MOVIE REVIEWS LATE 2007 Part 2

I’m way behind. Dude's recent post got me going.

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BLACK SNAKE MOAN (2007) Christina Ricci is a nymphomaniac whose boyfriend is shipping out in the service. Not a good combination we can guess. The first plot point is nympho girl refusing her boyfriend’s best friend. He gets angry and beats her up and leaves her for dead on the side of the road. Along comes Sam Jackson who nurses her to health and then ties her up to heal her of her other affliction. And somehow it all has a happy ending. It’s recommended for those who like seeing Ricci scantily clad and like feeling guilty about it even more.

RED ROAD (2006) A Scottish film where the DVD gives you English subtitles by default and you’ll appreciate it about 1/3 of the time. Our hero Jackie monitors security cameras in a high crime area of Glasgow. She’s suffering from the death her husband and child and early on in the movie she discovers the dude who is responsible. Using her power with the cameras and some cleverness, she tries to get even. I can’t say much more without ruining it, but it’s a nice change of pace overall and worth the time.

V FOR VENDETTA (2006) –The basic plot has our masked hero blowing up things and creating general havoc in London set in the not too distant future. It takes a while for us to learn that he is a revolutionary fighting against a fascist English government. It seems that the current dictator and some pals took over Britain after a series of terrorist activities that they themselves orchestrated. That could have actually worked as satire, but this movie takes itself seriously. A little research revealed that the original story was written in the 1980s and it was a nuclear attack and not terrorism that brought about the events our hero fights against. So it was really a reaction to Thatcherism, they just updated the bugaboo post 2001. The big ending that I don’t mind spoiling is V blowing up Parliament, the oldest house of representative government on the planet. For a movie like this to work, it has to have a measure of plausibility. You have to imagine that a country could actually take such a turn. Fascism will never return in the form of militarism. That card was played and defeated by the very same England. Fascism can only return in the crisis of health care and the environment, things that are hard to oppose. In this form it’s no more viable than medieval serfdom. Now forget the politics and the film is stylish and Natalie Portman’s prison sequence was pretty inventive and quite effective. It really had a lot of things going for it except believability.

PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928) Carl Dreyer’s Joan film was thought lost until the early 1980s where a copy turned up in a mental institution. This is not a life of Joan, but her trial and execution only and if I had not acted in that Joan of Arc play back in college, I think I would have been lost on the background and characters. Nothing here is explained. The politics behind Joan’s trial are not discussed either. I think the story works better in the context of her whole life because it’s more of a tragedy after you’ve seen her heroism. I have to suppose any Frenchman in the 1920s already knew the story and must have understood the tragedy without the prologue. As I have said before, I prefer silent comedies over silent dramas where the broad acting brings intentional laughs. This might be one of the few times where that level of intensity works in a silent drama. There is nothing entertaining here although you can appreciate technique and it will only cost you 80 minutes.

THE LEOPARD (1963) – This is my first Visconti movie and many consider it his masterpiece. I didn’t read anything going in and I was surprised that it’s a costume drama, sort of an Italian Gone with the Wind. Both GWTW and LEOPARD are set in the 1860s, both movies are about a way of life ending, and both movies are epic length. I guess I was expecting all Italian directors of this time period to be practicing neo-realism. What is weird about this movie is that it stars Burt Lancaster of all people and he’s dubbed in Italian. If I’m from Italy I probably don’t notice, but it’s Burt Lancaster and I know too well what his voice sounds like and when he opens up and I hear a husky Italian voice come out of his mouth it feels weird. There is an official release English language dubbed version and I would rent it and see the whole three hours again if I knew it was Burt Lancaster’s voice. I’m interested to see some other Visconti movies to know whether or not this is typical, because this one didn’t really rock me as I had expected, though any guy will appreciate Claudia Cardinale’s presence.

TALK TO ME (2007) – Don Cheadle plays an ex-con who lips his way into a job as a radio DJ in 1960s Washington D.C. The movie is based on the true story of Petey Greene, but rather than a pure biopic, the film tries to be a panorama of politics and race relations in the late 60s. Near the end it changes focus entirely and follows Petey’s manager played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. Cheadle proves capable again and Eijofor is every bit his equal. Like most biopics they have plenty to say up front about the rise of a person, but no easy resolution. Sometimes historical figures have not the decency to die a hero or martyr for the screenwriter. Watch it if you’re in the mood for the material or skip it with little regret.

SPIDERMAN 3 (2007) – The first movie in the series was alright. The second movie was an improvement focusing on the conflict between being a hero and leading a normal life. This third film comes out of nowhere as an “everything but the kitchen sink” fiasco with too many villains, too many love interests and too many subplots. They even re-write history a little by having someone else kill Uncle Ben. The Spiderman stories are interesting for their more complex villains, but after three films, that becomes a liability. All the back stories become redundant and you long for one guy to be pure evil just for variety. The character of Spiderman ends the trilogy as more of a psychologist than a super hero. And that could have been fine had they focused on Peter Parker’s complex relationship with the new Goblin. I suppose that was too cerebral for the producers who wanted action scenes that would play better overseas. So we’re introduced to the Sandman and Venom two more bad guys that don’t mean it. They really set themselves up for a great third movie and didn’t deliver.

I AM LEGEND (2007) I would usually skip this at the theatre, but Sir Saunders and the boys were going to see it so why not. I thought the trailer looked interesting and the reviews were decent too. It based on the same source material as THE OMEGA MAN, and this one has better production values. Just a character with the whole of Manhattan to himself gives the movie an intriguing pull. It also has Will Smith going for it, a real movie star in a time of few. The plot has Smith as last man on earth fighting a gang of vampires that only come out at night. The movie grabs you in many kinds of ways. I especially fell soft for the dog, having lost my own this past year. I AM LEGEND is a vehicle movie in the best possible way.

CHRISTMAS CAROL (1938) – Gene Lockhart seems a bit too old to play Bob Cratchet and the translation isn’t nearly as grim as later ones. I guess that a plus after seeing ignorance and want between the legs of that second spirit in so many films. Lionel Barrymore was supposed to star as Scrooge, but the arthritis that would later render him to a wheelchair prevented it. If you can find a copy you have to hear the Barrymore radio interpretation of this material. Reginald Owen steps in and does a decent enough job as Scrooge. The 1951 version outdid this.

CHRISTMAS CAROL (1999) Patrick Stewart as Scrooge this time. He’s got the accent down from birth. The rest of the film follows as expected. I kept thinking that this could be a signature take on the tale, but despite Alistair Sim’s 1951 version, I still think the best telling of this material is yet to come.

ONCE (2007) – A Movie Review

Bad movies can be easily reviewed by describing misfire scenes and phony dialogue. Good movies are a little tougher, because you have to describe why it works for you. Remarkable movies are nearly impossible, because remarkable movies make the simple sublime. ONCE convinced me that good movies can still be made with a small budget, a simple script and a few honest performances.

Guy, a talented struggling Dublin street musician meets Girl, a piano playing Czech immigrant. What happens next has to be seen to be appreciated. It’s best described as honest or real or at least warm. The leads were both musicians who had never acted but you’d think they were the two biggest stars in Ireland.

Of all the Junto Boys I am probably the least interested in music, and the music here is great. As a musical I would certainly take it over CHICAGO, HAIRSPRAY, and THE PRODUCERS. Though I have a lot of movies yet to see, ONCE is so far the best film I have seen in 2007. I'll comment again after seeing Juno, No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood.

MOVIE REVIEWS LATE 2007 Part 1

I have a backlog of movies back to early November. Here are few to chew on:


THE PAINTED VEIL (2007) – Just when you thought the world was finished adapting Somerset Maugham books to the screen, Edward Norton and Naomi Watts give it one more try. Maugham was big in his day and a lot of his work was made into movies in the 1930s ands 1940s. This story was a Greta Garbo vehicle way back. Here Norton plays a British doctor working in China in the 1920s. Watts is forced to marry Norton by her parents during the first 10 minutes of the movie. She soon falls for the married Liev Schreiber and is discovered by her husband. Norton gives her the choice of accompanying him on a trip to the heart of China to cure a cholera epidemic or face the public humiliation of a divorce. She makes the trip and while there Watts sees the goodness in her husband as he heals the sick and she eventually falls in love with him. The movie is a reminder of the limits of modern drama in the anything goes era. The fact that someone’s reputation meant something in the old days made situations like these perilous. People use to need redemption and that could make a whole story. It can still theoretically work in a period piece with the right tone of seriousness, but this movie does not achieve it. If you like the subject matter or Maugham novels give it a try. Otherwise you’re not missing anything.

DOWN IN THE VALLEY (2005) - Edward Norton again. This time he’s a modern day cowboy with a secret. He quits his job at the filling station to tag along with a group high school kids going to the beach. Norton goes because of Evan Rachel Wood and they soon begin a love affair. Wood’s father, the always solid David Morse, doesn’t like him much but Norton easily wins over her brother Rory Culkin with his cowboy ways. Bruce Dern and Geoffrey Lewis show up later in small roles. I’m not sure what drew this many decent actors to the material. Norton plays the cowboy in a Gary Cooper sort of aw shucks way which works for what it’s worth, but the relationship with Wood never seems real. Her continued affection for him makes less sense as you get to know him. Independent films are allowed to be more unpredictable, but like so many indies, this movie uses that freedom to be surprising rather than authentic and the last 20 minutes or so are not believable. In retrospect, the cowboy’s secret must have been what drew Norton to the material. He just didn’t get a decent third act to go with it.

A MIGHTY HEART (2007) –The western press prides itself by writing of the enemy in equal terms with America. If nothing else a Daniel Pearl movie should remind the press which side they are on. Pearl was just trying to get the story, but he was an American to the terrorists and just as worthy of death as a soldier in uniform. Angelina Jolie plays Pearl’s wife in this film and she sorts out what happened to him. Jolie is decent as the protagonist, but we know the ending already so the slow reveal feels more like a delay than plot points. I think it will be a long time before a terrorist movie can compete with United 93.

BLACK BOOK (2006) – Paul Verhoeven returns to The Netherlands to helm this story about the Dutch resistance during World War II. The main character Rachel is a Jew who died her hair blonde to pass as gentile and woo German officers for the intelligence it would bring the resistance. Later in the film her German notices her dark roots and pegs her for a Jew but doesn’t care. Are there no dark haired gentiles in Holland? The film is very episodic with locales and characters changing often especially before our heroine settles in with her own Nazi. It has an extended epilogue and at 145 minutes, there was ample room to cut another 20 minutes. Still, it’s pretty entertaining and Verhoeven’s Hollywood experience shows, because although the film is shot in Dutch, it looks and feels very Hollywood.

SUPERBAD (2007) – Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen have an ability to mix the profane with the heartwarming and SuperBad continues the tradition of 40 Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Two high school kids lament their impending separation as they get ready to go off to college. Their final exploits together include scoring alcohol for the big party and winning over the girls they like. Those desires are real ones and it makes you root for the characters. But much of the action is farcical including a subplot involving a couple of sheriff deputies. Still, I laughed a lot and the relationship with the principles was touching.

KNOCKED UP (2007) – It’s hard to figure out what Katherine Heigl would see in Seth Rogen’s bum character in the first place, but after a one night stand they’re going to have to get to know each other, because Ms. Heigl is having his baby. Crude jokes notwithstanding, the film has real heart summed up in Rogen seeking advice from his father played by Harold Ramis. Ramis doesn’t have any advice. He’s been divorced 3 times. He just knows that he loves his son. About every ten years someone comes along and redefines comedy with a new style, Mel Brooks in the 1970s, the Airplane guys in the 1980s, the Farrelly Brothers in the 1990s and now Apatow/Rogen. What we know is they all burn bright and after a couple of films wear out a little with familiarity. I wonder how long they have.

DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993) – I pushed this to the top of the list after I bought the HD DVD player. A decent enough high school film with funny moments, but I wouldn’t have guessed that Richard Linklater was behind it if I saw it on TV. Supporting performances by Parker Posey as the nasty upperclassman, Ben Affleck as the bully, and Mathew McConaughey as the graduate that can’t stop hanging out with High School kids. The leads are people we hardly recognize. It all takes place during the evening of the last day of school. Had I watched it in a batch of other high school films I don’t think I would have pegged it as the classic it is supposed to be.

LAND OF THE PHAROAHS (1955) – A rare Howard Hawks bomb that broke the streak of 10 or 12 hits in a row, this movie put Hawks into a 4 year sabbatical in the mid 1950s. I had never sought it out prior, but I recently read a Howard Hawks biography and figured I might as well give it a whirl. A mostly British cast is led by Jack Hawkins as the Pharaoh. James Robertson plays the architect that he enslaves to build him a tomb in the form of a great pyramid that will be impossible to rob. Joan Collins stirs things up midway as the girl from Cyprus that Hawkins makes his second wife. There is a great anecdote in the Hawks book about Joan partying it up so much during the production that she gained 10 pounds and they had to disguise it. Martin Scorsese considers it a guilty pleasure. It’s not a terrible movie but not exciting either.

THE DINNER GAME (1998) – French film based on a stage play and it feels like one with almost all the action taking place at a single Paris apartment. Every week a group of snooty Frenchmen hold a dinner trying to bring a guest who is the biggest idiot of the night. The movie is how this idea backfires against a publisher who lures an accountant/idiot to dinner. The accountant makes the publishers life all the worse and yet teaches us all some humanity. A bonus is the movie is only 78 minutes long so it’s not stretched like the material would be with a Hollywood production.

RESCUE DAWN (2006) – Based on the story of Deiter Dengler, a German kid during World War II who decided to become a pilot after watching the allies bomb his country. Dengler immigrates to American and becomes a Vietnam era flyer shot down on his first mission. Director Werner Herzog had already made a documentary of this material a few years prior. Christian Bale leads and Jeremy Davies co-stars for Dude’s double take. I was expecting more with a Bale/Herzog collaboration, but it’s still a good enough movie worth seeing. English language makes it more accessible too. Except for a scene knocking the CIA late in the action, the movie is surprisingly pro-American. Didn’t someone tell the German Herzog that Brian DePalma and Oliver Stone would have made the other side the good guys?

LAST MOVIES I SAW IN 2007

I have a lot of movies to review, but here are the two I watched last night.

THE KINGDOM (2007) – I didn’t expect much from this what with the Tomatometer at around 50%, and its obvious play to the masses trailer and marketing. But you can’t really understand modern film by watching nothing but Indies and message pictures.

Movies like THE KINGDOM are the modern day equivalent of forties films like Guadalcanal Diary and the Story of G.I. Joe that try to tell the story of individuals in a time of war. The difference with modern film is the tendency toward “the enemy is us” approach or the moral equivalence between our side and theirs. While I disagree with that worldview and it’s a deal breaker as a premise, it’s only a mild annoyance as an attribute, and this movie only touches on the idea. It’s more interested in having our heroes solve the mystery. The premise is that an American compound of oil workers and their families in Saudi Arabia are attacked by a mad bomber and a stateside FBI team led by Jamie Foxx wants to travel to Saudi Arabia and investigate.

The conflict and politics behind whether Foxx and his team can go to Saudi Arabia is a bit overplayed, especially in that Foxx’s career is at risk for some reason. But the FBI director played by Richard Jenkins delivers a wonderfully written speech to the Attorney General who is against the trip. Jenkins explains how as a young soldier General Westmoreland told them all to write their obituaries and Jenkins explains how knowing you are going to die changes the way you approach life. And knowing you won’t have a job forever makes it easier to make the right choice over the popular one. I wish I had written the speech, because it’s my own philosophy about such things though I have never articulated it quite so well.

Of course our heroes wind up in Saudi Arabia to investigate and they are met with wary Saudis some they eventually win over. The team consists of Jennifer Garner who can’t deliver believable dialogue though she seems competent removing shrapnel from bodies, Chris Cooper the explosives expert on board to deliver the countrified common sense, and the resurgent Jason Bateman, a computer expert and smartass. Jeremy Piven is the American Ambassador who plays a variation of his character Ari on Entourage.

The conflict of the two cultures is played decently and the mutual respect gained after a period of time is to the Hollywood standard in such matters. There is not much surprise anywhere, but Foxx and company are compelling enough people and the mystery is revealed at about the right speed. The big minus is the overuse of that frenetic camera. The point of being in the audience is not to be a character in the film but an observer. When will Hollywood kill this annoying device?

The big climactic action scene is played out decently with good tension, but there is a weird sitcom type moment right after the resolution. That kind of thing works better with Bruce or Arnold. Here it seemed discordant.

Overall I think this movie can be enjoyed if your expectations are middling. One piece of advice given by a co-worker who saw the movie, he felt like is was tilled ground already since he watches a lot of 24 and the like. I have never seen a episode of 24 so I am much fresher eyes.

EASTERN PROMISES (2007) Viggo Mortensen stars for David Cronenberg again and Viggo has another secret. He’s the driver for the Russian mob in London. The leader of the mob is the unassuming restaurateur played by the always interesting Armin Mueller-Stal. Naomi Watts is the spunky female trying to get to the bottom of why a young pregnant Russian girl is dead.

I’ll admit that I don’t always get Cronenberg and I think it’s because I’m not a horror fan and even his non horror movies use horror violence instead of action movie violence. The technique is disruptive to the language of film and screams out “Cronenberg” at key moments in a movie. I’ll further admit that I liked both of his last two films despite that.

I really liked the premise of A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and would have liked the film more had they bypassed the bizarre William Hurt confrontation. EASTERN PROMISES has good enough premise, but the overall handling of the film is better I think and more rewarding.

MOVIES SINCE JULY

HOAX (2007) - Richard Gere stars as Clifford Irving, the guy who forged Howard Hughes’ autobiography in the early 1970s. The story is also chronicled in Orson Welles film F FOR FAKE. HOAX is much more watchable than director, Lasse Hallstrom’s THE SHIPPING NEWS, which was my last attempt at his work. On the negative side, I think that the dependable Gere only scratched the surface. The chutzpah it would take to pull off a fraud so big would require a larger than life guy. DiCaprio pulled it off in CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. Gere plays it affable enough, but not nearly as grandiose. Alfred Molina plays the researcher sidekick that helps him with the con. Marcia Gay Harden is cast as the wife and accessory to the crime. The lovely Julie Delpy gets a scene or two as Gere’s on-again, off-again mistress. It made me want to read the book.

CINEMANIA (2002) - A documentary about several eccentric Manhattan residents obsessed with films. One guy knows the running time of every movie including the times of alternate versions. Another guys plans to see 5 films everyday so he has to work subway schedules, pack different clothing for different environments, and bring Peanut Butter sandwiches. Another guy is a print snob that avoids 16mm. An older lady is known to fight with the staff and collect movie memorabilia. Except for the guy who admits the inheritance, the rest of the gang lacks a means of support and they live how you’d think. They’re easy to write off as eccentrics, but one guy in particular sums up the pretentiousness of certain foreign films versus other foreign films that are true classics. I thought it was about the best analysis I heard on the subject. The film ends with a screening of the documentary with them in attendance.

COOL (2004) - The only other Theo Van Gogh film available at Netflix. Here a crime gang of kids rob and steal and wind up in reform school. The two main characters fight with one another over the same girl and you know how those things go. Bad boy is the leader of the gang. Good boy is reforming in reform school. I didn’t like it as much at May 6th, although it’s better than the this kind of material would be from a Hollywood production. Van Gogh has a refreshing style in both of these films that make me wonder why he didn't have a larger following. May 6th was better than most of the stuff I've seen at the Enzian. COOL was better than half.

MUSIC AND LYRICS (2007) - Hugh Grant plays the former 80s music star who can still make a living off of his name although it’s not always in the most dignified ways. The latest teen pop tart wants him to write a song so that they can record a duet and our hero jumps at the chance although he is purely music and no good with lyrics. Miraculously Drew Barrymore, here to water the plants, has a way with words and reveals this as she does so. If you like these two actors the movie will not offend you, and may occasionally make you laugh. I find them both winning enough that the movie was about what I expected.

AMERICAN DREAMZ (2006) - American Idol and other reality shows are ripe for parody, but that golden opportunity was lost with this uninspiring comedy. Either Mandy Moore is a great actress or she is naturally irritating like this character. I’ll have to remember to ask myself next time I see her. Here she plays the nobody longing for stardom at any cost. Chris Klein plays her lovesick boyfriend in that same way he plays everything from the popular jock in ELECTION to that popular jock from AMERICAN PIE. Hugh Grant has a tough job trying to parody Simon Cowell. I don’t like those kinds of shows, but Cowell himself is surprisingly self-aware and although you can copy his derision, he seems to have few ticks and mannerisms. There is also a terrorism subplot played for laughs. A parody of the Apprentice may have been easier than this. Avoid!

DARWIN AWARDS (2006) Winona Ryder and Joseph Fiennes are back from their Siberian exile and the party leaders decided to star them in something not too terribly difficult but clever enough to warrant their participation. Fiennes is a police profiler and fan of the Darwin Awards. He’s smart and he can handle himself but he faints at the sight of blood. This leads to him losing a serial killer he apprehends and gets him kicked off the force. He then talks himself into a job of insurance profiler, convincing the company that he can profile Darwin like tendencies and save the company millions. Winona plays the cynical insurance adjuster that gets assigned to him. It’s gory at times although its played for laughs. A lot of the Darwin winners are recognizable faces. All and all a decent effort with a few laughs.

THE GREAT MOMENT (1944) - The last of the Golden Era Preston Sturges films I hadn’t seen. Here Sturges decides that Joel McRae is the inventor of anesthesia, when I thought that Paul Muni invented it. Soon I realize that it has to be McRae because William Demarest is the sidekick and McRae gets a wife that Muni would never marry. Muni marries the ones that bring him pie in the wee hours, whereas McRae’s wife accuses him of being a rummy when an experiment or two knocks him out cold. If I had to name movies with the most abrupt endings in the history of film, this would certainly make my top five along with Cassevettes HUSBANDS. Distinctively Sturges, but not his best.

BRICK (2005) A different take on high school life. Nobody ever attends any classes and the school action take place on an empty football field, empty parking lot or other semi secluded places in and around campus. Our guy is pressed into being a detective after his ex-girlfriend calls him for help and then turns up dead. Rather than try for parody the movie takes this Chandler/Hammett premise and plays it out in a straightforward manner. We get the fem fatale that doesn’t fool our gumshoe, the crime king pen that our hero gets close to, and a number of hat tips to the masters. Worth mentioning is the visit to the principal’s office that is direct comment on Sam Spade’s visit with the District Attorney in Maltese Falcon. The other Hammett plot device is how he plays both sides against each other like in RED HARVEST. I don’t know that there was anything about it that stands out but it was an interesting idea.

FRACTURE (2007) I notice the more I see Anthony Hopkins films, his character quirks are actually Anthony Hopkins quirks. He almost always does that pause and grunts to himself during a movie. it’s sort of his “I don’t care what you are saying” schtick. I don’t mind it because I like him on screen and it reminds me that he is a movie star in the old tradition. And this is a movie star vehicle. Hopkins kills his cheating wife and then devises a plan to get away with it. The hotshot D.A. on the brink of leaving for a high paying private sector firm suddenly becomes the Hopkins dupe that could ruin his future plans. The plot involving the legal system makes Grisham look reasonable. Decide how much you like Hopkins and you’ll know whether to seek this out. The style is there the substance is not.

ZODIAC (2007) A pretty solid effort from David Fincher (Se7en) returning to the serial killer genre in this based on a true story film. Jake Gyllenhall is winning as the cartoonist that becomes obsessed with the case for years much to the detriment of his private life. The solid Robert Downey Jr. plays the ace columnist also hot on the trail until his personal demons end his quest. The mystery itself is never fully answered so it leaves you a little disappointed especially after spending nearly 3 hours to get there. Does that give away too much? Still, it’s smart and above average.

SMOKIN’ ACES (2007) - A movie that could not possibly exist without the influence of Quinten Tarantino. A bunch of characters and subplots and hitmen all trying to kill the dude who might testify against the mob. Fast paced, cameo ridden and fun to a point if you like the style, but not terribly inspired.

REIGN OVER ME (2007) - Adam Sandler in a dramatic role of a dentist who loses his family in the 9-11 attacks. Don Cheadle plays his dental school roommate who runs into him by chance and tries to lend a hand. Sandler has dropped out of society and doesn‘t remember Cheadle, he also ignores his in-laws and blocks out the memory of his family. It’s a very real premise and both Sandler and Cheadle are at their best. The problems arise mostly out of inconsistencies and movie devices. We get a useless subplot about model-esque patient of Cheadle’s who comes on to him and then cries sexual harassment. Not only does Cheadles just happen to share a psychiatrist with the accuser (in NYC?), but the patient later recants and plays into Sandler’s rehabilitation. Come on. Jada Pinkett Smith plays Cheadle’s wife, a character that exists simply to give Cheadle something to feel guilty/angry about and then thankful for. Cheadle’s parents also exist for similar reasons. Sandler’s in-laws have a little more purpose plot wise, but they aren't given enough to do. Most movies get superfluous because they lack substance. This movie seems to do it to avoid the substance. If you like Sandler and Cheadle it might be worth it anyway, but it could have been much better.

BOBBY (2006) (A Movie Review)

I can imagine that Bobby Kennedy’s assassination had a profound effect on America and especially so to the American Left. My mother who shook hands with Bobby a few months before his assassination talked about it on several occasions during my childhood. She wasn’t very political but Camelot wasn’t about politics but royalty and Bobby was the crown prince.

Forgotten is that he worked for Senator Joe McCarthy and was even best man at his wedding for crying out loud. Bobby knew all the angles fighting commies with Uncle Joe in the 50s and then prosecuting the Republican leaning Teamsters in the 1960s while ignoring the corruption of the Democrat leaning AFL-CIO. When Civil Rights looked politically viable he was for that too and when the Vietnam war became unpopular he hated it.

Bobby's assassination means that he is the perfect President that never was. He would have ended the war and racism and poverty and healed all that ails us. Idealism requires that Bobby wasn't an calculating union busting McCarthyite turned dove, but a true believer. He wasn't Humphrey or McGovern or other Democrats that would have bungled the message, but the one we would have listened to.

And to Emilo's credit the archival footage he chooses here is really impressive. Bobby connected with people in a way that candidates no longer do. But the tough reality is that Bobby had very little chance of winning the 1968 Democrat nomination. The primaries were a smaller part of the delegate count back then and the party insiders were going to nominate VP Humphrey regardless of the voters. But rather than be realistic, a certain part of the Left imagines Camelot II stopped by inefficient gun control legislation. That night wasn't just another tragedy for the Kennedy family, but a turning point where the country was forever lost.

The film though is about that day in the Ambassador hotel and the people that spend it getting ready for Bobby’s arrival. Therefore most of the movie could have been made independent of Bobby storyline since so many sub plots make it seem more like an Arthur Hailey story. Rather than go into the mundane lives that are shattered when the real hero is fell, let’s just say that it comes off pretty well and though it’s not saying a whole lot, it’s Emilo’s best movie yet. His goal of making Bobby significant works for a guy like me who thinks that even an underdog win by Kennedy wouldn't have shifted the country all the much.

MAY 6th (A film Review)

You’ve heard of Theo Van Gogh, Great Grand nephew of Vincent. Theo was shot by a radical Islamist back in 2004. Theo was a columnist and a movie director, a career that doesn’t seem to have much of a parallel in the United States unless you count Sean Penn’s trips to the Middle East. Theo was a supporter of Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch politician himself gunned down two years before. They both wanted restricted Muslim immigration fearing that Muslim fundamentalism was slowly changing the liberal landscape of Holland. But Pim Fortuyn’s killer was an eco-terrorist, one who prayed at the other great multicultural religion, the environment.

May 6th is the day the Pim was shot and the movie is about the forces behind the killing. Our hero is a tabloid photographer outside a radio studio shooting cheesecake shots of a model while unbeknownst to him Pim is inside giving his last radio interview. Pim is shot leaving the interview and our photographer’s proximity gives him a lot of accidental evidence about the scene of the crime, ala BLOWUP (1966). Since going to the cops is never any fun, our hero instead tracks down the people in the photos one by one and tries to solve the mystery of what happened that day.

Unfortunately, what happened borrows heavily from the Oliver Stone JFK approach. Find some dissent from orthodoxy in a politician’s record and low and behold, the secret cabal is standing by waiting to cut his throat. Here the greenies are just dupes for businessman who put them up to it. How are the Dutch ever going to have an independent film culture when they keep borrowing Hollywood villains?

Despite the hackneyed conspiracy theories this is a solid picture with a lot of fine smaller performances. Our hero’s detective work moves at a good speed, less so than Hollywood breakneck and yet not so slow as to lose the viewer. Instead of aha scenes where Charlize and Denzel study the same paper and look at each other and say, “does this mean. . . ?” our hero is solitary in his search. Other people seem slightly amused at his obsession or indifferent and when the bad guys turn up they don’t wear $2000 suits and have half page of dialogue to clue our guy in real good. The heavies act like people, more powerful than our hero, but still semi-unsure of themselves in a situation they didn’t anticipate.

The best attribute of the movie is the hero’s journey. You follow and root for him throughout and I was sorry to see the thing end, because so many of the ancillary problems are left unsolved like real life.

AllMovie.com says that Van Gogh’s work has received scant worldwide critical attention although he was praised inside the Netherlands. If MAY 6th is representative of his work I hope they release the rest of his filmography. Netflix has one other Van Gogh title and I will cue it forthwith.

DIE HARD 4 BOURNE 3

I saw them back to back last weekend. They were both entertaining and they make great companion films.

The Bourne movies follow the idea that the American government’s power is so absolute that they can manipulate world events through the use of their mind-altered automatons. The latest Die Hard movie takes the approach that the government is so inept in seeing possible dangers that private individuals like John McClain have to step up to save the country.

Neither idea is new, but using Damon’s earlier quote about “smart” movies, which one is the smart movie? The action in both movies is equally implausible with the one difference that Bruce Willis stops for the occasional punch line.

In the Bourne universe the world is so beaten down by our prowess that they can barely live their own lives. We have these assassins all over the world ready to push the hair trigger on any perceived threat. And we must have hundreds of them, because you can reach one in any decent sized city in the world.

In McClain’s universe, the government red tape and inaction spawned the bad guy angry that no one would take him seriously inside the government. When the madman attacks no one really knows how to respond or what might happen next.

I think the Bournce universe may have been truer during the cold war or it was at least possible. Maybe the CIA held out against the Russians until Reagan could provide the death blow. But the events of 9-11 suggest that the Bourne universe is a total myth today. That’s probably why conspiracy theorists say that American attacked itself. Because if jihadists can destroy the World Trade Center then their vision of obtrusive CIA domination in the world is bogus.

If you accept that Islamists attacked on 9-11 then the Die Hard movie is the smart one jokes and all. Bourne Director Paul Greengrass made the exceptional United 93 last year and that movie suggest a DIE HARD worldview. No one was ready for the attack that day.

I really like the Bourne movies, despite the overused super close up frenetic camera. I like the series because I want the CIA to be that engaged in the world. Bourne wants us to question the validity of CIA power, but I can hate the villains inside the system and still support the idea and goals behind it as a net win. Every organization run by humans is going to have the flaws of humans. CIA abuse is a natural by-product of people having power over people. The best we can do is run the bad eggs out, which happens in every installment.

I think the filmmakers fail to understand their own implications when they attack government agencies like the CIA. If people are abusing power in the CIA, then there is no reason to think that doesn’t happen in every other government organization. And therefore, it would be foolish to give the Federal government any task that can be handled in some other way. If the film makers want to stop government abuse then you have to reduce the size of government, something we all know they certainly oppose. To follow their logic, bureaucrats in other government agencies are heroes there to help, but those in the CIA are megalomaniacs like on Pinky and the Brain. A more simplistic view of government would be hard to find.

Of all the Bourne movies I think this is the weakest mostly because he returns to American and the action scenes in New York City seem a stretch. Would the CIA really order their gunmen to kill people in front of New York cops? At least in Berlin I can rationalize the lack of oversight.

You can’t beat the first Die Hard movie, but the current one is certainly better than the third one. Bruce Willis said a few years ago that he gave up action films. I’m glad he’s back because fewer people can pull them off anymore.

INGMAR BERGMAN 1918-2007

I’m not as versed in Bergman as I should be. Maybe his death will give me a chance to visit his work some more.

THREE STRANGE LOVES (1949) –You wouldn’t figure it for a Bergman film, but the love –triangle subject matter was treated in a much more European manner although I remember the interiors and cinematography seemed like a 1940s Hollywood. It just happened to be one of the few Bergman movies the Pensacola library owned and it’s overall mediocrity kept me from trying other lessor known films like THE MAGICIAN.

WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957) – This was my first Bergman film. I couldn’t figure out how a man’s travel with his daughter-in-law could make for a classic film, but I gave it a run. It turned out to be a great introduction to Bergman, because his approach to material is usually superior to the plot itself. It had a funny effect on me at the time. I liked it a great deal and I wanted to watch it again soon after. I decided that I watch some of his other films first, but his best films were unavailable in Pensacola. I’ve slowly watched a few here or there on Netflix, but I have a way to go. I would still consider it to be my favorite of his movies.

THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957) –It’s hard to set a film in the middle ages and make it work. I can hardly think of another off hand. Bergman not only captures small villages and great areas of desolation, but intertwines the black death quite well too. This was the first one I saw on Netflix and it’s understandable why it’s his most iconic. Death as a character could be quite hokey in the wrong hands, but Bergman makes it believable and haunting and compelling.

CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972) – After THREE STRANGE LOVES I thought I would check out something more well know and Cries and Whispers was nominated for Best Picture and Director. A movie full of death and near death and pain and remorse can get to you. For as much as it was supposed to be ground breaking, it not really compelling enough for the effort. I think I gave up on it after 45 minutes. It did more than anything else to quell my Bergman appetite for a while.

FANNY AND ALEXANDER (1982) – This is the one I’ve seen most recently. Although 3 hours long, the story arc and tertiary characters work well enough that it didn’t seem overlong. I understand he did a 4 hour version for Swedish TV. It also helped me to understand why critics point to certain Woody Allen traits and call the Bergmanesque. Woody’s scene at the end of Match Point where the Tennis Player talks to deceased is a clear homage to Bergman and one I understood after watching this film. Although F&A is longer than most its also less dark than the others I have seen.

TOM’S MOVIE REVIEWS SINCE MAY

*** Superior Film
** Solid Effort
* Same ole
# Sleep Aid


***A MAN ESCAPED (1957) – I decided to try another Robert Bresson film after getting enjoyment from PICKPOCKET last time. The setting is World War II, our hero is a French resistance member in prison and dying to get out. The plan and the time that it takes to find a way out are the gist of the movie. It’s all in style and tension and Bresson serves up another winner.

**ARMY OF SHADOWS (1969) – French Resistance again, but this time from my pal Melville, of Le Samurai fame. The Nazis were not kind to the Frenchies that didn’t play ball. It follows the journey of a resistance fighter raising money and pulling schemes. Like the Andy Garcia movie I review later, it’s uplifting and scary watching a guy trying to get his country back.

*BREACH (2007) – Based on a true story of Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent turncoat in bed with the Russians. Chris Cooper plays Hanssen effectively. Ryan Phillipe is cast to annoy Dude as the young aide planted to get the goods on Hanssen. Cooper/Hanson’s intelligence and observation are so keen that he proves to Phillipe that he can tell when he’s lying and soon thereafter fingers him for snooping around in his office. That’s on the first day and it makes Phillipe’s quest look hopeless. But after that scene, Cooper never really calls the aide out on any of his lies or suspects any of the subterfuge. The setup is solely to make us uneasy in their confrontations rather than introduce a real character trait that will play out later in the plot. The actor that plays Phillipe’s wife is supposed to be East German but her accent sounds Scottish when she bothers to use it, and her looks are not the least bit European. I have to comment on the politics. William Hurt already starred in the TV version of Hanssen’s tale and while I’m sure that would have been enough usually, this movie arrives so that Hanssen’s personally conservative manner can be construed to be a part of his overall deficiencies. He chastises Phillipe for noticing the beauty of another woman and pressures him to bring his non-catholic wife to mass. He also comments on not liking to see women wear pants and disparages Hilary Clinton. Only a rotten spy could think these things. CIA spy Aldrich Ames gave something like $5,000 to the Democrat National Committee and that didn’t get mentioned in his TV movie starring Timothy Hutton. The reliable Laura Linney is kind of wasted as the boss that puts Phillipe up to all this. The rarely seen Anne Archer plays Cooper’s wife. Overall it’s probably a little smarter than the typical piece in this genre, but there is nothing new in approach. It’s just a matter of waiting around for the capture.

*THE GOOD SHEPHERD (2006) – We have moles in the CIA too, but before we get to that director, Robert DeNiro shows us the early history of the CIA through a young agent played by Matt Damon. It follows along pretty nicely for the most part, but becomes too much near the end when the web encompasses Damon’s family. Did we really need such melodrama? Good turns by John Turturro as the loyal aide, Michael Gambom as his college professor, and Alec Baldwin as his contact in the FBI. It has all the style and presence of a great movie, but the plot eventually gets in the way. No amount of makeup makes Matt Damon look 50 years old. The scene with his grown son makes them look like school chums. Like BREACH it begins with a flashback. Does no one read Syd Field? I guess it’s rare to see any biographical movie not flashback. WALK THE LINE is another recent example.

**THE LOST CITY (2005) – Actor/Director Andy Garcia is entirely out of step. How else do you explain that this biographical movie doesn’t begin with a flashback? But that’s not his only deviation. Unlike regular Hollywood that embraces Castro and idolizes Che, Garcia makes a movie about what frauds they were. He doesn’t sugar coat Batista and his corruption, but instead shows how that corruption brought about an opportunist Castro who proved even worse. Since the OCEANS movies are more about attitude than character and since Garcia hasn’t made any other A list movies in ten years, I forgot what an effective actor he is. And if you think about him being 2 years older than Alec Baldwin and still capable of playing leading men, you wonder if he hasn’t been blacklisted for his political beliefs. Maybe he’ll get a documentary in 20 years about this injustice. The acting is uneven in the other performances and cameos by Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray are entertaining but although disruptive. Hoffman just always seems like he’s acting to me even when he’s entertaining. Murray is really quite a hoot, although there is no real purpose for his character and the tone changes in any scene he’s in. It’s funny what passes as bravery these days. Michael Moore is considered brave for making movie’s that aligns with every Hollywood prejudice. Sure sure the Cuban revolutionaries had some missteps, but this is wonderful health care. Actual bravery is portraying Che in a negative light when your peers think the opposite. I mean OCEANS director, Steven Soderbergh is making his next movie about Che and I don’t think it will be about how he liked shooting people for the kick it gave him. I expect a wonderful little movie from Soderbergh, directed much more skillfully with a softer poetic side of the brute, pure fiction of course but a boon to those T-shirt makers. Garcia’s movie is a little long, but the cinematography is first rate. And you root for Garcia the whole way especially as he puts himself in peril by opposing the revolution. This movie gives you the cost of utopianism, the people trampled, the families split apart, the businesses lost all so the worker’s paradise can begin. It’s a grown up movie about what really happens in socialism and the cost of romanticizing it.

*SUPER SIZE ME (2004) – If you need to learn that eating McDonalds is bad for you maybe this is educational. For me, it’s just funny to watch him eat Big Macs and act surprised at the results. Seeing his vital signs wither after a month of McNuggets shows the resilience of the human body more than anything else. The implication in the movie is that the grim reaper had a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. But we all know that people eat like this for years without dying. Maybe I could get famous by making a movie about how taking a bath makes you wet.

Spurlock has good personality and I've been meaning to rent that show he does for F/X. But SUPERSIZE ME is moral superiority masked as journalism. It's no surprise that he gets fat, but does he need to show us his vomit out the car window but to let us know he's really taking one for the team? He also tries to create a drama around his health checkups like he could suddenly die of a heart attack. I don't know if such a movie really educates anyone about junk food. If that's its purpose then it should have been less dramatic. I tend to think this is really a call for government intervention. The way he makes it seem addictive can be little else than a plea for help from the nanny state. I thought I was getting a funny movie about a guy eating too much junk food, but its more like an advocacy campaign masked at entertainment.

**LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (2006) – I think patriotism can boil down to one moment in this film. Were you happy the first time Americans bombed the Island? I found the Japanese soldiers very compelling and their challenge daunting. But when the bombs fell I could only say, sorry boys, you were born in the wrong century. It’s a tribute to Eastwood’s filmmaking that he didn’t let the sympathy that would be very easy to feel for individual soldiers translate into a hope that they’d beat back the Americans. And the Japanese are sympathetic. They don’t want to be on the island either. Some of them have been to the United States and they remember it fondly. They expect to die and want to do so honorably. The material surprises me considering Eastwood said that his friendship ended with Ronald Reagan after Reagan visited the Bitburg Cementary in 1986. Does this movie mean that Eastwood is ready to forgive our enemies in World War II or just ones that bombed us in the first place? Overall the movie is a little long. There isn’t much going on. We see flashbacks on the two main characters and learn a little about a few others. It’s not a movie that many people would have attempted. I felt that it was a solid effort overall, although I think I would have nominated FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS instead.

**LITTLE CHILDREN (2006) – I got the impression from marketing and nominations that this was some sort of intense drama when it’s actually a sly and subtle comedy. The main characters played by Patrick Wilson and Kate Winslet are the Little Children of the title. Both have child/adult relationships with their spouses, Wilson especially, and that frustration leads to their eventual affair. The subplot of child molester Jackie Earle Haley is also an example of adult infantilism as he still lives with and is cared for by his mother. His mother is worried about Haley. She sends him off on a date with a disturbed but otherwise sweet girl. He’s going to need a new mother when his real mother dies, she reckons. The date goes well at first. The two talk easily and the troubled girl opens up. He’s gentle with her and they quickly form a bond. What happens next only happens when a writer is having fun with us. And he’s having a lot of fun on this one. The last part of the movie is just nothing but symbolism on top of symbolism. There’s the obvious breaking of the porcelain kids. Haley’s solution in how to be a good boy made a bell ring in symbolville. And that the leading man misses his clandestine meeting with Winslet due to a skateboarding accident isn’t without meaning either. It’s almost like the movie opens with the children being sent out to play and although they all get dirty and hurt, they all come right back home to the parents.

*THE SENTINEL (2006) – It’s today’s generic modern action/suspense movie. Take a decent idea and fire it up into an interesting plot and then start adding elements that make the whole thing a cartoon and somewhere settle for an ending that’s forced, hollow, or uninspiring. Secret Service Agent Michael Douglas saved Reagan’s life and was subsequently passed over for promotion. Currently Douglas is taking it out on the country by banging the First Lady (Kim Basinger). Since we know that Douglas is capable of such treachery then it shouldn’t be surprising that his former best friend and fellow agent, Kiefer Sutherland, hates him because he suspects that Douglas was banging his wife too. That’s not even the plot just the background. The plot has some other secret service agent conspiring to kill the President and frame Douglas for it. So Douglas has to escape the clutches of Sutherland to clear his name. Chase, gunplay, explosion and Douglas gets to Basinger who believes him and she eventually tells Sutherland that Douglas is a good man even if he’s capable of banging a first lady. Would you be surprised to learn that Douglas makes it all the way to Toronto on the run and then almost single handedly saves the President’s life? Would you further believe with a line or two of dialogue that Kiefer suddenly believes that Douglas didn’t bang his wife and that they could be friends again? Somewhere in there we also get to believe that Eva Longira is an agent too. Still it’s entertaining enough once you forgive the writing shortcuts.

*NOTES FROM A SCANDAL (2006) – Cate Blanchet plays the free spirited teacher coming to a new school and Judy Dench plays the veteran that takes her under the wing. Though British the conflict is somewhat topical with the U.S. school system. Blanchett shows that she can play more than graceful beauty. Dame Judy has that presence you expect. Those two make the movie more interesting than its mediocre material would let on.

OCEANS 13 (2007) – A Movie Review

This series is my favorite guilty pleasure of the decade. What works for me is the interplay between the cast and George Clooney and Brad Pitt in particular. The dialogue is clever and the actors have the charm to really pull it off. I think Clooney is the closest thing we have to Cary Grant these days and Brad Pitt is somehow a looser version of young Paul Newman, handsome, tough enough, and with a sense of humor. In other words, they’re real stars and leading men in a time where that seems scant.

In the first movie after the theft and when Clooney convinces Julia Roberts that Garcia is a bum, she chases Clooney down as the cops are carting him off to prison. She realizes that he did it all for her and they have a great but brief moment. I think it’s as good as the similar scene at the end of Breakfast at Tiffany’s where Holly finally gives in to Peppard who loves her. It works here because Clooney has a rare ability to combine charm and earnestness and you like the idea that he did it for more than the money. How can you not root for Clooney? What guy wouldn’t want to live a moment where the girl he loves is won over by his heroism?

Clooney and Pitt are thieves and yet they really trust each other in way that usually only happens at the end of most buddy films after the characters have fought and cussed each other out. Near the end of this film Clooney and Pitt are standing in front of the Belagio talking about the famous Casinos that use to stand in this area, the Sands, the Dessert Inn, etc. They both tell stories about how they met Elliot Gould’s character and how he was a mentor to them. The movie buff can sort of think back to young Eliot Gould in Robert Altman’s 70s poker film, California Split. It tackles in one scene their motivation for the entire scheme against Al Pacino, the current heavy. What impressed me is that these kinds of scenes almost never work, because they’re forced motivation written in for justification of earlier or later actions. Here Pitt, Clooney and Soderbergh make it seem from the heart.

This series has a lot of quiet moments and comic moments and the music is always just enough off-beat to be refreshing even if the heists or double crosses are beyond preposterous. Maybe it’s because they commit to the nonsense so much that you laugh with them. There’s a funny scene where Don Cheadle is digging a tunnel under Pacino’s casino in order to create a mock earthquake later in the movie. Something happens to the current tunnel digger and Cheadle says that they’ll need $30 million to buy the one that dug the chunnel. Another character says he thought that this was the one that dug the chunnel. Cheadle replies that this one dug from the English side and he needs the one that dug it from the French side. You just laugh and accept that you can fly the thing in from France and get it down into the tunnel in a day’s work.

The train station scene in the second film is fun every time. Clooney is self-conscious because someone says he looks 50. He polls the other guys and doesn’t like their answers. Matt Damon then asks Brad Pitt if he noticed how similar Julia Roberts’ character looks like the real Julia Roberts. It’s another scene meant for exposition since that becomes a plot point later. But instead of nodding Pitt says, it’s not his nature to be mysterious but he can’t talk about it and he can’t talk about why. It becomes a punch line that hides the foreshadowing.

At the end of OCEANS 13, Clooney, Pitt and now Matt Damon, who has graduated into the upper tier of thieves, sit in the Vegas airport waiting for their planes. They say their goodbyes like friends who don’t know whether they’ll see each other again. You kind of get the feeling that getting the cast back for another one is out of the question and you’re seeing the last of it. It made me feel melancholy.

I’m tough on movies, but this series gets to me despite the shortcomings that I would ridicule in most films. It really captures the beauty of friendship, and fighting for the things you believe in and the people you love. And yet it's a comedy with surprising laughs and clever moments. It's refreshing because it lacks cynicism in a cynical age. I really am sorry to see it end.

APRIL 2007 Movie Reviews

*** Superior Film
** Solid Effort
* Same ole
# Sleep Aid

(Editor’s Note: Written before the recent French Election.)

Not long ago Dude said that he didn’t give up Perrier after our run-in with the French. For me, overpriced Perrier was easy to give up and not drinking French wine was a pleasure. The only thing that I couldn’t and didn’t give up. . . French films. Of continental European cinema, the French seem to please me more than any other. The next two films are two good reasons of why.

***PICKPOCKET (1959) – Robert Bresson didn’t make many movies, but he’s revered as a master among a sub group of auteur critics. PICKPOCKET is a barely 75 minutes and with so little dialogue it’s more like a silent movie than a foreign language one. Our hero has a compulsion for picking pockets and he has no moral qualms about doing so. The money scene has our hero and two confederates working a train station ballet like. After the film I watched Paul Schrader’s introduction in which I learned that Bresson uses non-actors which means Bresson is one hell of a director because it worked and that usually doesn’t.

***Le SAMURAI (1967) This is a great film noir that I had never heard of until Netflix recommended it. Alain Delon stars as the hired assassin who is spotted leaving a job. The police suspect him and that suspicion worries the mob that hired him enough that they try to kill him first rather than get caught in the web. I had never heard of director, Jean-Pierre Melville, but it turns out he was an actor in Godard’s BREATHLESS, the famous French new wave film. Melville now has my attention and I’ll try a few more.

**VOLVER (2006) – The most enjoyable Almodovar film of the four or so I’ve yet seen. Penelope Cruz, her daughter, sister, mother and aunt are struggling with their past and their future. I’ve seen enough of his work now that I can safely say that Almodovar is incapable of showing a normal and healthy male/female relationship. TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN is about a guy who kidnaps a girl and turns her into his lover. TALK TO HER has a male nurse raping the comatose girl who gets pregnant and wakes up. In ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, mother and father are divorced because father is now a drag queen. VOLVER gives us the incest story that nearly repeats itself. Here if you step away from the gentle flow and your rooting for Penelope Cruz, much of the plot is laughable and yet Almodovar’s slight of hand makes it all seem so reasonable. That is a remarkable talent.

*WHO GETS TO CALL IT ART? (2003) – I thought this was going to be a documentary about the politics behind the modern art movement. Instead it’s a movie about a guy who actually got to decide if it was art or not, MET curator Henry Geldzahler. So the title should have been a declarative instead of a question. The movie is much in the mold of MAYOR OF SUNSET STRIP another obscure 60s figure that was nonetheless in the middle of much that was happening. The best part of the movie is the little vignettes with pop artists from the 1960s and how Henry was involved in their discovery and fame.

*SUPERMAN II (Richard Donner cut) (1982+2006) – When the original Superman was released to DVD a few years ago, Richard Donner said that he had shot more than half of Superman II simultaneously with the first movie but was fired after the first film was complete. Richard Lester took over and scrapped most of Donner’s footage. Fans on the internet started clamoring to see the Donner version and the studio yielded and hired a guy to put all that footage together. Despite the fact that Donner has to use a good portion of the Lester footage to bring his work to completion, the new cut is different in certain plot points, but not so different overall. I watched it with comic book guru, Sir Saunders, and he wasn’t convinced it was any better than Lester. I think that’s about right.

*ICE STATION ZEBRA (1968) – Several years ago with the release U-571, I asked co-workers to name their favorite submarine film. It’s hard to compare eras and even languages, but those who had seen DAS BOOT liked it best, followed by most who had seen HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER. Those of us who had seen RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP or OPERATION TOKYO discussed those for a while too. I even remember a guy standing up for CRIMSON TIDE. One guy was adamant to the point of conviction that ICE STATION ZEBRA was without a doubt the best. I figured that kind of passion was worth giving it a look someday. When Howard Hughes bought the Dessert Inn and purchased that Vegas TV station he made them run ICE STATION ZEBRA constantly. So I watched it while recovering from surgery. I found it a little pretentious actually with an overture and intermission despite being less than 3 hours. Rock Hudson is predictably solid as the captain. Jim Brown plays a badass Marine Officer in wooden manner. Patrick McGoohan shines as usual as an Intelligence guy along with Ernest Borgnine playing a Russian of all things. It was overlong and dated, and not charming dated like a 40s movie, with chessy sets that left no doubt that these actors were sleeping in their own beds each night. It’s a shame the plugger left the company because I wanted to ask him what exactly he liked so much. Maybe the worst Submarine film I have ever seen although not without some TOWERING INFERNO like entertainment value.

*THE ILLUSIONIST (2006) – Companion move to THE PRESTIGE, where another guy becomes a magician back in the old days. Edward Norton plays a smart Edward Norton, Jessica Biel plays Jessica Biel and Paul Giamatti plays a police chief. It’s kind of like a Mamet film with slight of hand and cons and what not. I heard it wasn’t good compared to THE PRESITGE, but it was alright actually although it fades from the mind quickly.

*MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA (2005) – If you saw The Last Samurai then you know how Hollywood makes a movie in period Japan. Just replace sword fights with pretty girls and you have the essence. It was certainly better than the preposterous Cruise movie and a decent example of characters living through an era that ends abruptly. Ken Watanabe trades his Samurai sword for business clothing and he makes a decent hero to our precious geisha.

*THE BREAKUP (2006) – Vince Vaughn is perfect as the loutish boyfriend who half listens to and usually disappoints his girlfriend, Jennifer Aniston. Aniston is also perfectly cast as the girl easy to fall for due to her cuteness but impossible to stay with due to her stick in the mud personality. This was marketed as a big comedy, but it deals seriously with a number of the issues between people who break up. Aniston didn’t really want to split from Vaughn, but his insensitivity made her play hardball. Instead of apologizing, Vaughn escalated the fight and refused to budge. Trish commented that it must have been funny that they were dating while making a movie splitting. I replied that Vaughn must have thought, wow I’m with Brad Pitt’s ex-wife. And then a few months later, wow I can see why she’s Brad Pitt’s ex-wife. Trish, who has a soft spot for Aniston, thought my comment cruel and I promised never to repeat it to Aniston.

**WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART (1989) – Had this movie come after critics “discovered” Eastwood in UNFORGIVEN it probably would have received much better marks. 18 years later is holds up quite well like many of his underappreciated films from the 1980s. Eastwood plays a character loosely based on director, John Huston, and it means that he has more dialogue than any three typical Eastwood films. The plot revolves around whether Eastwood can bag an elephant before he has to commence shooting his “African Queen” movie. I especially enjoyed the scene where he tells the lady that she is much too pretty to interrupt, mostly because Dude once did a pretty good impression of that scene when we were sitting around at his house.

FLAG OF OUR FATHER (2006) - (A Movie Review)

I tired to read FLAG OF OUR FATHERS when it hit the bestseller’s list a few years ago. It wasn’t easy. Instead of coherent story about the men in the battle and the aftermath, it was too much about the son’s journey to get to know his father. I thought the grown kids in Eastwood’s BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY were discordant and worried that I’d be in a similar fix here. Luckily, Eastwood and/or Haggis did a great thing by minimizing the role of the son. It probably saved the film because the story of these men is really powerful emotionally and it benefits from Eastwood’s subdued manner. The battle scenes are the believable hell. The army politics seem right-on. The national war-bond drive politics seem authentic too. The juxtaposing of War Bond Drive with flashbacks of their action on the island is well done and reveals character information as the right times.

Also a big help are the great cast of character actors throughout. Guys like Barry Pepper as a tough but kind Sergenat, Gordon Clapp as an officer working in the invasion plan, and even John Polito as Mayor Laguardia seem like real people although in minimal screen time. The three “heores” of the film played by Ryan Phillipe, Jesse Bradford and Adam Beach seem just as real.

Critics tend to see what they want to see in Eastwood movies. They’ll applaud what they see as an enlightened “right to die” message in MILLION DOLLAR BABY, but ignore his message about welfare cheats and personal responsibility in the same film.

Here they get locked into the politics behind the war bond drive and the phony hero aspect trying to make correlations to Iraq although the film never takes a definite stand like most Hollywood lore. It’s just presented. Yes, raising that flag was not heroic and yet you’re treated like a hero, but listen up son, you have a chance to be a hero by helping raise money in the war bond drive or we’ll otherwise lose the war. It’s hard to make an argument that they didn’t do the right thing.

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is a winner every step of the way and I think it’s his best movie of the decade.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (A Movie Review)

At the beginning of the film, Al Gore says that a 6th grade classmate of his asked the teacher if Africa and South America were ever joined since they look like they fit. Gore tells us that the teacher said no, but he doesn’t blame the teacher because the scientific community didn’t believe in Pangaea at the time. So near the end of the film when he says that the scientific community is unanimous in their belief that man is the cause of global warming, what are we to take from that as an audience? Has collective wisdom suddenly become infallible?

But this is not just a film about global warming. It’s a film about how a man finds a cause to redeem himself. You see, Al Gore is no demigod as he was led to believe. Things do not always go his way. There was nothing he could do to prevent the lung cancer death of his beloved sister (his protector). He was not able to stop his son from being hit by an automobile in a near fatal accident. And he couldn’t win the 2000 election despite a great economy that should have made it easy.

He does not much dwell on his down-to-earth wife or the children unstriken. He doesn’t see the fortune he was born into that allowed him an Ivy League education and a ready-made career in politics. He feels that the great things, the important things have always eluded him and you can tell he feels like a failure. We already know these biographical details of Gore’s life, but he presents them again in this movie to explain what led him to this great cause.

These problems are not unique to Al Gore. Baby Boomers have spent 40 odd years since the tumultuous 1960s trying to make sense out of their lives. His is the generation that questioned the collective wisdom of our forefathers and found greater meaning in the secular religion of social justice. Social justice did not end the human problems that have been with us since time immemorial, but marching felt good. Forget the details, the process gave meaning. And the best thing of all is that you don’t have to achieve results to be victorious. We can celebrate the gains made in the 1960s and still turn around and say there is so much more to do. Win/Win.

And unlike a dead sister, an injured child or a lost election, the disaster about to befall the earth is nebulous in the specifics so he cannot possible be defeated. The world is either destroyed (our fault) or saved (his victory). It’s a moral issue, you see. It’s unethical to destroy the world, don’t you know.

He takes issue with a person who worked in the Bush Administration who changed a global warming study done by the EPA. This gentleman worked for the oil industry before working in Washington. When he was made to resign for making the changes and he again went to work for the oil industry. The oil industry, you see, is in the business of burning as much carbon as possible, because that’s how they make their money. And people who make their money in a particular way see the world in a way that helps them make that money. Gore thus presents profiteers as the enemies of enlightenment, but he fails to understand the implications of that charge.

If the side that makes money is against these findings, and scientists have to feed their children too, then there shouldn’t be any money available for the kind of research that comes to conclusions opposite of the money. Therefore, you have to conclude that there is money on both sides of the issue.

So imagine you are a scientist who takes a grant from some organization and you come back and say, look there is contradictory evidence and I can’t say one way or the other. Do you imagine that you will get a second grant? How will you feed your children? No, you say there is evidence that points in whatever direction that gets you the second grant. It’s easy to do, because a large study will have evidence that points in every which direction, the key is the analysis of that data can go in any direction. Your job as the researcher is to have your numbers on one side that no one understands and your conclusions on the others that follow the prescribed direction. Money gained from profit or research spends just the same. And what if your conclusions are wrong? I mean hey we’re on the safe side, right. It doesn’t hurt to burn less coal. No harm.

That may sound cynical, but the cynicism is on the other side. If the proponents of any argument want to point to profit as motive behind their adversaries findings then it is only logical that the side leveling the charge be looked at in context of the money made from their propositions. Al Gore is not in this to make money, he has his money. He can laugh at a Bush cartoon that balances gold bars and the earth, because he has enough gold bars. But the people who are doing the research that he cherry picks have just as much of a financial stake in their findings as do the greedy capitalists that Gore disparages.

Take a guy like Michael Crichton, Harvard M.D. and popular writer of fiction and nonfiction. Like Gore, Crichton has his gold bars too and it makes not a difference to him financially one way or the other and yet he for some reason falls on the side of profiteers. What would Gore attribute Crichton’s motives? It couldn’t be that someone disagrees with the Vice President after seeing the data, because Gore already explained that no one anywhere does. Only money or ignorance blinds an eye to such an inconvenient truth.

At one point, Gore says you have to forget politics because it’s better to do the right thing than win elections. And yet, where was VP Gore when it was time to push the Kyoto treaty through the senate in the 1990s? Could it be that Kyoto might have hurt the American economy enough to cost him the 2000 election? And what do we make of the Chinese government that regulates search engines and the Internet that doesn’t mind Al Gore speaking in front of their people. His message doesn’t pose any threat to totalitarianism, we can assume. The Chinese will mow down their own citizenry to quell free elections, but Al Gore’s words are sweet music. What Gore does not mention is that China is exempt from Kyoto and if Gore disagreed with that he wouldn’t be speaking in China. It’s a moral issue in America, but why go and knock the Chinese when one bad word would lose you a billion clapping people.

After defeat in the 1860 election, Stephen Douglas volunteered himself to Abraham Lincoln to help prevent the Civil War. After Wendell Wilke lost the 1940 election he joined FDR in ending isolationism and supported lend lease among other things. So when America was attacked by Islamic terrorists, Al Gore produced a movie in which he explains that those who intend to kill us are merely a sideshow compared to the real war we have with the climate. That is an inconvenient truth if you’re riding the coattails of a dot com boom and would hate to see the economy tank due to economic restrictions. It’s not so inconvenient after you lose that election.

This is a film and movement born of narcissism. We were wrong in voting for Bush. He’s fighting the wrong war. Gore even quotes Winston Churchill predicting the Nazi menace, but fails to see the parallels to extreme Islam. The Churchill quotes are used to boost his crusade against the enemy in the mirror. Luckily he loves the world enough to save it even though he was kicked to the curb. We need to stop listening to that jackass in the White House and start fighting the combustion engine.

It’s not a coincidence that he cares not to fight radical Islam and their threats to Western culture, because he decided way back in the 1960s that Western culture wasn’t worth defending. It can come and go as far as he’s concerned, just as long as the sunset is pretty and bunny rabbits are jumping.

The title accuses us of ignoring inconvenient truths, but Gore too ignores the things that do not adhere to his world view. Rather than answer the critics point by point, he disparages their motives. When he can’t paint someone like Michael Crichton as an opportunist he just ignores their existence. He would accuse Bush and war leaders as simplistic boobs who do not know the nuances between sectarian and secular Muslims, but he offers no room for nuance and gray area when it comes to his beliefs. His presentation is as black and white as a Pentecostal preacher warning of Sodom and Gomorrah.

It’s not enough for Gore to present a solid argument, answer the critics and begin a dialog on what can be done to make the world better. The movie is lecture version of Rambo pointing to charts explaining the treachery of the Vietcong and how they must be overcome. It’s just the format that people on his side of the aisle jump to label simplistic and simple-minded.

What’s most unexpected is that Gore does not see how his feelings of powerless over his sister, his son, and the 2000 election have predisposed him to find a proactive cause like saving the world. He sees his crisis of the mind as a virtue that freed him to champion a great cause, instead of a hindrance to a rational and objective view of the world. He doesn’t seem to understand that his pre-disposition is the opposite of objective science. Like the researchers who get their grant money through uncovering a crisis, Gore’s redemption would only be through saving the world.

Like most doomsayers that never get their comeuppance, Gore will be praised for his altruism, ignored for his personal environmental behavior, and seen as well-meaning when his predictions of doomsday do not materialize. This movie will be a document of how much he cared, nothing less.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH is an astonishing look into the soul of a man who came of age in the 1960s and forty years later is still trying to reconcile the meaning of his own life. And with knowledge of 2000 years of world literature to fall back on, the best he could present is this simple CHICKEN LITTLE story. If Bush were one to present his midlife crisis in cinema, I would expect at least the equivalent of a Tom Wolfe novel.

CIRQUE Du SOLEIL’S LOVE (A Stage Show Review)

The average person is well-familiar with Beatles music and that creates a sort of built-in audience. Their catalog is big enough that a lot of interesting subjects can be explored in the storytelling. Most important is the amount of life-affirming music to choose from. McCartney is a master of using that catalog to create a great concert experience.

LOVE begins with BECAUSE from ABBEY ROAD, a somber song no doubt, but made disjointed here by a mix that goes dead silent in between lines. On stage we see somber pageantry. Thankfully it then picks up with GET BACK, but it never sustains any kind of uplifting mood. On stage, a big thing is made of the Liverpool bombings during World War II that coincided with the band member’s birth. The stage is made to look like buildings and rooftops and the staging shows the whole thing being blown to smithereens.

The fun of the Beatles crazy or downbeat music is that those tunes are sandwiched between songs with other temperaments. Here we get nothing but long stretches of one depressing tune on top of the other. Glass onion, Eleanor Rigby, Julia, I am the Walrus back to back to back to back pretty near the beginning of the show. You don’t know how welcome DRIVE MY CAR became after that lineup. A short portion of THE WORD made it next and it was too short-lived. If you’re going to call the show LOVE, the song THE WORD is a great choice for a sequence, because it’s not overplayed and yet has a great catchy sound. They might get 30 seconds out of it here.

The most brutal part of the show was an attempted comedy bit using the song BLACKBIRD. Four people fly into the stage dressed as blackbirds and a Frenchy guy recites the song like a poem as the birds struggle to fly. It was a pathetic attempt at humor and a poor choice of material.

Later in the show the whimsical LADY MADONNA and OCTOPUS’S GARDEN get some time on stage. Four George Harrison numbers, SOMETHING, HERE COMES THE SUN, WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS, and WITHIN YOU WITHOUT YOU are featured pretty prominently I suppose to make quota.

The one really truly great sequence is the choreography that accompanies A DAY IN THE LIFE. That piece was inspired in a way that nothing else in the show can match.

The stunts are ho-hum especially compared to La Nuba at Disney. The big stunt near the end was cancelled due to safety net issues so I may have missed the most exciting thing. While they were trying to fix the problem, the video screens showed us the cartoon rendition of Yellow Submarine as the song played. The only other stunt sequence was a rollerblading part that was a re-tread of every other rollerblading number you’ve seen.

The first time I saw Cirque du Soleil at Disney I said wow. When I saw the same show the second time I thought it was decently done. When I went back a third time I could barely stay awake. This was far less exciting and the musical selection was mostly disappointing. As a big Beatles fan I can appreciate the more obscure songs, but I can’t forgive the mood they chose. How this show could have used GOOD DAY SUNSHINE, GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE, GETTING BETTER, and WE CAN WORK IT OUT to offset the negativity.

Trade thrills for gloomy pageantry and upbeat music for downbeat music and you have a synopsis of LOVE at the Mirage, a missed opportunity to say the least. I should have seen PENN AND TELLER instead.

FEB/MARCH 2007 MOVIE REVIEWS

*** Superior Film
** Solid Effort
* Same ole
# Sleep Aid

***DOWNFALL (2004) – The last days of Hitler down in the bunker with chums like Goebbels hanging around to the bitter end. It’s told partially through the eyes of the young lady who comes to work as a secretary for the lunatic in 1942. Her memoir is part of the source material. It gives you an opportunity to root that she’ll get the hell out in time while we hear sober Nazis plead with Hitler to surrender to the Americans before the Russians take over the city. DOWNFALL is to the bunker what DAS BOOT is to the submarine, compelling despite being told from the viewpoint of our sworn enemies. If you see only the occasional foreign film, put this one at the top of the list.

**THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN (2005) – Sweet film with Anthony Hopkins as amateur mechanic from New Zealand that dreams of taking his modified Indian Motorcycle to race in the Great Salt Flats. Inspiring and while it’s doesn’t blow you away, it leaves you with a good feeling.

*WINTER KILLS (1979) – From the Richard Condon novel (Manchurian Candidate), this black comedy about younger brother (Jeff Bridges) of JFK like President and the circumstances surrounding his assassination begins in all sincerity and then becomes increasingly absurd up to the climax. John Huston plays the father and a lot of cameos are sprinkled throughout. Had it maintained more subtlety and provided its surprises more believably, it could have been a minor classic. Instead, it’s so in your face by the end that I turned on it.

*THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY (1964) – James Garner stars as that charming con man that he does best. Julie Andrews in only her second role shows the kind of range and career she could have had if Mary Poppins and the Sound of Music hadn’t defined her. Garner plays scrounging junior officer in England during World War II, who manages to stay out of the fighting by being invaluable to his General. Andrews plays the dame that hates his open cowardice but somewhat likes the idea that he won’t be heroically killed like her late husband. It’s scripted by Paddy Chayefsky, so you get comedy wrapped around some legitimately serious issues. James Couburn shows up as Garner’s best friend. Not really worth seeking out, but it won’t sting if you happen across it.

*MY ARCHITECT (2003) – Documentary by the illegitimate son of noted architect Louis Kahn who dropped dead in New York’s Penn Station just around the time he was becoming known in design circles. The son, Nathanial, grows up and goes on a journey to learn about his father, his father’s other children, and the legacy that he left. Kahn had three separate families although he never actually left his wife. What’s interesting is how none of his scorned women blame him for anything. It’s something about the genius they all saw in him that allowed them to forgive him any transgression. The architecture itself is only somewhat interesting as Kahn seemed to get by on his personality more than anything else. Louis sort of comes off as a heel rather than hero so past Nathaniel’s own reckoning you don’t really feel any satisfaction.

**KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962) – Roman Polanski’s gained international attention with this his first full-length film. A husband and wife are heading to a weekend on their boat when they pick up a young hitchhiker. The psychological games between the husband and hitchhiker make up most of the film from there, with the wife providing the sexual tension. The film really keeps you wondering how much the competition will escalate and it never crosses the line of believability although much of the shenanigans seem petty. I wonder how Polanski made such a movie under Polish communism and what would a person in 1962 Poland do for a living to own a nice sailboat. The confines of that boat help create a really interesting tension that makes the movie worthwhile even if the plot is almost nil.

**Z (1969) – Nominated for Best Picture in 1969, this movie is loosely based on a Greek political assassination in the mid 60s that brought down a noted progressive politician. Yves Montand stars as the quiet yet charismatic leftist that gets knocked off early on so that the mystery of his downfall can unravel. The movie, shocking at the time I’m told, reveals how the right-wing government was complicit in the great man’s death. After seeing Oliver Stone’s JFK, this seems like kindergarten. I have to think that the politics are largely responsible for the reputation of this movie, although it’s put together decently enough to be compelling. It makes me wonder though what’s the best movie ever made that shows the overthrow or assassination of a beloved right-wing figure?

**FUNERAL IN BERLIN (1966) – The second movie in the Harry Palmer series is a solid follow-up to IPCRESS FILE. Michael Caine is recruited to East Germany where he is to help a defecting Russian general. Despite his superior’s excitement over this opportunity, Caine doesn’t buy the General’s story and tries to figure out what’s really at work here. The movie also tells us more about Palmer’s origins as an agent and introduces to us an old friend of his. Caine is charming as the hero and either of these first two movies are worth seeing.

# ROOM 666 (1984) – Wim Wenders “documentary” shot at the Cannes film festival where noted directors of the day, Spielberg, Godard, Herzog expound in front of the camera about the future of film and their hopes for the medium. A good enough idea, but the subjects are mostly rambling and not terribly insightful. Thankfully shorter than an hour, but still a labor to get through.

**LA MOUSTACHE (2005) – Interesting French film starring Vincent Lindon who decides to shave his moustache and is surprised that no one notices. An American film with this premise would be about how the world was conspiring against our hero. The charm of European movies is how it’s never automatic. Maybe our hero is right, maybe our hero is crazy. The shame of this movie is that the question never really gets answered and reality itself becomes open for interpretation. I don’t mind ambiguousness if you can make me 90% sure I know what happened and can suppose the rest. Here, the whole thing becomes so dream-like that any interpretation is possible. That’s the only minus.

*THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED (2005) – Documentary about the MPAA and the subjective rating system. It succeeds when it compares movies and talks to directors about their problems. The history of the system and process is little-known and worth exploring. But there just isn’t enough material to make a whole movie about that, so the filmmakers decide to stake out and learn the identities of the secret MPAA board. The detective game could have been riveting, but it plays instead as a half-ass cable reality show. It gets worse when the movie becomes a soapbox for people to whine that sex is purged while violence flourishes. The system is not perfect but what system is? At least it’s a market response to film content instead of a government one. But, wait . . . the endless cries of censorship culminate in a guy saying he wishes that the government controlled movies because government censorship could be litigated in a court of law while the MPAA cannot be touched. So it’s better to allow real censorship with the hopes of lawsuits than a market solution that might close the question. Theatre owners like the current system because it loosened the content of movies while shielding them from angry parents. And since most movies are watched on DVD and most never have a theatrical playing, this whole exercise was kind of pointless. The unrated DVD is a big market and makes a lot of people watch the movie twice. A film about real censorship in world cinema would have been more poignant instead of this cry-baby piece.

*HOLIDAY (2006) – Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jack Black and Jude Law in this romantic comedy that benefits for its lack of the Frat Pack and Jennifer Aniston. Winslet trades her English Country home with Cameron Diaz and her Hollywood mansion for two weeks during the holidays and they both might meet-cute and fall in love with the male leads. The film deserves an honorable mention simply because Eli Wallach gets a pretty juicy supporting role and shines throughout. Also, get this, his character is a retired Hollywood screenwriter who is going to accept an award and they never once mention that he was blacklisted. Movies from 1975 on had hereto convinced me that every 1950s screenwriter had been blacklisted and I am almost incredulous to learn that one guy made it through the whole decade in tact. I can only guess that Wallach had that tragedy removed from the script because the typewriter would have no doubt included it even beyond the wishes of the scenarist.

*16 BLOCKS (2006) – Standard police fare with Willis as the believable alkie cop trying to protect a witness who is to testify against crooked cops. David Morse supports as the calm heavy that he seems born to play. Mos Def (that’s a person’s name?) is the annoying chatterbox witness that would have gained more sympathy by shutting up which thankfully he does as the movie wears on. Decent but a little overrated maybe due to Richard Donner’s participation or simply the conflict of bad cops that critics seem to believe more so than honest ones.

*INFAMOUS (2006) – The second Capote bio-drama that promised to be more about his entire life but in reality treads the same exact Kansas ground as CAPOTE (2005). It does spend more time in the trendy Manhatten circles with plenty of cameos by socialites, but it’s otherwise unsurprising. Toby Jones benefits from his diminutive presence versus the larger Phillip Seymore Hoffman, but other than the solid impersonation, Jones doesn’t get the emotional moments as well as Hoffman does. The movie also makes a mistake in casting Daniel Craig as Perry Smith. Craig is too powerful and masculine for Capote to overcome, whereas earlier portrayals of the character by Robert Blake (IN COLD BLOOD) and Clifton Collins (CAPOTE) were almost childlike. The issues here are more superficial and the stakes don’t seem as high. There is a funny bit about Capote claiming to have beaten Bogart at arm wrestling so that the whole town then tries to beat Capote.

*DARLING (1965) the movie that put Julie Christie on the map would seem prime for a remake with so few great female parts, except that Christie’s promiscuity that made the original interesting and controversial is very tame in relation to the average celebrity’s real life experiences. The movie mostly demonstrates what use to be outrageous and how flippant characters would eventually get their comeuppance. Today, the character would just seem to be an example of a valid lifestyle choice that you dare not criticize.

**ROCKY BALBOA (2006) – Spending your career cashing in on cartoon action movies doesn’t get you much respect in Hollywood, especially when you aren’t overtly leftwing. Once in a while Sylvester Stallone would show up in a character part like Cop Land and be quite convincing, but he only really gets to act when he writes his own material. This last Rocky film is surprising especially after his last abortive attempt at re-defining the franchise. Rocky V was so terrible that it could very well have been his burial. ROCKY BALBOA is not by any means great in the conventional sense, but it has such an understated honesty that it’s one of the most enjoyable surprises out of Hollywood in a long time. In the past, Rocky has used boxing to fight bullies and even the cold war, but here his heart as a fighter is used for his own redemption. If you liked any of the Rocky movies you should appreciate if not really enjoy this one.

*DaVINCI CODE (2006) – The most interesting thing about this story is how popular it is. A hardcover best seller for three years is rare and then followed by a movie that grosses $200 million makes DaVINCI CODE something like a modern day GONE WITH THE WIND. I haven’t read the book and I skipped the movie in the theatre, but this franchise is just too much a part of the zeitgeist to ignore forever. I don’t know where the book and movie vary, but a scene in the second half of the movie demonstrates why I think it’s so popular. When trying to decode an Isaac Newton puzzle, Tom Hanks realizes the answer is APPLE. It’s not Newton’s laws of motion or thermodynamics or calculus that you have to know to understand the mystery, but the thing you learned about Newton in 4th grade. The same goes for the DaVinci references in the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. You don’t have to know anything about DaVinci or Newton other than the most superficial or famous icons of their existence. The movie takes cultural and historic things that you are so familiar with that it makes you feel smart. And I think it’s that play to personal vanity that separates it from simple potboiler to international sensation. Umberto Eco used the Templars as the Center of his early 1990s novel, FOCULT’S PENDULUM without anywhere near the success. And it’s not like Eco wasn’t a bestselling author, he wrote the popular NAME OF THE ROSE. But FP takes a great deal more analysis and brainpower to get through. I have had a copy sitting here for years that I have yet to crack. A friend told me that Dan Brown is the Grisham version of Eco and although I haven’t read Grisham either, the comparison seems apt. I think the movie is probably the best way to catch up on the hoopla without the time investment. Still they could have done us a favor and made it 30 minutes shorter.

*A GOOD YEAR (2006) – This movie is much more of a comedy and a slapstick one than I would have expected. I saw it a week ago and it’s already mostly forgotten. A familiar story with venal Crowe returning to the place of his childhood to remember his better upbringing and the lessons he forgot. Albert Finney is the kind uncle shown in flashback As you’d expect, Crowe’s change of heart is rewarded with the love of a fetching French woman. The title is confusing unless the book was significantly different. The whole story takes place in a week or so.

*HOLLYWOODLAND (2006) – Detective Adrien Brody looks into the death of actor George Reeves AKA TV’s Superman. Ben Affleck is decent as Reeves in flashback as is Diane Lane and Bob Hoskins. It doesn’t really go anywhere and there isn’t much payoff, but they do a good job of recreating that period.

**THE PRESTIGE (2006) – Another worthwhile Chris Nolan effort pits Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as rival magicians in Victorian England. Both are excellent as is Michael Caine as the mentor to both. Based on the acclaimed 1990s novel that even incorporates David Bowie as Nikola Tesla into the plotline. The Prestige is interesting for the story twists, approach and style. On the special features, Nolan sounds very much British while his screenwriter brother, Jonathan, sounds like an American. It turns out that their father is British and their mother is American and they grew up In Chicago which explains the Batman locale.

*MARIE ANTIONETTE (2006) – Sophia Coppola’s third film is probably her least interesting. Kirsten Dunst is affable enough as the Queen we’re all taught to hate, but the movie is slow going with King Jason Schwartzman a dolt who doesn’t seem interested in his arranged marriage. You could almost hear the incredulous screams from fraternity houses as he turned down her advances. The movie also suffers in my opinion from Coppola’s choice of modern musical montages in place of a classical score.

*INVINCIBLE (2006) – Typically inspiring and mostly predictable story of everyman Philadelphia native who succeeds in his long shot tryout with the Eagles. You root for Wahlberg all the way. Another member of the recent Disney subgenre of underdog sports stories like MIRACLE and THE ROOKIE.