Netflix Customer Reviews

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

The 12-14 year old girls in the theater all squealed with delight, but the rest of us were bored. This is as vapid and plotless as movies get. Adults, kids, and teenagers who can handle/laugh at movies about teen sexuality will hate this. We liked thei first movie in the series. Number two sucked.

A Serious Man

The Coen brothers realize that for Jews, even "serious" men, life is often a comedy, even when things are falling apart. Forty-ish physics professor, who is perhaps too passive but unquestionably decent, finds his marriage and his life slipping away. His wife wants a religious divorce so she can marry her lover, his brother (who lives with the family) is jobless and suffering from some form of mental illness, his teenage kids see him as a disappointment, and a student of his attempts to bribe him into giving him a passing grade -- all this while the tenure committee reviews his dossier. He looks for some explanation of all this misfortune. From rabbis, from his lawyer, from his sexy new neighbor and her marijuana, from God. And it ends as a storm approaches. Brilliant, thoughtful filmmaking, excellent acting. A treat for those who like their films and humor a bit more cerebral.

Me and Orson Welles

Costume drama about a giant of American stage and cinema, Orson Welles, and his 1937 Broadway production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Welles cronies John Housman and Joseph Cotten appear here as well, though they barely figure in the film. Teen heartthrob Zach Efron plays a high school kid who happens his way into a minor part in the now legendary production and is awed/disgusted by Welles the genius/megalomaniac. Efron is winning as an optimistic youth who is of course in for some serious disillusionment (and some nookie, too). Newcomer (to America) Christian McKay conveys the passion, brilliance and narcissism of Welles; he is appropriately larger than life. Personal fave Claire Danes gives one of her least impressive performances as an assistant theater administrator who uses sex to get ahead in her profession, much to Efron's dismay. Danes is a strange combination of mannered actress and fresh-faced girl next door. What she doesn't seem to have is the sexy cunning needed to make her slutty character convincing or interesting. Overall, the film lacked authenticity, in my view. There was a lot of "drama" and an incredibly interesting subject, but the script was sometimes overdone and sometimes dull, especially in the clumsy Act I exposition. Disappointing dress-up flick, with a likeable Efron and a commanding McKay.

Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind: American Experience

Fine documentary on Marcus Garvey, the man whose exceptional talents mobilized African nationalism in the Americas in the early twentieth century. Focuses on Garvey's ability to motivate people, start black-owned enterprises, and raise consciousness. Also goes into J. Edgar Hoover's career-making turn as the Justice Department attorney committed to bringing Garvey down. And, finally, does not shy away from Garvey's deep flaws, which are described as an inability to take advice when he needed it. Had Garvey been less authoritarian and more open to acknowledging his own limitations (as a businessman, his foolish decision to defend himself at his criminal trial despite a lack of legal training, his absolute insistence on loyalty), the institutions he built might well be thriving today. Instead, he is a curiosity of history, a failed man whose ideas had to be taken up (and modified) by later generations in the struggle for civil rights in America and abroad.

Enlighten Up!

Charming documentary about the practice of yoga, and the claims that are made for it. The director recruits journalist Nick Rosen as a guinea pig. A yoga novice, he must commit to yogic practice for six months and see what, if any, "transformation" occurs as a result. Rosen is skeptical about the spiritual side of yoga. They meet various yoga experts across the US, and eventually end up in Hawaii and India, meeting world famous gurus. The claims made on behalf of yoga by the Indians are so much less grandiose than those of the hot-bodied New Yorkers. Rosen makes physical and mental gains as a result of his practice, but "nirvana" never comes. In fact, the director herself confesses near the end of the film that she is "sick of yoga." But her commitment to practice remains. An interesting, funny, and "enlightening" film.

Il Divo

Il Divo is a tour de force, a biopic about 7-time Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti (now a 90-year-old Senator for Life), who was accused but never successfully convicted of conspiring with the mafia and involvement in hundreds of murders. It is a triumph of the filmmaker's art -- visually stunning, impeccably written, dazzlingly set to music. Director Paolo Sorrentino demonstrates himself to be a craftsman of the highest order. Other reviewers here say, with some justification, that knowledge of modern Italian history would help because it's impossible for the ignorant (like me) to keep Andreotti's cronies and alleged victims straight. However, the film itself responds to these critics, making that case that style -- the filmmaker's exuberant, quintessentially Italian one and Andreotti's ironic, controlled, detached one -- is the real substance, moreso than the mere historical record. A picture is painted of a brilliant, amoral man who is revered and feared by everyone who matters to him and the three corrupt institutions -- the government, the Church, and the mafia -- he understands and exploits. What is perhaps troubling about the film is how un-horrified it appears to be at the level of monstrosity it depicts. Sorrentino prefers irony to outrage, and has about as much use for Andreotti's alleged victims as Il Divo does himself. If we feel horror after seeing the film, it's equally likely to be at the film's own ambivalent conscience than at the murder and corruption it depicts so stylishly. "Il Divo" appears to agree with Andreotti himself that justice and virtue are useless abstractions, and the irony of all its irony is that the film seems not to believe that things could ever be otherwise.

Jerichow

Inspired by The Postman Always Rings Twice, this story about a drifter, a bombshell and her worse-than-oafish husband breathes life into noir and comes up with, well, I won't tell you except I'll say that you won't miss Hume Cronyn's glib lawyer in the updated, German version. Jerichow has surprises for people who are looking for James M. Cain. It's still about sex, jealousy, passion, money, and murder. But it has its own story to tell. And quite effectively, too.

The Komediant

Like the films Chicago and Sweeney Todd? Well, these are way fewer than six degrees of separation from the Yiddish Theater. Muscial comedy is one of the greatest contributions that the Jews (such as Sondheim, Kander and Ebb) have made to America, and here is a parallel story of the Yiddish theater. I knew nothing about the Yiddish Theater or the Burstein family, artists who have kept it alive to this day, before seeing this fine documentary. It focuses on their act, their gypsy lifestyle (in Europe, the US, Israel, and beyond), their strained relations, and the amazing history of the Jews in the Twentieth Century. If you are interested in acting and theater, this will educate and surprise you.

Hail the Conquering Hero

A classic humiliation comedy. Eddie Bracken is the original Ben Stiller, a likeable guy with a big heart whom we all love to watch suffer. Here he plays a son of a military family who is discharged from the Marines before deployment for WWII because of hay fever. He is afraid to disappoint his mother and pretends he's been sent overseas until he meets a bunch of Marines in a bar after a year of the pathetic charade. They convince him to go home -- in full military regalia! -- and the lie grows and grows. He gets a hero's welcome, especially from the girl he left behind (now engaged to someone else), and is recruited to be the mayor. Preston Sturges is a master of madcap comedy with a conscience, and Bracken is as sympathetic a "hero" as one is likely to find. Bracken's ulcer is our delight.

The Omen

This is more silly than scary, in my opinion. It is overacted, overproduced, overscored, overblown pompous, humorless, and therefore dull. Gregory Peck looks worried for 2 hours because he is raising the antichrist, but can't quite believe it is so. Can you blame Peck? The antichrist is only 5 years old, and I guess is sort of cute. One fantastic visual: a guy gets his head sliced off by a pane of glass that slides off the back of a truck. There are lots of movies about creepy kids. I guess this is the "mother" of them all, but I was bored. Oh Atticus, why hast thou forsaken us?

One Day You'll Understand

For European Jews, history and memory are complicated. The Holocaust killed 6 million and silenced countless others. One Day" is the story of Rivka, a Russian Jew who buried that identity and assumed a French one in 1943, and her Catholic-raised son, who is driven to learn more about her and her parents who perished in Auschwitz. Rivka (played by that miraculous octogenarian, Jeanne Moreau), collector of artifacts and guardian of her own, secret past, is elegant, worldly, intelligent, and kind. She has a loving, intimate family but still cannot share the details of what happened to her with them for reasons that the film never articulates in words or images, but still somehow "shares" with its audience. Her son, born shortly after the deportation of French Jews, learns some details of his family history through personal investigations and the process of seeking reparations from the French government. But he never hears his mother�s narrative and, thus, has no direct knowledge of what joys she might have shared with her own parents, and no concrete sense of what was destroyed by the French and Germans. Because he knows love, however, he can imagine his grandparents' joy, and does so in an extremely powerful dream sequence, rendered here without visual bells and whistles. His understanding, then, is a mixture of confusion, anger at his country, and gratitude to have had a loving mother who protected him from evil. Fine stuff from Israeli director Amos Gitai and a first-rate French cast.

New York, I Love You

First Paris, then New York. Well, in the mind of the French, anyway. We really enjoyed this NYC installment of the [City Name], I Love You project, which consists of several segments made by directors known and less well known. It's really "Manhattan, I Love You" because Brooklyn barely figures, and the other 3 boroughs not at all. But one doesn't expect successful international film people to have much truck with the real New York City. Some favorite segments: (1) the lovely Natalie Portman and the ingenious Irrfan Khan as a Hasidic woman and an Indian man who have a brief but meaningful encounter in the Diamond Exchange; (2) "The Ugly" and Frau Blucher as two geezers kvetching their way to Coney Island (how could anyone not love this piece!); (3) Julie Christie (plus Shia LeBeouf and John Hurt) as a retired opera singer who faces death in a faded Fifth Avenue Hotel; (4) Chris Cooper and Robin Wright Penn as sexy fortysomethings who find they desire each other while smoking outside a restaurant; (5) actors I didn't recognize in a piece about a painter who finds his muse in a Chinatown shopgirl; (6) Ethan Hawke as a glib seducer of a woman who knows him better than he knows himself; (7) a very funny segment about Prom Night at Tavern On the Green, with James Caan as the father of the unusual beauty who signs on as the hero's date at the last minute. The film has charm, talent, and certainly loves the artsy, sexy, sophisticated New York monde. One glaring omission: there are basically no African-Americans in the film (a Hatian cab driver and a mixed Latino ballet dancer are featured, but really as props in White Man's Manhattan). A film about New York has to have Blacks, Jews, and Italians in it: without all three, it doesn't earn a title like "New York, I Love You." That's a big flaw, but still, a delightful move that will get you to book flights to the Big Apple and should also help put you and your date in the mood.

The Nines

Three interlocking stories ((1) TV actor on a bender faces house arrest, (2) TV writer struggles to get his pilot produced and is in a reality show about it, (3) the pilot of the show in #2 -- video game designer is lost, and "found", in the woods) and three linked characters, all played by the same three actors: Ryan Reynolds, Hope Davis, and Melissa McCarthy. This film is knowing about life in the "industry", and the ways in which it must be very unreal to live in that world. It has pseudo-spiritual implications and makes phony parallels between "creative" folks and, ahem, the Creator. It doesn't tie up loose ends, but it showcases the talent of the three leads and is pretty entertaining stuff. I can't quite give it 3 stars because it felt more like an interlude between "real" projects for its "creators" than an endeavor they considered worthy of major time and attention. Sort of like that paper you wrote in college that hit all the right notes, but relied more on your talent than on the hard work that would have gotten you the A. If you can relate to that last sentence, you may get the point the film makes about distracted, reluctant "creators."

The Birds

The Birds is so effective because Hitchcock exploited the particular power of film to -- what's the word? -- "skeev" us. It is simply impossible to watch this film about ordinary birds that attack a sleepy Sonoma County town and not feel beaks and talons on the skin, not to feel revulsion at the soundtrack of screeching caws and fluttering wings. At the same time, Hitchock has a great time poking fun at the somewhat silly, and preposterous premise of his film (apparently based on a work by Daphne DuMaurier). There are so many effective scenes, which walk the line between camp and terror. Hitchcock never lets us quite believe that he's being parodic. Who needs that reassurance anyway? There are excellent performances from leads -- an elegant, mysterious Tippi Hendren and a depressive, desperate, bitter Jessica Tandy -- and minor characters (colorful townspeople, especially an old lady who pontificates about the impossibility of birds attacking humans before the flying monsters prove her wrong in the film's finest scene). A terrific dose of creepy/campy. Who doesn't love Hitchcock in his mischievous mood!!!

The Atheism Tapes

Searching questions, thoughtful answers, entertainment for the mind (though probably not for the serious philosopher-- disclosure: I'm a lightweight) consisting of six discussions with public intellectuals about atheism. Far superior to Bill Maher's smarmy "Religulous," yet no less anti-religious. The difference: this is about serious thought, rather than obnoxious propaganda. It doesn't dismiss religion, it rejects religion -- and that makes all the difference. Example: when confronted with the question about what should replace religion if religion does provide succor and a reason to be moral to many people, the philosopher Daniel Dennet admits that he doesn't have a great alternative (meaning an alternative that works for most people). That said, these discussions confront the obvious difficulties of true faith and make a convincing case that maybe swallowing obvious untruths to fit in isn't such a good idea for people with doubts.

Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037

Five stars for the idea alone -- the "birth" story of a Steinway concert grand. We see the sweat, thought, care and -- the best word -- love that goes into making a Steinway at the world famous factory in Queens. The Steinway piano is one of very few technology items that are still made by hand, with tools that have been available for 100 years. The result, as the great musicians who swear by Steinway will attest, is an instrument of unparalleled quality. Experts feel that each Steinway has its own "personality." We meet the people who make, sell, and play Steinways, and we see L1037's transformation from lumber to concert grand.

Stardust Memories

Not terribly well received when released in 1980, this is a film that in my opinion has aged very, very well. It's an homage to Fellini's 8 1/2, among other films, a black and white movie about a director's struggling with fame and the urge to get beyond his earlier funny movies. The question is whether or not the audience will follow him. I found SM gentler, funnier, and much more charming than I had remembered it from my last viewing several years ago. Woody seems to be owning his fame and success here, but also understanding that a lot of it is attributable to luck (note his character's conversation with a guy from the old neighborhood about where they both ended up). I think I may prefer this over Manhattan; it is open, more playful, and full of compassion. One of the best things about the film is Charlotte Rampling: who just about embodies the elusive, troubled beauty (Wicked Queen from Snow White) that haunted Woody during the 1970s. Apparently, he told her she was to play his "ideal woman." To find out who that is, see Stardust Memories for yourself.

Goodbye Solo

For those who have seen Taste of Cherry, the brilliant Kiarostami piece on which this is based (GS is not an exact remake), this film will be particularly welcome. Both films are about a suicidal, not-quite-elderly man and his relationship with a younger man who is supposed to take him to the place where he will take the ultimate plunge. One takes place in Tehran and one in Winston-Salem, NC. The earlier film doesn't care or need to present too much of the lives of either of its principal characters. Goodbye Solo leaves (carefully) the older man (embodied by Red West) a mystery but brings us deeply into the life and circumstances of the appointed driver, a Senegalese immigrant named Solo. Solo is an exuberant family man who drives a taxi and dreams of becoming a flight attendant. The focus on Solo sometimes diverts us from considering the terrifying question that motivates both films -- why don't some people realize that, despite everything, life is worth living? -- but also allows us to develop affection for both main characters. The plot culminates at Blowing Rock, a place that lives up to its evocative name (I am committed to visiting that place, thanks to Mr. Bahrani). The remake is at once more active and less violent than the original, and less soul shaking in my opinion. But, still, it is a deeply sad, and powerful lesson in empathy. Excellent.

Trouble the Water

Something less and yet much more than a masterpiece, something that isn't artifice: something TRUE. This is a movie that shows the power of documentary film. Kim Roberts, resident of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, was given a camera to record the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The injustice of the hurricane -- the indifference of "Mother Nature" and the Louisiana, US, and city government -- are brought home, as is the incredible resilience of Kimberly and other Katrina survivors. If you doubt that the third world exists in America, then Trouble the Water will disabuse you of that illusion.

In a Lonely Place

Excellent noir melodrama. Bogart is an erratic, almost washed up screenwriter who is suspected of murder. Grahame, his alibi, is also the woman he plans to marry. The focus is on the depth of their feeling for each other and on her growing suspicion of him, justified by his violent temper. The tension grows and grows until it is nearly unbearable, but the catharsis (if you can call it that) is atypical. Doesn't follow the noir/thriller formula. The mystery isn't plot driven, but flows from the mysteriousness of human personality; traits, rather than secrets are revealed when these characters are under stress. "I was born when she kissed me. I lived for a few weeks while she loved me. And I died when she left me." N.B.: Grahame proves herself to be Bogie's equal here, and it is as much her picture as his. Five stars.

Inglourious Basterds

Tarantino makes movies the way he wants to make them. A lot of the criticism of his work can be placed in perspective by substituting the word "Fellini" for "Tarantino" in the negative review. Maybe one day he will show that he is capable of making a masterpiece like Fellini did, but I think it's fair to say that we have to suspend our own biases and let him indulge his if we are going to appreciate Tarantino's unique talents. This is a juvenile WWII comic book film in which a band of renegade Jewish Nazi killers led by a Tennessee Commander (played way too broadly by Brad Pitt) end WWII by killing the top Nazi brass (including the Fuhrer himself) at a movie premiere. The film has five sections: too long, but often brilliantly entertaining. The best part is Christoph Waltz as the Nazi detective who is always one step ahead of everyone. He is diabolically charming,and I'll bet this years supporting actor Oscar will go to Waltz, as it should. Let Tarantino continue to indulge his fantasies! The result here is pretty terrific.

My One and Only

Couldn't get her to see Inglourious Basterds, so we went to this. And it is quite a fine film, thanks to Renee Zellweger. She is the personification of plucky, game girl in this pic based on the life of the young George Hamilton. This is the role she was born to play, and her Mrs. Devereaux is a likable disaster of a mother. She and her 2 sons (one George Hamilton) take to the road after George's dad cheats on her for the last time. She starts out looking for a husband, but in the end finds something much more valuable -- herself and her sons. Yeah, that sounds corny, but somehow it isn't. This is a refreshing period piece that isn't quite nostalgic; it shows an America before material wealth became the goal for everyone. And, it turns out that George Hamilton is quite a guy. You'll end up liking him a lot.

Our City Dreams

I loved this film. A tribute to New York and its artists, it is an exploration of the work and a glimpse into the lives of five women who call NYC home. What else links these women and their art the film doesn't come out and say, exactly. But we do sense a connection, and for me, it was that these women all use their art to express emotion, the subconscious, if you will. This isn't a film about "cool" or even a particular visual aesthetic. It doesn't focus on process, it focuses on passion. It is about how certain gifted women express their dreams. Bravo to director Chiara Clemente and the exceptional artists she captured on film. Extraordinary.

Alive

This is the high school play where they eat each other and you don't mind. A true story of an Argentine rugby team whose plane crashes in the Andes. They are forced to survive in the bitter cold for weeks and weeks until they are rescued, and they eat what meat is available in a place where they are the only living things: dead co-passengers. This film is fake and boring.

(500) Days of Summer

A love struck man and his reflections on his time with a quirky beauty. Experimental narrative. Great music. Sound like Annie Hall? Yes! Exactly (except the main character isn't Woody Allen.). This is the best movie of summer 2009. Zooey Deschanel, like Diane Keaton, is a nerd's paradise. "Seems Like Old Times."

Julie & Julia

Meryl Streep is just so damn wonderful in this. She has captured the manners and the esprit of Julia Child. The film does a wonderful job of presenting the exasperating, adorable Child and her oddball love story with her husband. Then there is Julie Powell, the woman Hell-bent on cooking her way through Child's seminal cookbook. She doesn't come off nearly as well. Her devotion to her project seems compulsive and joyless. How different from Child Powell seems to be. Nora Ephron did Powell no favors here (well, the royalty checks are probably pretty good). Even the most lovely Amy Adams couldn't make me feel much more than grudging respect for her character. Was there any fun in Powell's project? From this film you wouldn't know it.

Jazz on a Summer's Day

Seen this movie several times. Its gift to the world was to preserve for all time some of the finest American musicians who ever lived doing what they do best -- at the Newport Jazz Festival. So many of the jazz greats were there, but, at least as far as this film goes, one stole the show. Watching Anita ODay here is a real treat. The filmmakers captured her inimitable style. Very few music documentaries have done as good a job with talent; right now, only that amazing footage of Hendrix at Monterey comes to mind.

Bruno

Sahca Baron Cohen is an extraordinary comic talent. He has the concentration of Peter Sellers and an ability to push exactly the right buttons. He seems to be absolutely fearless, placing himself in harm's way (if the "reality" of his films is to be believed) to get his laughs. Bruno is a flamboyantly gay Austrian idiot whose only goal is to be A-list famous, and the movie is about his attempt to realize that goal. Cohen pushes the buttons of the famous and Joe Six Pack, exposing their prejudices and taking them down. (He probably spends too much time taking down Red staters. I guess that makes some sense in a film about the adventures of a hypersexual gay guy, but I bet a lot of liberals would look like morons or bigots when Bruno started making advances, too) This film is consistently funny, but not as funny as Borat, in my view. The problem probably is that we already know from Cohen's prior work how far he will go, and we expect it from him. Bruno delivers but inevitably disappoints. Cohen, for all his cojones (which he shows all the time), didn't really shock us this time around. We liked it, but you may want to wait until it's out on DVD.

Away We Go

What's it like to be a couple in love? Krasinski and Rudolph have plenty of opportunity to show us in Away We Go. Not only are they are convincing as lovers, they are also intelligent and incredibly likeable in their roles, mildly eccentric and sweet thirtysomethings who realize it's time to grow up for real. It's mostly a pleasure to spend 90 minutes with them as they try to find the perfect place to raise their baby girl (she's expecting). They run into a cast of caricatures, ranging from unsympathetic to pathetic, before they decide to settle down in their own backyard, sort of (just like Dorothy!). Sam Mendes uses Godard-type placards, and this film channels Godard in another respect -- one isn't sure how much sympathy the director has for the regular folks our heroes encounter along their journey. Like the French Master, our director seems to see them (and, it is implied, us!) as grotesques. The brilliant and incredibly voluble Dave Eggers wrote this film along with his wife, so you can be sure there are plenty of laughs. But Eggers isn't always at his best here, so there are also moments that ring completely false; nearly every member of the very talented cast finds him or herself in a moment where s/he doesn't quite know how to make the lines sound like they come from a real human being. But that's only some of the time. There are also moments of genuine sweetness, and plenty of chuckles. (3.5 stars)

Easy Virtue

Self-made american siren marries exuberant son of crumbling English aristocrat family and doesn't fit in. Sound like Noel Coward? Witty and pleasant. Well executed enough, but also ordinary. There is literally nothing new about this film, and nothing particularly distinguished about it either. Still, it's fun to see English people being "English" and to snoop around a gorgeous country house for an hour and a half.

Private Property

What matters more, family or money? For the dysfunctional family at the heart of "Private Property," it seems like a toss-up. The father attempts to control his ex wife and sons with handouts. The mother has obvious resentments about her lack of financial independence and the personal sacrifices she feels she made raising the two boys alone. There is the family house, where the mother and the boys -- now men -- make each other miserable. The best thing for these folks would be for them to sell the house and leave behind the pain. But what a gorgeous house it is! It is what binds them not to each other, but to living under the same roof, showering and bathing together, sharing exactly the wrong intimacy. It is the keg containing all kinds of emotional powder, and, of course, there is an explosion in store for you, DVD watcher! Very well acted, and trickily so, because so much of this film is about the characters NOT saying what they really mean or feel, well, at least not until it is maybe too late. This is self-consciously not about pretty pictures and framing; we are there to see these lives and believe in them. The "art" is deliberately concealed. Fine stuff.

A Fistful of Dollars

The first appearance of the Man With No Name (though he is called "Joe" near the end of the film), one of the most enduring characters in cinema, created by Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood. A solitary gunman arrives in a border town where two gangs -- the Baxters and the Rojos' -- are at war, terrorizing the townspeople. The Man is hired to kill; he takes no (or both) sides in the war; and is perhaps captivated by an unfortunate, beautiful young mother named Marisol (he smiles at her, yes, Eastwood SMILES, in one the film's first shots), who is the obsession of gangleader Ramon Rojos. She inspires the Man, the hard, loner opportunist, to act nobly. He orchestrates her escape from the ruthless Ramon, thus ensuring that he will be hunted down by the bloodthirsty Rojas clan. But how deeply is he affected, by her or by the constant violence? Who knows. He is cool, Eastwood cool, even when tortured. He tells us peace is something he knows nothing about. A survivor. This film is a pure, dreamlike experience: so incredibly beautiful to look at, with a memorable score, unburdened by so many of the conventions of the Western genre, full of arty violence. The man witnesses a bloodbath when the two gangs have their final showdown and calls it - what? -- a "show." Then comes his own showdown with Rojos. You can be sure he doesn't flinch.

Cadillac Records

I had heard this was so-so and was pleasantly surprised. Fine cast does a great job with the story of Chess Records and the huge impact pioneers like Muddy Waters, Chubby Checker and Etta James had on rock and roll. It's a story of the end of "race music" and the beginning of amazing "crossover" artists who were promoted, loved, and also exploited by a white man. The music, timeless, is presented faithfully, the story true enough to real life (though condensed and distorted), and the film is well made. A special bow to the cinematography, which is uniformly outstanding. Entertaining. Why it took so long for a film about the true beginnings of rock and roll to be made is beyond me, but I'm glad this one is here. Recommended.

Violette

Evidence that Isabelle Huppert had matured as an actress at a very young age, Claude Chabrol's Violette is based on an actual murder case from 1930s France. Astonishingly cool/voracious as a deceptively prim young woman who murders her parents after being consumed by a secret double life of sex and decadence, Huppert reminded me here of a young Marlene Dietrich, with nearly as much ice but also a touch more (deeply flawed) humanity. Chabrol has never shot Huppert better than in Violette, sporting a cocked hat, exaggerated eye makeup, lurid red lipstick, and some baby fat in the face. Huppert's trademark cunning makes those few moments of genuine self exposure so much more precious for those of us who can't get enough of her. Fans (even envious ones) of the lavish apartments in so many French movies will have to look elsewhere for their fix. Although this is a film of interiors, Violette and her parents live in a flat so cramped that the transition to prison is not tough for her. Unfortunately, the full screen DVD and shoddy transfer detracted from my experience, but still (!) it's a treat to see this first collaboration between a master and his muse.

Yella

Creepy take on the business thriller. Yella had us on the edge of our seats, and it led to nowhere. Yella, a young accountant from the former East Germany learning how to do business in the West, finds that she has some hustle in her. She is haunted/stalked by her ex-husband and drawn to an innocent looking dealmaker who resembles the ex. Things go pretty badly for her until she finds her inner shyster. Yella is hardly the victim we had initially supposed her to be. But what is she? The answer: a film character designed to make us believe certain things and then to make us believe the opposite of those things. This movie creates tremendous suspense, and the shots -- particularly some chillers of Yella's right eye -- are artfully composed. Terrific entertainment, but don't expect to understand what happens. How do these Euro filmakers keep us on the edge of our seats and create the feeling of suspense with an illogical non-plot? Four solid stars.

Of Time and the City

It's sort of like watching a slide show in art history class, except that the slides have moving pictures and the narration is a very personal history. Terence Davies takes us back to postwar Liverpool to give a sense of the city and its citizens, as well as some of his own history. This is Liverpool as remembered by a Catholic, gay, and clearly brilliant boy. The film focuses on several themes: the contrast between the ornate beauty of Liverpool's great buildings and its crowded Georgian slums and "dismal" modern council estates; the tremendous poverty of the Britain of his youth contrasted with the insane luxury of the monarchy (which he hates); the development of his own sexual identity in repressive times; his search for beauty in all places; the joy that can be found on holiday even when one is in dire straits; his now bemused disappointment (born of pain, it is strongly implied) in and rejection of the Catholic Church and God; and his own anachronistic, nostalgic temperament (Davies claims to have been one of what must have been very few 1960s Liverpudlians who weren't wild about the Beatles) as an artist and a man. The film is sad, like so many memoirs, and Davies struggles to recreate a Liverpool that had basically been lost in the prosperous Britain of 2008. Impressive work, not for everyone.

The Hairdresser's Husband

An erotic, comic film starring the wonderful Jean Rochefort and the gorgeous Anna Galena. Rochefort plays a man who has been obsessed with hairdressers since his youth. He marries one, and the relationship is a continuation of that obsession. He sits and watches his beautiful bride cut men's hair and gets off on it. They are totally devoted to each other, rarely venturing beyond her salon. They have her work and his obsession -- what else do they need? This film has been celebrated, and I enjoyed it -- it is sexy and its heroine is lovely -- but didn't feel the relationship had any substance or basis in reality. This left me somewhat nonplussed by the ending. I simply didn't know what to feel and was a bit numb when things turned sad.

S.O.B.

Great script, great cast, and a nasty-great flick. Producer has a nervous breakdown after a zillion dollar flop -- icky sticky flick starring Julie Andrews the Pure -- and reworks it as soft porn to save his face. Come see Mary Poppins/Maria von Trapp bare her breasts, America! This film takes place in a Hollywood full of vipers, and it is go-for-broke funny. William Holden, Robert Preston, Richard Mulligan and Shelley Winters all shine in their roles. You will laugh and laugh. Guaranteed.

Wendy and Lucy

A love story. With all the passion and heartbreak that the term "love story" implies. (Take that, Erich Segal!) In this case, the relationship is pushed beyond its breaking point by circumstances beyond the lovers' control, but we are genuinely hopeful that they will be reunited in this world or the next. Did I mention that one of the lovers is a dog? Wendy (Michelle Williams) is a woman attempting to stake out a new life for herself (and her dog Lucy) by moving to Alaska. She is dealt a crap hand by fate just after she sets out on her journey, and she does what she must to keep going. Williams is that rare actor who can (1) carry a film -- she is in nearly every scene -- and (2) make you believe in love. Her Wendy is stoic, faithful, dignified, and benevolent, even when things get a bit Kafkaesque. Director Kelly Reichardt must be some kind of wizard; she places this bizarre little love story in an America that we recognize, fooling us completely and moving us to tears. Highly recommended.

Choke

Choke is less implausible than you think it is, but still requires you to suspend your disbelief. It is the perhaps too clever story of a sex addict whose already crazy mother is dying of alzheimer's in an institution; the only hope of a cure is for him to conceive a child with his mom's shrink. He's also the half clone of Jesus. Or maybe not. Even when things are resolved in a way that makes the story literally plausible (by turning the main character into more of a chump than a jerk), the fact remains that it all still feels contrived. You decide whether that's a fatal flaw or not. Talented players can't quite make Choke convincing, but they do make it entertaining. Sam Rockwell (chump) and Kelly Macdonald (shrink/love interest) are as charming as they need to be to keep the film moving, though there are jarring moments of "acting" throughout. (How couldn't there be with the plot I just described?) The one actor who manages to carry off her barely plausible character (the crazy mom) is the magnificent Angelica Huston, who never ceases to amaze me. Intentionally bizarre, but I liked it. Perhaps surprisingly, Choke did convince me that its characters actually cared about each other. The film has things to say about friendship and love, and it had the good sense to end after 90 minutes.

The Bad and the Beautiful

Well, it's not Citizen Kane, but it is certainly is one of that masterpiece's terrific offspring. Kirk Douglas plays a Hollywood producer with drive, ambition, charm, and guile. After alienating the people who got him where he wanted to be -- the top, he loses his way and then comes, not quite hat in hand, to ask for their help in making the picture that he hopes will re-establish him. Douglas is scene chewingly good (channeling Welles?), and Vincente Minnelli does a fantastic job of sending up/mythmaking about Hollywood. There are quite a few world class movies about making movies, and although this soaper doesn't rise to that level, it is extremely entertaining and well made. Meant to be seen and re-seen.

The Eclipse

A love story, a ghost story, a story about grieving, and some broad comedy, The Eclipse is one of those movies that doesn't allow its audience to feel situated. It keeps switching tempo and throwing punches, sometimes in a manipulative b-movie way, sometimes in the name of high drama, and sometimes with pratfalls worthy of Preston Sturges (well, perhaps Sturges with guile). A fine script with only a few dull or predictable moments is aided by McPherson's adroit directorial work, a fantastic choral score, and terrific performances from Ciaran Hinds, Iben Hjelle and Aidan Quinn. Hinds plays a recent widower in an Irish town holding a literary festival (featuring writers Quinn and Hjelle) who is haunted by ghosts, and through their help -- and the help of Hjelle -- finds the way to go on living despite his grief. Just a really good movie. I hope it finds the audience it deserves in the US.

Tell-Tale

Saw this premiere at Tribeca FF yesterday. It is among the worst films I've seen in years. IT professional with a sick daughter (cliche, made worse by bad-TV dialog and insipid acting) and a heart transplant (Josh Lucas) is compelled by the heart to kill the donor's murderers. Think Poe? Nope, think poo. How do you play a man compelled by his heart to kill? Well, don't ask Lucas. If there was a credible way to bring this ridiculous premise to life, he didn't find it. So bad that the audience fidgeted and cracked up during a medical torture/revenge scene. But worst of all was a freaky sex scene between Lucas and his girlfriend - a doctor! - supposedly right after he had a heart attack. Implausible? You betcha, and made worse by the fact that she won't show her breasts but rather plays with them as she mounts the sickly/virile Lucas, who also has a "disturbing" vision while she humps away. She's hot, but not enough to stop the belly laughs from viewers. Horrendous from beginning to end.

Withnail and I

Lives on the edge. 2 unemployed, alcoholic actors in 1969 Britain barely getting by, and mooching off a pathetic old relative. Richard E. Grant is perfect as Whitnail, a man who is content to drink himself to death. Sometimes movies about addiction glamorize it, some are obsessed with scatology, this one merely presents these people and their circumstances. The film manages to entertain because the characters are witty enough and the circumstances lively enough that we don't get bored. In fact the film is quite funny (the minor characters in London and the English countryside are diverting), but funny in the way movies about wasted lives generally are.

Religulous

We could use an intelligent documentary that takes on religion. It's certainly not difficult to expose the hypocrisy and lunacy of many religious people, and the irrationality of certain religious beliefs is something of which even the conscientious faithful should remind themselves often. Religulous is a pretty awful film, though. And the reason for that is the narcissism of Bill Maher, a man who preaches "humility" to the pious but is so in love with hearing himself talk and so sure of his position that he misses a zillion opportunities to let his opponents hoist themselves on their own petards. Sometimes the camera is just on Bill in the back of an SUV, talking to I don't know whom, smirking, and exuding the self-satisfaction you see in so many holy rollers. This isn't an inquiry into the failings of religion; it's grandstanding by someone with much less talent and ability than he believes he has. Very, very few worthwhile moments (with the exception of an interesting manifesto on "doubt" by Maher at the very end of the film). Maher is a mediocrity, and a mean-spirited one at that.

The Class

Another masterpiece by Laurent Cantet. Francois Begaudeau has adapted his novel, and brought something of his life as a teacher in a rough Parisian school, to film. Actual students were used. The film is nothing like the American version of "rough school with inspired teacher" flick. It is without saints and villains; the students look like (and are) real students; there is just school, with its daily frustrations and slow progress. I can't say enough good things about this film. So much of French school life will seem familiar to Americans, but the differences in academic life -- and they are stark -- point to fundamental differences between France and the USA. Without spoiling the film, I will tell you that the emphasis on individual rights and distrust of authority in the US -- which means the likelihood of litigation for any perceived injustice -- have consequences, and the outcome of a disciplinary situation in "The Class" would have been exactly the opposite had it occurred in America. This film will spark a terrific debate among you and the folks who see it with you. It's a great piece of cinema verite fiction. Go see it now!

Zodiac

This atypical true crime serial killer movie movie (based on killings that took place throughout California in the late 1960s and 1970s) has a lot to recommend it: fine acting, tons of suspense, a script that focuses on the details of police work and investigative reporting, and a plot that leads to an understandably frustrating ending. After years and years of investigation by police and a doggedly determined cartoonist who took obsessive interest in the case, the Zodiac murders remain officially unsolved. That said, the film makes a very convincing case in pinning the killings on a suspect who somehow got away, even though he taunted Californians for years with bizarre clues he sent to newspapers. Why only 3 stars? Maybe the film succeeded too well in being true to life; I found something missing, and it was probably a formula. For whatever reason, Zodiac didn't hold my interest for the entire 157 minutes. I'm willing to concede, however, that the problem may be mine, and not the film's.

Bottle Shock

Just a delightful film about when the California wine industry triumphed among the French wine snobs in a blind taste test in 1976. Takes you back to when Calistoga and the Napa Valley were freewheeling places, not mobbed with tourists and peopled by zillionaires from the Silicon Valley. Wonderful acting. And it's another movie about love, in the form of hard work. You'll be informed and entertained by this gem.

Revolutionary Road

Exquisitely executed period film about Frank and April Wheeler, young marrieds who believe they are too beautiful, too special for the suburbs but don't quite have the talent or the guts to escape. (At least Frank doesn't. April seems to lack the ability to be happy no matter where she is.) Seven years into marriage, they decide to quit their pleasant, "hopeless" (in their view) New Jersey life and the neighbors for whom they don't care and won't miss back. They will move to Paris. It's clear from the moment Frank and April cook up this plan that there will be no escape (not from themselves), and things turn out even worse than pessimists in the audience might have expected. The script is frank, the performances absolutely excellent. Revolutionary Road is masterfully done, really, yet there is something forgettable about it. We've seen this movie too many times before, and it almost seems as though the talented folks who made it did so because they have run out of fresh ideas. Well made but also depressingly typical. Sort of like the Wheelers. (3.5 stars)

A Thousand Clowns

A transitional film. Some of what was to come is evident -- the on location shots of New York City, the sometimes arty framing, the music, and the freewheeling theme. But this is a play, a talky play -- about Murray, a lovable free spirit and his quirky nephew Nick, who try to hold their oddball family together after unfeeling social bureaucrats determine that the child needs a more stable home. (It's another Don Quixote lite type of thing, a genre that was popular in the Sixties, and a pretty reliable movie formula. A loveable kook and a cute kid -- now that'll sell tickets!!!) Jason Robards is the personification of charm as Murray, and Barry Gordon is spirited and bright as the precocious Nick. The film has a groovy Sixties message -- reject the establishment! -- but is undercut by so many of the trappings of conventional drawing room comedy. Yes, we might sometimes have to tolerate excessive preachiness and formality in GB Shaw -- but why should we have to in a play from postwar America? And can we really believe the setup, that quirky but harmless Murray is a danger to Nick? Could anyone possibly think that the social workers have a point here? I understand that in its day, A Thousand Clowns was thought of as profound. I bet most who held that view have been disabused of it in the forty or so years since its debut. I think a better reading of it is to see it as a comedy of manners, and a showcase for the comic talents of Mr. Robards, a first rate actor who breathes life and deadbeat exuberance into his role. Robards' Murray managed to inspire me, and redeemed the film for me.

Ghosts

In America, we have the Tyrones and tuberculosis. In Norway, they have the Alvings and syphilis. There simply could not have been an O'Neill without an Ibsen. Both plays are about family secrets and the sins of the father. Here we have one of the greatest of all stage plays brought to life by a stellar cast, featuring two of the very, very greatest actors in the English language, Michael Gambon and Judi Dench. Plus Natasha Richardson, Freddie Jones and a young Kenneth Branagh as the most unfortunate guy in modern drama, Oswald. Other reviewers have stressed the seriousness of this play, but I thought the morbid tone helped to emphasize Ibsen's grim comedy. This play is bleak, but not bleak without letup. It cannot be judged as cinema because it's not meant to be a great film. It is a recording of a great play, a memorialization of what the very finest actors can do with the very finest material available to them. I'm sure it was more powerful in the live theater, but the compensation is that we get to look at the astonishing face of Judi Dench as transformed by the tortures of Mrs. Alving. A play about guilt, hypocrisy, lies, euthanasia, love, pride, selfishness Accept that it is merely a recording, and you will be treated to one of the great entertainments of Western culture. Don't believe the naysayers who have reviewed it thus far.

YPF

Great idea for a movie, one night in the sex lives of several young, attractive couples (and one 3some): post breakup sex, one night stand, longterm couple in a sexual rut, couple that invites a third to spice things up. Sex in the movies is usually an opportunity for body doubles and extended music videos -- in other words, BS -- and then there's porn, another form of BS. There is so much fertile ground in the space in between these two extremes. I applaud the writers of YPF for getting that sex is in itself a worthy subject of a film, that it's just too big a deal to deserve the shoddy, false treatment it gets in most movies, but YPF pretty much drops the ball. The cast is nice to look at and winning enough; there are even a few moments of truth (there should be in a movie about sex). There are funny moments as well. But this taxonomy of young people f***ing doesn't rise above the level of mediocre cable TV (cf. Sex and the City, which was way, way better (the show not the film)). The characters are two dimensional, some of the acting is downright hammy, and what they say too often bears little resemblance to real life; there's not enough genuine emotion (not enough concentration in the screenplay) to make you care about any of these people. YPF is midly tittilating and very forgettable.

Opening Night

A film about madness and the theater. (Kinda like Hamlet.) Cassavettes does a masterful job of presenting life in the theater, what an actor goes through on a daily basis. This is the story of an alcoholic actress going through a mental breakdown, and more than any film I have ever seen, it shows how easy it is for theater people to lose touch with "reality." The film is ingenious, and so much of its success depends on the incomparable talent of Gena Rowlands. She plays Myrtle, leading lady in a new play she doesn't like but on whom its success depends. That's pressure, and the playwright, producer and director put plenty of it on her but fail to offer real help by firing her and insisting she enter rehab, revealing their own inadequacies in the process. Myrtle's real nightmare begins when a young fan of hers is killed in a car accident right before her eyes. Cassavettes shows how much like madness even an ordinary gypsy life in the theater must be; we are in the wings, among the fake sets, in hotels and dressing rooms, lonely bars, among adoring (sometimes too adoring) fans and vain, bitter colleagues. It is an unforgettable, sometimes brutal, sometimes almost mystical film. This is art made by people at the top of their game. Stunning.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster

Chris Bell has made an exceptional, honest, and personal film. Its subject is the use of anabolic steroids -- by athletes, celebrities, and by Chris (no longer a user) and his 2 brothers. But what it really is about is the "win at all costs" attitude of so many Americans -- and the moral issue of cutting corners to succeed. Bell debunks much of the hysterical, antiscientific opposition to steroids. He takes on the supplement industry, the pharmaceutical industry, Congress, and the media, and he exposes so much of the hypocrisy underlying a culture that pretends to hate steroids but accepts, even embraces so many performing-enhancing substances and procedures. Steroids sure help if what you want is the "ideal" male body. There is nothing preachy or righteous about this film. The tone is compassionate, searching, and heartbreaking. Bell's conclusion is exactly the right one. "For my brothers and me, steroid use is a side effect of being American." In a society that settles for nothing less than the best, ever, and in which having the perfect body is more and more of an obsession, is it any wonder that so many people choose to use steroids or "hormone therapy"? I look forward to more films from Bell.

Up the Down Staircase

What can be said of this film, which has been seen by a zillion Americans (un)fortunate enough to be cast in the play while in high school? Up the Down Staircase is not quite Our Town, but it sure gave Wilder a run for his money there for a while. A young, blonde English teacher comes to a tough urban school in the 1960s and bucks the system with Disney-movie determination and gloomy pluck. A big problem is the stodgy, angry, Eisenhower-era vice principal, but she's ready for her showdown. She takes special interest in a thuggish student who -- what a coincidence! -- happens also to be very bright and misunderstood. The film can't decide what to do about the sexual tension between the teacher and the young buck; in the remake (which will never come) they'll be schtupping. Here there is just a suggestion of it: is that fear or longing in the eyes of Sandy Dennis? Normally the personification of neurotic theatricality (along with Julie Harris), Dennis tones it down for this one and does a lot of "looking concerned" instead. I'm being hard on this, but it's pretty silly stuff, really.

Towelhead

It does not take an artist to make people cringe watching a man molest a 13-year old girl. Alan Ball is an artist, but this film is neither brave nor original nor important. It is simply ruined because it reifies something -- child sexual abuse -- that should not be seen. And that is a shame. Because there is so much in this film to admire: wicked humor, Ball's strange cast of characters, excellent performances. Is it any wonder that Kubrick was not at all faithful to Nabokov when he filmed Lolita?

XXY

A heartbreaking film about Alex, a person with both male and female sex characteristics, and the well meaning, but sometimes misguided efforts of her loving family to protect her. Confusion is Alex's biological endowment, especially when "puberty" is upon "her" and she can no longer pass as a girl. The film centers upon a visit from family friends, a surgeon, his wife, and their teenage son. This "normal" family is so much less loving than Alex's, and a sexual relationship between Alex and the boy develops that pushes each along the path to self-discovery. Alex's secret is revealed; predictable violence ensues, but some unexpected acceptance maybe points the way to Alex's future. No definitive answer is given to the central question of Alex's life -- whether and how she will chose to live, as a male or a female. This is a beautifully acted film and fully succeeds in telling a story about a human being, rather than a curiosity.

Milk

You can't complain about Gus Van Sant's technical competence, can you. Milk is very well made. I think I have to disagree slightly with all those who found the performances in this film truly exceptional. I could see Penn, Hirsch, Spinella and Brolin acting. But this is a well told story, and a story that had to be told. The struggle for gay equality has been set aside for too long, and it is high time that its heroes are honored as national heroes. Milk is entertaining, moving, informative. I'm not among those who think it's a great film. I didn't really learn that much about what motivated Harvey Milk to become a leader. In an early scene, he picks up a guy on his 40th birthday, says he's not at all proud of himself (why?), and then suddenly he moves to San Francisco, encounters some resistance, and becomes an activist. Harvey Milk comes off as admirable, shrewd but not dishonest, kind, courageous, and likable, but not particularly eloquent. The events of his life and circumstances of his death (murder by a conservative pol who'd lost his marbles) were interesting. I'm sure the real Harvey was incredibly interesting, too (could he not have been, given what he achieved and endured?). But Milk left me feeling I missed out on too much of what made him that way.

Torremolinos 73

I thought this was a very funny movie with 2 great performances from Javier Camara and Candela Pena as humdrum marrieds in dire straits who start making "educational" Super 8 sex films in the last days of Franco. They are manipulated into pornography by the husband's employer (if they refuse, he will lose his job), but they end up finding themselves through it. This is no Boogie Nights -- no drugs, no tragedy, just two people who love each other and have fun filming themselves in bed. She becomes a hit in Scandanavia (where the films are shown), and he finds his inner Bergman. The big dilemma is when he's not able to be the star in their first feature film, in which he directs her and her costar, the suggestively named "Magnus." These players have heart and invest the comedy with real emotion, the films within a film are a hoot. Hooray for middle class sex and Spain!

Savage Grace

What was it about this script -- of the murder of socialite Barbara Baekeland by her son Tony, with whom she also had an incestuous affair -- that appealed to a great actress like Julianne Moore? Maybe the story of a beauty with plenty of money but without any sense of purpose appealed to her; her character had histrionics down to a tee. But this film has no shape to it. There is no development, no fall from grace, no sense that these people were or could have been anything other than what they were. That they were fabulously rich and chic does not mean that their incest/murder story was an interesting one. Perhaps it was, but this film didn't present it as one. They seem like miserable, insane, decadent people whose tedious lives were punctuated with senseless acts of sex and violence. As for the acting, I think the cast was convincing in that their emotions seemed genuine, but I couldn't figure out what was motivating these people.

Risky Business

From the onanistic "Joel, get off the babysitter" to the triumphant "Princeton could use an enterprising young man like Joel," here is the satire that made Tom Cruise. Of all the teen movies of my 1980s adolescence, it is the one that sticks the most with me. Even more than the great Hughes movies, more than Porky's, more than Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Cruise plays an average kid who hires an enterprising prostitute (played by gamine Rebecca DeMornay, looking exotic and beautiful) to lose his virginity while his parents are away on vacation -- and she sees money in Joel and all the geeky, sexually frustrated boys in his town. Together, they make a fortune and seem to have a great time doing it, sticking it to her pimp and the establishment (sort of) along the way. This is a fantasy -- there's no AIDS, there is a hint of sympathy for call girls contrasted with a heap of understanding of privileged American adolescent boys (teenage girls aren't part of this story) -- but it is funny, brilliantly acted, and every bit as dead-on as the Graduate (IMHO). It's funny how teenage boys think love looks like a porn flick -- and Joel gets to do it on a "real train." Cruise's recent career has been incredibly disappointing, but Risky Business will remind you why he reached the top of his class at such a young age. Risky Business is the kind of satire we see on television pretty often these days -- it seems to have invented Judd Apatow.

Young Frankenstein

Zany and brilliant. One of the funniest movies of all time. Perfect cast, great script. Parody of Frankenstein movies, Peter Boyle's monster just wants to be loved. This movie gets my enormous schwanstucker award!!!

Mommie Dearest

This movie -- more than any other I can remember -- was the raison d'etre for cable in the 1980s. Maybe I tend to exaggerate or romanticize my past a la Alvie Singer, but Mommie's face seemed to be there all the time on our Sylvania Superset. If you are looking for a story about the human being that was Joan Crawford, you will be sorely disappointed. But if you want to see an actress (Faye Dunaway) give her all to create the Mother Out Of Our Worst Nightmares and to superimpose upon that the persona of Joan Crawford (what a transformation!), then this is your movie. Mommie is so unrelentingly cruel and terrifying -- she shrieks, purrs, chokes, and has a way with face cream and cucumbers -- that she makes us all cower. I can laugh at her now (with my fingers crossed), but back then, I was haunted by her and somehow compelled to visit with her more often than was probably healthy. This film is unforgettable, and must occupy a part of the subconscious of anyone who has seen it. Who doesn't pause momentarily every time he or she sees the wire hangers in the closet! Few films go for broke in the way the Mommie Dearest does. (I hate to say it, but it has had a greater impression on me than Star Wars, Jaws, E.T., or Raiders of the Lost Ark, films I love more. I'm not even sure I "like" or "admire" this one.) I don't know what the intent behind this film was, but I know what it achieved -- a level of horror/dark comedy that few other films ever reach. (Certainly not Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, which seems almost tame compared to this.) A triumph of cinematic sadism, it would make a great opera. Now go and give Mommie a kiss.

Doubt

Fine screen acting and a riveting script make this movie a winner. Meryl Streep runs a Catholic school the old-fashioned way in the Bronx in 1963, and the arrival of a new priest -- and a more liberal Catholic church -- disturb the gentle balance of the place, for good or ill. In time, the nun suspects the priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has abused the school's first black student. She makes her suspicion known, fiercely questions him, but never quite articulates an accusation. What exactly the priest did, if anything, is not revealed. What is revealed is that the boy is gay and that the priest, probably also gay, cares for him -- whether or not a line (or what line) was crossed you will have to conclude for yourself. (I will say, however, that there is a shot near the end of the film that made it fairly clear to this viewer that abuse had occurred -- it wouldn't have been included had Mr. Shanley not wanted to tell us something.) Doubt is a riveting story with terrific confrontation scenes between some of our finest screen actors. Very solid entertainment. I will finish up with this thought -- whatever occurred or didn't occur, as a parent I admire Streep's character for protecting her students, even in the absence of hard evidence (or an interview with the child, which would ultimately have caused him harm). I think Shanley used his play to rebuke the Catholic church for failing its youth in so many awful cases.

Thirtysomething: Season 1

The show that broke the mold -- thirtysomething was the first to take its characters' inner lives seriously. The Sopranos simply would not have been possible without thirtysomething. People like to watch themselves on TV. And this one appealed to a certain demographic, the educated East Coast upper middle class. But it was gripping in a way that few shows have ever been for those of us who got the references, lived the lives (well, I was in my early 20s when it came out, but in college in Philadelphia like Michael and Gary 10 years before me), shared the dreams and the ambivalence, understood the disappointments. What show before thirtysomething created such varied characters, marriages, romances, families, friendships, workplace relationships? What show before attempted to understand marriage, cancer, divorce, rivalry, religion, materialism, failure? The Zwick-Hershkovitz team knew of what they wrote, loved the characters and relationships they created and developed over several seasons, and gave so much to those of us whom they consistently entertained. If you think objectively comfy people don't have the right to complain, you will hate this. If you realize that comfy is a state of mind, or if you're neurotic (like me), you will fall in love with thirtysomething. Seinfeld and Woody Allen fans should rent this.

Slumdog Millionaire

Other reviews here have done a fine job of explaining the film and Danny Boyle's stunning technique. What I want to add is that this is one of very few films of recent memory that has the romance and breathtaking scope of old-fashioned Hollywood movies (unlike Baz Luhrmann's cheesy, unconvincing "Australia"). A beautiful love story set in the most wretched of places, the slums of Mumbai, Slumdog Millionaire almost could have been written by Dickens: from the plot -- noble boy from lowest ranks stays true to his love and gets his reward, to the cast of colorful minor characters (beautifully acted), to the social realist concern with the crushing effects of poverty. Part of the art of this film is that, like a Dickens novel, it creates indelible images of the filth and terror of slum life (there are at least 2 scenes that I will never forget). And part of it is that we find ourselves buying into the kind of escapist story we didn't think we were capable of believing anymore. Escapism + Unflinching Observation = Masterpiece. I doubt I'll like another film better in 2008 (probably not in 2009 or 2010 either.)

The Man Who Came to Dinner

Kaufman and Hart's finest entertainment. Here is the madcap comedy supposedly inspired by Alexander Wolcott's monthlong stay at Hart's place in Pennsylvania. The A-list cast -- with Bette Davis (taking a secondary, and restrained role for a change), Billie Burke, Monty Woolley, and Jimmy Durante -- makes the most of the witty dialogue. It's about a narcissistic literary lion who is forced to spend a month in the household of stodgy, upper middle class Ohioans. He takes over the place, makes them suffer, and manages to teach (most of) them a few things along the way. There are many inside jokes about the New York theater world of the 1930s; featured are parodies of Noel Coward and Harpo Marx (the Marx brothers were championed by Wolcott). You'll be surprised by how fresh this all feels nearly seventy years later. Apparently, there is a DVD of a remake with Nathan Lane in the lead. I haven't seen that one but love this film. Enjoy.

My Cousin Vinny

Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, and Fred Gwynne all shine in this comedy about a New York college kid and his buddy who are on trial for murder in Alabama. The only lawyer they know is cousin Vinny Gambini, so he comes down to defend them at trial. Vinny doesn't have much experience, but he manages -- after a helluva struggle and with the help of his adorable, tough cookie fiancee -- to prevail at trial. Some really funny scenes, but the implausibility of the story (that a first-time lawyer would be allowed to defend a capital case, or that the families of the accused would not appear at trial) makes it a bit less than a total winner. It's great to see Joe Pesci not playing a violent maniac. He's great in the role. As is Tomei, in her star turn.

Mad Men: Season 1

Fine, thinking man's TV. Donald Draper is a handsome, brilliant advertising exec with a beautiful wife, material prosperity, lovely children, and a tortured soul. He's a pig in s**t. Why does he suffer so? What makes him a fraud? Is it his shady past that we learn more and more about as the season goes on? Or is it that the American Dream itself is somehow hollow, sold to us by mythmakers like Draper himself? Mad Men convinces that it understands how life was like for privileged, creative WASP ad men in the last days of the Eisenhower administration. It will quickly disabuse you of any "Happy Days" notions of the 1950s by dramatizing how oppressive those years were, even for the oppressors themselves. Not to mention for the women who had to serve them, using sex and cleverness to achieve what was possible in a patriarchy. Betty Friedan would recognize these women, so would Sylvia Plath. The discontent of all parties is a harbinger of -- well -- the Sixties. Far, far superior IMHO to Sex in the City, which in some ways is the female version of the show.

Caramel

Caramel -- the heated sugar that women use to remove unwanted hair -- is a perfect metaphor for this film about sweetness, pain, and deception in the lives of five women who work at or frequent a beauty salon in contemporary Beirut. The diversity of Lebanon, Arab and European, Christian and Muslim, is a fact (and an enriching one) of these women's lives. They struggle with married boyfriends, the restrictive social mores in even this enlightened part of the middle east, homosexuality, marital infidelity, family responsibilities. They are fully defined characters, and to watch this film is to identify with their struggles and joys. Their friendship, which blossoms in a space that men rarely enter, reaches a level of intimacy absent from their own family and sexual relationships. I guess you could call this a "chick flick", but it's a very good one.

Imitation of Life

Douglas Sirk always gets credit for 2 things: (1) celebration of artifice and (2) a whiff of social consciousness. His saturated pallette -- found also in the Hudson-Day comedies of the period -- is now again in favor (cf. Mad Men on AMC). This film is about ambition, race issues, neglecting children, various forms of masochism, runaway children, sexual exploitation of women. Serious themes for sure. But the presentation of these themes is superficial, racist, melodramatic: soap opera. If it is a "fact" that this movie was ahead of its time (in 1959?) for dramatizing racial issues, that is an indictment of Hollywood more than a credit to Sirk (and if he was being Brechtian here, that doesn't excuse his also being boring). A saintly African-American woman whose only ambition is to have a splendid funeral attaches herself to an ambitious, platinum blonde beauty. The two women struggle as single mothers to raise daughters, and matters of race make it impossible for the saint's perfect, selfless love to be reciprocated by her child. The daughter is light skinned and attempts to pass as white, eventually running away from Momma to make it as a showgirl. Meanwhile the blonde beauty becomes a famous actress in Broadway comedies -- treats her kid and male suitor like crap for years -- only to find that success isn't all it's cracked up to be. (Sort of. She does acquire some amazing jewels to ease the existential pain.) The saint dies shortly after unsuccessfully attempting to reclaim her daughter from a sleazy chorine life. There is much hysteria (and considerable dullness) throughout and a single moment of authenticity: a song by Mahalia Jackson at the saint's "glorious" (or is that ironic) funeral. Meanwhile, in the real world of 1959, segregation is alive in the South, women are harrassed and excluded from power, the US is sending military advisors to Vietnam, and Americans are scared to death of nuclear annihilation. Maybe Sirk cringes along with us, maybe he doesn't.

Tropic Thunder

Started off strong, then fell apart. Talented cast, some funny jokes, but somehow got lost in the wilderness after the "heroes" -- actors making a Vietnam movie who wander through the jungle and become embroiled in a real-life struggle against opium druglords -- did the same. You can't help but like Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Steve Coogan, Jack Black etc. But the movie is way too self-referential, and the satire of movie stars and moviemaking rings very, very hollow. This movie is an excercise in narcissism by people who think making movies is the most interesting thing is the world. (Truffaut and Fellini can get away with thinking that.) I love movies, but it isn't. Someone needs to tell Ben Stiller.

A Hot Dog Program

I first saw this on PBS and fell in love. Fans like me have actually traveled to several of the joints featured here, and the dogs have been uniformly excellent. More consistent than Zagats. *wink* Hot dog lovers and film lovers (count me in both camps!) are in for a treat: some breezy history of the Great American Sausage plus a compendium of distinctive hot dog stands and restaurants that should be visited by all. Pass the mustard! (And the Lipitor!)

Twilight

Being a parent you make sacrifices, and I assumed Twilight would be yet another. I was very pleasantly surprised. Twilight is good! About a lonely, lovely waif from a broken home who falls for a boy who isn't like the others: he's a vampire. But this is a vampire who has learned to tame his thirst for human blood (hide your pets, though!). This scenario creates all kinds of wonderful ways for our heroine to be saved by her dark prince and for them NOT to consummate their love in any way that might give Twilight an R rating. Twilight is all shadows and fantasy. I enjoyed it.

...And Justice for All

Well, it's not The Verdict. But this "lawyer bucks the corrupt system" movie has Pacino at his most animated, and a host of other great actors. Fans of the movie can quote the inimitable speeches, but the scene that shows what makes Pacino Pacino takes place in the bedroom. Watch what happens to Christine Lahti just because of who she's in bed with. It's 2008 and we're long overdue for another REAL Pacino vehicle like this one.

Choose Me

Seeing this again after twenty-five years forced a revision of my 15 year old's perspective. Back then, I thought it pretentious and an excuse to titillate some old people with not hot sex. Now I see it as an exploration of longing and promiscuity, and I liked it much more. Keith Carradine beds all the female leads and ends up marrying Lesley Ann Warren for reasons that are not quite clear. Our lack of clarity is echoed in the final shot of the two and the expression(s) on her face. She plays a trampy bar owner (former prostitute, it is implied) who rooms with frigid radio sex therapist Genevieve Bujold. Carradine plays the stud who heals them both with sex.

4 Little Girls

More required viewing for every American: a documentary about the 1963 white supremacist church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four African-American girls. Spike Lee honors this tragedy by focusing on the family and friends of the victims, on their strength of character, on the rightness of their cause, and on the pain and anger that they have carried and will carry for the rest of their lives. He shows how well the girls were loved. There is also a focus on the bad guys, the racist perpetrators who escaped justice for decades, governor George Wallace (who is interviewed and shows that he hasn't changed much since his Dixiecrat days), and the "law enforcement" tactics of Bull Connor and the Birmingham police force.

Night and the City

Night and the City succeeds, marvelously, despite itself. A story about a "heel" who double crosses everyone in his attempt to start a wrestling club and gets his come-uppance in the end, it is an exploration of an anti-hero so repulsive (Richard Widmark at his smarmy, antic best) that we cannot really imagine Gene Tierney loving him as desperately as she claims she does. But life is like that sometimes; devotion to losers happens, doesn't it? Shot on location in London, Dassin follows Widmark through the city's underbelly, as he flies from manipulation to manipulation. He introduces us to some delicious noir characters along the way, and we also, quite unexpectedly, encounter true nobility -- an aging Graeco-Roman wrestler who will not succumb to sleaze -- and several varieties of violence. Don't see it for the plot, just for everything else.

Redbelt

Often, in the work of David Mamet, purity is something that exists hypothetically. But here we have a movie that embraces the idea of the pure soul -- the martial artist who instructs others in how to "prevail", the supremely wise (though not infallible) hero who cannot pay his bills and is unwittingly duped by people into compromising his ideals for money. Or is he? Is it possible to reconcile purity with a messy world? In the DVD extras, Mamet calls this a "fight movie" and his understanding of the genre is that the hero (here the martial artist) must look within himself in order to win the struggle. Mamet has found a world class hero in Chiwetel Ejiofor, who exudes calm and confidence and, then, when he is tested, shows us (and him) parts of himself that even he didn't know existed. Even the teacher must conquer his fear -- must get beyond his own misperception of when not to fight, what it takes to struggle when the odds are not in his favor, and what it is like to have a grievance that must be redressed.

The Edge of Heaven

Exceptional. The strength of the characters and performances makes this rumination on emigration, politics, and generational conflict among Turks and Germans a must-see. Fatih Akin's people are nuanced, self-contradictory, flawed, beautiful, and, yes, believable (!) so the plot contrivances necessary to a film about innerconnected lives seem beside the point. Their implausibility is not a flaw; it is, rather, a reminder that this is art, not "reality." And, it is art that contains elements of tragedy in the traditional sense -- misunderstandings and rash decisions from which innocent blood flows. Likeable people find themselves doing or causing monstrous harm that they had not anticipated, and only through pain and loss do they see the error of their ways. They are forever changed, but not destroyed. The end of the film is a literal exercise in hope for the viewer, perfectly suited to its theme of redemption. (It reminded me, in a way, of the ending of Antonioni's L'Eclisse, which also played on similar audience emotions.)

Diminished Capacity

Good players wasting themselves. An interesting premise: a 40-ish guy who suffers a head injury is in a situation similar to that of his uncle, who is getting on in years and unwilling to acknowledge his inability to take care of himself. Could have turned into a quiet, revealing movie. But it's garbage. Ruined by ersatz quirkiness. Scenes and characters that don't merely strain credulity, they assault it. You'll be in the company of this viewer if you find yourself groaning out loud at the many implausible turns the story takes.

High Society

Well, it doesn't hold a candle to The Philadelphia Story, and it's not Cole Porter's finest score, but, it's plenty entertaining. The duets are pretty great, especially Crosby/Sinatra's "Well, Did You Evah?" and Sinatra/Holm's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" Plus, the great Satchmo Armstrong and his band are in such form as they always were. So we have Porter, Armstrong, Sintara, Holm, Crosby and the flawless beauty of Kelly. Could this NOT be a winner?

Pickup on South Street

What a great movie! Richard Widmark is at his shadowy best as a pickpocket whose fingers happen upon the wrong purse and who ends up unwittingly snatching microfilm that communists are trying to smuggle out of the USA. (Think Rosenbergs, think Hiss/Chambers!) Thus, he finds himself frustrating the U.S. government agents who had been tailing his mark in hope of nabbing her and the unknown red for whom the contents of her purse were intended. It turns out that the mark, a torrid but fundamentally decent "broad" played deliciously by Jean Peters, is also an unknowing pawn of the communists, and it also turns out (surprise!) that she might just have what it takes to make Widmark go legit, if the cops, the feds and the commies don't get to him first. Fuller's noir melodrama is gritty and unrestrained. The performances are affecting, mannered but very human. A big bravo to Thelma Ritter, pathetic yet also winning as a Bowery stool pigeon who does what she has to in order to make a living, but will not squeal to save her hide when the bloodthirsty reds come to her for information she possesses. Fuller goes for moments of truth instead of realism here, and we loved it.

Cassandra's Dream

One of Woody Allen's lesser films, it rehashes so many of his themes and offers nothing new on them. It is a much weaker twist on Crimes and Misdemeanors, lacking the earlier film's humor and contrapuntal narrative structure. Aided but not saved by fine performances from the excellent cast, featuring McGregor and Farrell as brothers (they look nothing alike) who commit murder at the behest of a rich, idolized uncle (Tom Wilkinson) and are undone by their crime.

Now, Voyager

Frumpy Charlotte emerges from the pall of her nasty Boston Brahmin mother and becomes Bette Davis, well, just as kinky but a bit nicer than we imagine the real Davis ever was. Claude Rains opens her mind, Paul Henreid opens her up sexually and gives her "the stars" but not "the moon." Davis is in fine form here, as are the two "Casablanca" men, but finest of all is Gladys Cooper as the Boston dowager who nearly succeeds in keeping her daughter down. Very good soaper with lots of repressed sexuality. Perhaps it once was a tear jerker, too, but we didn't cry.

Ghost Town

Begins in colonoscopy Hell and ends up in Heaven, literally for some of the characters. A pretty damn wonderful movie, and perhaps especially so since we're lingering a bit too long in Apatow-land. (And don't get me started on Vince Vaughan and Owen Wilson.) Ricky Gervais and Tea Leoni falling in love? A romantic comedy about ghosts haunting a New York dentist while trying to get to the other place? Could the tired old formula possibly work again? Well, yes, thank you, and quite well, thanks to Gervais' terrific sense of comedy and Leoni's intelligence. Also, Greg Kinnear makes a perfect jerk. I laughed out loud and the desired response was also invoked when things turned schmaltzy.

Vitus

Vitus brought to mind another child prodigy film, "August Rush." I hated August, liked Vitus a lot. While August was syrupy and way too in love with its coincidences, Vitus EARNED the wows from me. First of all, its star is a genuine child prodigy. To see a 12 year old perform music like a pro presents genius as a fact. Where does it come from? It is mystery enough, no need to embellish. Fine performances from the entire cast, and especially from Bruno Ganz as Vitus' loving grandfather, the only person he trusts enough to share his secret. Though we don't understand Vitus' mind, we do get to understand him: his longing to be a normal boy, his sometimes childlike misapprehension of adult matters he understands intellectually but not emotionally, his incredible capacity to love, and his exuberance. I'm not sure that any real child could accomplish all of the things Vitus did by age 12, but who knows? Genius is one of those things that is beyond our capacity to understand, but it is there. We aren't asked to believe in Vitus any more we are asked to believe in any fictional character, and that's why the film works, and why it invoked genuine joy rather than contempt in me.

Dirty Harry

Tremendously influential, one would have thought a movie about a cop who believes the ends justify the means was outdated. In the early 1970s, America was still adjusting to the idea that the accused (who are often criminals) have rights. Thirty plus years later, the police and public have come to accept the Warren Court criminal procedure, and crime has declined in the US nonetheless. Then all of a sudden, in Iraq and Gitmo, the Bush administration has been arguing for torture of people suspected of terrorism. So "Dirty Harry" is in some ways timely again. One way in which it is still dated is in its lack of technical virtuosity; Don Siegel is no James Cameron. Even mediocre cop flicks showcase wizardry these days. But what it has is Eastwood in one of his defining roles, and a psycho killer you may hate more than you love the Constitution.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The score, the images, the dubbing in the minor roles peopled by European peasants, and Clint Eastwood. This quintessential spaghetti western about villains searching for $200,000 in a grave somewhere is a legendary film. Sergio Leone was a masterful visual storyteller, and he found his ideal partner in steely, silent Clint Eastwood. The film is very long and not attentively plotted. At times it seems weighed down by artiness. But Leone's eye is unique, and the character he created with Eastwood is one of the most memorable screen presences of all. The final scene is masterful -- suspenseful, funny, uncanny, unforgettable. Wallach and Van Cleef get nods, too, for their excellent performances.

Cat Ballou

Jane Fonda delivered a delightful comic turn -- and never looked more beautiful -- as schoolteacher turned outlaw Cat Ballou, a comedy-Western narrated musically by Nat Cole and Stubby Kaye. Lee Marvin parodied himself to great comic effect here. It's not side-splittingly funny, but it will make you smile and, of course, root for the bad guys.

High Anxiety

Mel Brooks's funny schtick dressed up in a Hitchock movie. I laughed a lot and saw it as an appreciation -- rather than a spoof -- of the great director. (Liked it much better than the current play spoof of "The 39 Steps".) Some really funny moments with Brooks, Kahn, Leachman and Korman. And clever scenes stolen from Hitchock and played in Brooks's Vaudeville key.

In Bruges

Brendan Gleeson is the sweetest villain in movies -- he's not a seducer, he's genuinely sweet. He and Colin Farrell play Irish hitmen who are exiled to quaint ol' Bruges because Farrell's first hit went horribly wrong. The film has tons of clever plot twists, lots of funny dialogue, and it scrupulously follows its own internal logic. Some very funny moments and some moments that are actually quite moving. I enjoyed it and admire it, though I thought it was all a bit too "crafted" to fully engage me. First-time director Martin McDonagh is an able puppeteer to be sure, but I thought you could see the strings a bit too often.

Tell No One

Terrific thriller/mystery about a pediatrician whose wife was killed 8 years ago and then sends him an email. It will keep you guessing until the very end. Wonderful acting. Human characters. Cast perfectly down to the smallest part. Francois Cluzet looks like Dustin Hoffman but has a different style. He's excellent. Less showbiz than if it had been made in America. Fully engaging from beginning to end.

Night Moves

Gene Hackman and Arthur Penn. These two names practically guarantee the success of a film. Hackman is the personification of "presence" and seems incapable of making a false move. His craft is entirely hidden; even the goofy moustache he sports here can't take away from the genuineness of his smile when the scene calls for that. Here he plays a former athlete turned LA private eye who gets caught up in South Florida sleaze and murder and is having problems at home. His reason for heading to Florida? To return the teenage Melanie Griffith (can you say nymph?) to her mother. The film has psychological depth and a genuinely confusing mystery plot that is wrapped up nearly to satisfaction. Engrossing stuff.

Sweeney Todd

A solid adaptation of a great musical. Tim Burton brilliantly captures the grisly look and feel of the London imagined by Sondheim and his collaborators (others have mentioned the gore --lots of blood and sickening thuds as bodies fall to their doom), and his pared down version of the score pays close attention to the lyrics and provides images that compliment them nicely. The film transforms a histrionic, full-voiced stage musical into quietly ghoulish, very gory affair. The musical instruments are often loud, but the voices are hushed. Ultimately, I thought Burton and Depp missed the point of Sweeney Todd. The gist of the story, IMHO, is the tragic transformation of a broken-hearted man into a bloodthirsty monster; and the play's histrionics really allowed the audience to feel the unbearable pain in the heart the murderous barber. In the great stage productions, you almost couldn't help being moved to tears when Todd realized that his thirst for revenge had cost him his change at redemption because you hoped that some part of the innocent Todd remained. Here, Depp plays Sweeney as schizoid, impenetrable; so the effect of Todd's horrific moment of self-realization is dampened. (The exit of Todd's companion Mrs. Lovett, however, is an unforgettable image.) It's creepy-ironic but not tragic-ironic. Not powerful enough. I think Burton, who deals in dark humor but not sorrow, may have been the wrong director for this project, but he did achieve a measure of success with it. NOTE: Having seen Heath Ledger's joker in The Dark Knight, I am even less impressed with Johnny Depp's performance here.

Call Me Madam

Say what you will, Ethel Merman is among the most important figures in the history of American theater. Many of the most famous tunes by Gershwin, Berlin and Porter were first sung by her on the New York stage. Audiences loved her almost as much as they loved Jolson before her. Whatever quality she had on stage was never really captured on film (she was showstopping talent with decent comic timing but no great actress - and she was never a Hollywood quality beauty even in her younger days in the 1930s), but here we have the best Merman film I have seen so far. It's her and Berlin's musical hit from 1950s spoofing the appointment of Washington Hostess Pearl Mesta as ambassador to Liechtenstein. A zippy score and some amusing one-liners are carried off well, and Merman shares the spotlight with Walter Slezak, Vera Ellen and the great, great Donald O'Connor. A decent movie musical that is probably a must see for anyone with curiosity about the people who dominated the American stage from 1930-1960.

From Here to Eternity

A brooding, "gritty" film in its day, it paints a cynical portrait of Army life -- of soldiers suffering, enduring, and managing what small personal victories they can under a vain, indifferently brutal commander -- in the months leading up to the invasion of Pearl Harbor. It contains what everyone knows is one of the sexiest scenes in movies, I think surpassing even the Mastroianni-Ekberg dance and Garbo/Taylor passions, with an unlikely Deborah Kerr going for broke as the commander's jilted, sexpot wife (a role that these days would go to Sigourney Weaver or Susan Sarandon, probably to less interesting effect). Casting Kerr against type as the bad girl, err, woman, was a stroke of genius, proving you don't need to be a siren to create heat on the screen. The acting is committed but sometimes too melodramatic (or perhaps it's the dialog that's too melodramatic) to move us to weep along with the players. Strangely, the most poignant scenes involve no dialog at all: an embrace on the beach, Monty Clift playing the bugle. There is so much going on that none of the various stories completely satisfies. Still, we recognize almost every character as fully human: the sarge married to the army (Lancaster) who accepts the good and bad in his "bride," the rebellious enlisted men who are unjustly exploited but still loyal soldiers to an Army that destroys them (Clift and Sinatra), the loose and desperate women who attach themselves to military bases (Kerr and Reed). These main characters and the minor ones, too, are invested with complexity, which, IMHO, is the film's lasting achievement.

L'Eclisse

Vittoria leaves her fiance; walks about Rome (by the end of the film we may feel we have finally begun to "see" her modern neighborhood and a few of its objects and people); visits her mother at the stock market, which is collapsing; meets a handsome young stock broker named Piero; has a flirtation or more with him; then the two disappear from the film and we are treated to a montage "finale" in which our desire to create a (love?)story is exploited. It is Antonioni, so the B&W compositions are striking (I can't think of a color film that is its visual equal) -- ordinary objects fascinate, there are discursions from the "narrative" above; and every frame, every set piece seems overstuffed with meaning. But what is it that they mean? It's safe to say that the conflict between isolation and love is a persistent theme here; beyond that I'm not sure. You will have to concentrate, you will have questions, and you will be left with ambiguities. In my view, L'Eclisse is more about creating a mood through images than in getting across a message or telling a coherent story (though we do feel we know Vittoria, Piero, her mother, her fiance; these are characters, not abstract representations). This exquisite piece of work will reveal more to you with each viewing, and Criterion has done a superb job with the transfer.

Lions for Lambs

A pretentious script, a talented director, first class actors; but it all adds up to a pretty terrible, very talky film. There is no great acting here, just famous people delivering too clever lines. We get (1) a rigged debate between a liberal journalist and a Republican Senator -- Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep have their moments, but they never really lose themselves in their characters (there is no question in my mind that others would have done a better job in the roles), (2) a dull debate between a Professor (Redford being cute) and a jaded student, and (3) a pretty terrible segment about two of the prof's students who are now fighting in Afghanistan which looks like it was shot on a soundstage. Nothing about Lions for Lambs convinced me. Glib and pseudo-earnest.

Pierrot Le Fou

Wonderful early work from the genius with anti-hero Belmondo and camera-ready beauty Karina in a picaresque about a man who abandons his family for the babysitter and becomes a groovy outlaw. Beautiful images and experiments with color photography -- this unbelievably gorgeous film is lovingly brought to DVD by Criterion. So much Kodachrome green and vivid red to love here. As always, the movie is about seeing the movie -- we are made aware of the filmmaker's bag of tricks, we are kept from emotional involvement with the characters as they frolic, kill, play dress up, steal cool cars, write poetry. Such lovely, arty gore makes this very un-gory art. Godard's political consciousness is beginning to emerge here, too. Quintessential 60's avant garde. The coolest of the cool. (Cameo from American director Sam Fuller -- in shades, as a party guest -- is but one of many brainy chuckles.) Karina can't be a noir heroine -- she's just too sunny -- but her role here is something like (and, of course, a comment on) the femmes fatales of American noir. Like the Matrix? Well, it all started here, folks.

Speed Racer

A visual feast. Faithful (in its way) to the classic anime cartoon of my childhood, but from the 22nd century. It looks like no other movie I've ever seen, and the thrill of racing -- speed! -- is conveyed by the Wachowski wizards. Is there a plot? (Yes and no, and your kids won't get it anyway.) Fun. Enthralling. Go go go go go go go!!!!

Charlie Wilson's War

Fascinating story of Texas Congressman who funds the "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan who defeated the Soviets and then well, you know. All-star cast does a terrific job, and Mike Nichols directs with his usual level of uber-competence. Based on the truth, but I'm pretty sure liberties were taken. A film that was overlooked at Oscar time probably because it wasn't as arty as other contenders in a very strong year, but this is an intelligent and entertaining piece of work, with very depressing undertones.

Starting Out in the Evening

An intelligent film about an aging writer and a graduate student, quite a bit younger than his own daughter, who invades his life in the context of preparing her master's thesis about his work. She is persistent, selfish and well intentioned, and she motivates him to rethink his final novel -- which has preoccupied him for 10 years -- and improve his relations with his daughter. His zest for life and passion for art increase as his health fails, largely through what she has awakened in him. Fine performances from Frank Langella, Lauren Ambrose, Lili Taylor and Adrian Lester make this chamber piece a quiet winner.

12:08 East of Bucharest

Wonderful satire. A television talk show celebrating Romania's liberation from communism goes awry. Insights on the nature of progress, memory, and freedom. Wrapped in a very funny package. Human characters, sensitive actors. This film takes its time. Not action packed. Don't expect to be awed. Expect to be entertained.

The Night of the Hunter

Charles Laughton directs Lillian Gish, Shelley Winters, a fantastic supporting cast and Robert Mitchum (WOW!) in one of the creepiest movies ever made. Mitchum plays a "preacher" who descends upon Winters and her family looking for $10,000 Winters' late husband (Mitchum's cell mate for a time) hid. And only the children know where it is. Mitchum is brilliant -- absolutely terrifying -- as a psychopath, and he meets his match in Gish, a truly Christian soul to whom the children escape after Mitchum has killed their mother. A chiller masterpiece.

Love Crazy

Powell and Loy forever. Here they play a married couple who almost get divorced, until Powell pleads "lunacy" before the court. He suffers for it, but so does Ward Willoughby, the smarmy neighbor who capitalizes on Loy's predicament and moves in on her when she unjustly suspects her husband. And, of course, it's all the fault of the MOTHER-IN-LAW. Lots of laughs and hijinks. Not the greatest screwball comedy, but a damn good one.

The Real Dirt on Farmer John

John Peterson is an eccentric: quirky and open. He is a great improviser and has had to be extremely adaptive to keep his farm going. Despite that, what keeps him going is a commitment to his family (they are as loving as can be) and his farming. This documentary -- put together out of the Peterson family's own footage from over 40 years -- explores Peterson's contradictions and gives you an appreciation of the struggles and joys of farmers, even not so typical ones. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

Jesus Camp

I'm breaking stride here. I found little new in Jesus Camp and was not sure exactly what to make of it. Every American comes into contact with evangelicals, and it comes as no surprise that they teach their children to be soldiers of God at a young age. The film contains interviews with a mainstream Christian talk show host who is appalled by the strength of the Religious Right, but the evangelicals in this film are not shown to be particularly appalling. They love Jesus, believe Jesus is present every moment of their lives, fiercely oppose abortion, and hate sin. So, what else is new? They are not shown to be the hate mongers that so many members of the political religious right are. Jesus camp staff and campers (kids) do not appear to be primarily (or even particularly) concerned with electing right wing candidates, although it is clear where their political sympathies lie. I don't agree with the subjects of this film on much, but I am not terribly afraid of them if I was supposed to be. They seem like nice people who are committed to something I don't particularly admire, but who strive to be decent. As for whether it's worrisome that evangelical parents indoctrinate their children, the evidence isn't here. What parents don't pass their values/neuroses on to their chilren, and who would end up looking good in front of a camera? From what I saw, the Jesus Camp families are raising law abiding kids who want to convert me, not hurt me. This film didn't shock me, and it didn't show me anything I didn't know. What was all the hype about?

Sleuth

Haven't seen the original, but I'm not sure that a film like this works when made "Pinteresque." The appeal of this type of film -- with 2 charming English actors in a verbal duel -- lies in the language, the unique facility with language that Englishmen have. Pinter's pared-down version (I didn't see the original) deprives the characters of their eloquence and the audience of much of its pleasure. We still get the beautiful RADA-trained voices, but what they have to say is unworthy. These twist-and-turn movies are silly and contrived, but sometimes the more elaborate the artifice, the better we like. Michael Caine is very fine in his role, but Jude Law was hammy and not quite convincing in his. Also, I thought it was a bad choice to make the cyber-house such a "character" in the film. It rarely added much to the story. Very disappointing.

Lust, Caution

I'm a huge Ang Lee fan. The subtlety of the performances in his films, the social astuteness, the exquisitness of his visual compositions, the clarity of his vision, the way he is content to take his time with a story -- these are what make Lee a master. You just give in to him and his actors. Lust, Caution has the signature Lee elements, but I didn't give in this time. A story of a provincial beauty who studies acting and ends up in the role of her life --a spy for the resistance, a.k.a. the mistress to a vicious pol who collaborates with China's Japanese occupiers in WWII -- Lust, Caution asks whether love can ever develop between a Mata Hari and her mark. How much of true love is illusion? Can it coexist with hatred? And, finally, what is the nature of the conflict between one's "true self" and the roles one is assigned in life? Interesting questions, but I found it slow. And the explicit sex scenes did little, I thought, to advance the story or shed much light on the relationship. We knew the mark was brutal -- and the heroine vulnerable -- without them.

Things We Lost in the Fire

Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro dig deep and come up with gold here. This is a story about loss and coming to terms -- a widow turns to her dead husband's best friend, a junkie, and the relationship is healing for both of them, and for Berry's family. The tendency towards melodrama didn't grate on me. I was moved.

The Counterfeiters

Interesting story of how Jewish counterfeiters aided the Nazis when the German economy went bad. Talented artists, printers, and counterfeiters were retrieved from the death camps and treated like privileged prisoners at a camp near Berlin. They were fed reasonably well, given bunks to sleep on, and had a weekly shower. This film came from Austria, which I guess makes it somewhat noteworthy, because it is not a country that is well known for its sympathy toward Jews. But the Austrians apparently have far to go in accepting responsibility for their active participation in the Third Reich. The word "Germans" is never spoken in the film (or at least not in the subtitles, and I do understand German pretty well). The bad guys are the "Nazis" and the issue is whether the "Nazis" will win the war or not. This whitewashing of history gives The Counterfeiters a counterfeit veneer. Otherwise, it was a well done and interesting film in the vein of The Great Escape.

Margot at the Wedding

Excellent acting and fantastic scenes do not always a good movie make. Kidman plays a royal b***h who attends her almost estranged sister's wedding to a ne'er-do-well (played by an excellent Jack Black, who provides necessary comic relief, but in character). So many of the scenes have the intimacy of real family life, and there is a complexity and depth to the characters that distinguish this comedy/drama. But overall, the film doesn't work. Kidman's character is too cruel, and unrelentingly so to be abided and loved so well by her sister, son and husband. No real family would have allowed her to have such power over them.

August Rush

Icky sticky. One of those "just believe" type films. An orphan who happens to be the next mozart manages unwuttingly to reunite his lost parents (who didn't know he existed) at a Central Park concert performance of his first symphonic work. Robin Williams makes a terrible Fagin. Repulsive and boring.

Into the Wild

Is it a Romantic story or a story of a doomed, delusional youth? Was Chris McCandless a visionary, trying to stake a claim outside a world that he rightfully found corrupt, or was he a cruel, ungrateful youth who tried as hard as he could to hurt his family and succeeded in destroying himself in the process? Sean Penn's film doesn't answer these questions, but clearly sympathizes with McCandless and sees the heroism in his insane project. Into the Wild is a beautiful film.

Definitely, Maybe

An intelligent romantic comedy with adults as characters - focusing on a man, the loves of his youth, and how he describes them to his precocious daughter. An intelligent script, good cast, and yes, love wins in the end -- though in a 21st century way. I found it very entertaining.

Rope

Famous because it was filmed in a single take (well, almost), Hitchcock's searching camera creates suspense in the dinner party to end all dinner parties -- one hosted by Leopold and Loeb (or their surrogates)! The timing is impeccable, the performances fine (though we know that Brando had just revolutionized theater acting and in 1948 was about to make his mark on film), the script (adapted by Arthur Laurents from an English play) nearly impeccable, marred by a go-for-broke final speech but then redeemed by a few seconds of revealing silence in the formerly talky salon. The DVD extras are insightful and worth your time. James Stewart is a treat to watch -- here he's witty and dogged as the suspicious guest who breaks his murderous hosts. Anyone up for dinner with a corpse? Who says the dead cannot speak?

The Savages

Everything about The Savages is excellent, from the brutal, and brutally funny script, to the pitch perfect performances from Laura Linney, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Phillip Bosco, to the images of Buffalo, NY and Sun City, AZ. It is a film about two grown-up children who are forced to take care of their elderly father who abandoned them and who suffers from dementia. We live with these people and their predicament for a time, and time moves predictably. Never mind the conventionality of the situation -- these characters feel like real people, interesting people, and it is a joy (sometimes a somber one) just to be with this movie for two hours. The depressing subject matter will turn off some, but this is fine, fine stuff.

Be Kind Rewind

YouTube fanatics, unite! The movie starts off silly -- the premise is pretty far fetched (involving Jack Black becoming magnetized through a harebrained scheme to blow up a power plant and a forgotten VHS store in Passaic, NJ that is about to be torn down) --but somehow evolves into something a bit poignant. Black and Mos Def play two down-on-their luck guys who are forced to make their own version of famous films to keep up business when all the videotapes in their little rental store are erased. It's about how much fun it is to make movies, why viral video is a phenom (though the web is not involved), and contains some great and ingenious little parodies of favorite films (of course professional filmmakers would make great "amateur" shorts!). I liked it also because it was about people who are living at or below the poverty line. Although it doesn't ignore their struggles, it shows some of the joy in their lives without being overtly political or self-righteous. A movie about the 'hood with not a bit of violence or drugs, just good characters,lots of good actors (Danny Glover, Sigourney Weaver and Mia Farrow), and some great movie parodies. I saw it right before the Oscars -- which was fitting.

Gone Baby Gone

Solid, bleak film about a private detective with uncompromising morals who becomes involved in a kidnapping case in which everything is not what it seems. Well acted, briskly told, with gruesome sidestories. I saw the ending coming a mile away, but this is good stuff. Bravo to the Affleck brothers.

Moliere

If you're in the know about Moliere, you'll find this film charming. Fabrice Luchini and Ludivine Saigner are both outstanding in minor roles, and Romain Duris makes an interesting Moliere. I liked it better than Shakespeare in Love.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

A good film that is perhaps not good enough to be as in love with itself as it is. The praise heaped on the actors is not entirely deserved, in my view. I saw them all "acting" at various points, except Sam Shepard (whose brief appearance is magnificent) and Paul Schneider. The use of "authentic" 19th Century laguage emphasized how mannered the key performances were. Beautifully shot in a washed out, sometimes sepia-toned pallette. 2 words: too arty.

2 Days in Paris

Leave it to Julie Delpy to turn the Paris romantic comedy on its head. Ever since I saw her in White, I've had my eye on that naughty beauty. Sure, she stars in those Linklaeters movies with Ethan Hawke, but 2 Days in Paris reminds me more of a Woody Allen flick. It's obsessive and witty, uses Delpy's own family and friends, and full of urbanites doing their thing. Delpy uses ex-love Adam Goldberg very well here. Intelligent and funny. I vote YES and hope Delpy makes more movies soon.

Lady Chatterley: Uncut Special Edition

Beautifully filmed. It captures the slow pace of life and the novelty of erotic love before "the media" changed everything. I had trouble with believing these people were English. It looked right, but sounded French. And so much of what Lawrence was after was tied up in how these people sounded. Parkin speaks differently from his lover, and that just can't be conveyed in a French film. Also, I found the sex scenes to be strange. They had to be included, of course, but I'm not sure how they moved the movie forward. I'm not being prudish here, but the problem is that there was an awful lot of effort put in to making these two actors look and "act" like the fictional characters they were playing. I'm just not sure it worked. It's an exceedingly hard thing to do, have a sex scene in character, and I'm not convinced that this film succeeded in that regard.

3:10 to Yuma

Somewhere in between Robin Hood and Iago is Ben Wade. Well, he's a lot closer to Iago, but he's got a good mind and if you're lucky enough to earn his respect, he'll go to the mat for you in his way. Ben isn't the only great character in this remake of a classic Western (original not seen by me). But he's the legend in his own time, a ruthless criminal who is to be escorted across dangerous terrain to a jail cell in a railcar. His chief escort, played by Christian Bale, is a lame Civil War vet with something to prove. Wonderful acting by Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, as well as by supporting cast members, make this nail-biter particulary moving. It is about a man's search for redemption, and the unlikely friendship that makes it possible. It is larger than life, and would have gotten five stars from me if I had not just seen No Country for Old Men. This one belongs in the #1 spot in your queue!!!!

No Country for Old Men

A masterpiece. I didn't think the Coen brothers could exceed Fargo. Maybe they couldn't, but they have met if not surpassed it. Some remarkable images. Brilliant acting. Perfect realization of brilliant source material. Grim Texas crime thriller. Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones give unforgettable performances. Nothing to smile about here. No film for frivolous men.

Bus Stop

Two imbecilic, not convincingly human characters irritate the Hell out of you for the entire film. Then they supposedly fall in love. You won't believe it.

She's Gotta Have It

I remember when I first saw this at the time of the theatrical release. It announced the arrival of a major talent. This film is funny, stylish, sexy, wise about women. Made on a shoestring budget, it's an excellent piece of entertainment. I remember at the time predicting Spike Lee would make great films one day, and he proved me so right.

Protagonist

Four very interesting lives that all (at least in this telling) can be described as tragic in the classical sense. This otherwise excellent documentary is burdened by the director's heavy-handed analogizing to the works of Euripides. The film's self-consciously Greek content (secens from Euripides' plays performed by sticks with classical masks) comes off as silly, forced, and dull, in stark contrast to the compelling stories of the four "protagonists" themselves. I think the tragic elements of these stories were more than strong enough to stand on their own. Lily gilding detracted from, but did not spoil this film. It is fine nonetheless.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother

Want to know what a Mel Brooks movie would be like without Mel's contribution? Well, here you have it. Plenty of silly, goofy scenes to enjoy. With Wilder, Kahn, Feldman et al, you'll be sure to laugh. But there are also quite a few misses here. It's no Young Frankenstein. I liked it, though.

The Namesake

Mira Nair is a visual wizard, and Irfan Khan is a world class actor. But The Namesake, a story about the son of Indian US immigrants learning, slowly to finding his own way in the world, does not deliver. It is endlessly repetitive, the characters (except for Khan's wonderful, loving father -- how this actor reveals things with his eyes, such subtlety) lack depth, and Kal Penn -- a great Kumar in that off-beat comedy -- is not interesting enough an actor to carry this film. His face is too frozen, except when he has to be funny, then the talent comes out. The Namesake explores themes of identity and freedom -- heavy stuff -- but isn't cast well enough to seem anything other than superficial. And it is very, very talky. I can't recommend it.

WarGames

Loved this one so much as a teen. But it hasn't aged well. Computers and politics have passed it by. It no longer has the ring of authenticity, and Matthew Broderick had charm but wasn't really able to deliver back then. Still good, though my kids were baffled. One positive: the great John Wood shines as the quirky computer scientist who invented the computer that wants to win a global thermonuclear war. Wood is among the greatest stage actors, but he's perhaps too special to be appreciated by film audiences. He's here for us to enjoy, though.

Alvin and the Chipmunks

Well, being a parent, you gotta' do certain things to make the kids happy. This one had potential. First of al, those chipmunks look REAL! Truly. And it was cute in the beginning. But I got bored after 45 minutes. And so did the kid. Could have been worse. (Not a fan of Chipmunks music here. If you are, you'll probably love it.)

Heading South

Haiti before the Fall. American women of a certain age come there for love, and delude themselves into thinking they find it from the men whom they pay to entertain them. Haiti is brimming with violence, corruption; and the foreign women get in too deep. Still, they can escape before things get too dangerous. Not so for Legba, the young gigolo who makes them happy and pays the price for it. This is a rich film with political and sexual themes, made by the brilliant Laurent Cantet and featuring an amazingly nuanced performance by Charlotte Rampling. We see her eyes open to the horror that is Haiti and the horror that is herself. This is not a totally successful film, however, as Cantet requires the characters to soliloquize in order to fill in what he chose not to dramatize. I felt that was a mistake but admire the film nonetheless.

Paris, Je T'aime

Can Paris be overphotographed? I doubt it. This is a collection of shorts by some great directors, all united by their Parisian setting and Paris-inspired theme: love. Short films are great and rarely ever seen outside film festivals, and it's a treat. Even though the filmmakers were relieved of the burden of producing a magnum opus, they did fine work here. There is nothing earthshattering about this film, but there is plenty of formal experimentation, a few good laughs, some touching moments (especially the short, directed by Gerard Depardieu, starring Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazarra, who both seem so frail and old that I got sad watching them, never mind what they were talking about), lightness, beauty, and wonderful trips through Paris. [Aside: the first film I've ever seen that used Emily Mortimer perfectly -- thanks, Wes Craven, for realizing what is special about that throwback, "Irene Dunne" actress.]

Sacco & Vanzetti

Quiet, moving documentary about the tragic case of Sacco and Vanzetti and the tremendous influence these two innocent men have had. Insightful, informative, impeccably researched, it focuses on the men and their wonderful letters, the trial and grand jury records, the evidence against them, the times in which they lived, and their legacy.

In This World

Michael Winterbottom's DV film about the journey of two refugees from Afghanistan to London is a testament to his commitment to film, and to heightening awareness. Although the film is fiction, the actors are not professionals, and the story might as well be true. It shows what people are willing to sacrifice (including themselves) for the good life, how refugees are exploited by nearly everyone who encounters them, and how politics matters more than those of us in the comfort of the West may care to admit to ourselves. Apparently, the actors were not scripted, and this gives the film an air of authenticity. Fresh, innovative, captivating.

300

Beautiful imagery and a fairly well told version of Spartan bravery in the face of the Persian onslaught at Thermopylae. Some moments of high seriousness -- which come off as ridiculous -- detract, but bathos is a problem that has been around since the ancients. A good introduction to the Spartan system. Unusual, artistic, gory, imaginative. I saw it on HD-DVD, and all those those pores were visible.

Blame It on Fidel

Radical chic through the eyes of a child. A young Parisian girl who is accustomed to her large house and privileged life has her world turned upside down when her parents become radicalized. They move into a small apartment, bearded hippie communists become permanent fixtures in the living room, gone are the lazy Sundays and catechism lessons. Nothing is the same. Loving, responsible parents become loving, frequently irresponsible parents. The girl is often wiser than her parents, who almost seem to be posing as lefties and going too far because of guilt (Dad, a Spaniard whose own parents were Franco collaborators, fled to Paris while his sister and her husband suffered because of their anti-fascist protests). This is an interesting film, and the young lead is flawless in her role: staunch, innocent, loving, fearless, tolerant of her parents despite it all yet knowing that they have a lot to learn, and slowly opening herself to changed circumstances.

F**k: A Documentary

How do you follow up on The Aristocrats, a movie about stand-up comics and a fithy joke, a movie about "what I did for love"? How about a movie about everyone's favorite curse word! Good idea. How quick can we turn something out um, get the usual suspects: Bill Maher, Janeane Garofolo and have a mock debate with Pat Boone, Alan Keyes, and Miss Manners. Throw in a few porn stars. Hire a linguist. Get some Lenny Bruce material and have George Carlin talk reverently about him. What you come up with is bound to be entertaining. But is it more than that? Nope. Swearing and especially the word that this film is about are incredibly interesting topics; a bit of probing would have made this a good, even great film, instead of some E! profane-pablum. There was a recent article in the New Republic about profanity and its effect on the brain; fascinating stuff. Couldn't these guys have done a little more f***ing homework before releasing this one! A rush job. A snow job, really.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Solid, well-written, nonlinear storytelling about a victimless crime gone awry and the most unhappy family in the NY area. Sidney Lumet does an excellent job and is aided by a first-rate cast. Mr. Hoffman is a master; he shows so much. This movie is BLEAK without letup; these lives spin out of control and end up nowhere good. I'm not sure that's a flaw, but the absence of much backstory makes it tough to see these people as family members, even family members who hate each other. There is so little love here and not enough info to understand the bitterness as deeply as we'd like to. The way the crime story is revealed, by showing us where the key players were at various points before and after the crime, increases our interest and shades various incidents differently as we see them through different characters' eyes. It increases our sympathy for the lost souls that inhabit Mr. Lumet's dark world.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

If you're looking for a: (1) skin flick, (2) slasher flick, (3) campy parody of Peyton Place or Hollywood expose, (4) groovy 1970s feel good movie, (5) movie with literary allusions, (6) zany experiment, you'll find it in this movie. It's not meant to be taken seriously, but there's a lot to notice in Beyond the Valley. The story of a girl group that arrives in LA and is corrupted (or not) by its groovy permissiveness, you'll laugh your way through this one. It avoids being boring by constantly throwing new things at you. A treat for B movie fans.

A Mighty Heart

The story of Daniel Pearl would seem to lend itself very well to a film -- American journalist abducted and killed by terrorists in Pakistan. But I found "A Mighty Heart" to be almost totally uninvolving, thanks mostly to the faux cinema verite style and choppy editing. The film feels like it was made on a soundstage, and I guess to counteract that Michael Winterbottom intercut outdoor scenes full of Karachi's bustle (though I think they were actually filmed in India). Angelina Jolie restrained herself here, but she still managed to strike me as less than human. An amateurish effort.

Bee Movie

I had read some clunker reviews about this and have to disagree. I found Bee Movie to be amusing and big-hearted, not the most gorgeous or funniest animated film, but one that sparkles with intelligence. I had a smile on my face from beginning to end and especially enjoyed Chris Rock as a mosquito turned lawyer and John Goodman as a slimy lawyer. The premise you should know if you've been on panet earth during the two-year publicity campaign: a young bee isn't sure he wants to work his life away, figures out that humans steal honey from bees, and brings a lawsuit to right the wrong -- causing the bees to stop production and the flowers of the world to die. Of course it all turns out fine, and the bees return to their assembly line. Conservatism triumphs! I liked it better than my kids did. They endorsed it but not terribly enthusiastically. It's a Seinfeld movie, so there is a lot of verbiage. Not sure that smaller kids will have the patience for it. It gets a "B" from me.

A Touch of Class

Two likeable leads -- though George Segal can be seen "acting" throughout -- make this comedy about an extramarital affair between an American insurance exec and an English fashion designer entertaining enough. I never believed they were in love in their scenes together, nor did I really believe much of what was going on. It was nice to see a young Paul Sorvino in a supporting role, but he didn't add much. This felt like a cheap Neil Simon imitation to me -- without the talent of Walter Matthau (whose romcoms with Jackson that came a few years after this one were delightful). The one distinguishing thing about this movie was that it doesn't have a happy ending, which I guess gave it a measure of realism that impressed members of the Academy at Oscar time. Yes, the lovers part, but unmovingly.

Michael Clayton

What a great movie! Sidney Lumet and David Mamet showed us what a legal thriller could be in The Verdict, and this is the first film that lives up to the standard. Not for one second does it talk down to its audience - it assumes we are intelligent enough to follow. The performances are pitch perfect from all members of the excellent cast, but especially from Tilda Swinton as the corporate executive who is so blinded by her sense of duty that she turns herself into a monster. George Clooney continues his string of dead-on leading man performances as a fixer who is down on his luck. One interesting aspect -- not necessarily a flaw -- is that the film ends by tying up the plot but without showing whether Clooney's character has grown, or is on a path to "redemption." Rather, it shows he has a moral center, and that (unlike Swinton's character) there is only so far this fixer is willing to go. Superbly edited and written, Tony Gilroy is the director to beat. More proof that human characters are possible in the thriller genre, this film is just plain better -- more intelligent, more searching, less self-conscious -- than any crime drama that has come out of Hollywood in a long time. Something fine has arrived at the multiplex. Bravo!

Funny Games

Here's a conventional movie problem: well-off family is terrorised by 2 youths who torture for the sport of it. How do you actually convey the horror of that in two hours? A film that really tried to do that would be unwatchable. In Funny Games, Michael Haneke deals with the problem in a clever way, by commenting on the conventions of favorites like "Cape Fear"- and "Fatal Atraction." The terrorists (thanks to Beckett!!) wink at us, make us aware of our "complicity" in their "crimes," and even turn back time via remote control when fate intervenes to screw up their grisly plans. Haneke does not even pretend to make the terrorists human and takes no real interest in the obvious question (why?) except to poke fun at us for even pretending to care about it. The villains are there to torture the family, entertain/laugh at/torture the audience, and to propel the film to its end. In contrast, the family members are all brilliantly played by painstaking, truth-telling actors. Funny Games refuses to treat its victims as movie characters, and, interestingly, only shows 2 acts of violence being perpetrated. Instead, it shows the reaction of the other characters to the violence. Funny Games is clever, for sure, but the audience for non-supernatural horror films doesn't really need to be reminded of its own bloodlust or how these films work. And, although in many ways the film is well-made (Hanneke's timing is flawless), it also lacks the courage of its convictions and doesn't quite shock. Haneke seems not to love horror films enough to scare us out of our wits. He's almos't withholding. If you need to be reminded of how these films work, you may love this one. If you already know, you may enjoy Scorcese's "Cape Fear" remake -- and its outrageous yet somehow more subtle knowing wink -- a bit more than "Funny Games."

Children of Men

I didn't buy it for a second. Not for a second. So many great actors, an interesting premise, but it didn't look real or feel real. A story has to be told well, not just cleverly. This one wasn't told well.

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man

Material this rich deserves better film treatment. So many great documentaries about songwriters out there, so I thought that this one would aim for, if not hit, the high bar. No such luck, though I did enjoy the performances of Cohen's songs by others and took a great deal of pleasure in his interview. Someone needs to do the work to make a great music documentary. Even when its organization is supplied by a commemorative concert (as here), a bit of painstaking research and interviews that aren't only about what a genius the artist is help alot. This gets a gentleman's "C" from me.

La Notte

Here's an odd thought, but one that struck me. La Notte is at once grandfather of, and the antidote to "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Nothing happens in either, both explore existential malaise and the impossibility of communication (or, rather, the way people know exactly what is wanted yet still don't give it), and both are about the super rich and their boring toys and palaces. Both also comment upon the attention span of the modern audience, though Antonioni insists on challenging it and Larry David celebrates it. Somehow, Larry David got the Antonioni memo ("Curb Your Enthusiasm" could almost be a title of an Antonioni movie -- sort of sounds like "L'Avventura"), even though his neurotic gadfly schlep would be reduced to hand-wringing and shrieking around people as beautiful as Monica Vitti and Marcello Mastroianni. And I realize that most "Curb" fans will be unable to endure Antonioni's lingering, fastidious style of filmmaking. For those of us who can endure, La Notte has huge rewards, striking images and magnificent performances from Jeanne Moreau and Mastroianni. It's about a loveless marriage and a wife's decision to confront her husband about it after another night at a dull party. It ends in an ironic "From Here to Eternity" embrace. If it won't curb your enthusiasm, you must have some pretty high serotonin levels.

The Game Plan

Hate to break stride with the 3 who've reviewed this before, but this was a bore for me and my kid. The Rock isn't Schwarzenegger, whose bad acting was an asset even in a film like Kindergarten Cop. No question that Mr. Johnson is a nice guy, but he is just not interesting enough to carry a movie, even a formulaic "playboy suddenly finds out he's a daddy" movie. He has a sense of humor and a winning smile, but he's not a leading man. He has very little emotional range and doesn't seem to believe what the screenwriters have him say, except when he has to laugh at himself (again, he seems like a nice guy). Johnson can laugh at himself, no doubt. His sidekick Madison Pettis is no better. She is an absolutely adorable looking little girl, but she also lacks the acting chops that so many other kids have. She never convinces that she is anything but cute, and certainly doesn't persuade that she's smart enough to be capable of the trick that the whole plot of the movie depends on. It's a relatively harmless movie, but that's about all I can say.

Factory Girl

A biopic of Andy Warhol's (acceptably played by Guy Pearce) muse Edie Sedgwick. Depicts her "superstardom" and flameout, hypothesizes an affair between Edie and Bob Dylan (ineptly played by Hayden Christensen). The film's thesis: Dylan = depth, Warhol = manipulation and emotional vacuity, Sedgwick = She looked good, she played hard, she suffered, and according to this film she was destroyed by Warhol and the Factory. OK. But it's amazing how little pathos this film evoked in me given that its subject suffered terribly. It's a solidly entertaining piece of work but I think ultimately as superficial as the people it claims to expose. Edie is its subject because of her charm and glamor -- a celeb deb gone to seed -- but the film does little to explore her inner life. Here is someone beautiful who hung out with famous people and captivated them for a time. I guess she's filmworthy in the same way Paris Hilton will be filmworthy 20 years after she's gone (I hope of natural causes and at a ripe old age). But when all one is famous for is being famous

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Great way to introduce your kids to horror movies, if you want to do that. Creepy and paranoid. Well shot and scripted. Hooray for the 1950s! Nowadays, filmmakers have stopped rooting for the bourgeoisie, but back then they still harbored some hope that somewhere in the sea of conformity there would be one man who resisted the pods. No longer. Now Hollywood gloats about the material successes of the fortunate few and thumbs its nose at us losers. Of course, we did elect Alfred E. Neuman president, so maybe we don't deserve any better. [Written during GWB administration.]

Family Law

A comedy about a guy who just needs to wake up already (and who knows it), but isn't sure he wants to. Neurotic Argentine law professor son is overwhelmed by his successful lawyer father, marries and becomes a father himself, and flirts with emerging from his father's shadow. He lives as if disaster is around the corner, chosing to watch from the sidelines too often, doubting (foolishly and manipulatively) his own competence. But he's a marvelous teacher, inspiring his students and full of passion in the university context. Because he's too often so inward and worried, he barely notices the signs that something awful (but not sudden or violent) is about to happen. That irony is this film's central hook, and I bought it entirely. This is about intelligent people facing life's everyday challenges. It is extremely well acted (especially by the father), very funny, and left me thinking about some important questions.

Young Frankenstein

Half Nelson

Gosling and newcomer Shareeka Epps keep this film from being a total cliche. I think it was called Up the Down Staircase, but now Sandy Dennis is a drug addict and a man. Earnest, iconoclastic teacher in tough neighborhood makes a difference despite himself and figures out that he has something to learn from one of his students. Ryan Gosling has an expressive pair of baby blues, no doubt, but he is actually too young for the role. There is no way someone his age would have listened to Free to Be You and Me as a child. (It was a mistake to have that album and Rosey Grier's "It's All Right to Cry" be "characters" in the film.)

The Lives of Others

No American film of the last 5 years can touch it. And the late Ulrich Muhe's performance is astonishingly good. To those of you who are not concerned about our own government's spying on citizens and the dangers it entails, I recommend this film. It (and, in particular, Mr. Muhe's face) shows, as well as any film I have ever seen, why tyrannies are doomed.

The Good Shepherd

Dismal and phony. The story of skull and bones and the CIA is I'm sure an interesting one, but De Niro and Damon didn't tell it well at all. If you want to see a great film about spying and the ghosts who collect intelligence for the government, see The Lives of Others. Now there's a great film.

Weeds: Season 1

Mary Louise Parker is so sexy. I never tire of that smirk. She's also an excellent actress in this Showtime soapy sitcom about a suburban mom who sells pot after her husband dies. Sure, this is the "artists" making fun of their audience, but it's subversive and funny. Very good TV. And Parker is a total turn on.

The Secret Life of Words

Can you say Streep? Sarah Polley could just be the next virtuoso, and here she is as an Eastern European victim of murderous fascism. Her transition from shell-shocked to something else is palpable, and its effect on the truly excellent Tim Robbins is something to behold. This is a beautiful love story about two souls who somehow come back from the brink, her from the horrors of the Balkan war and him from an accident on an oil rig. She nurses him back to health, and he awakens appetites in her she had thought would never return. Both performances show the power of concentration and of silence. I loved this film.

The Bourne Ultimatum

Some great chases here in the third installment of this uninteractive, large screen video game. One question: what is the point of the slow mo shot of the bullet/missile before the explosion at this point? It's been done. If you like a lot of technical genius in your movies, you'll like this. I saw it in the theater because it was a "consensus" pick for a large group. So many somber faces. But Albert Finney, Joan Allen, and David Straithairn deserve a payday (ha!! Well, at least you don't mind giving talented people yet another one) because they probably don't make that much money for the stuff they're really good in. Or something like that. Matt Damon is likeable here -- he always is -- there is intelligence in him. Jason Bourne finds out what he wanted to know, if anybody cares. I'm sure not even the film's biggest fans do, though. Oh, and Julia Stiles channels Joan Allen (in the same film, no less!!). Doesn't anyone in the CIA have any fun anymore? So many grim faces, not because of the pointless war in Iraq, but because Jason Bourne is so easy to locate but so hard to kill, just like that other guy out there in Central Asia.

Venus

The relationship between moviegoer and Peter O'Toole is a strange one. Who else could have played the enigmatic T.E. Lawrence? He is such a distinctive presence on screen -- his voice, his face are what they are -- that it is something of a feat for O'Toole to get us to empathize with him. What is life like for the man? (Compare O'Toole to another English screen legend who also appears, and so very memorably, in Venus -- Vannessa Redgrave.) O'Toole scores big in Venus, as an old lothario incapable of giving up his sexual desire and incapable of delivering on it either. He falls in a way for a tarty young beauty, and the relationship between the two of them is the subject of this film. I wonder if Nicholson will be doing something like this in his late eighties.

Hairspray

All-star cast doesn't make this campy musical a hit -- it's forgettable but not awful (2.5 stars). Not exuberant like the broadway musical, not outrageous like the subversive, yet good-natured "mainstream" John Waters 1988 cult film on which it is based, which succeeded because the bad acting was so good. I don't blame Hollywood or Broadway for sanitizing the original to make mainstream entertainment, but there's something a little too aw shucks about this. And John Travolta looks absolutely bored in drag. He never should have taken the part if he wasn't willing to go for broke -- the only way for a man to win (like Divine did) when playing a 350 pound Baltimore 1963 mother in a housedress is with insouciance, not by trying to humanize her. (Compare Travolta's timid, humorless performance with Robin Williams, Dame Edna and Dustin Hoffman. And this was in a musical!) Nikki Blonsky is energetic and winning as Tracy Turnblad, but she didn't get to sex/cheese up the part the way Ricki Lake did, Michele Pfeiffer is a good villain (Debbie Harry was also great in the original), and Christopher Walken can do no wrong. He is simply incapable of being anything less than a scene stealer in whatever part he's given. Maybe Walken should have played Mrs. Turnblad. Probably should have been Robin Williams.

Sicko

Michael Moore is a man who lives without fear. And Sicko, I think, is his most generous film. It's the one where he urges us to join him in living without fear. He's at his most compassionate, and his least vindictive. Sometimes he distorts the facts in unfair ways, which causes even those who agree with him to doubt. But not in Sicko. This time he takes aim at the atrocity of the for-profit American healthcare system and lets us see a better way. Anyone who spends time dealing with the healthcare bureaucracy -- and that is any American without a personal secretary -- understands the fear of losing health insurance and the skyrocketing costs. Employers cut benefits, costs go up, and we are left worrying.

Gracie

Solid entertainment where the good guy (or girl, in this case) wins and work and determination pay off. Based on the real life experience of Elisabeth Shue (who plays her own mother in this one), Gracie is about a girl jock fighting prejudice to win a place on the high school varsity soccer team in the late 1978. You can't help rooting for Carly Schroeder. The best part of the movie in my view is the training and the final triumphant match, which is sort of stolen from Rocky (a much better film). The film also contains weightier themes of teenage sexuality and a family touched by death of a child, but it never does so with much seriousness of purpose. So it's not Rocky, and it's not Ordinary People. But it is a worthwhile movie that will entertain you and make you cheer, even if it could have been something more. My eight year old son loved it, and I really enjoyed watching it with him.

Shoah

No serious person could omit Shoah from a very short list of the greatest films ever made. It is the testimony of witnesses, the serenity of the Polish countryside where the Nazi death camps were located just a few years ago, the faces of Holocaust survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders. Claude Lanzmann is relentlessly inquisitive in his search for what happened in the Nazi death camps, and his witnesses tell the truth about the efficient Hell created by the Germans.

A Change of Seasons

This is a passable movie with big talent -- Shirley Maclaine, who is incapable of letting us down even in a clunker, and Anthony Hopkins, who is charming but not giving us all that he is capable of -- and big breasts. Bo Derek's are amazing, and we see plenty of them in the beginning. Hopkins plays a Harvard prof who's sleeping with his student -- a "coed" (yes, we are asked to believe that Bo Derek could get into Harvard!!) as they were charmingly called back then -- and expects his wife (Maclaine) to understand. She does, and a bit too well for Hopkins' taste, so she takes a young lover of her own. The four of them go up to Vermont for the weekend, and if you think this is a hilarious bedroom farce, think again. It is far from that. Its premise, that a fortysomething woman might not need or want to stay with a philandering husband, is a good one, but the dialogue is so relentlesslty awful that we never, ever believe what is going on. Still, Maclaine is an incredibly interesting actress to watch, and Bo Derek is naked.

Nathalie

Fanny Ardant's face is the star of this movie. She plays a sophisticated French woman at the end of her rope because of her husband's infidelities. She conspires with a prostitute to seduce him. Lucky for him (and us), the prostitute is Emanuell Beart, who embodies sex and brings her considerable talent to the role. Prostitution is an act, and this one "sait sa metier" very well. The end of a movie about sex is, of course, a release with afterglow, and this very good film gives us plenty of that. I did feel that some of the speeches, Beart's stories about erotic adventures with the husband (Gerard Depardieu, excellent in a restrained role), got a bit repetitive and made the film less believable. This lack of believability can be seen as making sense within the logic of the film, though it didn't work for me. Still, the talent on showcase here, Ardant's subtle, lovely face and Beart's exceptional hotness, make Nathalie a great rental.

Spider-Man 3

An absolute bore. I had high hopes based on the first two (especially the first one), but this was just awful. Unimaginative, trite crap. And the visual effects, while technically proficient, did nothing for me.

Volver

A pleasant film starring Penelope Cruz -- how could that be bad? Cruz is the closest thing to Sophia Loren we've got, and though she doesn't quite eat her men for breakfast, she is beautiful and sexy and a pleasure to watch in every frame. I found Volver to be a bit silly; the premise only works if you believe that people in a Spanish village are stupid. I doubt they are, and I found Volver dragged at times. Almodovar can't help but entertain, though, and he's a visual master with a great sense of humor and, in this film, a lead who is equal to his talents. Not even close to his best, but definitely worth watching.

Kiss Me Deadly

Well, it's very sexy for sure. But it doesn't hold together, and it is full of mannered acting. Ralph Meeker is almost entirely without interest as Mike Hammer, the story held no interest for me, and it was filled with greasy Southern European stock characters and sexy, mysterious broads. In other words, it's sexist and racist. That can be forgiven in a film from 1955 (I guess) when there are other compensations, but there were few of those here.

The Last Detail

A great buddy picture, road movie, with fine performances, and a magnificent one from Jack Nicholson. He is so often cast these days as someone larger than life that it is refreshing indeed to see him as a little man, full of rage and compassion, not so sure of himself, using sexuality and charm as weapons against the machine. Here is is a reluctant Shore Patrol seaman escorting Randy Quaid to prison, and determined to give Quaid some memories before jail. The journey is sometimes fun, sometimes poignant, often exuberant, but when we get to the dismal end, all of Nicholsons bravado is gone and what is left is a man who can only stammer about petty injustices. He is heartbroken. An excellent movie that never beomes a cliche. (Also, check out the young Gilda Radner in a cameo.)

A Wedding

Lots of layers to unpeel in this funny Altman film about a society wedding. Wonderful acting from all (but especially Carol Burnett and Geraldine Chaplin) members of the huge cast, Altman captures the anxiety, mayhem, awkwardness, and fun of weddings. It goes a bit too far, maybe, but there are elements of farce here, so that is the point. When you think about how much stuff Altman manages to pack in to this film, you cant help but appreciate his tremendous gift.

Joe Versus the Volcano

Well, the great John Patrick Shanley is capable of clunkers. But Hanks and Ryan are plenty charismatic in their parts (Ryan has 3), and there is enough humor and silliness here that we dont always mind how terrible this film really is. Its a fantasy, and it revels in its own absurdity, it just doesnt work tat well. Something about it feels old fashioned, like it should have been directed by Capra or something. Joe finds out he has 6 months to live and reclaims his life by deciding to jump into a volcano on a remote Pacific Island at the suggestion of a wacky industrialist (Robert Stack). He has his existential awakening as a result and gets the girl, too. Hmmmm. Youll smile a bit. A bit.

The Last King of Scotland

Forest Whitaker is a magnificent, terrifying manchild Idi Amin. What happens when a 2 year old is given the reins over a developing nation trying to emerge from British colonial exploitation? Watch this film and find out. Told from the perspective of a young Scottish doctor traveling through Uganda in search of adventure and sex (played by a fine James McAvoy), the film only gives us a glimpse of the horrors of Amins terrible rule. But it is about the power of denial. One of the years best.

Babel

OK, enough of the what a coinky-dink movies! Babel wallows in ponderous mysticism and go-for-broke tear-jerking. Which is a shame because the film contains some very fine screen acting from all parties. It is the kind of ersatz bullsh*t that gets recognized at Oscar time because it reassures its liberal watchers of their essential goodness, their ability to appreciate the humanity of people whom we are told to fear, and because it views human relations as a tragedy. I found it explotative and schlocky. And way too long!

The Departed

Well, Marty deserved the Oscar for Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Raging Bull if not for this lollapalooza. Supremely entertaining and even gripping at times, full of Martys wide-eyed enthusiasm for the great image, his love of music, and his sense of irony. Who loves movies more than he does? Well acted, full of surprises, lots of blood (but actually less violent than other Scorcese films, IMHO). Here is evidence of something we already knew: Matt Damon is a fine actor but Leonardo DeCaprio (like Jack Nicholson) is the star of his generation. What keeps The Departed from greatness IMHO is that it is a star vehicle in every sense of the word. The A-list casts delight in playing together interfered with the suspension of disbelief for this viewer -- too much narcissim, not quite enough concentration -- with Nicholson, thats not necessarily a bad thing. So, it's Movieland, not Boston. Get the popcorn and enjoy.

Running with Scissors

I had low expectations and enjoyed it. Brian Cox, Annette Benning, and Joseph Fiennes were quite good, and the "stranger than fiction" story worked well on the small screen. True story of a young man with certifiable parents who is handed over to the family shrink, an even bigger whackjob. Things get weirder and weirder until our adolescent hero decides to extricate himself from the insanity. Sound like you've seen it before? You have, but so what? Jill Clayburgh stold the show IMHO. Gwynneth Paltrow was perfectly cast -- will she ever grow up?

La Moustache

A tightly controlled, fascinating psychological pseudo-thriller with a brilliant performance from Vincent Lindon as a man who shaves off his moustache (or does he?) and is undone when no one notices, including his wife. She is played by the excellent Emanuelle Devos. There is a tightness and tension to this film; it is extremely enjoyable even if it does not make intellectual sense. It is about a mood -- confusion -- and the degrees to which we are alone even when we have loving relationships. It's also about insanity, but who exactly is sane or mad is never made quite clear. If you don't need your loose ends tied up, I bet you'll find La Moustache to be a real winner.

For Your Consideration

Loved it. Cheered us waaaaaay up on a gloomy night. What talented players! So much fun, so much heart. Home for Purim is the ultimate bad movie parody, and Guest & Co. do a great job with it and its loopy cast and crew. When's the next Guest mockumentary. (Only disappointment: Ricky Gervais, whose "Office" is an all time fave of mine. He did his usual thing and maybe just doesn't have the acting chops for this. What a great comic Gervais is, though!)

Scoop

Scoop won me over. It took a bit of getting used to, but it is a light-hearted, funny movie. Scarlett Johansson is incredibly beautiful, and although she doesn't quite hit the mark as a Woody Allen lady, you can't help but root for her. The jokes are funny, and Allen is charming in his way. Cute and fun. (3.5 stars)

SherryBaby

Five stars for Maggie Gyllenhaal, who brings truth to this film. She grows as a character. She is infantile, vulnerable, kind, victimized, angry, an addict. Convincing at every turn. The film is unexceptional, but she shines very bright.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Brilliant performances from the entire cast. Just great, great improvisational comedic acting. I laughed for sure. But something fell short -- and it got a bit dull after a while. Not a must see, even for Will Farrell fans, but I did enjoy it overall.

Little Children

This is the kind of film I usually love. And I am a huge admirer of In the Bedroom, also directed by Todd Field, and especially Kate Winslet. A word about her here -- she is excellent. How utterly not vain she is -- when her character purchases a swimsuit to show her body off for her soon-to-be lover, we feel that the character is doing it. There is no trace of, "I know I'm a beautiful movie star pretending to be an attractive suburban mom" here. But the film seems to be about an ironic distance from its characters -- we see the world through their eyes, but we don't feel what is in their hearts. The only characters for whom this film appears to feel any empathy are a child molester and a furloughed cop suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, who had accidentally killed a youth on duty. The main story is common -- adultery in the suburbs, but the telling of it is odd, indeed. The affair stops, we are assured, but that's all we know. Nothing of the pre-affair lives of these characters is revealed, so we have no idea what they are going back to. Also, Patrick Wilson is probably good in his part, but his character is merely handsome -- he's almost of no interest to us. Perhaps that's how he was written. I'm not sure. Unusual, but not entirely satisfying.

Comedy of Innocence

A story about a mother's fierce faith in her nine-year-old son, who is brillant and quirky, and how that faith gives her the patience to endure a trial of surpassing difficulty -- almost losing him to an impostor mother. Icy, stoic Isabelle Huppert is the mother, and her journey in this film is truly remarkable in the context of her career. This is the only film I can think of where we see a genuine, happy smile from her (at least in what I recall from the Huppert films I have seen). The film deals with themes of identity, faith, and compassion. Huppert's character seems at first to be a person of infuriating passivity and near-sightedness, but we see in the end that we have misjudged her. The film could easily have ended diffently, but it is not unrealistic to believe that sometimes one's faith will be rewarded.

The Postman Always Rings Twice

Noir that succeeds because of absolutely perfect casting: Lana Turner as the blond bombshell who could make a man do anything, John Garfield as the drifter undone by love, and Hume Cronyn as the slick defense attorney. The first glimpse of Turner is one of the greatest Hollywood entrances, for her KO beauty and for Garfield's KO reaction to it. Superb entertainment. (Proof positive: remade by Nicholson, Lange, Mamet and Rafelson in the 1980s).

Hard Candy

Teenage girl turns tables on child molester. She'd have to be an evil genius to pull off what she did here, and there is simply no way she'd say the things the script puts in her mouth. Plus, to make it a full length feature, they had to make even more twists in the plot, further straining credibility. Good job of casting androgynous nymphette with a brain Ellen Page as the castrating Lolita and Patrick Wilson as the molester/victim. Had potential, but not well realized IMHO. (Blue Car was way better.)

Ruby in Paradise

Victor Nunez makes small films about small, though not ordinary people. They are slow paced, contemplative, and daring. The young Ashley Judd is the star of this one, as a young woman with resolve to start a new life in Florida. She is excellent, never better since in my opinion, and luminously, naturally beautiful, too.

Spartacus

A DeMille epic with updated ideas, and that's a good and bad thing. The good: some excellent performances (from Olivier, Laughton, and Douglas), especially from Peter Ustinov as the unctuous coward who runs the gladiator academy that taught the slave Spartactus how to fight. A gorgeous score, and some excellent battle scenes and "Kubrick special" visuals (members of Spartacus' slave army as they traveled down the Italian peninsula). The lighting is heavenly, right out of the 1920s (you almost feel like Marlene herself should be in the pic). The ideas are big, and the story is a noble one. It is adult in its attitude toward sex, a pretty rare thing since pre-Code days. The bad? Well, the dialogue feels stilted at times -- many lines are a hoot. Sometimes that gorgeous score seems to be looking for a great film to support. All that pancake makeup, those silly backdrops, the fakery of the old time Hollywood epic is on display. But, for its time, it must have been groundbreaking, and Kirk Douglas is an inspiring gentle giant. Not a great film, but a good one with some greatness.

Notes on a Scandal

Well, this film (or the novel upon which it is based) owes a great deal to Lolita. It's about secudction of a minor, but the narrator isn't THAT seducer. Here the narrator is a lesbian "battle axe" (her words) who exploits a younger woman's affair with a male high school student in the (vain) hope that the ensuing scandal will somehow cause the younger woman to start an affair with her. Judi Dench makes an excellent Humbert -- not an intellectual like Nabokov's anti-hero, but she possesses some of his wit, lustiness, cunning, remorselessness, and, yes, surface likeability. Dench is astounding (as usual) in the role, and Cate Blanchett and Bill Nighy support her wonderfully. Not for the faint-hearted, but if you loved Lolita, you'll probably like this. Brilliantly acted.

Take My Eyes

It starts as a thriller out of Hitchcock, a woman desperately trying to escape a menacing man: shots stolen from Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window and a searing score. But that's the teaser. What this film is about is the real horror of domestic violvence, and the two lead actors -- Luis Tosar as the abusive husband and Laia Marull as the victim wife -- give us all we need to make this awful story seem real. This film never roots for the abuser, but also refuses to make him anything less than human. We understand his frustrations and his half-hearted attempts to redeem himself; we even see why perhaps his battered wife still manages to love him despite the pain he causes. We also see the person who emerges from the ghost of a battered woman, after she finally realizes what must be done if she is to survive. What a fine, thoroughgoing screenplay, too.

Autumn Sonata

Two Bergmans, Ingrid and Ingmar. Could it not have succeeded? Ingmar's screenwriting is very fine, and Ingrid's performance is splendid. It's more of a star vehicle than most of the famous director's films, but it has psychological depth. She plays a concert pianist who has scarred her daughters through neglect and insincerity, and is emotionally vivisected by her elder daughter (Ullman) during a visit after a long absence. A bit overwrought in certain scenes and somewhat predictable, perhaps, but still a very good domestic drama.

49 Up

The "Up" series is an invaluable time capsule contribution. We feel we know these people, and this latest installment -- our English 7 year olds are now 49 -- is the most poignant and revealing of them all. The subjects of the series are understandably ambivalent about their role in Michael Apted's project. Submitting onself to the world's scrutiny can be no easy thing, but what they appear not to realize is that we are on their side. These children have grown up to be decent adults -- a credit to Britain. Even Neil Hughes, who showed such promise as a small child and seemed to fall apart as a young man, has managed to make some kind of a life for himself and find some measure of satisfaction as an eccentric (and a politician). This film is about marriage and family. In an American version, the talk would be of money and material success. Bravo England.

The Court Jester

Delightful zaniness from Danny Kaye and Sammy Cahn. An exuberant mix of clownishness, wit, and love, "The Court Jester" is as much fun as movies get. Kaye plays a medieval jester who saves the English monarchy from usurpers with help from sexy Glynis Johns. You'll love the young Angela Lansbury as the princess he almost has to marry. A must see DVD.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Tim Burton's visual imagination and masterful eye meet their foil in Johnny Depp, whose effeminate Willy Wonka destroys what might have been a solid film (despite the odd, extraneous stuff about Wonka's childhood and motivations). Gene Wilder was a much better Wonka. I like Depp, but he's unwatchably bad in this. It's like he's some alien flown in to substitute for Wonka because the movie's real star had to duck out at the last minute. Too bad.

Invincible

Great story -- local Philadelphia nobody gets to play in the big leagues because he has heart and determination. Unfortunately, this movie lacks the excitement it should have had (based on a true story), and Mark Wahlberg made a bland hero. Want the KO version of this story? See Rocky!!!!

The Illusionist

This one pretty much left me cold. Predictably plotted, so the "all becomes clear" ending was a waste. It felt like actors playing dress-up to me. Setting a magical fable in Austria circa 1900 is I guess a good thing -- on the eve of all that bloodshed. But somehow I'd rather watch Mary Poppins.

An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore approaches the topic of global warning with missionary zeal. He admits he's been unable to convince many people of the need to do something about it and the possibility that a change in our behavior can have positive results, and this is is latest attempt to convince us to mend our ways. I hope he succeeds. The world needs this film. (Marred, I thought, by Gore's self-promotion, but he deserves much credit for trying to raise public consciousness.)

The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer

Cary Grant is one of those reliable comedians, always a gentleman, able to make fun of himself, human despite his impeccable manners and unbelievably good genes. Here he does his wise playboy thing with Myrna Loy, brainy beauty, and a teenage Shirley Temple. The story is silly, but there is plenty of wit. Nothing like a madcap Lombard comedy or a gem like The Philadelphia Story, just a well-crafted enjoyable comedy that succeeds largely because of the personality of Grant.

Seems Like Old Times

An old fashioned screwball comedy with three talented stars -- Chevy Chase, Charles Grodin, and Goldie Hawn; an excellent supporting cast; and a light, funny Neil Simon script. Goldie could have been Carole Lombard if she had more vehicles like this, and Chevy Chase is her perfect foil. Underrated in its day, and it stands up all these years later. Adroit and adorable.

Thank You for Smoking

A bit too glib for my taste. And Aaron Eckhart is a supporting actor, not nearly interesting enough to carry this film.

Art School Confidential

Nothing new or true here, but a great looking blonde in the flesh helps a bit. Send-up of art school pretentiousness, post-adolescent ambition, and how Americans will do anything for their 15 minutes. Some first rate actors here, but their performances missed the mark (except Angelica Huston, who manages to be fully human with only 3 minutes of screen time). Intelligence and wit struggling to break through, but they don't succeed nearly often enough. A disappointment.

The Return

Outstanding performances from two child actors in this heartbreaking story about a father's mysterious return to his family after an unexplained 12-year absence. Georgeously filmed, sparsely told, it is as close to tragedy as films get these days. A trap is set, the characters make foolish choices but get our sympanty, and things spin out of control until the inevitable bitter end. Perhaps some understanding is gained, not of why the father left but of how families must open their hearts even when bitterness seems to be the only option. It will bring you to tears. One comment on the cinematography - shot in a bluish cast, which contrasts nicely with the heated emotions the characters can barely contain. It symbolized the indifference of nature to the plight of humans and their troubled relations.

Everything Is Illuminated

I loved Foer's novel, on which the film is based. The film is reductive -- it had to be -- but I think it missed some of the comedy in the part of the book that it did cover. Also, I didn't think the character of "Jonathan Safran Foer" resembled the author's persona in the novel. Still, there was intelligence and imagination, and some fine performances.

Friends with Money

Actors this good need more to say. But what a delight they are. McDormand and Keener are treasures. Anniston does her comic thing very well and found some of the truth in her strangely written character. The one disappointment was the often delightful Joan Cusack, who struck me as false and looked awful. Maybe she needs broader comedy and wasn't comfortable with Holofcener's thing. Entertaining but disappointing because Holofcener can do better. What was the point?

Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt

Legendary Texas songwriter Townes Van Zandt and the people who loved and admired him. Why some people of tremendous talent prosper and others live on the edge is a mystery. Here is someone who could, should have "made it," but did not -- though his music touched people all over the world and is admired by the great Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. This movie is about pain -- the pain Townes felt, the pain he caused, and the pain he made into such remarkable music. It doesn't ask or answer questions about the man as much as it aims to present an emotional truth about him and his life on the road. There's no "story" or "development" here because some lives merely end -- as Van Zandt's did, and too soon.

Fitzcarraldo

A masterpiece, plain and simple. Herzog and Kinski at the height of their collaboration. And on the Amazon again. A movie unlike any other.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

Brilliant, discursive 18th century metafiction finds interesting expression in this film. Steve Coogan isn't Tristram Shandy, but he's cool as hell, as are the many talented players in this film that admires the great novel enough not to attempt to portray it (which would probably be impossible). Intelligence, bonhomie, and freewheeling wit make this experimental venture a winner.

Shampoo

Nice guy hairdresser Warren Beatty beds every female head who comes into his shop. Nixon is about to take office as Prez, and Beatty's present set of babes is about to become empty. Funny, likeable characters that aren't entirely sympathetic. Played in the key of life, rather than satire, you get the feeling that whatever heartbreak Beatty feels as his world crumbles will be reasonably short-lived; there will be another skirt to chase after the credits roll. Fine cast, excellent score, thoughtful comedy.

Cache

They're watching. And you're guilty. Michael Hanneke, Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche. How could this be anything less than a winner? Superb thriller. Told with economy. Shot with precision. Played parfaitement. This is why I love movies.

Breakfast on Pluto

Breakfast gets the razz from me. This mixture of lighthearded draq queen comedy, domestic tragedy, and political drama bored my wife and me. Cillian Murphy's cartoonish performance didn't impress either. Not my cup of tea.

Munich

Spielberg's cinematic talents are so great that he is incapable of making a worthless movie. So many brilliant shots, so many memorable scenes in Munich. But some atrocities too -- the rough cuts between sex and the murder of the Israeli Olympic team is bad in a way that only Spielberg can be. Munich is a terrible film, a realy terrible film. Earnest, high-minded BS. Tony Kushner's phony, aphoristic script is the biggest problem. No one talks like the characters in this movie, certianly not Mossad operatives hired to hunt down and kill Black September terrorists (well, those I met didn't! :P ). Spielberg should have hired John LeCarre, Charles McCarry, or David Mamet instead of a showman who's just a bit too much in love with purple prose to make his movie about the moral cost of pursuing terrorists. I was disgusted by much of Munich. And it was a bore -- there's no story, just 3 hours of revenge killings.

Ushpizin

A love story -- between man and wife, between humans and G-d. Ushpizin is a wonderful comedy about the struggles of the faithful, and the possibility of a kind of redemption. Moshe is an Ultra-Orthodox Jew with a shady past that comes to haunt, or perhaps bless him and his wife Mali as they prepare for the festival of Sukkoth. The characters are so rich, the script so good, that, at the end of the film, I felt as if I had read a novel. Textured, rich, joyous storytelling. A treasure!

Paradise Now

It's not about heaven it's about movies. The premise of this film (I'm oversimplifying, but only a bit) is that suicide bombers do what they do to go on TV. It's a pose. How depressing. This film shows the misguided Palestinian youth and the monsters who exploit them for their cause. Ultimately, it treats the suicide bombers as human beings, who are so utterly without hope that they are capable of the gesture. The film also shows advocates of the Palestinian cause who have, in the opinion of this reviewer, saner and possibly more effective ideas about how to continue their people's struggle.

Never on Sunday

This movie offended me, as did Pretty Woman, and for the same reasons. IT wants us to believe that turning tricks makes women deliriously happy. I don't believe that. Some beautiful shots, but I didn't believe it for a second. I'm in the minority. Also, Dassin can't act at all. He should have cast someone competent in the role.

Mississippi Mermaid

A strange dose of Truffaut Hitchcock, his exuberant genius is evident in many shots. But, as a thriller, I just didn't quite think it worked. It's kinda' strange to complain that it was tough to believe why a man would stay with Catherine Deneuve even after she repeatedly tries to ruin his life, but Belmondo didn't quite convince that he was a happy slave. She is obsession, but he didn't seem that obsessed (cf. Jimmy Stewart). Still, her perfection, her icy loveliness contrasts nicely with his lumbering, inept machismo. Style isn't substance, at least not in this case. Worth renting.

The Child

Another timeless story set among forgotten Belgians, L'Enfant is similar in theme to The Mayor of Casterbridge, but the Dardenne brothers don't share Hardy's bleak outlook. As with all their films, the focus is on the story and the characters -- there are no movieland conventions. So many moments ot truth here. Do not pass on this one.

Baadasssss!

Mario Van Peebles makes a movie about his father's groundbreaking 1971 film, adapted from his father's book on the subject. I love movies about moviemaking, and this one is one of the good ones. Mario shows his father's determination to succeed against any obstacles, his courage, his narcissism, his cruelty, and the incredible sacrafices he made to get his firm made. Excellent interview with Melvin Van Peebles included in DVD extras, where he recounts in his inimitable way what motivated him to become a moviemaker and to make this film in particular.

Keane

Want to know what it's like to be trapped in the mind of a paranoid schizophrenic? Director Lodge Kerrigan hopes you do, and he has the extremely talented Damian Lewis take you there. It is far from clear by the end of the film that what we learn in the first scene has been tormenting Keane scene is real or imagined. What we know is that Keane's mind is a terrifying place. No Lynch/Cronenberg dream sequences, yet the horror and claustrophobia of mental illness are powerfully conveyed. An effective character study.

Prime

Earnest 23-year-old Jewish New Yorker schtupps 37-year-old shikse, Uma Thurman, and falls in love. Problem is his mom's her shrink. Sound like a Woody Allen movie? Ya think? Well, with half the neurosis and without the references. The script is seriously flawed -- way too much cleverness and jokes that fall flat, but the two lead female performances are winning. More hits than misses here, I think.

A History of Violence

Cronenberg has talent, but this is a showcase for hammy acting. More pathology in the perfect American family. Secrets. Sexual issues. What are we hiding? Bored me. And, if you are going to have characters from Philly, train them to speak in the Philly accent. We don't talk like New Yorkers, so stop being so sloppy.

North Country

As a lawyer, I hear a lot of complaints about how sexual harrassment policies go too far, punishing innocent behavior. People should be more thick-skinned, so many say. Maybe so, in some cases. North Country shows us why sexual harrassment is employment discrimination, how it dehumanizes its victims, and why the law must prohibit it. This film and its fine cast paint a picture of an unrelenting "hostile environment," and they show how much grit and anger it takes to do something to change that when the fix is in.

Thumbsucker

Here's a story about a HAPPY adolescence, relatively speaking. I haven't read the novel on which it is based, but it's about imagined problems, or the way that the mind tends to exaggerate the problems we have. Justin is a quirky kid who has quite a bit of support and love in his life. He feels like a freak, is definitely a bit odd, but actually is a healthy, miserably happy teen on his way to becoming somebody we think we'll like. Hell, we like him already. Solid, thoughtful film. Nothing new, but well worth renting.

Masculin Feminin

Somewhere in between Une Femme Est Une Femme and Week-End lies Masculin Feminin, a movie about 1960s youth, politics, violence and sex (the children of Marx and Coca-Cola) that is bursting with fresh ideas even if it no longer seems radical in 2006. Godard's experminental style -- his genius -- is evident in every shot, and his "radical" politics are given more on-screen time, too. It is interesting to see how differently from Truffaut Godard uses Jean-Pierre Leaud (the Cruise-Travolta-Di Caprio of the Nouvelle Vague). Truffaut loves him to death; Godard shows us how to see Leaud -- probably loves him in his fashion -- but does not allow us to make the mistake of identifying with him. Godard wants us to think about the way films romanticize youth; actors like Tobey Maguire might not have had careers without him. An interview with the once impossibly lovely Chantal Goya on the Criterion disk also explains how Godard got such unique performances from his actors. And again, one thing that amazes me is that a film so overstuffed with ideas can be so easy to enjoy.

Grizzly Man

The immensely talented Werner Herzog serves up another film on madness and obsession. Much of Grizzly Man was filmed by its subject Tomothy Treadwell, who spent summers in Alaska living among the bears before he and his girlfriend were mauled to death by one. My problem with the film was that I was watching someone have a nervous breakdown; there seemed to be far more madness than genius in Treadwell to this viewer. Whatever admirable qualities he had (and his admirers are given screen time to tell us about them) are quickly forgotten when Treadwell is on camera. Herzog paints a picture of mental illness: we see Treadwell preening for the camera, we hear him make grandiose pronouncements about the importance of his "work" (whatever that was), we witness his psychotic angry outbursts, we gape in disbelief as he delivers narcissistic monologues like a cheap Bette Davis or Joan Crawford impersonator. I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but I just couldn't see the nobility in Treadwell's grim grizzly project. Grizzly Man was hard to take, like its unfortunate subject Mr. Treadwell.

The Aristocrats

I think the folks who gave it one star have a point -- The Aristocrats is a bad joke; but I think they missed *the* point of "The Aristocrats," a far from perfect movie that the wife and I loved. It's not really about the joke, it's about the comedians themselves: how quick they are, how far they will go or not go to get a laugh, how much they love what they do and how much they appreciate each other. It's overstating things to say that this film is the equivalent of a documentary about virtuosi playing their instruments or the famous film of Pollock throwing paint in ecstasy, but I'm not quite sure by how much. It's funny, its fun, it's infectious.

Cet Amour-La

I can't say whether her portrayal of Marguerite Duras was accurate, but this film is a testament to the power of Jeanne Moreau, one of the greatest actresses that has ever appeared on the silver screen. She is miraculously alive in this film, as so few other actors ever are. Moreau is a wonder.

A Dog's Life: A Dogamentary

Everything the review above said was true, but I liked this movie, and I laughed a lot. If you have a puppy (which I do) or love dogs (which I do), you may well get a kick out of Gail, Chelsea, and the other dog nuts. The "serious" turn the movie takes is shallow for sure, but I have no doubt that Chelsea the therapy dog has made some small difference in some pretty desperate lives. Maybe Jon Katz (my wife's guru)or the Monks of New Skete will make a "dogamentary" some day. Until then, this one will do fine.

Kings and Queen

Like many recent French films, Kings and Queen fools with your genre expectations. It veers from unbearably sad domestic tragedy to slapstick comedy. In between the two is a lot of interesting stuff, some fantasy, some reality, and especially fine performances from the two leads. Wonderful movie.

The Dark Side of the Heart

Vistually stunning, other-worldly comedy about an Argentine poet's search for love. Sensual and playful, I think you miss the point if you believe the "hero" has learned too much from his journey. Saying one's heart has been broken in gorgeous language and staring wistfully into a camera is different from allowing one's heart to break on camera (cf. Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice), and Subiela understands the difference. In fact, I think it's the point of this film -- Oli(ver Twist?) is on the make at the end of the film, just as he was at the beginning. Looking for love is pretty comic, no? And why give up hope?

Design for Living / Peter Ibbetson

Hopkins, Cooper and especially March excel in Lubitsch's jaunty adaptation of Noel Coward's subtle/racy Design for Living. How refreshing to see young actors behaving like adults instead of old actors behaving like teenagers. Brando changed all that. And the results have been wonderful in many ways. Still, we and our movies have lost something -- more than just good manners -- over the years since his feral presence first announced itself. Design for Living is about sex -- but the only time sex is ever mentioned is when Hopkins says she'll be having none of it. In fact, we know she's a liar (except as far as her husband is concerned), and that our three heroes are a pretty kinky bunch. Was there ever a better actor than March? Was there ever a better man than Cooper? Was there ever a better Jennifer Jason Leigh than Hopkins? Enjoy.

King of the Corner

Great cast of actors in this enjoyable, touching comdedy about Leo Spivak (the excellent Peter Riegert), a middle aged man and his woes at work and at home. Movieland plot twists and dialogue keep it from being a very good film, but Riegert (who is in every scene) and his fellow actors keep you laughing (Bravo, Eric Bogosian!). And they deftly handle the transition to bittersweet (Bravo, Eli Wallach! Brava, Rita Moreno!).

Pride and Prejudice

Keira Knightley's pretty face is a delight, a wonder; effortlessly it serves up whatever occupies Lizzie Bennet's soul at a given moment. And it had better be, because Knightley in practically every scene here. We miss out on Austen's rapier wit, and the exquisite balance of Pride and Prejudice; but we do get a Lizzie to love, admonish, and ultimately admire. Knightley is so adorable that you come off feeling she's way too good for D'Arcy, played by a much less inspiring actor.

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan

I loved this film. It is an exploration of the enigmatic genius of Bob Dylan and the changin' times that made him (or did he make them?). The rare concert footage is a treat, as is the opportunity to see the effect that this man had on his contemporaries. Dylan stands alone in so many ways -- he seems always to be removing himself from us even in moments of candor -- and Scorsese is smart enough to appreciate that this is part of what makes him fascinating.

Shopgirl

I fell in love with Claire Danes, body and soul. She and Jason Schwartzman are terrific as two twentysomethings trying to figure out life and love in this well made adaptation of Steve Martin's novella. Martin is a gifted writer, a great comedian, a wild and crazy guy (could be a good Clouseau though Sellers was one of a kind - we shall see); his acting here, however, is somewhere between Jerry Seinfeld and Woody Allen. Someone else should have been cast in the role of the suave older gentleman who sweeps the ingenue off her feet for a time. Bill Murray perhaps? No wait, he was in the same movie last year. Which brings me to another problem with Shopgirl. It's "Lost in Translation, but they sleep together." (My wife said that -- and she's right on the money).

The Hospital

How can the wit of Paddy Chayevsky, the manly intensity of George C. Scott, and the stems of Diana Rigg (a brilliant actress herself, though she doesn't need or try to prove that in this film) miss the mark? They can't, and there is more intelligence in this film than in a random sample of 5 others now in release. The huge cast also contains so many wonderful supporting actors that it's fun to play who's who. Not a great film, however; more than a few too many clever monologues drag things down, Chayevsky showing off too much. So The Hospital bored me at times, but it's still a witty movie that showcases a hugely talented actor and a brilliant screenwriter. Don't expect Network, and you'll be very satisfied.

National Lampoon's Animal House

Inspired, tasteless silliness. What a great cast!!!! The actors take the funny script and propel this movie into the stratosphere. A gem.

Human Resources

Ressources Humaines is a film of tremendous intelligence and sensitivity. It is about two of the great conflicts: bosses and workers, fathers and sons. Are we naive to think that the interested parties in these conflicts are capable of lasting compromise, or, rather, are we naive to see them as implacably opposed? Laurent Cantet provides us with no easy answers -- this isn't Norma Rae or Silkwood -- he permits us to see the merits of many different perspectives (although I think he does take sides). Even the bad guys are human beings here, though. The payoff is that the penultimate scene -- a son-father confrontation -- is one of genuine heartbreak. It reminds you of the famous scene where Biff Loman chews out his father. Both can move you to tears, yet Cantet's version is less about rhetorical flourish and more about what these characters mean to each other. Superb.

The Squid and the Whale

Divorce Brooklyn Style circa 1986. The breakup of 2 narcissitic intellectuals and its effect on their 2 sons, one of whom is the flm's writer/director. Truly excellent performances by the ensemble cast. Witty script that eschews Act 3 resolution -- it's as if Baumbach is saying, "Kramer vs. Kramer" is not real life, folks -- but manages to convince that there is love in this screwed up family. Told from the older son's perspective, we sort of see him making some slight progress toward learning to appreciate his adulterous mother and removing himself from the shadow of his manipulative, critical, ungenerous father. But we are not invited to think that this experience has made anyone too much wiser for the suffering. These people will endure, perhaps gain some perspective, and (we're assured) continue to make new mistakes as time goes on. One flaw/oddity in the script (although perhaps it really happened, dunno): the older son wins a high school talent show by passing off Pink Floyd's "Hey You" as his own. Could he possibly have fooled so many people in 1986? I guess so, but I found it hard to believe. (Curiously, the wrong people, his parents mates, knew of the fraud but kept their mouths shut. How convenient that these were the only two who knew what was going on.)

Tell Them Who You Are

Legendary cinematographer and "Medium Cool" director Haskell Wexler sort of lets his son Mark get in the last word in this docmentary about their relationship and Haskell's brilliant, difficult career and personality. Mark's ambivalence about his father is the true subject here -- he hangs Dad out to dry in many respects, but we also see some of Haskell's enigmatic charm and even his tender side. Mark doesn't let himself off the hook entirely for the difficulties in their relationship; in fact, he is chastised ever-so-midly by Jane Fonda for not trying hard enough to repair any breach in the father-son relationship. You get an appreciation for how rich Haskell's life was, yet how he also missed many opportunities along the way. You also get the sense that Mark may be repeating some of his father's mistakes, or at least that he is worried he is doing so. A deeply felt, personal film.

Palindromes

If the idea of a movie where a boy picks up a plastic bag containing an aborted embryo/fetus is your cup of tea, by all means see this one. You'll also get many opportunities to laugh at the disabled, and to feel superior to evangelical Christians, suburban Jews, and just about everybody. Todd Solondz aims to offend, but it doesn't make him Lenny Bruce. Oh 8 actresses play Aviva, but that doesn't make Solondz Luis Bunuel either. 2 stars because it did provoke, and i did laugh? No. One star. Police Academy 6 did that for me, too.

Dot the I

Blair Witch Project, Neil LaBute, "Reality TV", Corneille -- is it live or is it Memorex? This not so original, self-consciously ultrahip take on "feels like I'm in a movie" is merely clever, never captivating. The stock characters are hardly worth caring about, and you see the punch line coming a mile away. If it's often entertaining anyway, it's usually because Ms. Verbeke is such a knockout. Often ridiculous. Amateurish acting, except by Mr. Bernal, who is a true talent. Not a total waste of your time.

Oliver Twist

Polanski's Olvier Twist delivers, for the most part. Saw it in the theater today with wife and kids, and we all got something out of it. Thanks to well, Charles Dickens. This adaptation conveys the story, recreates the dingy world, but somehow doesn't render the characters quite as dramatically as it might have. Oliver himself is a bit bland rather than pure, Bill Sykes is a menace but not a terrifying one, Nancy is tarted-up a bit but you don't fall in love with her, and Fagin -- well, I think there was understandably too much ambivalence about him to do him justice. The mood here is dismal, grey but never truly heartbreaking. It's almost as if Polanski were using the Dickens novel to retell The Pianist -- a story about the necessity of how a combination of numbness and will serve as the heroe's survival technique in the worst human tragedy imaginable. It's not a perfect fit, in my view. Putting a damper on the highs and lows of Dickens robs his art of some of its greatness. Still, this is a film to see with your kids to get them interested in the novel and some of the many pleasures of Dickens.

Winter Solstice

A movie that delivers both less and more than we expect from it, Winter Solstice is a story about an ordinary American family in an ordinary American town. There is no plot to speak of, nor is there character development. There is just what happens to these folks -- a widowed father, his prospective mate, his two sons, their buddies, one son's girlfriend. Pay attention to this film -- if you keep waiting for something big to happen (it's a movie, after all), you may miss what *is* happening onscreen: acting that is sensitive, honest, which reminds us that so many performances mock or condescend to the folks who watch movies & TV shows. This film has respect for real people, even if it might not quite entertain them. Whether that respectfulness justifies its existence is for you to decide -- it doesn't hold a candle to the simlar but superior work of , say, Victor Nunez. For my part, I cared about these people, and I can recommend the film on that basis.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

I like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. I want them to succeed in this movie, but they don't. I guess at present they're an item, but no onscreen chemistry is in evidence. There was nothing believable in this film, nothing sexy, nothing funny. I guess this is sort of a remake of Prizzi's Honor, a movie I love. Memo to Doug Liman: a movie about two hit-men in love who are assigned to kill each other is *plagued* by that ridiculous, incredible story line. It is an obstacle that must be overcome for the film to succeed -- Nicholson, Turner and the Hustons carried it off brilliantly. Sorry Brad. Sorry Angelina. You failed. Miserably. Irritatingly. Boringly.

The Big Red One: Special Edition

The featured reviews are of a different movie. Not Sam Fuller's The Big Red One, a series of set pieces tracing the adventures of a platoon of 1st Infantry soldiers who managed to survive WWII in Europe, with a few appearances from their German nemesis. Each vignette focuses on an unexpected detail that illustrates something about war: the watch of a dead soldier marking time during the D-day invasion, a baby delivered in a German panzer, a Sicilian girl who decorates a helmet with flowers and unwittingly jeopardizes the platoon, the question of what to do with (whether to kill) a Hitler youth who killed for his country at the close of the war, etc. Lee Marvin is, of course, perfectly cast as the rock of a sergeant who leads his men through their odyssey, who is unfailingly decent but hard when he has to be, who is haunted by a mistake made at the close of WWI. Effective storytelling.

Sisters

Great fun Hitchcock-type shocker from Di Palma before he could command huge budgets for films that missed the mark. Lots of style, lots of suspense. Somewhat superficial story and characters, to be sure, but loads of great visuals, genuine thrills, and humor (esp. from Charles Durning). And, it only takes about 90 minutes of your time. Well worth renting!!!

My Man Godfrey

Poor print. Greatest movie. Powell. Lombard. Why can't life be a screwball comedy?

The Clockmaker

This character study owes its power to the great Philippe Noiret, whose pudgy face is a miraculous instrument. (He can be a buffoon; he can be Pablo Neruda. Who else can claim that?) Here he plays a father coming to terms with the fact that his son has committed murder and will be punished for it. Noiret's Michel is sadness, paternal love, decency, acceptance without resignation. In short, Noiret gives us everything we need to know about Michel.

Steal This Movie!

Wife and I enjoyed this one, but it's obviously a very whitewashed version of the Abbie Hoffman story. The stuff that took place in the 60's seemed less than authentic. (Do you believe Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman were a sweet, if off beat couple? Maybe she was .) When Hoffman went underground, the film started to take off. Vincent D'Onofrio did a fine job of showing how life underground took its toll on Hoffman -- how he barely survived the combined effects of government harrassment and manic depressive illness. The rest of the cast was fine, too.

Paradise Lost

I'm glad I took the opportunity to see this historically significant Group Theater play by Clifford Odets. About a talented, upright family's decline during the Great Depression, it shows the appeal of now discredited radical ideas during years in which they represented the only hope to certain very desperate Americans. Paradise Lost is an extremely ambitious work (I mean, what a title to appropriate!). In my view it seemed a bit overstuffed -- with ideas, characters, take-note speeches, self-consciously gorgeous language, and plot developments that too often came off as dreary authorial contrivances rather than inevitable tragic consequences. Still, despite the artifice, the play has power, even a bit of majesty, and I took great delight in this production's many excellent performances.

A Woman Is a Woman

Free play. Lively movie about a lovely woman. And, of course, about movies. As usual, Godard is intent on reminding you of the tools (gimmicks?) that filmmakers use to get you where they want you. A delightful experiment

Undertow

Impressive work by developing auteur David Gordon Green, marred because that good work -- his patient observations of Southern life and Southern folks, his powerful message that childhood is serious business -- is trapped in a conventional, below average thriller. The best thing by far about this film is the performance by Jamie Bell, a young actor with tremendous depth who may just be the best thing to happen to English language movies in years. (Compare Bell's work here with that of Josh Lucas, who is menacing and gets mileage from his trademark grin but doesn't seem like someone who works in pig slop or just got out of prison.) I'm looking forward to more films from Green and Bell.

Too Bad She's Bad

Light and delightful comedy starring a young Mastroianni and -- a big reason to see it -- Sophia Loren. That's star power. Here she's a petty thief from a family of petty thieves (Vittorio De Sica plays her dad), and he's one of her lucky, male (of course) victims. Charming. Sexy. Italian. Reminds you of why Shakespeare set his comedies in Italy. And, it ends like so many Shakespeare comedies -- before a magistrate who ties everything up so the hero & heroine can get married.

The Band Wagon

Excellent in every way (visually, musically, comedically), The Band Wagon is confection touched with sadness. It's almost as if Comden, Green, Minnelli, Schwartz, Astaire & Co. knew that they would soon be irrelevant and were asked to come up with a movie to justify themselves and the American dance movie musical to future generations. I invite all skeptics to giveThe Band Wagon a try. If you can't appreciate how well they have acquitted themselves with this pretty close to perfect work, there's no hope for you.

Alexandra's Project

Atrocious. A film designed to shock should at least be shocking, but this one was pretty tepid, actually. Amateurish, adults only version of Medea (sort of) that is not convincing for one second. Trite. Boring.

Duck Soup

Clinical impression: watching Duck Soup is very good for your health. (A true story follows.) My wife had been extremely sick for a week. After only one evening's trip to Freedonia with me and the kids, her condition started to improve. Someone should start hocking this medicine on the web, or on cable. Calling all quacks and hucksters -- here's a cure that at least won't hurt anybody. My evidence for the latter claim? Why, the sturdy Mrs. Teasdale, of course. (I get 10% of whatever you take in, and insist on wearing Groucho glasses in any interview.)

The Blue Angel

(Review of the German language version.) Masterful. Simple story: Herr Doktor Professor, pompous pedant, falls for and because of Lola Lola, shameless showgirl. Awkward Emil Jannings precisely conveys each stage of this man's journey to hell. We see Sternberg's awful lesson seep in to the Professor's consciousness. Marlene Dietrich's breakout film; no use describing her performance -- the name "Lola Lola" suffices. Sternberg tells his story with great economy. Wonderful use of symbolism. Essential DVD extras, including Dietrich's screen test, must not be overlooked.

Sex Is Comedy

Sex Is Comedy is Catherine Breillat's amusing, inteligent enough answer to the audience's inevitable movie sex scene question: "How do they do it?" Well, folks, it ain't easy. In fact, sex scenes are often pretty tedious business. We watch the god-like, self-congratulatory director coax performances from her two reluctant actors (Male is vain & silly so the dir. flatters/taunts him, Female is waiflike & inward so the dir. overwhelms/supports her), we see how tedious, fragile and insensitive some movie people can be, we see how the crew is treated and serves the film, and we see the final product. Breillat's films (some of which are unwatchable) often have a dismal, stilted quality to them. Not this one. There is room for laughter here and a wonderful perfornace from Anne Parillaud as the director. It's no Day For Night, but movie buffs should enjoy it.

What a Way to Go!

Definitely not art. Not always entertainment either. Face it. This is an undistinguished, one-joke studio film that very often insults your intelligence. You're not proud you made it through to the end, but it made you smile often enough that you resisted the urge to shut the TV off. How did you survive? Well, there is no denying the talent of the players. Shirley MacLaine (what an improbable movie star!) has tons of it, and you can't help but love her here. She rises above the middling material. (The costumes and sets were apparently thought of as lavish in 1964, but we see today that it lacks great Hollywood style.) Her male costars are also enjoyable to watch, especially Robert Mitchum (who clearly enjoyed not having to brood). He and MacLaine have quite a bit of chemistry in their segment.

New York, New York

Martin Scorsese's tribute to the MGM Musical, with lavish sets, dead on production numbers (the highest form of pastiche, with Liza, who else?), great old and new music, and a combination of naturalistic acting and star power that we don't see much. The story of two young talents, their romance, and the long, bumpy road to success, some fault it because the story has a few holes in it. Maybe so, but this is first rate talent at the top of its game, or should I say "top of the heap."

Secrets & Lies

I'm surprised it took this one so long to come out on DVD. Rent it! Mike Leigh's films are always rewarding. His usual subject -- oddball lives in the English middle & working classes -- is given humane, honest presentation. Unilike lesser filmmakers, Leigh knows that it isn't all pathology, or all nobility. His directorial methodology (read about it online -- lots of good articles to google) practically guarantees great performances. This is one of his very best films (about a Black woman in her 30s reunited with her White birth mother and the mother's White family), and it got Brenda Blethyn noticed in the States. Unfortunately for Blethyn, her films that followed S&L weren't written and directed by Mike Leigh.

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

The subject: how a group gets a job done when the members can't stand each other. I imagine that students of "group process" and people who like to attend never-ending, pointless meetings will find it interesting, but at 2 hours and 20 minutes, this non-therapist found it pretty dull. What apparently justifies its existence to a lot of people is that the group is Metallica. And, to be sure, for the first 25 minutes it is funny, IRONIC --get it? IRONIC!!!! -- to hear the kings of all metalheads/middle aged dads/multimillionaires whine incessantly to & about their therapist, about each other, about their Napster lawsuit, about how hard they have it. They aren't entitled to much sympathy, but, to their credit, they don't seem to be asking for it either. The fact of Metallica's fame doesn't give them the right to bore us. If you want to attend someone else's boring work meetings, this may be the film for you.

Intimate Strangers

What's noir? It's a lonely, determined man and a desperate, mysterious woman. It's pushing him past his breaking point and, of course, whether he's a rogue hero or a patsy. It's when there are no coincidences, when nothing is as it seems, when trusting anyone (especially a woman) is bad for your health. It's intimate conversations, smoky interiors, shadows, windows, a relentless score. And it's a bitter ending, a set up. Intimate Stranger knows what noir is, and is a treat for those of us who can't get enough of it. It has plenty of twists, and, although it gives us all that we expect from a noir film, it has its own clever reward for us at the end. It's a set-up. Bravo to Patrice Leconte, sexy Sandrine Bonnaire, and especially to Fabrice Luchini, who was the embodiment of longing/restraint. Whether he turns out to be a patsy is for you to find out.

De-Lovely

Whether this movie accurately depicted Cole Porter's life is a secondary question because it was not even entertaining. The premise is that Porter is watching a musical about his life story--sort of "Cole Porter, This is Your Life", or "A Christmas Carol" meets "All That Jazz." Lifeless production numbers and almost universally disappointing solo appearances from some great entertainers for the musical numbers (Irwin Winkler has proved it possible to make you want to throw tomatoes at even the great Elvis Costello), stilted dialogue, uninspired acting (yes, even from Kevin Kline, who made the author of "Let's Do It" seem like a tightass). Songs as great as Porter's deserved better. This is to be avoided.

We Don't Live Here Anymore

Depressing drama about marital infidelities among some very inarticulate people, which is weird because the two husbands are literature professors (one a writer). The acting is very good -- which it needs to be because the script is sparse as can be. Ruffalo, Watts and Dern supplement the text by showing off their expertise in facial semiotics. (Which can be when a character is trying to hide the fact of his/her cheating -- the actor's face must reveal something to the audience and yet nothing to the spouse character. Usually, this is accomplished by having the actor turn away from his/her interlocutor and then furtively glance at the camera for a facial "soliloquy.") Peter Krause plays a cooler cat, so he gets less opportunity to show off his range of expressions. An interesting work, but, as one of its main points was that adultery is farily inconsequential these days, it lacked the dramatic power of some other adaptations of Andre Dubus works (The House of Sand and Fog, The Bedroom Window).

Deadline

This is two movies jumbled together, for no apparent purpose other than they are both about the death penalty. Each subject would make an excellent documentary: (1) about the effect of Supreme Court's invalidation of death penalty laws in 1972 and (2) about Governor Ryan's death penalty moratorium and mass commutation of IL's death sentences. The two parts weren't well integrated, however, and the result is a crazy quilt of mostly interesting pundit interviews, news footage and press interviews with Governor Ryan (powerful stuff), and footage from the IL clemency hearings (also extremely powerful). We never really understand what exactly motivated Governor to do what he did, and there is hardly any explanation of the U.S. Supreme Court's death penalty decisions in the 1970s. Still, so much of what is shown here needs to be seen that it makes this flawed film required viewing for any concerned citizen.

The Motorcycle Diaries

A fine movie about two young men who go on a journey and wind up changed from it. If this were not based on real people, I would give it five stars. Then it would be a profound statement about compassion and injustice, and about what makes Latin Americans unique. The problem with the film, of course, is that it is a piece of propaganda posing as history: A Portrait of the Communist Revolutionary as A Young Saint. Sure it's a lie -- this doesn't feel at all like a story about how someone became a militant revolutionary, nor does it ever acknowledge the blood on Che's Communist hands -- but, as a testament to the idealism of youth and the power of travel to change people, this is a very well-made piece of fiction. Kudos to both of the leads, too.

Glengarry Glen Ross

Always be closing. Wow. Great, great play. As a film, it works very well because the source material is Mamet's finest work and because the AAA-list cast members knew the opportunity they had here. I doubt that Ricky Roma's speech in the Chinese restaurant will ever be done as well as it was here by Pacino. (Not five stars because the curtain doesn't open after intermission on a ransacked office. Strange how a play can leave you with an *image* that is more powerful than anything in the film version.)

Stone Reader

Deeply moving, downright inspirational at certain points. At others, well, Stone Reader makes you suspicious. There is something too clever by half about filmmaker Mark Moskowitz's portrayal of his "quest" for "lost", beloved (by him) 1-book author Dow Mossman. Somehow you doubt the credibility of Moskowitz's claim that Mossman was such a difficult man to find -- espeically because the film needs for Moskowitz to take time to reach Mossman. Moskowitz had to get his footage before he got the payoff (was it really filmed sequentially? what about those voiceovers? when were they recorded?), so the question is inevitable: did he want to make a movie about finding a lost author more than he wanted to find him? So much time is spent trying to convince us of Moskowitz's own worthiness. He dramatizes his convenient "frustration" (and is quite a ham, relishing life in front of the camera), repeatedly reminds us of all the difficult books he apparently has read, shows off his impressive library, splits wood (bookish, not wimpy) at his impressive house with its picture-perfect garden (rich man, good taste). The self-promotion had the opposite effect on me. I would have admired Moskowitz more had he been a bit more like another great reader, the self-effacing radio host Terry Gross, whom Moskowitz so clearly (and rightly) admires. Terry lets her subjects -- the authors -- steal the show. Besides, Moskowitz didn't need to try so hard. There *is* something noble about a reader determined to track down a forgotten, favorite author from 1972. Stone Reader is at its best when Moskowitz is off camera, letting Mossman's contemporaries, teachers, those who had something to do with the publication of Mossman's book, and a few other literary types (Frank Conroy) say what they have to say. That's when it feels unscripted, like the best documentaries.

New Waterford Girl

I can't comment on the authenticity of the Cape Breton accents, but I enjoyed this smart, funny film about Mooney, an imaginative, bookish, naughty beauty (played by the excellent and lovely Liane Balaban, Fanny Ardant with the twinkle, without the voice) who feels trapped in a hometown that she feels is a backwater. If the film caricaturizes New Waterford and its folks, it's because it shows them from Mooney's "alienated adolescent" perspective. Mooney begins to appreciate her surroundings through a friendship with Lou -- a pretty pugilist who has recently arrived from the Bronx and is determined to thrive in her new home. The plot is complicated -- the two friends try on Thelma and Louise for a time -- but we are still rewarded with a realistic happy ending. The entire cast is excellent, the script is fine. Great little movie.

Monsieur Ibrahim

A teriffic rental (don't think I'd have liked it quite as much in the theater, though). Omar Sharif exudes warmth, wisdom, humor and longing as an old muslim grocer who serves as surrogate father to an abandoned Jewish boy, played by an excellent Pierre Boulanger. Does everything we expect a coming of age film to do very well.

The Incredibles

The cinematic equivalent of a thrill ride. There's genius in there. Great family entertainment.

The Mother

Remember the "woman power" movies of the 1970s like the excellent Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and the passable An Unmarried Woman? Like them, The Mother is concerned with the sexual and spiritual awakening of a woman who is released from the bonds/burdens of marriage and has to find herself. In the earlier films, the heroines were released before the proverbial bloom was off the rose, and it was not at all difficult to see what made the heroines attractive to men as they figured themselves out. (Certainly, that was true in the case of Jill Clayburgh, who has aged about as well as it is possible to do, but it was also true in the far less beautiful Ellen Burstyn's case.) Here the heroine is past the age where she turns the heads of men. And yet, the astounding Anne Reid more than convinces as a suburban English widow who is not far from 70 (perhaps older than that, even) but yet somehow manages to have a sexual affair with her own daughter's boyfriend. She is too old to be beautiful, but her awakening is palpable, compelling. Because of her age, the consequences of Reid's awakening differ from those of her predecessors, but this film is somehow truer than they were. The Mother feels more like a real-life story, and less like a polical tract than its predecessors did.

Film Noir Collection: The Stranger

I'm inclined to be more generous to The Stranger than the other two people who reviewed it thus far have been, although I agree with them that there's much to chuckle about here, and enough holes in the story to make you scratch your head in disbelief. Despite the flaws, Welles knew how to create a mood, he knew how to shoot a scene, and he was a mesmerizing presence (even if his googly-eyed portformance in this film seems a trifle hammy to us 21st century viewers). And, I give him credit for the famous final scene. Sure, it's over the top, but it's also pure Welles to have a Nazi war criminal stabbed by a figurine in a glockenspiel before plummetting to his death. The Stranger isn't Citizen Kane. Heck, it's not even The Lady from Shanghai. But it's worth putting near the top of your queue if you're in the mood for noir (or if you'd be pleased to be reminded that it's possible for a film to quote Emerson).

Fat Girl

Intelligent, funny, brutal film about teenage (and pre-teen) sex and longing starring the astonishing Anais Reboux as an ugly 12-year-old with a beautiful teenage sister who's getting plenty of male attention during a summer holiday. A French kid flick in the tradition of The 400 Blows, it is a cautionary tale that explores the themes of innocence and treachery. You will be blown away by Miss Reboux's self-possession and her dead-on performance as the cynical, tender, self-loathing, and ultimately heroic "fat girl" from whom this remarkable film gets its English name.

In the Mood for Love

Delicate, exotic rendition of a familiar story. Everything about In the Mood For Love is so skillfully and thoughtfully done that it will take your breath away: the dead-on performances, the score, the picture perfect images filled with information, the beautiful costumes (the lead female -- lovely woman! -- wears the same shape dress throughout the film, but its color and print keep changing), the delicate plot development. It's a film about people who can't say or escape from what they feel, and the director has used every nonverbal cue to make us understand what his characters lack the words to tell us, or each other. It's also about another kind of longing, the director's longing for the past. In the end, for the lovers, restraint wins out over love, but that also comes as no surprise. It couldn't have been otherwise for these two. Beautiful.

Bill's Run: A Political Journey in Rural Kansas: POV

This is "Mr. Smith Goes to Topeka-The Documentary", the story of a principled moderate Republican (legacy of the Landon/Kassebaum dynasty) who runs for the state legislature on a promise to raise taxes, and thereby preserve the way of life he believes is threatened by the loss of government services (like good schools) resulting from reckless tax-cutting. It's also about the slow pace of country life, the decency of country folks. I liked it because it wants to believe (as do I)that there is still room for inspiration and decency in American politics. Karl Rove, take note.

Bon Voyage

In the early 1940s, the French sent themselves to Hell in an act of extreme cowardice (BON VOYAGE, indeed!!); this is a fact it's hard to get around, even for us Francophiles. Here's a breezy melodrama-farce about France's disgraceful behavior in Europe's darkest hour. That's not a laughing matter, and to be fair, it's not the *only* thing this movie is about there's plenty of Hollywood glamor, Lubitsch frivolity, French door slamming farce, Chandler noir, all rendered with a knowing wink. Bon Voyage aims to be the genre picture to end all genre pictures, except that the soup has been spoiled by French history itself. If you want to laugh at WWII, read Catch-22. Rent To Be or Not to Be (either version) or The Producers.

Garden State

Zach Braff shows promise as a director-he has a fine sense of comic timing and is adroit at picking the right trick out of his bag when shooting a scene-but also exposes his limitations as an actor in Garden State. Twisting the mouth and giving a deer in the headlights look serve him very well in "Scrubs," but they don't get him far enough here (he should have cast the excellent, and equally tall-impish Jake Gyllenhaal). As a writer, his chief objective seemed to be to create a situation that would enable him to show off his acting abilities (he failed in that ojective). This caused him to create a very improbable family situation: a father psychiatrist who way overprescribes psychotropic medication for his son (this would never be allowed!! who would fill the scrips?) as revenge for an accident that occurred when the son was a child, which caused the mother/wife to become a paraplegic. Not a funny story, and not a believable one when placed in Braff's hands either. The other characters/situations in Garden State are equally improbable, and Braff is not writer enough to carry it all off. He also has an irritating tendency to get aphoristic at big moments and an infatuation with pop existentialism. Garden State is funny enough, and does know something about New Jersey. And, I give him credit for persuading Ian Holm (the brilliant actor who carried, among other films, The Sweet Hereafter) to slum with him here, even if it didn't do much to improve the film. Rent Harold and Maude again before you see this one.

Bright Young Things

Aside from a few lushly filmed scenes of decadent parties and witty bits of jaded humor, this adaptation of an Evelyn Waugh novel I haven't read qualifies as tiresome upper class costume drama. One big problem is that the lead actors, Stephen Campbell Moore and Emily Mortimer, aren't all that charming and give especially weak performances; they are badly shown up by the likes of Peter O'Toole (remember him in The Ruling Class!!), Jim Broadbent, and Stockard Channing. The leads aren't all that charming, and their characters aren't at all sympathetic. It's always a bad sign when you think a movie character has a point when she says she's never been so bored in her life.

The Independent

The same joke over and over again, for sure, but I still laughed. Jerry Stiller is just a funny guy. Shows that even a bad copy of a Christopher Guest mockumentary (this one about a B-movie director whose career has taken a downturn) can be fun.

Chi-Hwa-Seon: Painted Fire

This is just a beautifully shot movie about a revered late 19th Century Korean artist. I particularly liked how the movie dealt with the topic of artistic inspiration; the camera would dwell on a particularly captivating image (of nature, of course) and then that image would become a painting. Although the hero is seen painting and wringing his hands while waiting for inspiration to come, the film did not convince me of its claim that he was a genius. Sure, the characters kept on saying he was, and, no doubt, his paintings are exceedingly beautiful. But, were they works of genius? I'm sure they were (and I'm more than willing to concede total ignorance about Asian painting), but this film did not give me the tools I needed to appreciate his genius. In fact, it didn't really offer any explanation of it at all other than empty rhetoric as to what distinguished the hero's paintigs from those of his peers. Surely some background in Asian art would have helped me, but I think a great film still should have done more to explain. Also, it was interesting to learn about Korean history and to witness its impact on the life of a renowned artist, but I didn't feel that the film was as successful as it might have been in actually dramatizing that history. Instead of showing *why* the hero changed over time, what made him so angry, what he learned or didn't learn, Painted Fire merely showed him aging and depicted the changing political circumstances (largely through conversations). This was a lovely trip to an exotic world, but it did not sufficiently create that world or develop a lucide enough picture of a clearly compelling historical figure.

In My Skin

I didn't see this film the way many other reviewers did. In my view, In My Skin is a clever, dressed up slasher flick. Its subject, self-mutilation, invites the same terrifying question you might want to ask Jason, or Michael, or Freddie: why do you do it? Like other slasher flicks, this one works because it refuses to answer that question. We are forever staring into Esther's dark, impenetrable face and wondering what the hell is wrong with her, hoping she won't cut herself again, knowing (half wishing?) that she will. Esther's inscrutability is the source of the film's suspense. Like other slasher flicks, this one appears to aestheticize violence; it dares the audience to find beauty instead of disgust in its heroine's bloody mess of a body and in the sickening sounds of flesh cutting. In a particularly creepy scene, Esther takes pictures of herself while she cuts and bleeds. What at first appears to distinguish In My Skin -- that it seems to be about real people in real situations -- is in the end revealed to be mere window dressing. If this film really cared about Esther, we would have no problem averting our eyes.

Goodbye, Columbus

Entertaining adaptation of early Roth novel will remind you of The Graduate (an inferior novel, a better movie). Both films have similar stories and explore similar themes, and both seem more than a bit dated these days. Ali MacGraw is lovely to look at, though, and there are enough laughs to make it worth renting. Also, the famous wedding smorgasbord scene has withstood the test of time; it's a classic moment.

Twisted

One necessary element of the police thriller, plausibility, is absent from Twisted. It's fast-paced enough to be entertaining, but you have to turn your mind off to enjoy it. This story could never happen. Another problem is Ashley Judd, who just doesn't seem to be in touch with her wild side. Ellen Barkin circa 1990 wouldn't have solved the credibility problems with the plot, but she would have added an element of danger that the composed, wholesome Ms. Judd didn't. Maybe she could be into rough sex with strangers (although I doubt it), but a serial killer? Please.

The Son

Olivier Gourmet is omnipresent (and outstanding) in this latest effort from the brilliant Dardenne brothers. The Son, like their previous fictional features, deals with classical themes. This one is their inimitable take on the revenge tragedy; all signs point toward an inevitable end. Then, suddenly, they remind us that dramatic forms are merely dramatic forms, and the strictures of form don't always dictate what happens in real life, or art. (I'm being vague here, but you'll se why when you watch the movie.) One other way the Dardennes comment on the tragic form is by making much of the dialogue irrelevant; what carries this story forward is what is revealed in the actors' faces, what objects the cameral allows us to see, and how it allows us to see what we see. The camera work is disorienting (and I have to say, I did eventually get tired of looking at the back of Gourmet's neck), but, then, so are grief and the desire for revenge. This is an extraordinary film, and it is deliberately unsatisfying. I recommend watching The Promise before seeing this. If that masterpiece appeals to you, you will also admire this more challenging Dardenne offering.

Young Adam

Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton lead an excellent cast in this dark story of a a Scottish drifter working on a barge who discovers a semi-undressed female corpse one day in the river. The story, about the woman's death and the romantic attachment between the drifter and his employer's wife, plays games with time (the exposition is deliberately opaque but not too diffiult to follow) and goes where we expect it to. It's all well done, but for some reason didn't fully engage me.

Stevie

One thing I guarantee about Stevie, you will get very little pleasure from it (in the rare moments when the film makes you laugh or smile, you won't be proud of yourself). My two star rating reflects that I didn't "like" the film, although I do appreciate that thought and skill played their parts in the making it. The filmmaker's own ambivalence about his project didn't impress me as entirely genuine. Sure, I thought he had a a few moral qualms with filming Stevie's decline from misery to hell, but, once he got himself involved in Stevie's life, didn't he have a moral obligation to do something to help? Part of me thinks that the filmmaker thought Stevie deserved to go to prison from the get-go. That's a position I understand given the crime involved, but what I don't think I understand is why he wasn't more up front with Stevie about that, why he pretended to be Stevie's "friend" throughout the ordeal. It seems to me that Stevie wasn't just exploited here by a filmmaker; he was denied helpful advice by the one person in his life who could possibly have made a difference.

My Favorite Year

My Favorite Year is a light comic gem, a surefire cure for the blues. Peter O'Toole's performance is comic perfection; he deserves the highest praise for the boozy, elegant, witty, self-indulgent, foolish and ultimately touching movie idol Alan Swann, a character no other actor could have created. (Nicholson doesn't have a lock on aging playboys.) Members of the supporting cast are also fine, especially Joseph Bologna and Mark Linn Baker. Richard Benjamin ably brought to life this very funny and well-written tribute to television's "Golden Age."

My Favorite Year

Late Marriage

Late Marriage is an excellent comedy whose theme should resonate with Americans - as it is the theme of American literature from Franklin to Fitzgerald to Bellow: remaking oneself in a new world (here that world is Israel). Without spoiling the ending, what is truly remarkable about this film is that it has the courage of its convictions. It is an honest, if bitter reflection on tradition's claim on people who don't seem to understand or respect it. So many stories about immigrants argue that they lose themselves when they forget their past; here's one (from the Middle East, no less) that shows how they can sacrifice themselves when they fail to reconcile their new life with the ways of the old country. LM's ending is a perfect illustration of irony, worthy of further discussion. Highly recommended.

Charlotte Sometimes

Thoughtful, sexy movie that reveals itself and its characters slowly. (3.5 stars) Not for those who like everything set out for them, but, if you have a taste for indirection, you'll appreciate how much is conveyed subtextually. Beautifully lit and shot as well. DVD extras contain an excellent interview w/ director, stars and Roger Ebert that reveals some of what the audience inevitably will miss (esp. if, like me, they're not Asian) in a film where characters don't tell you in words who they are or what they mean. The director impressed me as a person with artistic integrity who tried as hard as he could to keep true to his vision. If he had compromised too much to get this made, Charlotte Sometimes would not be the fine film it is.

The Secret Lives of Dentists

Fine performances from Campbell Scott and Hope Davis as H&W dentists in this bitter comedy about a the torment of H who suspects W is being unfaithful but can't confront her. I'm a Dennis Leary fan, but his character -- an obnoxious patient transformed by Scott's suspicious imagination into a bogeyman who relentlessly rubs Davis' harlotry in his face -- didn't ring true here. Not Leary's fault, though. Blame the writer. There was no nexus between Scott's infidelity problem and his nasty patient problem, so it was hard to believe that he would actually conjure up Leary when worrying about Davis' affair.

Intimacy

Intimacy is a thoroughly convincing story about a sexual affair between two ordinary people. They hardly know each other and barely speak when they're together, yet they cannot deny the bond that develops between them. The relationship is anonymous yet deeply personal -- nothing like casual sex. We know that whatever he and she have together, he does not, and she does not, have with any other person. Intimacy is for adults only. It is very explicit, shockingly so for a serious film. I don't know whether the film would have worked as well if it hadn't gone as far as it did. It very well might have, but I'm loath to call the most explicit scenes gratuitous. Maybe the exceptional power of the performances comes from the fact that the actors had to go further than anyone else in their profession.

That's My Face

I enjoyed the family Super 8s and the images of Brazil. Mr. Harris' images are compelling enough, but his film does not achieve its purpose: to explain or even document his own spiritual journey. Mr. Harris reveals nothing concrete about what (if anything) ailed him or what (if anything) cured him of unexplained spiritual malaise, so his statement that he found "his face" seems utterly false. It is strange for a personal film about such a weighty subject to reveal so little of substance about the filmmaker. You get the sense that Mr. Harris was not emotionally committed to this project, or that he was afraid to tell the real story. Disappointing.

Teacher's Pet

Fun for the family. Clever, sometimes hilarious animated send-up of Broadway musicals and animated movies starring funny man Nathan Lane as a dog who wants to be a boy. Visually, it has more in common with SpongeBob SquarePants than with your typical full-length Disney feature, but that look is well-suited to this little piece of cartoon Vaudeville.

L'Auberge Espagnole

A pleasant, deftly written and directed film, which you'll especially enjoy if you have lived abroad. As entertainment, it's pure gold. However, as a political statement, it's pure schock. The film attempts to advance a pan-European agenda, but does so with sketchily drawn characters, whose main functions appear to be to show us that European-first, [nationality]-second types are really nice guys and gals. This is unconvincing, and the film's supposedly uber-tolerant politics are undermined by its barely concealed anti-American, anti-English animus. Moreover, the film's endearing, underwritten characters seem more like they're 19-21 years old, not 25. They are children, not adults (notice how the film almost entirely glosses over the fact that one of them has become a father), and the film thus ends up making the statement (unwittingly, I presume) that *all* Europeans are immature, sheltered, irresponsible dreamers. If these people truly represented the new Europe, I would fear for the Continent. Luckily for Europe, they don't.

Cromwell

A bad movie, but I liked it (a lot) anyway. Yes, it almost entirely misses (ignores) the point of Cromwell's revolution, gets history wrong, and provides no context. Yes, much of the acting is in the key of Burton: full of grimaces, snarls and classically-trained hollering/speechifying. And yes, the battle scenes look choreographed and make you feel as if no lives are at stake. But, what a story anyway! Seventeenth-century English history pretty much cries out for film adaptation, and what destroys Cromwell's value as art or history doesn't affect its entertainment value. Sure, I'd prefer a serious film on the subject, but I still enjoyed watching Richard Harris and Alec Guiness play dress up.

Trouble in Paradise

Sophisticated, grown-up frivolity from 1932, when everyone was poor except the characters in Hollywood movies. Sexy without ever being indiscreet, it manages to offend puritans without doing anything that would earn it a PG-13 rating. Lubitsch makes you root for the bad guys (European jewel theves). Excellent DVD extras will enhance your enjoyment and appreciation of his gifts as a storyteller.

Something's Gotta Give

How many years has it been since we got to see the real Diane Keaton on screen!!!!! Her recent film appearances were so disappointing that I was a bit afraid to see this. Kudos to Nancy Meyers for giving the public this opportunity and for giving Keaton an intelligent enough script to work with. More Kudos for pairing her with Nicholson, who seems as happy as anyone to let her do her inimitable thing as he does his. Watch them look at each other, watch them walk together, watch their actually funny sex scene. These two performers have no living equals in the charm department; they have practically DEFINED charisma for moviegoers since 1970. This film is a pleasure to watch because of them. For everyone who rushes to see Drew Barrymore & Adam Sandler, or Kate Hudson/J Lo & Luke Wilson/Matthew Maconaughey, or Sandra Bullock & Ben Affleck, or Hugh Grant and anybody, get a load of Jack and Diane!!! If it had any serious competition, SGG probably wouldn't earn such high praise from me, but it does what it needs to do. When you see it, you may begin to realize that the current crop of comic actors has a lot to learn -- or maybe it's that these folks lack something that you can never learn, no matter how hard you may try and how young and good looking you may be.

The Last Kiss

If you were a fan of the Mind of the Married Man on HBO, you might like this. I wasn't, and didn't. It's about 4 guys turning 30: one is about to have a baby with a gorgeous woman yet sleeps with a knockout 18 year old high school girl, one leaves his wife and son because he doesn't like her, one gets married to his sweetheart, and one is obsessed with his ex-girlfriend who's now with another guy. I found it superficial and unfunny, and, frankly, am bored/nauseated by these let's-feel-sorry-for-the-cute-guy-who-has-it-all-but-can't-grow-up things whether they're in English or Italian.

Three Sisters

A strange alchemy of film and theater with an inexcusable technical problem that, in my judgment, still compares very favorably with other productions of Chekhov's difficult masterpiece. Although few productions do right by Three Sisters (I saw one at the Roundabout in NYC with a fine cast that wasn't at all up to it), Olivier's nuanced NT production gets its stifling atmosphere just right, and the acting is first rate, even though the performers didn't quite adjust themselves to the medium of film. Warning: as others have mentioned, the sound quality is atrocious (couldn't it have been reengineered for DVD? This is Three Sisters and the Olivier's National Theatre Company, after all.) Still, if you turn your volume way up, you will be rewarded.

La Strada: Special Edition

Forgive me, but La Strada is one of those films that makes me rhapsodic about film and its potential. You'll get no sober critical analysis from me here. (Does the film have flaws? Who cares.) Beware! Gelsomina will immediately burrow herself deep in your soul and there she'll remain, along with your (shameful!!??!!) ambivalence toward her -- I doubt you'll ever be completely free of her. She (her voice,her smile, her EYES) and La Strada itself affect, tempt, haunt in a way that only cinematic creations can but very few do.

The Human Stain

Highly recommended. Robert Benton and his cast of top flight actors did a very fine job of bringing to life the life story of Coleman Silk. Benton realized that The Human Stain is a love story set in the real world -- our world, not a mere rant against political correctness. In fact, those who found Roth's novel too polemical might rethink that position after seeing the film. Despite Benton's overall success, this film's presentation of Nathan Zuckerman disappoints. I'm not sure any film could do justice to Roth's "alter ego," but I don't think the fact that Roth wove Zuckerman into the plot of The Human Stain justified Benton's cursory presentation of him. Benton might have tried harder with Zuckerman (and given the talented Gary Sinise something to work with) or simply cut him from the film.

Looney Tunes: Back in Action

Well, almost all of your favorite Looney Tunes characters make brief appearances in this movie, but don't get too excited. The focus here is on humans, which is too bad. "Back in Action" Lacks the thoroughgoing anarchic nastiness of so many great Looney Tunes shorts, but is sort of fun anyway. Why doesn't WB just bring the shorts back as movie openers?

The Long Goodbye

Marlowe, but not Bogart. Chandler, but not noir. Altman reminds us that Chandler stories take place in sunny California. Elliot Gould's Marlowe is disoriented in the 1970s but still as smart and cool as Bogart's. And he's funny, too. Altman shows us the innocence underlying the quaint cynicism of 1940s noir; this Marlowe is capable of being disillusioned. A brilliantly told mystery that conveys a sense of time and place, and comments on the "no worries" attitude of Nixonian Southern California. (Did the ending of The Long Goodbye announce the onset of Altman's misanthropy?) Every bit as great as Polanski's Chinatown, far better than Altman's own Gosford Park.

The Lady Eve

Pure delight from Preston Sturges -- romantic comedies don't get better than this one. Stanwyck sparkles with self-assurance, smarts and sex appeal as a card sharp with a heart of gold who uses all her wiles to capture guileless, goofy gazillionaire Fonda, whose understated earnestness may be the key to the film's success. (A hammier actor might have made this film unwatchable.) I cannot recommend The Lady Eve highly enough.

Confidence

Uninspired con game flick that doesn't keep you guessing or caring quite enough, but is sufficiently slick to qualify as okay television. Edward Burns is notable for being that rare actor who can remain affectless in the presence of Dustin Hoffman. I don't blame Burns as much as the other cast members for the failure of Confidence; he couldn't have done any better. A stone-faced montotone, Burns was a strangely welcome presence in his own middling romantic comedies; lately he has beefed up and become a very marketable commodity, a third rate macho clothes horse. Was he well cast here? Well, on the one hand, you can't tell whether or not Burns is lying. On the other hand, you can't tell whether or not he's battery operated.

Anything Else

Anything Else is Woody's best film since Deconstructing Harry. It is a story about young people who are in a relationship, and who say they're "in love," without having any idea what love is. Jason Biggs plays Jerry Falk, an earnest young comedy writer who cannot admit to himself that he's just biding his time with Amanda, a.k.a the girlfriend from Hell, a woman who is so neurotically self-absorbed that she abuses others without necessarily even intending to do so. Jerry's neuroses manifests themselves in irrational loyalty (to Amanda, to his incompetent agent Danny DeVito), so there you have it, a match made in Manhattan. These two are stuck together, which means Amanda's boozy ex-sexpot mother has also moved into their small apartment. An inherently funny situation out of which Woody more than a few great jokes, and pn which he comments through the character of Dobel, a nutty fellow writer who is a sort of mentor to Jerry. In the end, Jerry realizes that Dobel -- despite his craziness -- is the only worthwhile friend he has in New York. It's a not-so-subtle reminder from Woody, that whatever his flaws, we'll miss him (and watch his movies) when he's gone. No question about it, Woody.

Secondhand Lions

What a pleasure -- a movie for younger audiences (7 and up, I'd say) that succeeds because of the strength of the story and performances -- without cutting edge special effects, marketing tie-ins, or a soundrack loaded with bubble gum pop. Watch it with the family when you're in the mood for an old style, escapist adventure flick.

All the Real Girls

Great, even noble concept: an earnest movie about something as rare and wonderful as young love (and its complications), between two unremarkable people. ATRG's first scene -- in which the two unremarkable lovers slowly, luxuriously navigate their first kiss -- shows that Mr. Green just might have the talent to follow through on that concept. But, in my opinion (and in my wife's, too), ATRG was dreadful. He made a talky movie in which the characters had nothing interesting to say. No, worse than that, what they had to say didn't sound real, or poetic, or even vulgar. Mostly, it sounded invented, like an interminable series of high school acting class monologues that the actors hoped would give important clues about how their characters should be feeling. There was no spontaneity, especially in the case of the lead male performance. Someone should have told Green that you need more than charm (which Paul Schneider has a bit of) to carry a film. But, frankly, I doubt whether a good actor could have done much with such a weak script. Rent Tully or Raising Victor Vargas, which are similar but vastly superior this pretentious exercise.

The Shape of Things

There is no doubt in my mind that La Bute is the genuine article, even if this is not his best work. I admired In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors so much that I saw the play SOT in New York. Although I admired La Bute for putting one over on me, I was disappointed. I liked the film more. Was the the lower cost? lower expectations? or just that I had forgiven La Bute for sacrificing credibility for theatrics? Whatever the reason, when I knew what was coming, I could focus on the subtlety of the writing and the fine performances. I still don't buy the ending, nor do I think that it was necessary for La Bute to make his point. But I give credit to La Bute for capturing some of the intellectual and sexual excitement/treachery of being a college student. His charaters (well, three and a half of them) will remind many grads of people they once knew.

The Kid Stays in the Picture

A treat for movie lovers, this is "my side of the story" from legendary producer Robert Evans, who seems self-absorbed even by Hollywood standards. He narrates while the filmmakers present film clips and stills (mostly, I presume, from his personal collection) from his life and the movies he produced (Love Story, Rosemary's Baby, The Godfather). The images both prop up and undermine Mr. Evans' rambling, admittedly subjective version of events. Evans' marvels at his own improbable success, reveals oddly disturbing facts about himself (he loved fame & power so much that he idolized Henry Kissinger for his celebrity alone -- Kissinger's or anyone's politics are irrelevant to Evans), recites some facts about his personal downfall but reveals no insight into it. The film has an effect similar to Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm on you; the difference is that unlike David, Evans is/was a dandy with considerable, if oily charm. Evans is definitely likeable, but you can't quite decide whether to feel awe, pity, sympathy, or envy for him.

Spider

Spider is a pseudo-thriller that looks at the world, and the past, through the eyes of an insane man. What a sad perspective that is. It is a compelling film, and the acting is affecting. What was particularly interesting about it to me is that it took the hero's mental illness as a given -- the story is so unreliably narrated that we really cannot have any idea about what caused him to become who he is. The film's mind's-eye perspective enables us to have compassion for the hero -- who presumably didn't choose to live in an unrelenting, inescapable nightmare -- but also for the other characters, who cannot be as they are presented. The flaw in the film, in my opinion, was that it was not convincing as a thriller because, although I was willing to believe that the hero was in a state of suspense as he wandered through his past, the ending was no surprise for the rest of us (nor, presumably, was it meant to be). The film should have less of a mystery and more of a drama, as I didn't feel this hybrid fully realized its potential as either.

Badlands

If you like this very well made film or any of the films that the reviewers here compare it to then you'll love Breathless, the "original" not-quite-but-almost accidental killer + girl movie. Many of the differences between the two films can be attributed to setting. Godard's manic, noisy romp is set in Paris; Malick's unreliably narrated, "thoughtful" film is set in South Dakota and Montana. That change necessitates others: Humphrey Bogart idolatry is replaced here with James dean idolatry, the(to-a-Frenchman) exotically air-headed, innocent(?) temptress from the American Heartland is replaced with a disturbingly vapid girl IN the Heartland. Malick also tries to deceive the audience with the window dressing of a realistic narrative based loosely on true events -- and he strains to make his characters seem more human than Godard's -- but, underneath, he is making the same point that Godard made: welcome to Movieland, the place without/with a conscience from which we cannot/choose not to(do we want to?) escape!

25th Hour

A movie I wanted to like. It has all the right ingredients: the excellent Norton and the ingenious Cox and Hoffman, Spike Lee, a score by the amazing Terrence Blanchard. I knew from trailers and reviews I'd read that it told a potentiall intriguing story -- of a man's last 24 hours before going to prison. Unfortunately, the talent was not at the top of its game (especially Blanchard -- whose funeral march of a score dragged things down way past depressing and Norton -- who blew a coveted opportunity, a mirror scene, even if it wasn't filmed in front of a mirror), and the dialogue was so strained at times that I found this pretentious movie almost unbearable to watch at times. I hate when movies tell me how good looking the characters are (especially when the character in question is the bearded Norton), I hate when people channel Strindberg and fail, and, most of all, I hate when filmmakers as talented as Spike Lee think that a few good scenes (esp. the mesmerizing shots of ground zero) can be strung into a movie. Unfocused, overwritten, dismal. A dud.

Kiss Me Kate

A sad example of how 1950s prudishness ruined a deliciously naughty masterpiece. People thought (and some morons still think) that the words of Cole Porter and William Shakespeare were too sexy for American film audiences. Those people had too much power, and the result is this fairly tedious, laundered version of what has got to be one of the most delightful sex comedies of all time. Where is the life that late they wrote? Not in this film, unfortunately.

Two English Girls

A film I admired for its technique more than I enjoyed. The story of a menage a trois between Claude, a young Frenchman, and two sisters from Wales, Anne and Muriel, it is stereotypically French in that its people spend an awful lot of time talking elegantly and thinking rationally about love. They obsess about the moral dilemmas of love the way that 21st C Americans obsess about workplace ethics. In both situations, talk can be pretty cheap -- gratification is ultimately hard to deny -- butin the former, we Americans must admire the subtlety and patience of the French, who don't rush to conquest. Maybe, in this film, it's because the idle central characters will themselves to love; they are not transported by desire. In the end, I was impressed by the scenic beauty, exquisite pacing, historical curiosity, and deep characterizations of this film, but I confess I also found it hard to be charmed by this tale of cold fire.

Manito

48 hours of celebration, anxiety, courtship, and devastation in the lives of Junior and his younger brother Manito, a smart high school grad with a scholarship to college. The film shows how remarkable, and, sadly, how fragile the younger man's success is. Manito lives in a world where violence is never far away, his mother has been dead for years, and his father is a heartless drug dealer. Despite these disadvantages, Manito has the support of his community, friends, and extended family. Junior is as proud and loving as any father could be. He sees his Manuel's success as part of his own redemption. Junior did time at Rikers after their father basically forced him to join the family business; he has gone legit (as far as business goes, he's also a philandering bum who humiliates his wife and doesn't seem to care), broken all ties with Dad. This film introduced the actor Franky G, a physically imposing man who brings a credible emotional intensity to Junior.

Patton

Does one have to be more than a bit crazy to be a great military leader? Maybe not, but this film argues that it sure helped General Patton, even if it was also was what caused his downfall. This film's Patton thinks he is the warrior hero of a Homeric epic (not without some justification, mind you, given what the real Patton achieved on the battlefield) -- a once-in-a-lifetime part for any actor. George C. Scott brings his considerable vocal, physical and mental resources to the role, and he is awe-inspiring.

The Man Who Would Be King

What an adventure film should be. High-spirited, intelligent, funny, majestic. Sean Connery, Michael Caine and Christopher Plummer are perfectly cast in John Huston's adaptation of Kipling's story about two British soldiers in search of glory and riches in Kafiristan. All three performances are a joy to watch. Beautifully shot and scored. Simply excellent.

The Center of the World

A boring movie about nothing more than un-hot sex between a young computer millionaire and a stripper we're supposed to think has a brain. We're also supposed, I guess, to care about who's manipulating/screwing whom (literally and figuratively) while we spy on their busines/pleasure weekend together in Vegas. He paid her 10 grand to join him; she agreed on the condition that they would only go so far together (yeah right!). The characters are so superficially drawn that I can't see how anyone would believe either capable of forming a deep connection. There is no disappointment at the end when these robots go their separate ways.

Saturday Night Fever

A blockbuster that people loved in its day (the first R-rated film I saw in a theater) for different reasons than you'll appreciate it now. What seemed schlocky and unreal about the silly script back in the 70s doesn't grate in the same way after all these years. In fact, from my 2003 vantage point, the film seems dead-on about many aspects of life back then. The music you loved, then hated, then didn't hear much for twelve years before you did again now brings back fond memories. The two best things about the movie are the still cool choreography and John Travolta's performance, which was perfect. A really good movie.

La Promesse

Timeless story about a youth torn between his loyalty to, and love for his corrupt father and his moral obligation and erotic attachment to an exotic immigrant woman. Although about late 20th Century Belgian lowlifes, The Promise feels like it could have been written by Ibsen, or Shakespeare, or Sophocles. The characters are that universal, the story that elemental. Dardennes and their outstanding cast of actors have made a truly classical film.

McCourts of New York

Admirers of Frank McCourt's literary masterpiece "Angela's Ashes" and the McCourt family should welcome this documentary about how Frank, Malachy, Angela, and her two other sons made their way in this "great country" after they returned. This film is not a masterpiece, but the brothers and their stories are so compelling, it's hard not to be drawn in. My favorite bits are the readings from Angela's own unpublished memoir and a ritual (I won't spoil it for you with details)her sons performed in her honor sometime after her death. It's not clear whether the ritual was the inspiration for the film or the film was the inspiration for the ritual, but it's also not that important. Whatever the cause, the McCourts devised a fitting tribute to their mother's suffering. It moved them, and it will move you, too.

The Doors

Looks at the Doors and Morrison as phenomena, cultural oddities that you either get or don't. Wisely makes no case for them or their (his?) "art." Take them or leave them, but dig how *huge* they were, man! Offers very little in the way of explanation (also wisely) other than to show how much of the time Morrison and his followers were in a chemically altered state of consciousness. That may be all the explanation some people need.

Bed and Board

Truffaut's exuberant film about Antoine the charming, too careless dreamer (a Puck who wants to write about his past but seems determined not to learn all that he should from it) and Christine the beautiful (and all-forgiving), now young marrieds. Leaud is, as usual, full of spontaneity, intelligence and magic and Jade is lovely, warm, irresistably innocent, yet wise.

Adaptation

This is no 8 1/2! In fact, it's barely a passable movie about not being able to make a movie. It is too gimmicky -- not nearly as inventive as it thinks it is -- and the lead role is miscast. Figure it out, Hollywood. Nicholas Cage is a pretty limited talent -- sometimes though not consistently successful when he wants us to feel sorry for him or when he's called upon to "act" with passion. He was not capable of playing a writer (or reader) convincingly (although he was okay as the goofy brother). I don't know if Albert Brooks or John Cusack could have saved Mr. Kaufman's whiny, self-congratulatory script, but at least they would have given this film a shred of credibility. I expected so much more from the clearly clever team who made Being John Malkovich, a gem.

The Widow of St. Pierre

As profound an argument against the death penalty as one is likely to find in contemporary film: a true story about the redemption of a murderer. Through the compassion of the Captain who held him prisoner and his extraordinary wife, magnificently played by Auteuil and Binoche (this film is also a beautiful love story), the criminal becomes a pillar of his community, a hero. Great, humanistic filmmaking.

The Believer

Ryan Gosling is astonishing (menacing, shrewd, vulnerable, anguished: EVIL) as the monomaniacal Danny Balint, Jewish Nazi. It helped his performance that, with T-shirt, grimace and shaven head, he resembled Timothy McVeigh. Gosling understood, embodied what a Jewish Nazi might be like, but I don't feel that Harry Bean's unrelenting script helped him much. The writing seemed more interested in shock value -- in "desecrating" Jewish symbols and unleashing a torrent of "blasphemies" --than in seriously exploring the crucial question: Danny's motivation. The script threw out a zillion half-baked philosophical motives, mostly in flashback scenes dealing with Danny's anger at God, not his decision to join a movement devoted to genocide; Gosling did his best to supply possilbe psychosexual reasons. Gosling's credibility as an actor did not, could not, make up for the script's failure. Upon reflection, Danny seems like a gussied-up medium for the writer's own feelings of anger and disgust with his religion and people. There's way too much in The Believer that is designed to wound deeply for Bean not to be susceptible to the charge of mean-spiritedness. A final comment on an inexcusable artistic failure. Whatever budgetary constraints the flimmakers may have faced, they did an atrocious job of casting many roles with people who simply cannot act.

Bread and Roses

Hooray for Ken Loach and his political convictions! Today, American Lefty films have been squeezed out by contemptuous armchair Liberal fare created by people whose offices, pools and toilets are cleaned by the people that B&R is about. U.S. moviemakers don't seem to think urban poverty is a worthy film subject. The disgusting "David Gale" is their idea of a political movie, long on saints and bogeymen, short on ideas. B&R is a breath of fresh air; it advances the cause of unskilled labor by taking its characters and its audience seriously. Artistically speaking, B&T is no "Bicycle Thief", but I doubt De Sica would have gotten through the front door if he were pitching his masterpiece in Hollywood today.

A Mighty Wind

Guest & Co. have satire down pat. These comics are merciful rather than -less to their victims, and it's why their films are so winning. This one, about a reunion concert for some of folk music's also-rans, is full of kooks, well-timed jokes, ridiculous songs, and trenchant performances. The disappointment is that the actors, characters, improvs are so good that we want more than we're given of them in 90 minutes. Levy and O'Hara deserve special mention. They were the only 2 actors who got the screen time they needed, and they made the most of it.

Merci Pour Le Chocolat

Pretty entertaining, far-fetched mystery starring stone-faced Isabelle Huppert as (guess what?) a determined, unloved control freak. Not a stretch for her, to be sure, but she soars in her final scene, a chiller. The women in this film are all determined and talented; the men, despite whatever virtues they possess, are so much less complicated. Among this crew -- or any crew -- who but Huppert could be the bad guy? Come to think of it, "mystery" is a misnomer.

Auto Focus

1. Depressing tale about shallow celebrity whose sex addiction ruined his life. 2. History of how the video camera replaced the Polaroid as the #1 sex toy. 3. Reckless smear job -- accuses real person of murder but provides little to back up the charge. Isn't there some moral responsibility in a movie based on real people to provide a plausible explanation and some hard evidence for why you believe Carpy bashed Crane's head in? The people who made Auto Focus apparently don't think so. Shame on them for being so sloppy!!!!

The Grey Zone

A film that dares to imagine what it was like inside the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz. Frankly, I can't recommend or not recommend it. The fact is that real people -- Germans and Jewish prisoners -- filled and emptied those showers, kept them clean, fed those furnaces, then began again. That fact is more powerfulthan any film could ever be, but I don't think I think this film tries to deny that. I think I ended up feeling it was an attempt to preserve and honor, not to distort, the memory of Auschwitz. But, I can see why others would disagree. In my view, one doesn't need to see The Grey Zone, one needs only to recognize the facts The Grey Zone tried to present.

Dinner Rush

Very entertaining (3.5 stars). Two movies: one, an authentic film about everyday New Yorkers with ordinary problems who work/dine in a crazy busy Italian restaurant. Despite the frenetic pace, it does a fine job of creating several distinct characters from all different walks of life (helped by a very competent cast of actors). Two, about murder and revenge among petty gangsters and possibly "connected" Italian Americans. Gigino, a restaurant owner/bookmaker, is the central character of both stories, and his attempts to work out some very serious problems in both is what makes Dinner Rush whole. As Gigino, Danny Aiello is tough, unflinchingly loyal, sensitive, keenly intelligent: magnificent, lordly. In many ways, this is Gosford Park, shorn of the stuffy strictures and distorted, not-quite-recognizably-human-characters you find in English "manner" house mysteries, but with its own, infinitely more complex and excruciating NYC hierarchies and rules.

The Fast Runner

If the mark of a great film is that its audience has never seen anything like it and will probably never see anything like it again, then The Fast Runner is pretty much peerless. An Inuit folk legend shot entirely in the Arctic? Top that, anyone. This film is a message in a bottle from the remotest part of the world -- a place where survival, not to mention moviemaking, seems impossible to this ignorant American. Unforgettable. Vital.

The Quiet American

Very good adaptation of Graham Greene novel about two Westerners in 1950s Vietnam, one a 60something English journalist fleeing an unhappy marriage, seeking exotic pleasures and the other a 30something American naif seeking to make over Vietnam in his own image. Both men fall in love with the breathtakingly beautiful Phuong, who the Brit knows (read: hopes, despite contrary evidence)can keep him from utter despair and whom the American knows (read: arrogantly, blindly believes) he can save. Both are willing to exploit her and Vietnam for their purposes, but the American deceives nobody but himself about the worthiness of his aims or the morality of his means. Michael Caine is perfect as a not quite unprincipled, not quite defeated man whose claim that he is indifferent to everyithing, everyone except Phuong turn out to be not quite true. Shot in Vietnam in a muted palette, this film's Vietnam is a sultry, misty country where enchanted Westerners are almost, but not entirely incapable of exercising sound judgment.

Time Out

A man loses his job, lies to family and friends about it, loses control (isn't sure he minds) as the deception goes on. What a great concept to pitch to a producer. Unlike many great concepts, it became a great film called Time Out (or L'Emploi du Temps) because it also (first?) became a great script -- whose writer thought (and cared) deeply about how the man, each of his family members, associates etc. would react to his deceptions. What happens in Time grows out of these characters and this dilemma; it makes sense. Seeing this film reminded me how good ideas and genuine talent are squandered because writers with fear of, or contempt for, the audience condescend or go for cheap laughs (sorry, Ngudu, this is the film About Schmidt should have been). Aurelien Recoing is brilliant in Time Out because of the impressive work of Laurent Cantet, not despite it. Outstanding!!!

Under the Skin

Wynona Rider fans (I can't include myself in that group) should take a look at Samantha Morton, an unconventionally gorgeous waif with a wry smile whose wide eyes reveal a ferocious inner hunger. In this film, she eats up the screen as a young woman who turns promiscuous while grieving over her mother's death. A film about ordinary people & families in an ordinary crisis that, while well- executed and sexy, isn't tragic, glamorous or edgy. So, it's not the kind of story film that would interest a US producer (major studio or indie), but it's one that I'm glad was made. Recommended (esp. for Mike Leigh fans), but for adults only.

Unstrung Heroes

A film about growing up with eccentric relatives, based on the life story of Steven a/k/a Franz Lidz. Andie MacDowell is lovely but totally miscast as the dying mother; not in a million years would I believe she was Jewish or had ever even kissed (let alone married) John Turturro's schizoid braniac. To make matters worse, the performances of Turturro, Michael Richards and Maury Chaikin place too much emphasis on "schtick" and not enough on their characters' humanity to make this supposedly true story feel authentic. Unstrung Heroes wants to persuade us of the benefits of being raised by "freaks" but is too theatrical to win the argument.

Dead Ringers

Still creepy after all these years - a good film if you judge it on its own terms. I saw it on a date back when it came out. When it was over, she said "That was beautiful." I immediately lost interest, although I'd been pursuing her for weeks. "Dead Ringers" is to women what castration anxiety is to men. Just the ticket if you want to listen to Jeremy Irons torture Genevieve Bujold with gynecological instruments. If that idea turns you off, this isn't for you.

The Hours

I haven't read Michael Cunningham's novel, so I'm stuck comparing this film to the miraculous Mrs. Dalloway. And, despite the ubiquitous references to the novel -- and the equally obvious admiration this film and its great director, actors, writer, and composer have for it -- I didn't see a deep connection between the movie and the book. The Hours feels frantic, self-consciously dramatic -- not at all leisurely, and thus not really about how moments of devastating emotional truth can creep almost silently into ordinary days, despite the distractions of mind and everyday life. You never get lost in the Hours like you do in Mrs. Dalloway. Something big, really dreadful is always happening or on the verge of happening in this movie. I saw more of Roman Polanski than I did of Virginia Woolf in the Hours.

Breathless

You might think: "A movie about movies, tics, audience expectations, made by an intellectual, about a French criminal imitating Bogart/Cagney who tries to get a beautiful cypher of an American girl who keeps saying silly things that have nothing do do with the storyline to flee Paris with him and, of course, is betrayed by her and then dies would be either a snide send-up or, worse, a dull academic exercise." Boy, would you be wrong if you did. Breathless races at full throttle, and is a joy to watch. The ridiculous, disjointed plot and anti-Streep acting entertain because Godard's love of Hollywood movies gives this film an irresistable energy, an ability to entertain even while he is commenting on the entertainment. Whoever said Godard invented MTV was on to something.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Nowhere near Loesser's masterpiece Guys and Dolls (the show, not the dull Brando/Sinatra film), but still fun. Rubber-faced Robert Morse is hilariously goofy as a schlep who rises to the top of the corporate ladder in this suddenly timely farce, and his sheepishly narcissistic "I Believe in You" is one of the greatest showstoppers of all time. Michele Lee is adorable as Rosemary. Watch it with your kids; cry about it with your broker.

Igby Goes Down

It's odd, really, the hold that The Catcher in the Rye has over us. But it can't be denied that the preppy misfit has become one of the most beloved stock characters in middlebrow American art /entertainment. Put him in a book or a movie, and you usually wind up with something worthwhile. Igby Goes Down is no exception to the rule. It is a highly enjoyable, touching comedy starring an angrier, less uptight version of Holden. Kieran Culkin is tremendous in the part -- sarcastic, vulnerable, exuberantly youthful. Susan Sarandon, Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman are also excellent. The usually convincing, always beautiful Clare Danes is miscast, and the other members of the ensemble are passable. Burr Steers has written and directed very competently. Maybe he or someone other talented filmmaker will be brave enough to move beyond Holden to Augie.

Holy Smoke

Not exactly an original film about sexual politics or a particularly thoughtful exploration of religious cults and their victims. If you don't take it too seriously, you will be captivated by Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel's game of cat and mouse. Kate Winslet is the sexiest woman in movies today: Bette Davis playing Ophelia, painted by John Singer Sargent.

Death of a Salesman

Dustin Hoffman embodies all that is silly, determined, deluded, sad, infuriating, cruel, warm-hearted, disgusting, generous, wrong-headed -- in a word, tragic -- in Willy Loman, the man with the "wrong dreams." Some have criticized Hoffman for making Willy too superficially annoying and, therefore, undeserving of the immense sympathy Miller's play wants us to have for him, but I obviously disagree. He gets Willy's combination of heartbreaking self-hatred and pathetic self-aggrandizement exactly right. All members of the company are outstanding; Kate Reid's Linda and John Malkovich's Bif are great achievements. I cannot imagine a more powerful version of Arthur Miller's brilliant play.

Double Indemnity

Yes, that's Fred MacMurray smirking, mentally undressing Barbara Stanwyck, calling her "baby," and obviously relishing his trip to Wilder-Chandler-land. Guess what? He's perfect as the slick, cynical, "man's man" insurance salesman who becomes her patsy in this noir classic. She and Edward G. Robinson (aslo in a role unlike the ones I know him for) are also excellent, of course, but this is MacMurray's film. And he makes the most of it.

Raging Bull

DeNiro's performance in this film is more than great. He didn't just play a role; he was literally transformed, body and soul, by the idea of Jake LaMotta. Raging Bull is what happens when people who are the very best at what they do do their very best. Watching the film is not a pleasant experience, but it is an amazing one.

Grand Illusion

A film that succeeds on every level: as a political statement, as an artifact from a world that no longer exists (and didn't really exist in 1937, when the film was made), as a showcase for brilliant actors, as a love story, as a war movie, and as an adventure flick. It documents a particular experience of WWI (far from the trenches) and of Europe just before the revolutionary changes that the war precipitated. The title says it all. Don't miss Jean Renoir's introduction to the film or the speeches he and von Stroheim gave to the NY Film Critics Circle, which are included in the DVD.

Chicago

When produced on the stage, Chicago suffers without serious star power. It's two hours of sexy, wicked song and dance overkill that gives clever but superficial Fosse treatment to serious themes: murder, ambition. Chicago can easily be a snooze because, let's face it, it takes A-list talent to "razzle dazzle 'em" for two hours every night. For the film, Miramax provided the royalty, director Marshall camped things up, and technology helped quite a bit, too (it's pretty clear that none of the stars have a future on Broadway; but, thanks to sound engineers, adroit cameramen and editors, Zellweger, Zeta-Jones, Latifa and Gere deliver big time). The result is one helluva' show, the best new movie musical I've seen in years.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The Importance of Being Earnest -- from Hell. Mike Nichols and an excellent cast in Albee's masterpiece about the possibilities of marriage and the impossiblity of loneliness. You need to see this.

About Schmidt

First, the good news. It was a stroke of genius to cast Jack Nicholson against type as a humdrum retired insurance exec who realizes that he's wasted his life, or hidden from it. In anyone else's hands, Schmidt would have been the stereotypical fool that the screenplay imagined him to be. But, thanks to Jack, Schmidt wins our hearts, makes us understand, convinces us that there is some worth to his peculiar perspective, becomes, in short, a great character trapped in a movie he's way too good for. Nicholson is a wizard. He's so good that he almost distracted me from how condescending the people who made this film seem to be towards ordinary folks. Without Jack, we have barely more than a collection of cheap shots: a snoozefest that feels like it was made by an arrogant, elitist, and pretty dull cousin of the Farrelly brothers.

Unfaithful

Diane Lane, probably the hottest actress in the business, is also one of the best. She's great to look at, and magnificent to watch. Give her direction, let the camera run, and it's all there on her face. This is her best work yet, and I am grateful to Adrian Lyne for letting her work her magic with complex emotional material. Unfortunately, Lane's costars are not at her level; they botch their opportunities to shine. Worse than that, the movie is too heavily edited at the beginning and too long at the end. A bit more explanation of what motivated a supposedly happily married woman to seek out a man she met only once would have been helpful (a few deleted scenes included on the DVD shouldn't have been cut), and the last quarter of the film (when the focus shifted from Lane to Richard Gere, who tried hard but just didn't get there) didn't work. Had the movie ended where it should have (there's a cleverly shot confrontation scene between Lane and Gere, in which his character probably should have killed himself, or her, given what had just occurred), I would be able to recommend it as a good movie with one outstanding performance and one weak one. Instead, it went on and on, and became a bad movie with one outstanding performance.

Startup.com

A look at 20-30somethings who convinced themselves and people with real money that they had something really big to offer the world: an on-line solution to parking tickets. The film focuses on its cetral characters' deeply flawed personalities, not their absurdly grandiose idea (the end of bureaucracy as we know it) or their ineptitude as businessmen. Whether Kaleil Tuzman (who looks like an overgrown baby and comes off like a spoiled child whose attention turns from himself only when others can help satisfy his need for power, sex, moeny) and Tom Herman (presented as a whiny dillettante whose family fortune prevents him from having to accept responsibility for his failures) can stand to watch themselves in this film is anybody's guess. They and their cohorts appear to have been part of a fourteen month greedfest: with lavish parties, expensive hotel suites, Lexus SUVs, and a SoHo business adress all secured with other people's money. Watch these guys salivate as they gloat about the millions they were going to make from their "Goldman IPO." Did the govworks.com people have any admirable qualities? If so, the evidence of that lies on the editing room floor. There is nothing tragic about their failure; these guys deserved to fail, and, in the end, you'll be relieved to see that they did.

Amy's O

Amy is a singularly unappealing character. She is physically attractive and a bit clever, but that is all she has to recommend her. This is supposed to be a movie about a desirable woman who eschews love out of fear, but why anyone would have Amy is beyond me. She is a self-obsessed, nervous chatterbox who doesn't have a kind word for anybody. Amy's O is all glib shallowness; the sad thing about Amy is that she's far too narcissistic to love or be loved even when she claims she's ready to take the plunge. The movie is short enough to be bearable, but rent Kissing Jessica Stein or, even better, Crossing Delancey if you want some genuine laughs and human interactions in your neurotic Jewish woman flicks.

My Wife is an Actress

Maybe I was in the right mood, but I was charmed by this little romantic comedy about a regular guy who happens to be married to a movie star. It contains so many amusing scenes and one really, really funny one. Yvan Attal is a perfect comedian (Al Pacino meets Rowan Atkinson? Dudley Moore meets Alec Baldwin?); and warm-blooded, open-faced Charlotte Gainsbourg has no difficulty showing us why every guy should be jealous of whoever is lucky enough to be her man. My wife really liked it, too.

Empire

A talented group of actors and moviemakers have made yet another violent pic about the drug trade, and what if anything other than the accident of low birth distinguishes drug dealers from "legitimate" businessmen. Empire offers nothing new, and, despite its stengths, suffers from a serious credibility problem. Why would an honest, intelligent, delicious, educated woman from a loving family -- who seems to have no flaws -- knowingly enter into a long term relationship with a drug dealer/cold blooded killer? She doesn't lie to herself or allow herself to be bought off with expensive toys (although she doesn't refuse them either). She could have anyone she wants, so why him? Empire never answers that question, but a good film would have. Also, I got the feeling Empire was meant to be released in the high living pre-Bush recession days. Post September 11, it seems not only hackneyed, but dated.

The Producers

Is there such a thing as going too far to get a laugh? In The Producers, Mel Brooks answered that question with an emphatic "No!" As the huge success of the enjoyable musical remake shows, the fact that we've known the punch line for over 30 years doesn't mean that the joke is a bad one. Fans of the musical should give the movie another look. It's the better of the two versions, in my view. The movie has a low-budget, improvised quality. It's spontaneous, zany, out of control, and -- thanks to the two leads -- a "buddy picture." In fact, the musical seemed a bit slick (worked over by greedy producers?) in comparison. No matter how much you loved Lane & Broderick, Mostel (the Essential Oiliness) and Wilder (the Nervous Wimp) will always be Bialystock and Bloom. Period.

Amarcord

A work of genius. An excellent introduction to Fellini's particular way of looking at the world for the uninitiated. Film Analogies: Au Revoir Les Enfants meets The Producers meets Annie Hall.

Lovely & Amazing

This guy finds much to admire (uniformly excellent cast, well-conceived characters, brittle dialogue, genuine family situations) in L&A, an often deeply honest film about why exactly it's tough on the mind and the body to be a girl these days. I also appreciated that the writer/director didn't imply that it was easy to be a guy. What disappointed me (and, in fairness, it was probably because the film started off so strongly) was that the motion towards a sort of happy ending was out of place -- and not credible -- in such a deeply cynical movie. I didn't see too many reasons for this film's mood to improve. That said, if you like intelligent, depressing films that ask important questions, L&A is worth at least one look.

When Harry Met Sally

I can never figure out why so many people who hate woody Allen films love this one. WHMS is a romantic comedy about a diminutive, neurotic Jewish man who falls in love with a gorgeous, neurotic WASP woman, and it's set primarily in (where else?) Manhattan. It is dialogue driven, and, although it isn't as reference-laden or inventive as Woody's films (which, let's face it, don't make you work too hard either), what references there are in WHMS are to Woody Allen films. This film was clearly intended as a tribute to Woody. Sooooo if you like When Harry Met Sally, you'll love Annie Hall.

The Piano Teacher

An engrossing, disturbing film about the loneliness that comes from being both exceptional and hateful, and the distorted longings of a person in an extreme, mostly self-inflicted state of emotional deprivation. A brilliant music professor who seems to know only how to abuse or be abused when it comes to interpersonal relationships (you should see her mother!) falls in love with her handsome, cock-sure, talented young student (brilliantly played by Benoit Magimel). She is the nastiest form of innocent, and he literally gives her what she asked for (what she thought she wanted) after she breaks his swagger. Not surprisingly, it all takes place in Vienna. Ice princess Isabelle Huppert shows herself to be as brave as Brando; she peels her character's cool exterior away, layer by layer, until all that is left is a raw bundle of nerves. Very, very few actors have ever been so exposed on film; this is her ticket to the Pantheon.

An Affair of Love

An intriguing game of kiss and tell, brought to life by two gifted actors. An anonymous man and woman, both of whom are educated and kind -- otherwise ordinary -- share the same sexual predilection and arrange to meet regularly for a time to "get down to business" in a cheap hotel. They can't segregate sex from the rest of life, and, as time goes on, they fall in love. Their emotional bond is unforeseen but not exactly unwelcome. For reasons that don't have to be explained, that emotional bond does not become the basis of a long term relationship. Wanna' find out what they did when they were alone with each other? The filmmakers bet you do and exploit your voyeurism: they permit you to observe a single, albeit atypical (for these two) hotel room session. You also get to see on-camera interviews that the lovers give a year after their affair ends, but you won't be reminded of Jerry Springer. These people are French, and they're adults. Grown-ups, we are reminded, are capable of discretion when it comes to their hang-ups.

The Deep End

Blackmail, murder, sex, family secrets set against the gorgeous scenery of Lake Tahoe. Tilda Swinton, cheekbones and all, is first rate as a woman who will go to any lengths to save her family from catastrophe. The problem with this film is the script. She didn't have to go that far, but, if you can suspend your disbelief, The Deep End will entertain you. The cinematography and art direction are first rate. And, the writer-directors are very capable people who appear to have been more interested in creating a mood than in telling a story.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Fine performances by Judi Dench and Colin Firth are the only extraordinary elements of this enjoyable adaptation of Wilde's classic This is a visual feast of a film, the late Victorian period reimagined in Technicolor. Some of what Oliver Parker added was welcome; much of what he took out was missed. But he and his actors obviously appreciated that they were working on a gem, and together they have made a very entertaining piece of comedy that I liked much better than the breathless "Ideal Husband" of a few years ago.

Panic Room

When it comes to tension, nobody does it better than Jodie. Here is an actor whose face is the repository for the fears of all Americans. Jodie could be beautiful if she would just open up that brow, unpurse those lips, and let those blue eyes twinkle. Panic Room is the perfect vehicle for her and the ulcer we know is growing beneath those well-defined abdominals. (Hopefully she's through with love stories; who liked Sommersby or Anna and the King?) Like Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, Panic Room lets us know that there is no way to keep *them* out; and, unfortunately for everyone else in the world, Ms. Foster has a family of her own and won't be around to save you when *they* arrive on your stoop. Panic Room simultaneously nags and mocks us with its message: "Hell is your house." It offers the following solace: the rich can't protect themselves either, but this middle class joe finds that to be pretty cold comfort. Nearly all of Panic Room's artifice -- the super-contrived plot; the neverland set that almost looks like a stage; the haunting score; the relentless, searching camera and cheesy computer animation -- is effectively spooky. That's why I cannot forgive the filmmakers for allowing Jared Leto to screw up so many scenes. His invented raspy whine and hysterical demeanor were out of place in a nail-biter.

Lakeboat

Mamet's virtuosity is on display in this warm-hearted film adaptation of his play about men who work on a Great Lakes freight ship. They are a crew of (my next word is inevitable in a review of a Mamet work) storytellers, who (again, inevitably) possess considerable rhetorical gifts. By contrast, Dale, an English grad student who has joined them for the summer, is a nearly silent observer, who communicates mostly with his eyes. (Dale is a version of Mamet: i.e., a sponge who will one day make a play -- and then a movie -- out of the poetry he has absorbed aboard the ship.) Lakeboat is more than a collection of well-told stories. Mamet has created an imperfect but successful society, and he subtly shows how the rules of that society discipline its members, for better and worse. And, he gives us a glimpse into the inner lives of at least two crew members. Director Joe Mantegna never quite reconceives Lakeboat as a film, but he does very well with his cast of fine actors. Robert Forster deserves special mention for his absolutely brilliant portrayal of a kind-hearted, lonely man who is made generous, not bitter, by the knowledge that life has passed him by.

The Wind Will Carry Us

A thinly although carefully plotted, gorgeously filmed comedy whose message is to "prefer the present" and its accessible beauty over the unknown territory of death, this film is almost guaranteed to put caffeine-addled, multi-tasking brains to sleep. Its story is unveiled slowly: a team of engineers (so they say) travels to a remote mountain village for an undisclosed purpose. The crew leader (the only one of them we get to see) spends time interacting with the locals (mostly the women), who are known to have an exotic death ritual that he desperately wants to witness. An elderly woman is dying, so he thinks he has his chance. Then he waits for two weeks. (It may be that he heads up a film crew, although I wasn't sure from the subtitles - perhaps things were clearer in Farsi, although it doesn't much matter.) The leader is treated like an "honored guest" (read: outsider) by the villagers, and, although he is clearly charmed by them and the beauty of their village, he also wants the vigil to end (and the old woman to die) so that he can finally see the ritual. The comedy comes out of his frustration -- he darts around the village like a hamster in one of those pet gyms with wheels and tubes, especially when his cell phone rings and he has to rush to higher ground -- and, eventually, he is pushed past his breaking point. But the ending is not what we've expected. This film is an often amusing meditation on time, technology, secrecy that contains some of the most striking visual images I've ever seen filmed. Reminiscent of (although superior to) Local Hero, The Wind finds us funnier than the villagers, whose wisdom persists despite their isolation and relative deprivation (one suspects this film has a political message, too). If it tests our American attention span at times, that is our problem. Like all great art, it repays whatever effort it requires from its audience.

Moonlight Mile

MM, about a recent graduate's stay with his murdered fiancee's parents, wants to be remembered for passing "Benjamin's" torch. Dustin Hoffman, here a neurotic fitysomething, beams proudly while Jake Gyllenhaal steals the show as Joe, a lost youth who gets the girl. First rate acting makes MM entertaining. It does not cure a hugely flawed script about people who are supposedly coping with murder, yet seem mildly depressed, not torn apart. Where's the grief? MM is too damned lighthearted. The absence of crucial Act I exposition hampers things further: (1) We know next to nothing about Joe's past -- what is his family like? where are they throughout his ordeal? I guess (although doubt) he could have told them not to come, but why are they never even mentioned? (2) What kind of a person was the dead daughter/fiancee these people are crying about? -- we know she was witty, "deadly honest" and learning Italian. (3) What is the nature of the relationship between Jo Jo (Sarandon) and Benjamin? They evidently love each other, but we only really see why they drive each other crazy. These gaps are accentuated because secondary matters are covered in rich detail (Joe's new love interest has a fully developed past, a commercial real estate deal that has something to do with the birth of the mall -- or KMart, I wasn't sure -- is exhaustively covered). MM is also overloaded with speechifying -- every star gets to show off. Watching Dustin Hoffman do his thing, of course, is a pretty rare treat for a moviegoer, and for the other cast members. Genuine anguish is depicted in a single scene -- when Benjamin first goes to the diner where his daugter was killed. Hoffman overwhelms his peers as only he can.

The Night Porter

Gloomy sex goddess Charlotte Rampling plays a Holocaust survivor who as a girl in a concentration camp had a sado-masochistic relationship with an SS Officer (Bogarde). On a 1957 trip to Vienna with her husband, she encounters her former tormentor -- now the night porter at her hotel -- and, inexorably, their affair begins again. The slave has been reunited with her master; the question of free will is entirely beside the point. Or is it? Perhaps she is a ghost who gets the opportunity to be destroyed by (and to destroy) the ghost who made her that way. I never thought I'd see a kiss as nauseating as the one between Juliette Lewis and Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear, but Bogarde and Rampling's first embrace also turned my stomach. This film reminds us how many Nazi murderers were never caught, and how few were even pursued with any vigor. Its central theme -- that the individuals who were allowed to escape from justice would have done it all over again if they could have -- is eroticized here to chilling effect.

Frailty

A well-made, well acted horror flick. Dad (Bill Paxton, who also directed) is enjoying life bringing up his two sons and then one day has a "vision." Whereupon, Dad becomes -- depending on your point of view -- A. a serial killer or B. a destroyer of demons who happen to look an awful lot like real people. Dad's is told from the perspective of the son who thinks Dad belongs in category A; his brother disagrees. In any event, one of the two becomes a serial killer himself. But which one? A very well made film that I appreciated even more after I saw the "making of" stuff included in the DVD. The flaw, in my opinion, was that the story was a little too bare and the ending a tad predictable; I would have liked more information before making up my mind about Dad and his boys.

Chelsea Walls

Neil Simon's California Suite without the wit, CW is a downbeat "hotel" movie that thinks that because it quotes and associates itself with great art and half-heartedly depicts suffering then it must have something to say. A depressing Love Boat episode that abuses the talent of some very fine actors and showcases the serious shortcomings of others who are merely lucky enough to be so employed. With people like Kris Kristofferson and Mark Weber, CW can't help but contain a few inspired moments, and there are also some startling images here. What little of value there is in CW is almost spoiled by the vacuity and self-satisfaction on display in the DVD's "bonus" celebrity interviews.

Kissing Jessica Stein

A witty, light-hearted script and three likeable leads with pretty good comic timing keep this charming romantic comedy humming right along. I admire the makers of this film for insisting upon doing it themselves, but I also couldn't help thinking that their characters would have been more fully realized by stars like Kate Winslet (or Cate Blanchett or Claire Danes), Natasha Lyonne (or Natalie Portman) and Paul Rudd.

Sunshine

A multigenerational saga about a Hungarian Jewish family starring the exceptional Ralph Fiennes, who plays all the significant male roles with his signature intensity, and featuring sexy Rachel Weisz as the family's femme fatale. Talented though these two may be, they can't transform a melodrama into a Garciamarquesian epic, as the filmmakers obviously hoped they would. The film is too long and the weird coincidences are too contrived, but, despite its heavy-handedness, Sunshine contains some genuinely moving moments.

When We Were Kings

See this film, not the well-intentioned biopic, to get the full flavor of the man. Love him or hate him (and does anyone still hate him?), you can't deny that Ali was absolutely magnificent, and those who don't remember him from the day are fortunate to have this excellent film as proof of that. I mean, here is someone who excited George Plimpton and Norman Mailer. You'll gush along with them throughout this documentary on the Ali/Foreman Rumble in the Jungle title fight in Mobutu's Zaire. (You'll also get a chuckle the next time you use your George Foreman grill.) They just don't make celebrities like that anymore.

Hollywood Ending

Beautiful, smart, generous, funny, sophisticated Tea Leoni shows us that was made to do Woody Allen films. Okay, she's a bit too sane and perfect (and, thus, a bit less loveable) when compared to Diane Keaton or Mia Farrow, but you can hardly hold that against her. Fans of Woody's inimitable sense of the inappropriate will have a feast on the one liners here. For example, Leoni tells Woody she became attracted to him when he thanked his urologist at the Golden Globes. But, the plot about a film director with hysterical blindness is silly yet conventional, and Woody's bad acting is very apparent. His mad gesticulations and whining were almost too much for this die hard fan to bear at times. Woody's films are at their best when they focus or dote on other people as much as they do on his own character; there's too much of the neurotic misfit and not enough of Leoni in Hollywood Ending to make it a real winner.

The Taste of Others

Too many characters in films are cliches: the philistine factory owner, the unimpeachable officer of the law who is looking for a world (and a lover) that won't disappoint him, the independent woman who secretly wants a man to take care of her, the brilliant actress whose passion comes out on the stage but not in life. This film plays on our expectations and makes whole characters out of these cliches; we and the characters themselves are surprised when their tastes and desires turn out to be different than they were supposed to be. A very satisfying story about urbanites searching for something more than satisfaction. Highly recommended.

Wit

A friendless John Donne Scholar receives pointless experimental chemotherapy treatments for cancer in the very advanced stages and dies. From the beginning, she knows that the joke is on her, but, as things progress (or regress) she begins to regret her life of isolation. She sees the cruel indifference of her doctors almost as her come-uppance for, say, the heartless way she treated students who were perplexed by the Holy Sonnets. What makes this endgame worth watching (for those who can take it, and many will have reason to avoid it)is the astonishing performance of Emma Thompson, who brings out the agony and every bit of mordant humor, even when the script makes her a vegetalbe in a hospital bed and gives her no words to say.

The Ice Storm

An excellent film. Ang Lee knows families, and proves it again here. An examination of two upper middle class American couples and their adolescent children, for whom sex mostly seems to be a source of frustration or humiliation, but not much pleasure. The acting is first rate; the women -- frigid Joan Allen, mankiller Sigourney Weaver, naughty Christina Ricci -- are especially fine. Ricci steals the film in an unforgettable scene involving a Richard Nixon mask.

Almost Famous

When you think about it, you may find it puzzling that Americans can feel nostalgic for the pill popping, sex-crazed, deceitful, recession-filled, and (oh yeah) murderous 1970s. But this movie recognizes that at least some of us do feel that way, and boy does it deliver. A never heartbreaking or too dark story of a nerdy 15 year old who gets the opportunity of a lifetime: to tour with an up and coming band named Stillwater and write about it for Rolling Stone magazine. And did I mention the babes? This film hums along as the Stillwater clan goes through good and bad times. You end up feeling that one reason these boys didn't go all the way is that they were too nice -- basically decent guys who fer sher abused themselves and their women, but only because they, ya' know got caught up in the rock star thing. And who could blame them, really?

The Last Picture Show

An outstanding American film. A year in 1950s West Texas from the perspective of a high school senior. Larry McMurtry's characters, that time, and that place are brought to life by an excellent ensemble cast of actors, a fine script, and the sure hand of director Peter Bogdonavich. The young Cybil Shepherd in B&W comes pretty close to being the Garbo of our times. Not to be missed.

The Virgin Suicides

Very well-acted, compelling story based on true events. Five beautiful sisters with kooky, severe, but not totally unfit parents killed themselves, and no one can explain why. The cinematographer took full advantage of the lusty, sad, mysterious smile of Kirsten Dunst, which -- and I know I sound pretentious here but I speak the truth!! -- is a perfect metaphor for the film itself.

The Daytrippers

A funny film with a very talented cast. Twentysomething suburbanites trapped in adolescence find themselves on an adventure in the big city, and *MOM* (magnificently portrayed by Anne Meara) comes along, too. I enjoyed it even more than After Hours. Other fans of the Scorcese film should give this one a try.

The Designated Mourner

A superbly acted production of Wallace Shawn's memorable play, which uses a talking heads approach that I think translated better to the small screen than it did to the large. A movie for readers. It requires your attention, not for an evening when you're too tired to think. A special treat: Mike Nichols is great on the other side of the camera.

Primary Colors

Remember the thrill of reading the book and trying to figure out who Anonymous was, or speculating about how much was fiction and how much truth? Well, this film is the no-thrills version. Travolta, Thompson and Thornton are as flat and dull here as as Klein's literary creations (not to mention their real life counterparts) were lively. Newsclips from the Clinton era are far more entertaining than this colorless fictionalized account of the '92 campaign.

Keeping the Faith

A likeable, usually lighthearted romantic comedy with some very funny moments. It succeeds on its own shallow terms because the 3 leads are absolutely winning when they need to be. Also, Anne Bancroft delivers as Ben Stiller's glib, strong-headed mother. Thankfully, this film doesn't take itself too seriously. The decision not to engage in any real investigation of religious issues does minimize the interest (not to mention the credibility) of Stiller's existential dilemma as a rabbi in love with a non-Jewish woman, and of Edward Norton's struggles as a Catholic priest in love with the same woman. (Norton is such a strong actor, though, that he manages to fill in much of what the writer deliberately left out, even at the silliest moments.) But this certainly wasn't the right picture to explore these dilemmas, nor did it ever claim to be.

What Women Want

I'm not one to turn up my nose at gimmicky comedies, but this one bored me. And whatever producer thought it would be a good idea to showcase Macho Mel's feminine side should be fired. Mel didn't have it in him. I know from the Lethal Weapon movies that he can do comedy, but he didn't deliver any laughs here, even when he was hopping around the bathroom trying to put pantyhose on. I don't recall a single honest moment from him. Marisa Tomei fans (I'm one!) will enjoy her five minutes on screen, but that's about the only nice thing I have to say about this movie.

In the Bedroom

A haunting story about the murder of a college boy by his older girlfriend's ex husband. The pace of this film is deliberate, tension increases gradually and the release never quite comes. There is no debt to Lynch (or Tarantino) here; violence and sadism are not things this film wants us to laugh at. Spacek deserves particular credit; as the boy's mother, she refuses to accept our sympathy and becomes a Lady Macbeth whose rage is limitless. Wilkinson and Tomei are also excellent in this very well-creafted film.

Pal Joey

Sinatra, Hayworth, Novak. Candy for adult ears and eyes. Joey is an unscrupulous lounge lizard who has some trouble handling the "mouses": the ex-stripper socialite Vera and the sweet, down home girl Linda. Guess which one he falls for? The filmmakers tried to improve on a great score by importing other fantastic R&H numbers. The happy result of their hubris is that we get to see and hear Frank mocking Hayworth with "The Lady Is A Tramp." Five stars for the music alone.

Mo' Better Blues

Spike Lee's coolest film, made that much cooler by its jazz lover's score. Denzel Washington smolders as Bleek, a jazzman who must remain true to his art but can't seem to remain true to his women. Washington brings out Bleek's intensity and integrity as an artist, as well as his selfishness and dishonesty as a lover. We see ugliness underlying the smooth, handsome Bleek's pose of detachment, but we also see why two desirable women are nevertheless devoted to him. Lee's writing is especially honest and his directing is especially strong here, particularly in the magnificent scene where the two-timing Bleek gets his come-uppance. Lee cuts back and forth between Bleek's two lovers as each unleashes her anger on him, making for a double whammy of a bedroom scolding. Bleek wins no points for pretending to be bewildered and confused by the confrontation. I haven't decided whether I think Lee is guilty of anti-Semitism in this film; but there are unsympathetic minor characters who are Jewish, and who possess traits and mannerisms that are perceived as stereotypically Jewish.

Fargo

As good as movies get. Frances McDormand is the action hero of the 90s as she waddles through the North Dakotan tundra in search of her man. When she finds him, well, I won't ruin the surprise. The Coen brothers surpassed themselves, and almost everyone else, with this gruesome comic thriller. Like all Coen films, this one creates a weird little world, but this one also manages to sustain that world and consistently entertain us.

Psycho

This is a disaster. A pointless remake of one of the most entertaining movies ever made. It isn't a send-up, nor is it a reinterpretation. It also isn't at all frightening or creepy. It *is* a sham. The only reason that I can come up with for this film was that the greedy stars, director and producers would not have made any money if they just re-released the original.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters is a celebration of film technology and its particular virtues, but that is only half the story. Unlike, say the Matrix, this film asks us to believe the visual gimmicks not only because they look real (for the most part), but also because Spielberg and his actors have also given thought to how real human beings, families, governments might react if benign aliens came to earth. The result is a story told almost entirely through images, music, body language -- it could not have been told half as well on the stage or printed page. Close Encounters cannot be summarized in words; it must be seen and heard.

Dangerous Liaisons

Anyone fortunate enough to have seen Christopher Hampton's stage adaptation of Laclos' novel -- an invitation into the steamy, stifling boudoirs of 18th century France -- will be disappointed. Glenn Close and especially John Malkovitch overdo it here, so we don't initially become co-conspirators in their schemes. They are repulsive from the get-go; their lack of aristocratic elegance deprives us of the hope that maybe they are merely naughty, not cruel. This ruins the ending. It also makes it hard to believe they have any "fatal attraction" to each other (as Close and Michael Douglas so clearly did in another famously entertaining film). In my view, Dangerous Liaisons is all depravity, no glamour.

My Son the Fanatic

Touching, timely story about an immigrant family's struggle against Northern English racism and the inhumanity of right wing Islam. Om Puri shines as Parvez -- a kind-hearted, compromised, philosophical man who appears to have lost his lifelong struggle against intolerance and "moral exertions" when his beloved son abruptly and completely rejects Western values and becomes a religious fanatic. All is not lost, though. Parvez finds the love of a woman (the inimitable Rachel Griffiths) as his family disintegrates.

Gun Shy

A really funny movie about therapy and crooks(unlike the mildly amusing Analyze This). Liam Neeson is great as an anxiety-Ridden agent with an embarassing case of psychosomatic dyspepsia who reluctantly goes undercover one last time. Oliver Platt is hysterically funny as a gangster Neeson is trailing, as are the other members of a therapy group for crooks.

Carrington

Bloomsbury fans and anyone who appreciates fine acting will delight in Jonathan Pryce's Lytton Strachey (esp. in a scene where he publicly denounces Britain's participation in the War and announces that he has the piles). And, of course, Emma Thompson is every bit as fine as Pryce in her portrayal of the woman who could not make him love her the way she needed to be loved. The film should have been pruned a bit --some under-developed plot lines and characters detract -- but the two excellent leads make this film.

Run Lola Run

This isn't a movie - it's more like a video game where the characters get to do over their mistakes. The "Mario" figures are Lola and, to a lesser extent, her boyfriend Manni, who has gotten mixed up with some shady characters and will surely be killed if they don't come up with some serious cash in 20 minutes. Can Lola save the day? I won't spoil the "suprise" ending, which has nothing to do with real life. We are shown how the futures of the two lovers, as well as the other characters(about whom we're not supposed to care a bit), are determined within a fraction of a second. Of course it's all unbelievable, but that's beside the point.

Quills

Who knew that the Marquis de Sade was really, down deep a nice guy who spoke truth to power? This film whitewashes him and his ideas to make hackneyed points: censorship is bad, those who impose order are often crueller, more depraved than those who disturb it. Predictable and downright silly at points. Geoffrey Rush way overplays Sade, but Kate Winslet gives another smart, sexy peformance.

About a Boy

Hugh Grant is, as usual, a collection of irritating mannerisms. This time they are supposed to indicate a that a hardened, fearful man who really only wants to be loved just like the rest of us lurks beneath Grant's hipster's(supposedly) cool exterior. A clever, if gimmicky story which will entertain and touch you if you avoid this film and read Nick Hornby's book.

Dancer in the Dark

Woman going blind saves money and forgoes sensible medical treatment to buy son bicycle, "tragically" kills evil (but formerly sweet) landlord in self-defense (would that she had turned gun on self and terminated this disgraceful film), goes to trial is convicted and sentenced to death, befriends Catherine Deneuve who for some reason is wearing factory blues and trying to pretend she's homely. Throughout film actors make asses of themselves by flailing arms and kicking legs while Bjork deludes herself into thinking that she's Nina Simone. You won't be fooled. Bathos, boredom and bull****.

Training Day

A formulaic, dumbed-down, depressingly predictable moral fable that even the great Denzel Washington cannot save. The dialogue is sooo hackneyed, the pre-pubescent Ethan Hawke is (as usual) sooo dull (Stanley Kaufman has called him a "walking glass of milk"), and the view of slum life is sooo condescending that at times the film is unwatchably bad. But that's only when Denzel is not on screen. He truly shines in a role that a lesser actor might have overplayed; with no help from the writer he creates a multi-layered, almost human character out of a potentially ridiculous cartoon villain. Worth it for his performance alone, but keep your finger on the skip button.

Sexy Beast

Two very, very happy couples are making their own paradise during retirement in Spain when a "ghost" from their low-life past invades their precious space. A violent moral fable that also manages to be a convincing love story. The acting in this film is fine indeed: we get genuine love, friendship and and fear from the two couples. Ray Winstone and the other 3 are a perfect ensemble. Unexpectedly, the magnificent Ben Kingsley is upstaged a bit by his fellow cast members. Of course, Kingsley does a thorougly convincing job with his character -- the monstrous man-child paradise invader -- but he's not as memorable a psycopath as Dennis Hopper, Anthony Hopkins or Kevin Spacey. The script is very well written; the suspense builds just as it should. Very good entertainment.

Radio Days

My Favorite Woody Allen film. The narrator (Woody) looks back tenderly at his childhood in 1940s Brooklyn and recounts how he, his family and some "legendary" radio stars lived back then. Each family member is also remembered by his or her favorite radio program. The hilarious, touching stories keep coming and coming in a film that never loses its energy or warmth. And the best part is that what holds all of them together is the incomparable American music of the era. The best kind of nostalgia. Magical.

Crumb

Documentaries like Crumb demonstrate why biopics about the living or recently departed (Ali, Pollock, Man in the Moon, The Autobiography of Malcolm X) are usually disappointing. The genuine article is invariably more interesting than even the most talented actor's impression. Crumb is an unforgettable glimpse into an artist's freakish life. It's also a nasty little joke, mocking us for thinking maybe it had something to teach about what makes an artist who he is. In the end, for all we learn about the Crumbs, why one became a celebrated pop artist and the others became what they became remains a mystery, which is exactly the point of this excellent film.

The Music Man

This musical on which this movie is based is so good it's hard to imagine how anyone with a heart or a brain could object. It's partly a nostalgic look at Iowa circa 1911, partly a meditation on the capacity of music to transform us, and another homage to that great American character: the snakeoil salesman. Belongs up there with Death of a Salesman and Glengarry Glen Ross. Robert Preston gets it exactly right as Harold Hill; he *is* this film.

The Verdict

Paul Newman, David Mamet, Sidney Lumet. Hard to think of a more appealing combination. An eloquent defense of the jury oft-maligned jury system: truth sometimes triumphs over power. Newman is flawless as a down-on-his luck plaintiff's attorney whose faith in the truth leads, over incredible odds, to a just result against phony holy men.

Love & Anarchy

This film contains one of the greatest performances I've ever seen. Giancarlo Giannini's performance is a lesson in human dignity. His announcement that he intends to kill Benito Musolini is a moment you will never forget. Magnificent!

Annie Hall

Made every woman buy blazers, pleated pants and ties in the late 1970s. Why? Because it's hard not to want to emulate Diane Keaton at her absolute loveliest (eat your heart out, Julia Roberts). Woody at his funniest -- and warmest. Two tremendous talents give us a glimpse into what it was like when they were in love.