Uneven comedy about an elderly woman being forced into a retirement home by her children after her domineering husband dies. Cliche-ridden and predictable and heavy-handed while making a point about the way we treat the elderly.
Thoughtful meditation on young adulthood, responsibility, and love, concerning the exploits of Paul who has various transient relationships until he meets Noel, Zooey Deschanel, and struggles to try to build something more solid. Low key and nuanced and delicate but rewarding.
PAUL SCHNEIDER, ZOOEY DESCHANEL, SHEA WHIGHAM, DANNY R. MCBRIDE, HEATHER MCCOMB, PATRICIA CLARKSON
Decent little film about an aging Casanova, Harry Sanborn (Nicholson), who can't keep up with those lively little girls he keeps bringing home (this one, "Marin", played by an exquisite Amanda Peet). He has a heart attack after on particularly lively expectation-- no actual sex here, because that would disturb that fetishistic hoary American attachment to virginity-- one night in the cottage where Marin thought they could be alone. Instead, her mom, Erica Jane Barry (Diane Keaton) shows up, and the complications are supposded to be both heart-warming and comical. We're supposed to find it heart-warming that even an older woman can find love, when the older woman is an incredibly pampered Hollywood actress.
JACK NICHOLSON, DIANE KEATON, KEANU REEVES, FRANCES MCDORMAND, JON FAVREAU, PAUL MICHAEL GLASER, AMANDA PEET
Powerful, depressing film about misfortune, hubris, and destructive passion. Naomi Watts is a greaving housewife, Sean Penn is dying of cancer, and an ex-con, Benicio Del Toro, is the culpable driver. They collide in a disaster that is partly the result of guilt and partly the result of arrogance. Great performances, especially by Watts. The 21 grams refers to some kind of myth about the weight of the human soul leaving the body.
NAOMI WATTS, SEAN PENN, DANNY HUSTON, BENICIO DELTORO
Outstanding remarkable documentary on a family torn apart by accusations of child molestation against the father. But this family is already severely dysfunctional and the pressures of the prosecution, against a son as well, create unbearable tensions for the whole family. Undoubtedly, Arnold Friedman, the father, is guilty of something-- or is he? Hard to be sure. What is beyond question is the incompetence of the presecuting attorneys.
Rough but interesting movie about a young girl forced to "resettle" on a farm with a older farmer who lost his penis in a war against Tibet. She complains about the primitive life-style compared to her elegant previous life, and desperately tries to get back to the city. Xiu Xiu is so desperate that she will sleep with any man who promises any kind of help. Lopsang, who clearly adores her, can only watch in helpless grief as she destroys herself. It is here the film becomes familiar-- but more like Hollywood exploitation than political commentary.
LU LU, LOPSANG, ZHENG QIAN
Very dated film in a bad sense. The acting and technology are visibly weak, even by standards of the 1950's. The child actors are remarkable. Paulette's parents are killed in a strafing attack by a German fighter plane. She is a "adopted" by Michel Dolle, and his family, uneducated farmers who are religious but easily confused. So is Paulette, under the guidance of Michel. They start stealing crosses from the church and the grave-yard to put over their dead animals. And Michel is the only one that Paulette trusts. The truth is, pretty boring.
GEORGES POUJOULY, BRIGITTE FOSSY, AMEDEE
The schtick runs out. And I don't think I can forgive Guest and Levy for leaving politics out of this otherwise charming treatment of the 60's folk scene. It couldn't and shouldn't be done: politics was at the heart of the folk scene in the 1960's and clearly the only reason they completely omitted any reference to it was to sell more tickets. That is a sell-out. It wouldn't have mattered so much even whether they chose to laugh at or with the political side-- you simply can't do a parody of the folk music of the 60's, however, without at least acknowledging it. Aside from that, Eugene Levy's odd, idiosyncratic portrayal of Mitch, doesn't resonate with any particular reality I know of. It's not funny, therefore. It can't be a parody if it doesn't have a target. Mickey, yes, has that mother-earth tone down right.
Messy, preposterous collection of shlocky special effects and adolescent fantasy.
SEAN CONNERY
Superior crime thriller-- a caper film-- about four gangs colliding in a series of coincidences and misfortunes, over drugs and a bundle of cash. Very funny and witty and stylish.
JASON FLEMYNG, DEXTER FLETCHER, JASON STATHAM, CHARLES FORBERS, VINNIE JONES, LENNY MCLEAN, NICHOLAS ROWE
Superior caper film, partly due to the fact that most of the actors are unknowns, and crisply presented, and therefore more convincing. Extremely similar to Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Ritchies' previous effort to this one. Fun and exuberant and similar to "Italian Job 1967" in that the criminal activity is treated as neither morally right nor wrong, but simply adventurous and exciting. The Police are largely irrelevant-- these are thugs against thugs, and the ones that get away with the most are not necessarily the most smart or even the toughest, but just the luckiest. Ritchie doesn't take himself too seriously, and doesn't allow his actors to. They caroom through the story like spirited pinballs, bouncing off obstacles and each other. Entertaining and stylish. Ade reportedly showed up to apply for a security job at the set when he was offered the role of Tyrone, the driver. He is terrific. Brade Pitt begged for the part of Mickey O'Neil, the piker fighter with a terrific right. There is an 84 carat diamond at play, a dog, an underground boxing match, and too many other sub-plots to count.
JASON STATHAM, ALAN FORD, BRAD PITT, BENICIO DEL TORO, ROBBIE GEE, LENNIE JAMES, RADE SERBEDZIJA, ADE
Likeable but lifeless rehash of opposites attract, a mode worn out by the time Doris Day and Rock Hudson got around to it. But Ashley Judd is charming and Hugh Jackman credible for half of the movie. Judd, as Jane Goodale, supposedly hits upon a brilliant theory for understanding male behaviour but one of the disappointments of this film is that there really isn't anything distinquished enough to even call a "theory".
ASHLEY JUDD, GREG KINNEAR, HUGH JACKMAN, MARISA TOMEI, ELLEN BARKIN
Spike Lee is one of the five best directors in America and this film demonstrates why in every respect. A hot day in Brooklyn ending in tragedy at Sal's pizzaria, when misunderstandings, anger, and tension boil over into an unfortunate confrontation. Absolutely rivetting because it is so obviously like something Hollywood has ever done.
SPIKE LEE, DANNY AIELLO, JOHN TUTURRO, OSSIE DAVIS, RUBY DEE, JOHN SAVAGE
Somebody finked on Monty Brogan and he is convicted of dealing in narcotics and receives a seven year sentence. 25th hour dramatizes his last 24 hours of freedom as Brogan (Edward Norton) evaluates his options, and his life, and considers who it is that might have finked on him. He ruminates, in disturbing detail, about what will happen to a skinny, weakling white boy like himself in a state prison, cast to the wolves. His two close friends privately discuss how he will never recover from prison, and their comments are knowing, streetwise, and shattering in a way that no prison movie has ever achieved. Frank, whose apartment overlooks the remains of the World Trade Centre, considers how disproportionate the punishments are for drug-dealers and for businessmen who bilked people out of their pensions. At least, he observes, the drug user knows what he's getting for his money. His other friend, Jacob, a nerdish high school teacher, considers putting the make on a student of his whom he thinks is flirting with him. He is tempted though he knows that society reacts almost as hysterically to men who abuse positions of trust for sex as they do to drug dealers. Another of Frank's observations: currency dealers could throw tens of thousands of people out of work without suffering the slightest approbation. A remarkable movie, the first I know of to openly consider the results of 9/11, the moral implications of Enron, and the harshness of our drug laws, frankly, honestly, and disturbingly.
EDWARD NORTON, PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, BARRY PEPPER, ROSARIO DAWSON, BRIAN COX
Remarkably compelling story of Jeffrey Wigand, a former tobacco company scientific research and vice-president, who was fired, and eventually agreed to spill the beans, about the tobacco industries admitted knowledge of the addictive properties of nicotine-- to CBS's 60 Minutes. The first half of the story focusses on Wigand and the personal costs of his decision. The second half becomes a bit iconography-- Lowell Bergman, the producer whose determination saw the story through a number of obstacles, is rather sainted. The story exaggerates his role in the Wall Street Journal's decision to pick up the story after CBS executives ordered 60 Minutes to drop it. Absolutely essential for understanding self-censorship and control of U.S. media-- even 60 Minutes was afraid of Big Tobacco for a time. Superlative performances by every one.
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER, AL PACINO, RUSSELL CROWE, DIANE VENORA, PHILIP BAKER HALL, LINDSAY CROUSE, MICHAEL GAMBON, RIP TORN, BRUCE MCGILL
Pompous, over-bearing, phoney epic about an American-- of course-- who joins up with a respected Samurai leader (Ken Watanabe) who is leading a rebellion against the imperial government of Japan in the late 1800's. Katsumoto is obviously based on Saigo Takamori who, to this day, remains one of the most revered figures in Japanese history. The truth is, though, that Takamori wished to restore feudalism and attack Korea, among other things. The Last Samurai suggests a higher, nobler purpose--- the preservation of honor and tradition-- but that's a naive reading of history.
KEN WATANABE, TOM CRUISE, WILLIAM ATHERTON, MASATO HARADA, BILLY CONNOLLY, SHICHINOSUKE NAKAMURA
Not a very memorable precursor to Amalie, about fate and chance and that sometimes coy European attachment to chaos theory.
AUDREY TOUTOU, FAUDEL, ERIC SAVIN
Incredibly prosaic and exquisitely mundane film about an aging couple, Shukishi and Tomi Hirayama, who travel from their small rural town, Onomichi, to Tokyo to visit their son, Same, a doctor, and his wife, and their daughter, Shige, who runs a beauty salon, and her husband, and the widow of another son. They discover that their children are self-absorbed, polite, but not attentive. The children send them off to a spa for a few days-- to get them out of the way-- but the spa is too noisy and they return to an ambivalent welcome. Ironically, their widowed daughter-in-law, is the kindest to them. They return, a little saddened and disillusioned, to their home village, where the mother becomes ill, and the children must return to her bedside. Everything in this movie is subtle and low-key. The children are dutiful and polite, but not very caring. The daughter-in-law, Noriko, is kind, but lavishly kind. There is little outward emotion expressed in the film, but the story builds so carefully, completely, and delicately, that the conclusion is shattering. Beautifully filmed. Yes, it's about the deteriation of the family unit in post-war Japan, but Ozu resists simplification. Tokyo Story shows that things could not remain as they were, but sheds a tear for the loss of family intimacy, the distance between family members, in the modern, mobile, self-absorbed family.
CHISHU RYU, CHIEKO HIGASHIYAMA, SETSUKO HARA, HARUKO SUGIMURA, SO YAMAMURA, KYOKO KAGAWA, EIJIRO TONO
Searing portrait of a rebellious thirteen-year-old girl, based on the reminiscenses of Nikki Reed, who also plays the role of Evie Zamora, who, in the film, leads Tracy Freeland (9Evan Rachel Wood) astray. There's no concealling the fact that Tracy's mother's life isn't all that much better than the disaster she appears headed for: mother drinks, is divorced, scrapes by doing some babysitting and hairdressing, and has no idea what Tracy does with her spare time. Tracy's motives are obviously peer-acceptance, with some family issues thrown in (Dad is neglectful; mom is manipulative), but the causes of her behavior are, thankfully, not much elucidated upon. "Thirteen" is mostly just about the nightmare Tracy inflicts upon her mother, her self-destructive impulses, and the chaotic world of adolescent girl-hood in America. Superbly acted. The cinematography is more than occasionally contrived and annoying.
EVAN RACHEL WOOD, NIKKI REED, HOLLY HUNTER, JEREMY SISTO, BRADY CORBET, DEBORAH UNGER
Allright. Sam works at Starbucks-- product placement, anyone?-- and has the mental capacity of a 7-year-old. He also has an adorable daughter--conceived with and abandoned to him by a homeless woman. The daughter is getting smarter all the time, of course, and begins to worry about being smarter than her dad. She decides to play dumb at school, which causes the school authorities to take notice, and leads to Sam being deprived of custody. Michelle Pfieffer is the adorable lawyer who takes the case-- pro bono, of course-- without much hope. One of Sam's adorable charms is that he is obsessed with the Beatles, and the sound track features tasteless copies of the Beatles music (because Penn couldn't afford Michael Jackson's asking price, I guess, for the rights to the originals). As Roger Ebert pointed out, the movie-makers sharply disagree with the audience on a major issue: is it a good idea for Sam to raise Lucy, not just through grade 2, 3, and 4, but through adolescence, and her early teen years? To be fair, the movie acknowledges this problem at the end, with a tacked on development of convenience, but that leaves the average viewer watching the rest of the story uneasily. Sean Penn is serviceable as Sam, and Dakota Fanning is excellent as Lucy. Michelle Pfeiffer looks less and less convincing in every role. Richard Schiff gets the thankless task of playing a villain who is right.
MICHELLE PFEIFFER, SEAN PENN, DIANNE WIEST, DAKOTA FANNING, RICHARD SCHIFF, LAURA DERN
There's a concept here somewhere. Lurene Hallett lives in Dallas. It's 1963 and she is obsessed with Jackie Kennedy, married to an abusive lug, and amazingly naive about race relations and politics. When Kennedy is assassinated, against her husband's wishes, she decides to go to the funeral and sets out by bus. On the bus she meets Paul Cater who has just retrieved his 5 year-old daughter from a home, where she had been living since her mother's death. Among the muddled elements of this story is the clumsy revelation that Jonell, the daughter, has been physically abused in the home. Later, we see that Lurene is physically abused by her husband, and Paul is physically abused by racists whites. The handling of the race issue is emblematic of all the problems with this film: at times, the characters seem utterly unaware of the fact that she is a young, attractive, white woman, and he is a robust-looking black man, and they are travelling together in the deep south in 1963. When he casually touches her shoulder on the bus to wake her, you look for some sign that the film-makers are aware of how potentially explosive such casual familiarity can be. The plot becomes torturously convoluted by the end as the writers strive to build up some kind of explosive finale. It wasn't needed. This could have been a fine film, if they had simply let the characters play out an informed consciousness of who and where they are.
MICHELLE PFEIFFER, DENNIS HAYSBERT, STEPHANIE MCFADDEN, BRIAN KERWIN, LOUISE LATHAM, RHODA GRIFFIS
Reasonably intriguing sci-fi special effects extravaganza with slightly more interesting plot than most thanks to the allusions to real social issues-- racism, of course-- and alienation. And some good actors here, including Jackman and McKellen and Janssen, and expecially Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler. The plot, such as it is, features an evil General William Stryker (Cox) plotting to kill all the mutants by turning the government and public against them by staging an "assassination" attempting involving a brain-washed Nightcrawler.
PATRICK STEWART, HUGH JACKMAN, FAMKE JANSSEN, HALLE BERRY, JAMES MARSDEN, ANNA PAQUIN, KELLY HU, IAN MCKELLEN
Rachel Weisz plays a woman, Evelyn, who meets a nervous, ackward young college student working in a museum as a guard-- (Paul Rudd) named Adam, and decides to remake him, improve him, alter his style and appearance. He becomes her work of art-- quite literally, when he discovers that he is, in fact, her senior art project, in an ending that must be regarded as bravely preposterous. The failure of the ending is entirely due to a misguided desire to humanize Jenny, give her some ambivalence, a conscience; I think it would have been more believable if she had been shown to be ruthless. You can tell that this was a play first-- it is literate and generally well-written, but stagey and conducted in set-pieces. There is a big ending, where everything is unresolved or resolved.
PAUL RUDD, RACHEL WEISZ, GRETCHEN MOL, FRED WELLER
There's an odd story about a previous version of this film, from 1940, starring Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, and Frank Pettingell. Apparently, MGM tried to have all negatives of the 1940 version destroyed when they released this, the 1944 version. At least some critics think that that is because the 1940 version was superior. In any case, the 1944 version with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer is superb, taught, compelling, and fastidiously filmed in a good way. Think about the challenge of trying to depict a husband trying to drive his wife mad. How would he do it? You think, as you watch this, precisely as Charles Boyer did it-- by pretending to have your wife's best interests at heart while slyly noting that she had become forgetful and delusional on occasions. The pinnacle of this approach is when she seems to have taken his watch and put it in her purse, a fact he discovers at a music recital-- the poor woman has to be led from the room in hysterics, most of which are actually rooted in her awareness of how he is manipulating her. The ending is cheesey. Looks like they wanted the image of Ingrid holding a knife to Boyer's throat in there somewhere, and the only way they could reach it was to stage a rather preposterous sequence wherein a detective leaves a suspected murderer alone, tied to a chair, in the attic, so whis wife can have a word or two with him. Surprise-- that's a very young and sexy Angela Lansbury playing Nancy, the maid. And she's very good. Marvelous film, a classic. Based on the play by Patrick Hamilton.
INGRID BERGMAN, CHARLES BOYER, JOSEPH COTTEN, DAME MAY WHITTY, ANGELA LANSBURY, BARBARA EVEREST
Reasonably entertaining, high-end version of "Love American Style", about eight couples struggling to develop romances-- and sometimes failing-- around Christmas time. Billy Mack, the rock singer trying to cash in with a re- recording of "Love is All Around", is the most entertaining, with his frank admissions of tawdry motivations. Some of the stories, like the one about the best man in love with his friend's new wife, are more compelling than average because there is a poignant element at work-- he's not going to get the girl. And Emma Thompson's "Karen" finds out her husband has purchased an expensive Christmas gift, a necklace, for someone other than her. And no, it doesn't turn out to be a misunderstanding. How does the movie work? There's really nothing brilliantly original about it, but it plays with expectations, and heaps on sentiment, and pop music, and attractive personalities. When a young man goes to Wisconsin because he is convinced that sexy American women really go for the British accent, he is proven -- unexpectedly-- ridiculously-- right. And the segment following the two body doubles working in a film-- they do the close-ups for the sex scenes-- has an interesting spin on it, though, as with many of the other strings, the idea teases more than delivers. Some sound ideas are under-developed. Billy Bob Thorton as the American President is only slightly less fluffy than Hugh Grant as the supposed Prime-minister-- those scenes are not nearly weighty enough to be anything more than fluff. And you do get a little tired of these British men staring numbly at beautiful women, incapable of making the slightest advance on their own, as the women wait around, disappointed or disappointing. You just know that one more film like this (from the director of "About a Boy" and "Bridgit Jones' Diary" and it's going to get nauseating.
HUGH GRANT, COLIN FIRTH, CLAUDIA SCHIFFER, EMMA THOMPSON, ALAN RICKMAN, MARTINE MCCUTCHEON, BILLY MACK, LIAM NEESON, KEIRA KNIGHTLY
Workmanlike production about team of professional who specialize in dealing with kidnapped executives and engineers in disorderly third world countries. Ryan and Crowe carry on a steamy romantic interest while he is supposed to be organizing the rescue of her husband-- it's a sidelight that doesn't quite prove interesting. The actual action sequences are notably realistic and absorbing.
MEG RYAN, RUSSELL CROWE, DAVID MORSE, DAVID CARUSO, PAMELA REED
Fairly sturdy installment of the Terminator franchise. If there had not been a Terminator 2, might have seemed more impressive. But this variant adds little to what we already know about John Conner and Skynet and consists of, largely, one very long chase scene. Nick Stahl is distressingly wimpy as John Conners, even if he is supposed to be somewhat weak, as a pre-war version of his later heroic self, but audiences will remember that John Conner as a kid had more chutzpah than this schmeil. Clare Dane's takes over the cute-but-tough schtick that Linda Hamilton created, but doesn't carry much weight here.
CLARE DANES, NICK STAHL, ARNOLD SCHWARTZENEGGAR
Very early Kubrick, and displays an incipient master of cinematic forms, without the revolutionary sensibilities he began to bring into focus with "Paths of Glory" shortly afterwards. Ultimately, this is a conventional thriller, with Sterling Hayden as Johnny Clay, an ex-con who decides that if you're going to risk doing time, it might as well be a good risk, that pays off better than a two-bit burglary. He plans, meticulously, the robbery of a race track. But the flaws are obvious. Many of the meticulously planned diversions and incidents are actually unnecessary or irrelevant to the success of the robbery, and he relies too much on split-second timing, which can't, of course be guarranteed in the real world. Kubrick displays an exceptional but conventional talent at this stage of his career.
STERLING HAYDEN, VINCE EDWARDS, COLEEN GRAY, JAY. C. FLIPPEN, SHERRY WINDSOR, ELISHA COOK JR.
This was a highly praised documentary about a pet cemetary in California and some of the eccentric people who worked it and patronized it. If it hadn't been noticed before, a slight tone of condescension can be detected-- why else would the director consider so many of these meandering little dialogues to be so worthy of inclusion? And there isn't really a story-- just impressions, strung together.
An animal rights group has broken into a lab to free some victims of inhumane corporate research activities. One of them is carrying a deadly virus. Before you know it, almost everyone is infected with a disease that turns them into blitheringly maniacal bloodthursty savages. This film has something going for it, but is mainly an update of "Dawn of the Undead". Creepy and evocative, but ends with about 30 minutes of spewing cartridges and bloodied faces. The extras on the DVD make you think this is some profoundly new idea, but it's not, and it's not even the best expression of the idea.
Lyrical but sometimes plodding fable about a group of people who refuse to leave their homes in the face of a new dam that will flood their valley. And four angels trying to find a missing angel, who is actually a little boy dying in the care of a preacher.... The bones of the plot: six agents are sent into the river valley to try to bring out the last reluctant citizens. If they bring out 65 or more, they will each receive some prime land on the new lake. Really, kind of aimless. Possibly striving for the kind of poetry of Wings of Desire, but without the inspired direction of a Wim Wenders. Beautifully filmed and generally well-acted and memorable-- oddly.
JAMES WOODS, NICK NOLTE, CLAIRE FORLANI, MARK POLISH, DARYL HANNAH, PETER COYOTE
Amazing drama/documentary about Harvey Pekar, a friend of Robert Crumb's, an all-american shlep who became famous for his stories about his own personal life and frustrations, illustrated by Crumb and others. Pekar even appeared on Letterman several times (before a melt-down on-air), but never seemed to make enough money to quit his crummy job at a VA hospital in Cleveland. The film is an odd combination of dramatized episodes and actual on screen interviews with Pekar himself and some of family and friends. The movie tries to make drama out of his bout with testicular cancer, but the interesting part is Pekar's own "everyman" experiences, his caustic, irreverent wit, and the compelling story of how he and his third wife, "adopted" the daughter of one of his illustrators. Best double feature with: Crumb.
PAUL GIAMATTI, JAMES URBANIAK, HOPE DAVIS
Not very many movies tackle the inner-city life and culture of the black community with any degree of authenticity. For that alone, 8 Mile deserves special praise, but this is also a well-directed, well-acted drama about a young man's struggle for self-respect under caustic circumstances. Famously played by Eminem, Jimmy Smith jr. ("Rabbit") is a budding rap artist, competing against tougher, rougher blacks, in Detroit. He tries to keep his job at a manufacturing plant, and his girl, while living with his mother in a trailer park. Mother has taken in a jerk, but not all of Jimmy's troubles are the result of external circumstances. He himself is volatile, temperamental, and abrasive. Exceptional.
EMINEM, KIM BASINGER, MEKHI PHIFER, BRITTANY MURPHY, EVAN JONES
Aside from a hysterical ten minutes of William Shatner as a moonbase commander, a bit of a hodgepodge of everything, as if the director could not resist a single bit of slapstick or jokey double-entendre. Funny in spite of itself at times, but also slogs clumsily through parts of the plot that seem twisted just to locate a sight gag or pun. Lots of inside jokes. Ken Finkleman, the director, is Canadian.
ROBERT HAYS, JULIE HAGERTY, LLOYD BRIDGES, CHAD EVERETT, PETER GRAVES, CHUCK CONNERS, WILLIAM SHATNER, RAYMOND BURR
This film garnered much favorable critical comment linked to Eastwood's reputation for vigilantism, as an actor, and the way Mystic River seems to comment on issues of justice and truth-- is it a kind of penance for Dirty Harry and Magnum Force, both films that glorified a spontaneous violent urge for revenge? In Mystic River, the forces of revenge are unfocussed, and confused, and the targets-- as we always knew-- less clear. That said, Mystic River is pedestrian in many ways, undistinquished artistically, though well-acted and serious. It's a superior film without the inspiration that can sometimes lift even an average film into high art. I had the feeling Eastwood approached his material with honesty, integrity, and a sincere desire to make an important film-- but not a single scene seems inspired or unforgettable. Marred by Penn's seriously indulgent bereaved father scene. That said-- Mystic River is a fine film. Penn plays a father whose beautiful daughter has been kidnapped and murdered. He comes to believe that a childhood friend, Dave Boyle, might be responsible. Bacon plays Sean Devine, a cop, and one of Jimmy Markum's childhood friends as well. When Jimmy indicates that he will take matters into his own hand, Sean tries to prevent a catastrophe. Meanwhile, the wives of Jimmy and Dave interfere with unfolding events, and Sean considers his own marriage.
KEVIN BACON, LAURA LINNEY, TIM ROBBINS, SEAN PENN, EMMY ROSSUM
Bill Murray plays Bob Harris, an aging film star from Hollywood in Tokyo to film some commercials for whiskey. Scarlett Johansson, who played the soulful counterpoint in "Ghost World", is Charlotte, the wife of a hip rock'n'roll photographer, staying in the same hotel. Harris spots her in the elevator one day and finds her face intriguing. After bumping into each other in the hotel bar, they begin talking, and talking, and spending time together. This is what the movie is about-- their relationship, which begins to touch on the most important issues in their live, and how they ease each others' disillusionments for a short time. Murray is absolutely superb-- the kind of marvelous, nuanced performance you sometimes see from a great comedic talent after they jettison the mannerist baggage from their careers and focus on character and feeling. Johansson is compelling as a thoughtful, curious, sensitive soul, who likes Harris' attention (and is hurt when he beds a lounge singer instead of her) but isn't quite sure where the relationship fits. She doesn't know the man she married, but "Lost in Translation" is too honest to force the story into a pat ending. This is a gentle, intelligent, lyrical film that deserves to be seen twice.
BILL MURRAY, SCARLETT JOHANSSON, GIOVANNI RIBISI, ANNA FARIS
The Life of David Gale has an oddly intriguing premise. Since no dead man can ever be legally retried, it is difficult to "prove", in the United States, that an innocent man has ever been executed. "The system works" say it's proponents. So what if you could prove, beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt, that an innocent man was executed? You have David Gale. The trouble is that this movie is actually smarter than it's premise. You can tell that Parker wants to account for certain flaws in the premise-- he wants to explain why a sane man would give up his life for an idea (that capital punishment is wrong) and a good chunk of the movie is devoted to showing that David Gale has good reason for wanting to die anyway. But that is a defensive position that weakens the movie. It takes the layer of dialogue to an issue you don't need or want: why did he do it. What if the film-makers had simply accepted that Gale had some very weird idea and a very weird kind of emotional commitment to the idea-- which is not so hard to believe-- and then just gone with it? Not a total waste, and not as bad as some critics believed, but still very flawed.
KEVIN SPACE, KATE WINSLETT
Fresh, touching, occasionally clumsy story of a 12-year-old Maori girl who is heir to the position of Chief but is rejected by her grandfather, the current chief. Her father, the logical heir, has left the village after his wife and son died in child-birth. Pai (Keisha Castle-Hughes) is the twin, the girl, who cannot continue the line, according to her stubborn grandfather. When her grandfather decides to begin training other boys to be chief, she is permitted into the class only if she sits at the back. She refuses and is expelled, and thereupon seeks to acquire the knowledge from others. The fundamental story-- of rejection by a loved and respected figure-- is strong enough to carry this movie, along with the screen charisma of Keisha Castle-Hughes. Some of hte scenes of ritual and celebration have the authentic, insider's feel of a native film-maker's work. Enjoyable and family-friendly, if that's what matters the most to you.
KEISHA CASTLE-HUGHES, RAWIRI PARATENE, VICKY HAUGHTON, CLIFF CURTIS, GRANT ROA, RACHEL HOUSE
This movie is ambitious but ends up a great big sloppy mess, a jaded fantasy by the Campion's that seems to indulge the amazing, sometimes stunning, pliability of stars Winslett and Keitel. Keitel plays PJ Waters, a deprogrammer from the U.S. who comes to save Ruth Barron (Winslet) from the moonies-- in this case, a religious cult in India that absorbs her into it's ashram. Her family wants her back. Waters is no genius but claims to be 95% effective. Ruth plays along with the three-day program, but it is never wholly clear who is deprogramming who. But it feels as if the writers had a nn idea but did not work it out fully, and couldn't really conceptualize how it translate into action or dialogue. Instead, we get various episodes of Ruth and Waters having sex or fighting or provoking each other, until it is Waters who appears to lose his mind. A film that raises very important issues-- is there any such thing as deprogramming? Isn't it always "reprogramming" instead, but it seems to jerk the viewer around. Waters refuses to substitute his own authority for that of the charismatic cult leader, but the film is weak on the specifics of how, then, he changes Ruth. What is clear is that this is no Beaver Cleaver suburban American family with wise and understanding parents who are justly bewildered when the golden child turns her back on all they stand for. The family itself is a mess, with Yvonne, Ruth's sister-in-law, trying to cheat on her husband, and a mother who can barely hold herself together emotionally. Ruth is an enigma. When she dresses Waters up as a woman, including lipstick, it is baffling. You sense that the director is hoping for the benefit of the doubt, for the viewer to see something in this scene that she imagined but didn't succeed in expressing.
KATE WINSLETT, HARVEY KEITEL
Very entertaining treatment of community theatre, with a cast of stellar talents improvising and hamming their way along. Guest works with an outline of a story and then shoots his actors improvising scenes and then edits into a usually amusing tale that humours it's subject while gently mocking it. In this case, a small-town cast gets carried away with an original show paying tribute to Blaine, Missouri's history. It is rumoured that a Broadway producer, Guffman, will be attending. But Guffman turns out to be the "Godot" of small-town theatrical aspirations and the seat reserved for him at the debut remains unfilled until... The concept used by Guest still had some life in it at this point though it soon lost its virility.
EUGENE LEVY, PARKER POSEY, CATHERINE O'HARA, FRED WILLARD, CHRISTOPHER GUEST, BOB BALABAN
And interesting film made by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming for themselves and their actor friends, set entirely in a home in the Hollywood Hills, and with the feel of Mike Leigh's improvised little odes. Joe (Cumming) and Sally (Leigh) throw a party for their 6th anniversary, and invite a number of friends who are all involved in the movie business, except for their neighbors, Monica and Ryan Rose (Mina Badie and Denis O'hare) . Joe and Sally are having a tiff over the fact that Sally doesn't get to play the lead in Joe's new movie. Gwyneth Paltrow gets that part, though, visually, she doesn't look all that much more like an ingenue than Leigh. Kevin Kline faces a similar connundrum: no longer the obvious leading man, while his wife (Phoebe Cates) is staying home to raise children. Jerry Adams, Joe's business manager, and his loudmouth wife (Parker Posey) show up as well, and everyone settles in for a night of shocking revelations and emotional epiphanies, lubricated by ecstasy, and the usual party games. Each character reveals his or herself to be somewhat less or more than we think they are, and that's what keeps the movie interesting-- the acting is so good and the disclosures so authentic that we don't mind the convention. Shot on a Sony DSR-500
PARKER POSEY, ALAN CUMMING, JENNIFER JASON LEIGH, PHOEBE CATES, KEVIN KLINE, OWEN KLINE, GRETA KLINE, JOHN C. REILLY, JANE ADAMS
Exquisite and moving Japanese fantasy about a little girl lost in a kind of underworld of gods and spirits. To survive, a little boy advises her, she must seek work in the bathhouse of the gods, where she meets an array of terrifying and amazing creatures. The ruler of the bathhouse, Yubaba, tolerates her for a while, but is determined to turn her into a pig and eat her eventually. Chihiro (the little girl) also makes friends with Lin, who helps her find her way. One of her jobs is to assist a horrible monster with his bath, and this sequence, one of the movie's best, is remarkable. She discovers a "thorn"-- actually a bicycle handle-- in his side, which Yubaba orders her to remove. All the attendents pitch in and a cascade of pollution gushes from the monster. I saw both the Japanese version subtitled into English, and the english-dubbed version, and preferred the subtitles. Language is not a neutral transport of ideas-- it works better with Japanese sounds and syntax.
Very self-indulgent soft porn by Wayne Wang, ostensibly about a hooker and a naive computer wunderkind who go to Vegas for a weekend together with certain strict conditions: no kissing on the mouth, no penetration. Richard Longman (Peter Sarsgaard) falls in love with Forlence (the ever-willing Molly Parker) but she represses her feelings for him until she gets carried away one evening. He doesn't care that he's paying her for whatever sex she offers, but she does-- it means she can't love him. Or can she? It's hard to even believe that he loves her the way the film would have you believe.
MOLLY PARKER, PETER SARSGAARD, KARRY BROWN
Total rehash of "Stand by Me" and any of a dozen other King stories or imitators thereof. Anthony Hopkins is Ted Grautigan, a mysterious stranger who moves into Liz Garfield's second floor. Someone wants him for something and little Bobby (Anton Yelchin) inevitably sucks up to the old man. All this through the eyes of Bobby as an adult (David Morse) ruminating over how great life was as a kid. Of course there is a girl, who dies, for unknown reason, which initially prompts Bobby to reminisce. Wast of time.
ANTHONY HOPKINS, ANTON YELCHIN, HOPE DAVIS
Sometimes amazing and sometimes pedestrian-- director Taymor has a lead ear for dialogue but occasional spurts of imagination when Khalo's paintings are incorporated into the movie. In fact, the leader on the DVD was mesmerizing, but I have a strong suspicion that those segments were not directed by Taymor.
SALMA HAYEK, ALFRED MOLINA
Striking character studied carried by Philip Baker Hall as "Sydney", a mysterious older man who befriends a vagrant named John and teaches him how to gamble in Reno, Nevada. Gwyneth Paltrow plays a waitress who does tricks on the side and becomes John's love interest. The two develop a father-son relationship that is not fully explained until the revelation at the end. Not much happens in this movie. It's all about dialogue and character and while I stifled the occasional yawn, the characters are interesting and you can't wait to see what happens-- even if you're not sure anything is going to happen. There is a trick gone awry and a kidnapping and flight, and a confrontation between Sydney and Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson), John's friend, whom Sydney doesn't respect. Paul Thomas Anderson's films are highly distinctive, rich and nuanced, and always a surprise.
PHILIP BAKER HALL, JOHN C. REILLY, GWYNETH PALTRO, SAMUEL L. JACKSON
John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote the music and lyrics for Chicago, and with Bob Fosse created Cabaret. The lineage is there but Chicago is a discrete work with a kind of cynical edginess to it that even Cabaret couldn't match. The story is based on a play based on a book based on newspaper accounts of the real--life Chicago trials of Belva Gaetner, a show-girl who shot her lover, and Beaulah Annan. Both shot their married lovers who were trying to leave them. Gaertner famously quipped, about shooting men: "They aren't worth it. There are always plenty more". That that's the heart of Chicago.
RENEE ZELLWEGER, RICHARD GERE
The bad signs are there right from the beginning. When the first so-called contact from life forms in the universe arrives at Dr. Eleanor Arroway's lab, the entire crew reacts as if hit by a thunderbolt. In other words, the perceived phenomenon of radio waves and noise announces itself to them unambiguously and clearly as alien signals. They don't for a second consider any other possible explanation: statics, rhythmic cycles of meteor showers, bounced signals from earth, satellite emissions, or a practical joke. They act as if they knew exactly what the first alien transmissions recorded by an earth station would sound and look like. And off we go. Dr. Arroway graduated from MIT "Magna Cum Laude", though MIT doesn't award that distinction. The jargon as they analyze the signal is a high school science student's version of techno-lingo. Apparently many of the scenes of space are inaccurate, as knowledgeable people on the internet report. Joss gives her a compass from a Cracker Jack box--- which didn't contain have prizes in it after the 1970's. And so on and so on... Even a mathematical formula Ellies uses to argue about the possibilities of life on other planets is incorrect-- did nobody bother to even check the math here? Or is Zemeckis just utterly determined to insult the audience's intelligence? This movie is a mess. It is a hodgepodge of very bad science fiction, a tedious romantic subplot that is emotionally ridiculous (after the romantic interest for Arroway prevents her from realizing her life-long dream of travelling to visit the alien life forms, she instantly forgives him), and the mushiest imaginable new age drivel. Ellie's feelings are always right-- fools prevail, as they did in Forrest Gump, another Zemeckis film. Toss in a few cliche's and some impressive special effects (especially the worm holes and the transportation device itself), and you have one of the worst expensive films ever made. Even Foster, normally a brisk, cerebral actor, comes of shamelessly exhibitionist, and dumb. When she dresses up to the nines for a formal reception-- you realize that the director is out of control-- he doesn't know what he's working with here, or how it is supposed to hang together. What on earth was Bill Clinton doing in this film? He appears, as president, several times, to make vague reassuring comments about how the U.S. government is handling the crisis. There is a funny episode of an anal intelligence official (James Woods) making ready to defend against an alien invasion. And there are scores of television personalities playing themselves, including Jay Leno and Harry Brown, and even Novak and Ferraro. How this humbug ever got off the ground boggles the mind. Incomprehensibly, some reviewers, including Berardinelli, and Ebert, regard Contact as an excellent film that doesn't patronize viewers when it come to the science. I'm baffled by this. I am sure the film plays to audience preconceptions, much like Forrest Gump-- another film most reviewers loved and I hated. The stereo-types abound-- the militaristic authoritarian type, the spiritual type, the pragmatic type, etc. The phoniest scene of all- the inquiry into what happened when Arroway "left" to visit the aliens, is so ridiculous that it is almost comical. Don't buy it-- this film is a piece of shit.
JODIE FOSTER, JENA MALONE, MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY, DAVID MORSE, TOM SKERRIT, BILL CLINTON, JAMES WOODS
Good film about a rare subject (for movies): aging. Jack Nicholson plays Warren R. Schmidt, a non-descript retired insurance executive. We join him on the day of his retirement in one of the most memorable scenes in the movie-- Schmidt sitting at this desk on his last day waiting for the clock to tick off the last few minutes of his career. He goes home and the film follows his adjustment to retired life, which is shortly disrupted by the death of his wife Helen (June Squibb). His daughter comes for the funeral with her fiance, whom Warren despises. Then the story leads us on a cross-country excursion as Schmidt takes his motor-home to attend Jeannie's wedding to Randall Hertzel (Dermot Mulroney), a flakey water-bed salesman who believes in pyramid schemes. Along the way, he experiences America as an older, retired man, a little bereft of purpose, lost in himself, grouchy, but apparently open to something new-- if it can only hit him in the right way. Some of the information about Schmidt comes from the letters he writes to a child he has sponsored in Tanzania called Ndugu (whose photo is of a real-life child, Abdallah Mtulu.) Ebert in his review, quites Thoreau-- "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation". That came to my mind as well as I watched this movie, especially as Schmidt gradually discovers that his replacement at work has found Schmidt's accumulated life's wisdom entirely dispensible. Other information about Schmidt comes from his experience with his daughter's fiance's family. They are exuberant and trashy and exotic to Schmidt, and, predictably, he is repelled by them. It is compliment to Payne you aren't clobbered with the contrast. You can't see what Schmidt takes from them, because he is such a hollow man to begin with that there is nothing to latch on to.
JACK NICHOLSON, KATHY BATES, DERMOT MULRONEY, HOPE DAVIS, LEN CARIOU, HOWARD HESSEMAN
This is kind of a mess of a movie with strong echoes of "Shawshank Redemption" (another mess, but a tidier mess) and "Titanic". The movie is a fable. That can mean that it is a fable or that it just doesn't care about plausibility. I'm easy-- but some audiences assume that while realistic movies can be unrealistic, fables can't. Tim Roth plays "1900". He is born on a ship, the Virginian, and raised by Danny (Bill Nunn) on board. He magically learns how to play the piano and becomes part of the ship's orchestra. He never once leaves the ship during his entire life, though he is tempted, once, after he sees a beautiful girl, and she responds slightly to him. This story is told, in film noire fashion, by the band's trumpet player, Max Tooney (Pruitt Taylor Vince), with a kind of fey world-weariness that can only come from watching too many Bogart imitations. Along the way, 1900 demonstrates his ability to transpose facial expression into music, out-duels Jelly Roll Morton, and sails back and forth between England and America, over and over again. When he is encouraged to leave the ship, just once, just to see what kind of possibilities exist outside of that insular experience, he recoils. You have to think he's wrong. It has become a staple of artistic insight to welcome the new, the exotic, the different, as components of a rich, fulfilling life. We recoil a little at 1900's rejection of those possibilties. He tries to justify his position, and the film-makers ensure that you see him as being superior to it, in the same way he ultimately demonstrates his superiority to Jelly Roll Morton. The trouble is, the film shows you he is superior to Morton because, apparently, he has faster fingers. You know that this would impress a philistine, but the movie wants you to believe it is about musical and emotional intelligence, while only a dilettante would rate a musician's ability on the basis of his speed. All right-- this is a fable. But there are good fables and bad fables and even boring, uninteresting fables. What matters to 1900? It's hard to tell. On the surface, it appears to be music, but the actual music played during some of these extensive scenes is too tame and showy to be all that interesting, and the movie doesn't show anything else about the music that makes you believe he has found anything transcendent in it. The girl appears briefly, and 1900 doesn't really interact with her very much, and doesn't discover anything about her or himself through this relationship. Yet the recording of the music he improvised while watching her face in a window is given extraordinary weight-- it can't carry it. It's fluff and it blows off in a second. The emotional core of this film is like taffy-- it sticks to your fingers and stretches and bends but never amounts to anything more than sticky set pieces.
TIM ROTH, PRUITT TAYLOR VINCE, MELANIE THIERRY, BILL NUNN, CLARENCE WILLIAMS III, PETER VAUGHAN
Charlie Kaufman is given the task of writing a screenplay based on a book by Susan Orlean about a man caught stealing orchids. His twin brother Donald is an aspiring screenwriter with trite ideas for a new thriller. They become embroiled with Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) is secretly having an affair with the subject of her book. Is this about identity? Are the twins actually one? How much is fantasy and how much "reality" in this provocative but ultimately unsatisfying exploration of the relationship of writing to real life, of passion to vicarious experience? The principles are all good, and the script is interesting, but when it diverges into Donald's fantasies in the last half, the movie loses some energy. To add to the coyness, the book by Susan Orlean is real, and real actors appear in the film as themselves (Catherine Keener, John Cusack) or, of course, as "characters". There is some reflection on the elusive nature of orchids, the passion some eccentric people have for collecting them, no matter what the cost.
NICHOLAS CAGE, MERYL STREEP, CHRIS COOPER, BRIAN COX, CARA SEYMOUR, MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL
Utterly mediocre "thriller" about a UN secret agent who gets double- crossed by toadies of the Triad and sets out to clear his name and undo a nefarious conspiracy to sabotage trade talks between China and the U.S. This film is so full of inaccuracies and farcical plot devices that it barely merits any consideration at all. Somewhat stylishly filmed but generally dumb.
MAURY CHAYKIN, WESLEY SNIPES, MARIE MATIKO, MICHAEL BIEHN
Also written by Eugene Levy. Hysterically funny portrait of several dog faciers who enter their pooches in dog shows and make it to the big one in Philadelphia. Uniformly good cast, well-directed. Expecially Fred Willard as Buck Laughlin, who tries to impart a bit of American blue-collar enthusiasm to the proceedings. Shot in documentary style, though freely moving away to conventional film-making when necessary. You can't help notice that the owners are as colorful and cranky as the contestants in this contest.
PARKER POSEY, MICHAEL HITCHCOCK, CATHARINE O'HARA, EUGENE LEVY, CHRISTOPHER GUEST, BOB BALABAN, ED BEGLEY JR., JIM PIDDOCK, JANE LYNCH
Somewhat amusing paradoy of Kung Fu, martial arts films, including a preposterously funny sequence with a cow. Likeable enough for a mild diversion from reality, and the use of 3D computer generated graphics is unique to this kind of slapstick. This film, like Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lily", uses original footage from a martial arts film "Shao Lin Hu Ho Chen Tien Hsia" made in 1977. As in "Tiger Lily" a lot of the humour comes from the contrast between the seriousness of the actors faces in the original and the nonsensical dialogue (the villain wants people to call him "Betty"). But, with the technological advances since "Tiger Lily", Oedekerk is able to also insert himself into the movie, even in place of existing actors. Watch out-- we're going to see a lot more of this in the future as this technololgy becomes more and more accesssible. In fact, I'm sure we will shortly see a home-made film using this technique.
STEVE OEDEKERK, FEI LUNG
Very entertaining "small" movie about a high school election for student council president. Reese Witherspoon is Tracey Enid Flick who is running for president. She is a natural leader, an over-achiever, who actually is nice if somewhat insufferable. Up against her is Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) who broke his leg in a ski accident and was persuaded by a teacher, James McAllister (Matthew Broderick) to enter the race. Motives are a bit shadey here. McAllister doesn't like the toadying Tracey, thought it's never very clear why. And Tammy Metzler (Jessica Campbell) enters the race against her brother as revenge for a broken lesbian relationship. Not what I expected. The film is wonderfully shot, and the sound is remarkable for it's astute use of background music and incidental noises to set atmosphere and even build suspense. This is a smart film that doesn't give in to obvious temptations. The teachers and principal are about what you'd expect from a real school, and most students behave as most students really do. Even Tracey's affair with a teacher is handled with tact and impressive restraint. And "Election" is not a heavy-handed political allegory either. It stays with it's likeable, fully-dimensioned characters right to the end.
MATTHEW BRODERICK, REECE WITHERSPOON, LOREN NELSON, CHRIS KLEIN, PHIL REEVES, MARK HARELIK, JESSICA CAMPBELL
"Bottle Rocket" is the name of a firework that Anthony, Dignan, and Bob pick up on their escapade, and it is an image of the volatile but charming insouciance of these characters as they travel together and plot a heist. As is to be expected, this non-Hollywood film by a group of bright college buddies is fresh and unusual. They had a unique vision of style and sensibility and Bottle Rocket bumps along somewhat unevenly. What evergizes the film is the sparkling dialogues and the confidence the film-makers have in their own charm. The film begins with Anthony Adams (Luke Wilson) checking out of a mental hospital voluntarily. His friend, Dignan (played by his brother, Owen) is waiting for him under the fanciful delusion that Anthony is being held against his will and plans to escape through his bedroom window. Anthony indulges the fantasy and they are off, practising heists on Anthony's home and then a book store-- rehearsals for the real target: a safe in a meat-processing plant. Dignan claims to have a team of veteran desperadoes to help them-- they turn out to be a lawn maintenance crew. They recruit a safe-cracker, who, is turns out, can't crack safes. The cleverness of this film is that the desperadoes do join in the robbery attempt and they actually break into the meat processing plant. You almost don't expect it-- is it all a dream or some delusion on the part of Anthony? Along the way, Anthony meets and falls in love with a Paraguayan maid at their motel. It's a side-bar, a diversion that doesn't really add a lot of interest to the plot, but no one seems to want to pretend that it is anything more than that so the plot carries on. Not a particularly deep or provocative movie, but entertaining and fresh, and a significant early effort by the future director of "Royal Tenenbaums" and "Punch Drunk Love".
OWEN WILSON, LUKE WILSON, NED DOWD, SHEA FOWLER, HALEY MILLER, ROBERT MUSGRAVE, BRIAN TENENBAUM, JAMES CAAN
Adam Sandler is Barry Egan, a small self-employed businessman, with "issues". Emily Watson is great. She gives Egan these slow, lingering, assessing looks, and you can see how she becomes a centre of calm sanity in his life. Brilliant, unusual film, with extraordinary sensibilities of time and space. The camera lingers and hangs and follows complete motions-- Barry running down the alley behind his warehouse, to his desk, back to the door, back to the road, or looking for an apartment, or carrying a harmonium to this desk. Very daring, intriguing film, about the the intoxication of feeling of the title. Large meaning in small moments.
ADAM SANDLER, EMILY WATSON
John Cusack plays a record store owner who wonders, aloud, to the audience, why he can't hang on to some of the great women he has fallen in love with over the years.
JOHN CUSACK, JOAN CUSACK, JACK BLACK, LISA BONET, CATHARINE ZETA-JONES, TIM ROBBINS
Pacino plays an LA cop sent to Alaska to help with a murder case, of a young girl. What makes this film unusual is that we not only realize who the murderer is fairly quickly, but we see that the Pacino character himself has layers of duplicity, and even self-doubt. The suspense is provided by Hilary Swank as an upright local officer, who begins to doubt LA cop's integrity. The usual stupid Hollywood ending, but well-written, and well-acted. Pacino is particularly good.
AL PACINO, HILARY SWANK
Striking but vacuous horror/thriller about a Canadian actress who seems to have assumed the identify of someone else, as a kind of schizophrenic response to unusual stress. As with other David Lynch films, the movie is less than the sum of it's parts, and suffers deeply, perhaps fatally, from the rather facile use of striking but unrelated scenes. You tend to wonder about the over-all logic of the film. And at the end, you say to yourself, oh, that was it? Good performances, generally.
NAOMI WATTS
Badly bungled film version of a very compelling true story: how the crew of the K-19 Russian submarine prevented a melt-down and potential thermo-nuclear explosion, after the cooling system failed in the middle of it's first mission. Right from the start, the idea of having a Russian crew talk to each other in Russian accents is not only bizarre but insane. Why would the crew sound to each other like immigrants? Well, they don't, entirely. The range of language is there, but the accents are bizarre. On the plus side, the film gives you good detail about the operation of a Soviet nuclear powered sub, and some good visuals, especially of the reactor mechanisms. Dramatically, the film stumbles through cliche-ridden conflicts between Captain Polenin, who fights for the crew, and opposes commissioning the sub because it isn't ready, and no-nonsense Captain Alexei Vostrikov, who undertakes the task of getting K-19 out to sea on schedule, in spite of mechanical problems and doubts about the seaworthiness of the vessel. They set out on their mission, and all goes reasonably well at first. When Vostrikov insists on diving to 300 meters-- crush depth-- you get the impression that the crew and Polenin have never been on a sub before, or that subs are not tested to those depths. Neither makes sense. But the scenes in which the crew try to repair the reactor are compelling. The evil twin of this movie is "We Were Soldiers". At the end, Captain Vostrikov gives a speech in which he lauds the dutiful obedience of the sailors who gave their lives to save the sub. The intelligent viewer can't help but step back for a second and ask himself, for what? Reality Check: The Captain, real name Zateyev, ordered the sub to surface 2 hours after the system failed and tried to radio for help. However, an antennae had failed. Eight men entered the radioactive compartment to try to jury-rig a pipe system into the reactor core to bring in cold water. The men probably knew it was a suicide mission. Radiation escaped through steam as the cooling water made contact with the hot reactor, and in the water circulating through the system. Zateyev decided to go south in search of other Soviet subs rather than attempt the 1500 mile home journey, during which most of the crew would have died. A diesel sub, the S-270, is finally contacted. It takes the eight severely sick crew aboard after "decontaminating" them with scalding water. It tries to tow K-19 but the lines break because of the much larger size of the nuclear sub. In 1972, a fire on board killed 28 men. It was decommissioned in 1991 and scrapped in 2002. Shameless: Kathryn Bigelow (director) wrote a companion book to the movie. In it, she described meeting the widow of the real-life Capatin Zateyev. She described an emotional meeting after which she was determined to honor the man's memory. The film dishonors him in every respect, from the badly conceived accents, to the fact that he doesn't even exist in the movie! Instead, to inject a little conflict, they had two fictional captains fight over the loyalty of the crew.
HARRISON FORD, LIAM NEESON
The style is becoming a bit of a cliche-- meandering conversations between literate, idiosyncratic people, dealing mostly with romance, love, sex, pesonal confession, and "issues". Gus (David Duchovny, in a very limited appearance) is throwing a party, and "Full Frontal" follows the guests around on the day of the party as they interact and spew forth the intimate dark secrets of their souls. Woody Allenesque at times, but more sexual. There is the trick of a movie (called "Rendevous") within a movie and even a movie within the movie within the movie. Julia Roberts and Blair Underwood play Francesca and Calvin, the actors within the movie, and Nicholas and Catherine, their characters in the movie within the movie. If there was supposed to be something profound about how this confuses our preception of their relationship, it was hard to find. Meanwhile, one of the screenwriters is directing a play called "Sound and the Fuhrer", with a egocentric actor playing Hitler as a sort of modernist fop, and again, the edges are blurred between the fictitious drama and the real-life personnel. Some conversations seem to start in reality, then move to the stage or the film, or off it. Is Soderbergh suggesting that movies and plays have become our reference points for the meaning of our relationships? The other screenwriter's wife (Catharine Keener) is planning to leave him (David Hyde Pierce). But her day is so badly screwed up, she thinks twice, while her sister plans to meet a man she met on the internet-- the director and co-screenwriter-- who has pretended to be someone else. Fiction again, intruding on reality? At the end of the day, they salute the absent host of the party, Gus. All of this is not real, but matters in some kind of stupefying way. Julia Roberts, by the way, is better than I have ever seen her-- toned down, all textures and nuance instead of star power. Catherine Keener is also excellent, especially when, as a personnel manager, she conducts bizarre interviews with her employees-- it appears, to decide who should be let go. Filmed in digital, except for the "movie" parts.
DAVID DUCHOVNY, JULIA ROBERTS, BLAIR UNDERWOOD, MARY MCCORMACK, DAVID HYDE PIERCE, ERIKA ALEXANDER, TRACEY VILAR, NICKY KATT
Tight and interesting suspense film about three men trying to break into an apartment with a secret "panic room", in which millions of dollars of cash has allegedly been hidden. Jodie Foster plays the single mom who rents the apartment. She's not supposed to be there yet and the three burglars, including the guy who installed the room, have to deal with her. Not much more to it than that. Tension is maintained with differences among the three thieves, in the capacity for brutality, and the daughter's diabetes. Above average. Reasonably credible except the daughter knowing morse code for "SOS", supposedly from viewing "Titanic". And when the burglars pump propane into the panic room, it's effects appear to be grossly exaggerated. (Propane, for one thing, is heavier than air-- it wouldn't cling to the ceiling, as implied here.)
JODIE FOSTER, KRISTEN STEWART, FOREST WHITAKER, DWIGHT YOAKAM, JARED LETO, PATRICK BAUCHAU
"The Hours" falls into that category of movies that are immediately phony but pay meticulous attention to the outward stylistic kitsch of serious drama. The poet ruminating about the beauty of nature, the child that is intuitively disturbed by his mother's lesbian kiss of another woman, and the writer who desires passion and excitement in her life, instead of the staid conventionality of a country town. These are cliches that are handled as if they were new discoveries and we are expected to ooo and awww with a sense of deep personal profundity. But they are the hallmarks of an externalized apprehension of the subject. This is a movie that is safe for someone who admires poets and poetry and feels like a better person for it but couldn't really stand to put up with either in any substantive measure in his own life. When you add to that the classic feminist denigration of male characters-- they are phantoms here, of no substantial existence whatsoever-- you have a dreary and over-rated picture that can be safely avoided. Nicole Kidman plays Virginia Woolf. Kidman is fun to watch, but it's embarrassing to see a movie dramatize the mindset of a writer like this: she's distracted, thinking about her art, while her sister and her children babble around her, and her husbands putters around in the garden. But her feelings are just so important, you see. So we jump to Meryl Streep as Clarissa Vaughan who is throwing a party for her ex-lover, Ed Harris as Richard the poet, who is dying of AIDS, and who has just won a major prize for a novel that is extremely difficult and-- gosh, wait for the feelings-- about Clarissa. Some reviews make a point of the idea that Clarissa has to learn to stop denying her own needs and stop trying to build her self-esteem out of her devotion to Richard. Richard feels smothered by her concern and commits an act that rivals, in ridiculousness (in terms of melodrama), the most over-the-top contrivance in a Harlequin Romance. For all that feminism might have accomplished, then, we are in "Gone With the Wind", with less action. And it slows down as we follow Laura in the 1950's, who lives a life contrived of artifacts of popular culture that never did have a correspondence to any reality. She is the mother in "Leave it to Beaver". It tells you a lot about the mentality of this picture that her husband, played by John C. Reilly and miscast, I think-- is utterly one-dimensional and colourless. I suppose that is meant to clarify that Laura's life is sterile and empty. But I am a little outraged that the movie thinks that this sterility is the product of or in the interest of her husband. Why doesn't he think it's empty? Why shouldn't he? Because if he did, it would reveal how narcissistic these women really are: my feelings are important. They are so important, I will desert my husband and two children. And then Clare Danes, playing Clarissa's daughter (from artificial insemination) will embrace Laura at the end, which is the imprimatur approval. It leaves me with the distasteful impression that the mindset of "The Hours" reflects a feminist view of men as unimportant, uninteresting, and irrelevant. That all might very well be true-- I'm serious-- but it's a case that is worth making only if you can show me that what the women have in them is so much more vitally interesting than what the men offer. But it's not. It's that weepy touchy sentimentalism. It's that coy artifice of, "I tried to hide my unhappiness, but she saw right through it and asked me, what is it Clarissa-- what's wrong? Tell me!" What's wrong is that Laura left her husband and children to run to Toronto (script awkwardly clues the viewer into the fact that Toronto is in Canada) to become-- wait for it-- a librarian. I suppose they thought that would reinforce the link to "Mrs. Dalloway", the Woolf character that inspires this movie. In fact, it reinforces the fundamental triviality of the plot. Richard Schickel of Time says "this movie is in love with female victimization". That is exactly right.
MERYL STREEP, NICOLE KIDMAN, JULIANNE MOORE, JOHN C. REILLY, ALISON JANNEY, ED HARRIS
Polanski's masterpiece based on true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish pianist and his astounding story of survival in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. I believe Polanski even set out to make a corrective to the compromised "Schindler's List". No cheap moments in "The Pianist", no child in a red coat, no weeping over a grave, no gathering of grateful people. Polanski made a large point of being as faithful to the real history as possible, especially since he himself survived the occupation of Warsaw as a child.
Graceful, slow-moving and suspenseful film that is really about spirituality, but wraps the message in an uncompromisingly frightening story about alien invasion, beginning, of course, with the legendary crop signs. Mel Gibson plays Graham Hess, a former pastor who lost his wife in a nasty car accident. Joaquin Phoenix is his brother, Merrill, a former minor-league ball player who is famous for hitting a record number of home runs, and striking out even more often. His two children, Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin), are precocious but not annoyingly so. Shyamalan has a schtick and he executes it well, but it's still a schtick, and it can basically summarized as "there are no coincidences". In other words, there is a God, and there are miracles. It's a silly schtick, but he's not excessively maudlin about it and the story works on the other level-- suspense and horror-- pretty well. The children are both effective, but the cast, outside of the principles, is undistinquished. Oddly-- Shyamalan himself is effective in a minor role as the man who killed Hess' wife when he fell asleep at the wheel of his truck.
MEL GIBSON, JOAQUIN PHOENIX, RORY CULKIN, ABIGAIL BRESLIN, CHERRY JONES, M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN, PATRICIA KALEMBER
I never liked Jerry Lewis' "acting" in the films in which he made his mark. He clowned by making idiotic expressions with his face and body and generally acting like a blithering idiot. For this, France has given him their highest honor in the arts and someone some day is going to have to try to give me a coherent explanation of that. But Lewis is brilliant in "The King of Comedy", and Sandra Bernhard steals every scene she's in in this under-rated comedy from Martin Scorsese. Rupert Pupkin (De Niro) is a tediously unfunny comedian who wants to take a shortcut to stardom by convincing television variety show host Jerry Langford (Lewis) that he is talented enough to be featured in his nationally broadcast late-evening show. He manages to trick his way into Langford's limo one night (with the help of Masha-- Bernhard) and makes his pitch. It is Scorsese's genius to imbue the subsequent events with an almost unbearable tension by making Langford, and his staff, as reasonable and reasonably accommodating as they can possibly be. You can see the wheels turning here-- they don't want to encourage upstarts to intrude on Langford's space, but they want to be reasonable, and they want to get Pupkin off their backs. So they accept his tape and review it and make some encouraging remarks and then, quite sensibly, urge him to polish his act in nightclubs before trying to leap to the big time. Langford's assistant even promises to attend one of his shows and you know that she means it. But Pupkin isn't satisfied with this arrangement. He really wants to supplant Langford overnight. So he kidnaps him and tries to blackmail the studio into putting him on the show. The King of Comedy is utterly plausible. You can see that Langford likes to occasionally walk in public and be recognized and doesn't want unnecessarily ham-fisted security around him all the time. And you see that they see what you see-- that Pupkin might be harmless, but always presents the potential for a truly deranged outburst. They stay back, while entertaining his propositions. The result is a fascinating, and sometimes very funny comedy about celebrity and fame. De Niro is the least funny actor I can imagine, except maybe for Clint Eastwood, but he's effective, and his odd relationship with Masha is believable and intriguing. Note-- according to commentary on the DVD, some of the scenes shot on the streets of NY were recorded as they happened, with people calling out to Jerry Lewis as he played Langford walking down the street.
ROBERT De Niro, JERRY LEWIS, DIAHNNE ABBOTT, SANDRA BERNHARD, SHELLEY HACK
Very long and sometimes slow-moving documentary about the behavior of the citizens of Auverge, France, during the Nazi occupation.
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