Why is he running? Well, you'd be too if Anton Chigurh (played brilliantly by Javier Bardem) was chasing you. He's wrapped up in this Mexican drug-deal gone bad, and he has to get the money back for the bad guys. Now, when I say Anton Chigurh (sounds kinda like "Sugar") is probably the coldest and most psychotic killer since Jack Torrance in The Shining, I mean, Anton kills people like he's just flipping off a light switch. No questions. Just dead (I guarantee this Halloween will see lots of Anton Chigurh costumes). And he's got two unique weapons of choice: a tank of compressed air that shoots out a piston with the force of a bullet, and a shotgun with a silencer -- I've never seen either of those before (cool!).

Like I said before, Llewelyn is doing a great job of staying just one step ahead of Anton. He outwits him with good old fashion country smarts while Anton kills everyone standing in his way. Oh yeah, cut to Tommy Lee now and then half-assed following this case back in the town where this all started. His story is the theme of the film, but it just feels -- well, weird. Tommy Lee is perfect for the role as country Sheriff, but why even have this character if he's only going to do a half-assed job of catching the bad guy? We're supposed to sympathize with Tommy Lee's character because he's an "old man" ill-equipped to handle this new, modern breed of savage killers. But how are we to sympathize with his lazy approach to law-enforcement when Llewelyn is out there on the front lines doing the real work of dodging bullets?

Now, I completely understand the theme of the film, so don't tell me I "just don't get it." I do: Tommy Lee is an old-timer doing law enforcement the old time way -- just like his pappy and his pappy did out here in the wild west. But when faced with these new mindless killers, these old-timers just can't hack it. It's too brutal and unfathomable for them to compute. I get that. I understand and respect that about the film. And I also respect the fact that we don't have the mandatory confrontation between Anton and Tommy Lee. I really liked that they've turned the film on its conventional head. But was the theme of this movie ever made potent? It was capped at the front and back ends, but so what? The Coen Brothers have an otherwise perfect film with or without that theme. So my question is, is it needed? Most will say yes. I'm definitely in the minority.

All that being said, the script is otherwise sparse in dialogue making the film hauntingly quiet and terrorizing. There's not even any soundtrack in any scene. Each scene is created by the visual and quiet nature of the dialogue. The landscape and folksy characters dotting these towns are perfectly cast. Tommy Lee is the perfect Sheriff. Josh Brolin is the perfect country every-man, and Anton (Javier) is the perfectly strange and cold killer. If anything, this film is an instant classic, but only if you can scrape away some of the unnecessary fat around the edges. Definitely worth seeing.

I almost didn't want to write this review because it would mean that I would have to spend time explaining to everyone why I only partially liked this film (not that anybody is reading this anyway). Juno is one of those films that everyone raves about and will look back and say, "Remember when Juno came out? That like, totally changed my life." Maybe I'm just too old, too cynical, or just too dumb to see what's so hyped about this film. The first half was really hard to get through, but the second half really got to me -- in a good way.

Juno (Ellen Page) is a quirky (sorry, I hate that word too) 16 year old plagued by boredom as all quirky teens are. She's part Tom-boy, part sex-pot (as far as Tom-boys go) with too much sarcasm and too much time on her hands. Soon enough, she finds something in another quirky school-geek Bleeker (Superbad's Michael Cera) and they get busy one boring day. Alas, the uneducated teen gets pregnant and now Juno must now decide between keeping it, abortion, or giving it away. No spoiler here: she decides to give it up for adoption to a yuppie couple played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner.

As I said before, the first half was really not all that enjoyable. We're forced to listen to the writer patting herself on the back with hip, hot, teen lingo like totally to the max, ya dig? It's like they took a Gilmore Girls episode and just slowed it down so we could understand Juno's oh-so-clever sarcasm and punctual wit that nobody in real life ever has (don't ask me how I know what a Gilmore Girls episode is like). Ok, so, fine Josh, you're don't like hip dialogue. Get over it. Ok, so I did.

When Juno finally is about to pop, the drama really sets in and she has to grow up fast. That's when the tide turned for me. She got over her own self-absorption and cynicism for life and started to act like an adult -- which, I suppose was the whole point of the film, but still, do we need so much gibberish dialogue to get to that point? My internal groans during the film say no.

On the plus side, Ellen Page holds this strange, mysterious hot-ness that can only captivate you (the males in the audience at least). She's sweet, sassy, motherly, and every other Freudian overtone you can think of. She just works. I won't ruin the ending for you, but let's just say, her growing up and realizing what she has in life made the film really come together and finally struck an inner chord with me. While much of the film is trying way too hard to be a quirky (damn!, sorry again) indie film, it manages to pull the right strings in the end. 3 stars for Ellen Page being so damn adorable.

Why, oh why did I even bother? What the hell was I thinking? What part of my brain thought this could possibly be a decent movie. The moment I saw the name "Steve Zahn" I should have run for cover, but somehow I actually gave cash to a little girl in a little window for a ticket to this "movie."

Here's what happened. I was bored and wanted to see Juno since I haven't seen it yet. Just got done eating lunch with a friend and didn't want to go home yet. Went to the theater. Juno wasn't playing. So, I figured, this Strange Wilderness can't be that bad. Ughh. I sat for 10 min of the film. They started right off the bat with a mile of exposition, then jumped into terrible stoner jokes. When I realized the trailers I just saw were far superior in technique and hilarity, it suddenly dawned on me what a terrible mistake I'd made. I left the theater, got a refund and ran across the street to the other theater to see if Juno was playing (see next review). Luckily I got my money back, but unfortunately, it took 10 minutes of my life away. 0 stars for this....thing.

4 stars for a tight film. George Clooney plays a high-priced "fixer" or "janitor" as he likes to call himself. When his law firm's clients get in trouble, they call him to clean things up nice and quiet-like. Hit and runs, sex scandals, you name it, Clayton's fixed it. The trouble is, he's been doing this for 13 years now, and it's just not fulfilling anymore. He's divorced with a son who wants nothing more than his dad's attention, but when work calls, Dad goes on the clock -- usually at 3am.

The story gets going when we find out that one of their all-star defense lawyers, Arthur Edens (played perfectly by Tom Wilkinson), basically snaps and goes a little nuts. After decades of defending the crooked and slimy underbelly of corporate America, Arthur has had enough. His current case is defending a major agro-chemical corp (U-North) accused of negligent poisoning in a class-action lawsuit. Arthur knows they're guilty and his conscious won't let him defend them a second longer.

In steps Clayton to "fix" Arthur's public display of insanity and also to try to help his old friend. Arthur and Clayton go way back, and Clayton just wants Arthur to get back on his meds and slip quietly into the night. But Arthur's conscious is too moral for that now. He wants to reveal the crimes of U-North to the public. In steps U-North's CEO Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton). She's as cold as they get. Nothing is going to bring down her company, especially not some whack-job lawyer. That's when things get tough. She'll do anything to save her company from this lawsuit that would cost them millions and ultimately destroy them. Clayton spends the film trying to save his friend Arthur while slowly finding out the truth about U-North.

I'm not sure George Clooney will ever be an Oscar-worthy performer, but he holds his own, and then some. You can't really fault the guy for being charming -- he just is. But, to his defense, he's able to tone down the charm that often gets him in trouble on screen long enough for us to actually care about the mid-life and employment crisis Clayton is going through. None of us really know what it's like to be a high-priced "fixer" but we can understand what it's like to feel unfulfilled and sometimes immoral while serving our less-than-clean employers.

Michael Clayton won't blow you away, but it's a tight story that needs lots of brain power to get through. Pay attention to every detail -- both visual and spoken -- because characters and references come up subtly and you'll need to assemble them later in your head. Even though there's some heavy-lifting involved, the end result is plenty satisfying as Clayton decides what ultimately must be done. What's more important to Michael Clayton; the cash, or justice?