Alfonso Cuarón

And his mama too.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) -- The first two had plenty of faults (not the least of which was that the movies -- and books, I suppose -- seemed like random crap thrown out by a creative eight-year-old, and not in a good way), but they managed to be charming enough because... well, they weren't stupid and in-your-face like, say, Good Burger or Finding Nemo. This one had almost all the faults and a story that seemed too confusing for kids--or at least for me. I'm not really sure what was going on, but then again I was just sort of bored by it. In the case of this installment, the over two hour length of the movie wasn't there for a good pace: it was there because the director didn't edit out the crap. I could cut at least thirty minutes (and add at least thirty, come to think of it). There's the typical Harry Potter guy you think is a villain who turns out to be a good guy (in this case, Sirius Black: unfortunately, his evil name doesn't change when you find this out) in some twist that lasts like three seconds so I must've fallen asleep or something when they explained it. Then there's this ridiculous time travel thing that's even more ridiculous than Quiddich (no time to explain here, but I'm sure one of those time travel web pages that talk about stupid time travel theories in movies will cover it). Anyway, cutey-pie (and soon to be legally hot) Emma Watson was again the only highlight... and I did manage to watch the whole thing, so it entertained on some level. (See Chris Columbus for the predecessor, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. See Mike Newell for the sequel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.)

Paris, Je T'aime (2006) -- Directed with Olivier Assayas, Frédéric Auburtin, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Gérard Depardieu, Christopher Doyle, Richard LaGravenese, Vincenzo Natali, Alexander Payne, Bruno Podalydès, Walter Salles, Jr., Oliver Schmitz, Nobuhiro Suwa, Daniela Thomas, Tom Tykwer, Gus Van Sant. Eighteen five-minute shorts set in (and named after) different areas of Paris, all created by different directors. Most of directors apparently don't know how to deal with the short form and use the same pacing as a feature-length movie, not telling any real story in the process or setting us up for a story that we'll never get to see. The ones that stand out to me are the films by the Coen Brothers (which actually use some kinetic camerawork to wake us up), Christopher Doyle (another wake up), Alexander Payne (which is a mix of offensive and almost-touching), and Sylvain Chomet (with a mime). The rest are either average or make you say "Well, at least it was short." (See individual directors for a review of their short.)

Parc Monceau (2006) -- From Paris, Je T'aime. The viewer thinks that Nick Nolte is having a fling with a younger woman and arguing about a lover until you learn that it is in fact his daughter and the lover is her baby. Whatever.

Children of Men (2006) -- A waste of a good premise (that, in the future, women are no longer able to give birth and it depresses everyone into the end of the world). Gets boring fast.