The question is, why does Roger Ebert defend the ending? Life is full of the improbably, he argues. A.O. Scott at the NY Times thought it was a disaster. It is a big problem in a film that asks for credibility-- and this film does. Everything else is played as human drama. Spoiler: this is a movie that should be spoiled. The idea that her husband would disappear one night-- he actually falls into a well-- and that not a single person who knows him, including his own family, would inquire as to whether he had run off or just disappeared? They would all assume he went off to Sweden? Is it really as likely to believe he ran off as to believe he got into an accident? Would he not have taken certain things with if he had left by choice? It is asking too much.
KEVIN COSTNER, JOAN ALLEN, EVAN RACHEL WOOD, ERIKA CHRISTENSEN, KERI RUSSELL, MIKE BINDER
Important but finally sentimental and implausible film about the collusion of drug companies and third world governments in the ethically questionable practice of testing new drugs on humans. Rachel Weisz plays Tessa Quayle (based on real-life activist Yvette Pierpaoli, who was killed in a car accident in Albania in 1999) who uncovers the scandal. Her husband, played gushingly by Ralph Fiennes, tries to unwrap the mystery. This is a decent film that could have been a lot better had it not felt the need to add gratuitous action and chase sequences. Seen again 2018-08-30. Deserves some credit for good intentions, but flawed direction and concept. The conclusion -- which I have thought about a lot over the past week or so-- unconsciously undermines everything Tessa stood for. I cannot make sense of it, and I find it rather repellent. And Bernard Pellegrin's reaction to Ham reading the incriminating letter at the funeral service was classic nefarious mustache-twirling connivance. Oh drat! Now they've got me! He should clearly, given Le Carre's general sophistication, have smiled indulgently and strolled out the funeral with a shrug. That's what his kind do do when they are caught.
RALPH FIENNES, RACHEL WEISZ, HUBERT KOUNDE, DANNY HUSTON, BILL NIGHY
Very entertaining but uneven transmutation of Adam's celebrated Hitchhiker books, about a man, Arthur Dent, whose house is about to be demolished to make room for an expressway, suddenly discovering that the earth itself is about to be demolished to make way for an intergalactic expressway. Deeply faulted but endlessly amusing because of Adam's wild imagination and inventive sense of humour. The bad aliens are bureaucratic nits, and Dent meets a series of wildly improbably characters... the love story doesn't work because the chemistry between Zooey Deschanel and Freeman cannot even be imagined to exist... the special effects are fine, and Bill Nighy is fun. It's almost more entertaining to watch flashes of it than the whole thing.
MOS DEF, ZOOEY DESCHANEL, MARTIN FREEMAN, STEPHEN FRY, JOHN MALKOVICH, KELLY MACDONALD
Capote features a terrific, daring performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as the effete writer, broad mannerisms and all, as he pursues his vision of writing a non-fiction novel, about the murders of Herbert Clutter, his wife, and two children in 1959. Capote travels to Kansas and interacts uneasily with the down-to-earth, unsophisticated locals, but it's a tribute to the movie's sincerity that the locals are not ridicules. They are suspicious of Capote's sophistication, but they talk to him and he listens to them and wins their trust. It was a stroke of luck for Capote that the two killers were caught and held in Kansas and he was able to get access to them and interview them extensively for the book. Harper Lee, incidentally, joined him on the trip-- she based the character of Dill in "To Kill a Mockingbird" on Capote and was his lifelong friend.
PHILLIP SEYMOR HOFFMAN, CATHARINE KEENER, CLIFTON COLLINS JR., CHRIS COOPER, BRUCE GREENWOOD, BOB BALABAN, MARK PELLEGRINO, AMY RYAN
Rivetting documentary about Timothy Treadwell and his disastrous love of Alaskan grizzly bears. Treadwell was a very strange, interesting man, with an off-kilter view of his relationship to the bears-- hear clearly wanted to be one. But he also wanted to save them from poachers and industry and government. But it was really all about Timothy Treadwell and after 13 years of camping and living among them, the bears did what bears do and ate him. Treadwell is a compelling subject, but so is a slightly looney medical examiner, Franc Fallico, who waxes eloquently about the subject of Treadwell's demise. The music, but Richard Thompson, is exquisite.
TIMOTHY TREADWELL, FRANC FALLICO
Disappointing and sometimes contrived drama/comedy about a dysfunctional family with an inexplicably silly son, Everett (Mulroney) who brings home a ridiculously uptight over-achieving woman, Meredith, for Christmas. Sarah Jessica Parker has the thankless task of portraying a thoroughly unlikeable and unrealistic character. She is mysteriously successful at her work, very important and rich, yet can't handle Everett's spunky, mouthy sister, Amy (Rachel McAdams), and can't think of something tactful to say about the idealisticly portrayed gay son and his Sidney Poitier partner, who want to adopt. Clare Danes inexplicably appears as Julie, Meredith's perfectly functional sister. In an unbelievably coy development, mother Sybil drops a bombshell. Preposterous all around, primarily because the film thinks it's going to touch your heart strings, and probably will for many people, but this is a film about people who seem to have no existence outside of the mechanics of the plot, and thus never rise above the types they are required to play. And Rachel McAdams, once again, steals every scene, until she too is thanklessly asked to perform an impossible and ill-advised transformation into a more "healthy" personality. This is a pale imitation of Midsummer Night's Dream, with perfunctory twists.
RACHEL MCADAMS, DIANE KEATON, CLARE DANES, CRAIG NELSTON, SARAH JESSICA PARKER, LUKE WILSON, ELIZABETH REASER, PAUL SCHNEIDER
Superior sci-fi story about a renegade captain and his spaceship and his adventures trying to evade both sides in an intergalactic war, while carrying out his own larcenies. When a young woman with special powers (Summer Glau) fall into his care, things get complicated. Well-made film but just didn't ever grab me.
JEWEL STAITE, NATHAN FILLION, GINA TORRES, ADAM BALDWIN, RON GLASS, SUMMER GLAU
Superb drama about a restaurant owner, Tom Stall, who kills two savage criminals threatening his customers. Gradually, his wife and other acquaintances begin to ask themselves why those men chose his restaurant, and why was Tom so good at handling weapons? Said to be a mediation on U.S. foreign policy after 9/11.
VIGGO MORTENSON, MARIA BELLO, WILLIAM HURT, ED HARRIS
Elegant and patient Korean film about a monk and his young protege who live in a small cabin on a small, beautiful lake. One day the monk catches the boy abusing some small animals and decides to teach him a lesson. And the lessons keep flowing as the boy grows up and makes some wrong decisions.
YEONG-SU OH, KI-DUK KIM
Powerful, compelling, important drama about gay life, aids, and political hyprocrisy in New York City. Al Pacino is Roy Cohn (a right wing zealot, aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who died of aids in the 19980's) who becomes patron to Joseph Pitt, a young conservative who is in the process of discovering his gay self. Justin Kirk is Prior Walter has aids. His lover, Lou, bolts and ends up with the unsatisfying job of dealing with Joe's religious (he's a mormon) conscience.
AL PACINO, EMMA THOMPSON, JUSTIN KIRK, BEN SHENKMAN, MARY-LOUISE PARKER, PATRICK WILSON, JAMES CROMWELL
In the 1970's, a young German woman named Anneliese Michel began experiencing strange hallucinations and convulsions, and came to believe that she was possessed. Her priest agreed with her and together with other priests and her family undertook to perform an excorcism. In the process, they neglected Anneliese's other physical needs and she died. An inquiry set out to determine the cause of death, and if the priests should be charged with criminal neglect. Emily Rose is sincere and high-minded, and generaly well- acted. I'm just not sure it actually goes anywhere. In trying to be even-handed, it can't, of course, clue you in to what it thinks really happened. But it's clear that in real life, there are clues, and by avoiding them, the movie is not being objective--it's being obtuse.
LAURA LINNEA
In spite of inspiring many positive reviews, sucked air, big-time, at the box office, and it doesn't seem to me to be unexpected. The first hour depends, for it's effect, on your fervent belief that Renee Zellwegger is who she is supposed to be, and not some self-absorbed actress hoping for a shot oat an oscar.
RUSSEL CROWE
Uneven and often theatrical, serious-minded but often contrived, this is a fairly intense dissection of a failing marriage, from early infatuation and romance, to disillusionment, infidelity, and bitterness. If it weren't for the contrived optimism at the end, it might have been a more powerful story, but, that said, the fights are not sugar-coated or sweetened-- there's a bit of an edge, and some genuine rawness to the emotional scars. The major performances are valiant, but the audio is almost entirely dubbed and curiously flat. For it's time, probably not a terrible film.
ALBERT FINNEY, AUDREY HEPBURN, ELEANOR BRON, WILLIAM DANIELS, GABRIELLE MIDDLETON, CLAUDE DAUPHIN
Remarkably messy hodgepodge roughly centred on the story of the infamous Beast of Gevaudan, a large, powerful wolf or wolf-like creature that terrorized parts of France in the 18th century. Gregoire de Fronsac is a scientist and rationalist who comes to Gevaudan to study and kill the beast, with his faithful Indian sidekick, Mani (Mark Dacascos). They encounter corrupt local officials who may or may not be complicit with the terror, a beautiful prostitute (Monica Belluci) named Sylvia, and an aristocratic young woman (Emilie Dequenne) with whom, inevitably, de Fronsac falls in love. In spite of expensive production values and special effects, the terror scenes are clumsily film, with the ubiquitous wall of sound if you didn't get the visual message to be frightened. But the film is oddly horror-less. The beast is so loud and actually rather poorly animated that it doesn't evoke half the terror of the shark in the first scene of Jaws. The confusing plot doesn't provide much real intrigue or suspense, though it pulls itself together for some kind of wrap-up. I thought it was a mess.
SAMUEL LE BIHAN, VINCENT CASSEL, EMILIE DEQUENNE, MONICA BELLUCCI, JEREMIE RENIER, MARK DACASCOS
Reasonably workmanlike but fomulaic biopic of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash up to the Folsom Prison Live album, which established Cash, briefly, as one of the major musical forces in American country music. As with many biopics, ostensibly "honest" elements are carefully calibrated to ultimately reflect kindly on the subject-- the rights were controlled by friends of Johnny Cash. So we are treated to a detailed examination of Cash's addictions and allusions to his womanizing. We are carefully introduced to the inevitable early life trauma-- the death of his brother, and his father's unforgiving attitude. But the father becomes something of a caricature-- you wonder why Cash would even have him over to his house if the weight of his personality was as bleak as portrayed. But Joaquin Phoenix is decent as Cash and Reese Witherspoon is very effective as June Carter. The trouble is, the movie asks you to believe that a pair of actors working for a few months can sound as good as the real Cash and Carter, and they just don't. T-Bone Burnett was in charge of the music.
REESE WITHERSPOON, JOCQUIN PHOENIX, ROBERT PATRICK, GINNIFER GOODWIN, DALLAS ROBERTS, WAYLON PAYNE
Everything about this movie is wrong. The script, the acting, the style, the method non-acting, everything. The very concept that some fourteen-year-old must have had in his mind when this film was conceived, stinks. But someone gave some demented film-makers a lot of money for sets and constumes and explosions, and off we go, into this murky, monotonous, uninteresting hodge-podge of nefarious corporate misbehaviour-- and even murder-- and one women's utterly self-absorbed fantasy about making someone pay for the death of a little boy living in her apartment building. It would be monotonous to even rehash the rest of the clicheish plot elements, the mysterious handsome neighbor who might be part of the plot, a secretary who tips her off to an archive of records revealling something bad about Greenland Mining, the company at the heart of the conspiracy. The police who, like Chief Wiggums, can't understand why anyone would be fascinated by their top secret mysterious stash of hidden documents. As if further proof that Roger Ebert has lost all of his critical faculties was ever needed, he rated this a "superb" 3 out of 4 stars. While acknowledging that the plot is hokey, he claims that the preposterousness of the ending doesn't diminsh the pleasure of watching the movie. Huh?
JULIA ORMOND, ROBERT LOGGIA, GABRIEL BYRNE, RICHARD HARRIS, VANESSA REDGRAVE
Very audacious and violently equal-handed satire of the pro-life and pro-choice movements, centered on the story of Ruth Stoops, a young pregnant glue-sniffing wastral with four children, none in her care, who is urged to get an abortion by an exasperated judge. Locked in a cell with a group of abortion protesters, she is adopted by them and urged to have the baby. But the lesbian leader of a local chapter of the pro-choice movement spirits her away and tries to help her exercise her "choice". It is clear that both sides are primarily interested in her as a symbol and not as a person, an echo of what happened to the woman in Roe vs. Wade, Norma McCorvey, who switched sides, after being saved, and then switched back again. But there is also an uncanny echo of the Terry Schiavo case-- and Laura Dern eerily remarked in one interview that Ruth has trouble exercising her choices because she is essentially "brain-dead". And the hysteria on both sides, obviously treating the case as something beyond the particulars, as a symbol of larger moral and cultural values, is marked. Dern's performance is remarkable. Burt Reynolds as a slick pro-life leader comes off as laboured and flat. The other characters are not caricatured as badly as some reviewers say they are-- they strike me as rather true to life, given the extremes of the real-world abortion debate.
LAURA DERN, SWOOSIE KURTZ, KURTWOOD SMITH, MARY KAY PLACE, KELLY PRESTON, KENNETH MARS, TIPPI HEDREN, BURT REYNOLDS
The danger of films about "salt of the earth" types-- in this case, middle America, the average beer-swilling, mind-wasting, anti-intellectual crowd-- is that if the film doesn't step back in some way and provide you with a take on this crowd, the film can feel suffocating. You're trapped with these people. They will waste your mind as well as theirs. They'll buy you a beer, fix your car, help you put an addition on you home, but they will never absorb, even for one second, that life in the heartland is ever anything but absorbing for everyone. This is a fine movie. It's well-acted and well-intentioned, and even moderately well-written. It doesn't do a lot of bad things, which is good. It doesn't play coy. Willie Convway's relationship with Natalie Portman, the jailbate adolescent next door, both acknowledges an element of lust, and and a note of teasing ambiguity in Portman's banter with Willie. Uma Thurman (Andera) does a turn as a stunning beauty all the men adore. But she also helps Willie realize that his girlfriend, Tracy, is pretty special, and would hold the same attraction for some strange man as Andera does for him. The ending is a bit insulting, unless, like me, you so disbelief it that it has an inadvertant charm to it. It's wraps up too neatly, to inconsequentially. But this is an honest film.
TIMOTHY HUTTON, RICHARD BRIGHT, SAM ROBARDS, UMA THURMAN, LAUREN HOLLY, ROSIE O'DONNELL, MARTHA PLIMPTON, NATALIE PORTMAN, MIRA SORVINO, NOAH EMMERICH
Martin Scorcese's first major film, a triumph of virtuosity that established style and emotional territory, the lives of men on the streets of our toughest cities, where order is represented by the local hiearchy of gang leaders, numbers runners, and enforcers. Harvey Keitel is Charlie, a numbers runner, who still attends confession and wonders how "penance" can mean anything when it is so easily obtained. Robert DeNiro is Joey, a good-timing small-time hood who has carelessly run up his debts, and is beginning to annoy Charlie's Uncle.
HARVEY KEITEL, Robert De Niro, DAVID PROVAL, AMY ROBINSON, RICHARD ROMANUS
Superior thriller. Nothing deep than a thriller, but above average. It keeps your suspension of disbelief in the air just long enough to make efficient work of the plot and character development, with only a few missteps along the way, and that's saying something. I partularly liked Daniel Crag as XXXXX. It has been a while since we've seen an adult protagonist in this type of movie, instead of a mumbling irrational adoescent.
DANIEL CRAIG, THOM HARDY, JAMIE FOREMAN, SALLY HAWKINS, COLM MEANEY
About as opposite to Mulholland Drive as you can imagine: Alvin Straight decides one day that he has to take his lawn tractor on the road and go see his brother who has suffered a stroke, and with whom he has not spoken in 10 years. This film is so utterly prosaic and the characters are so down-to-earth and unremarkable, it's as if Lynch was trying to compensate for all the weird and unexplained things he's ever put into his movies. The result is a wonderful, heartfelt story filled with Ameircana and wry humour.
RICHARD FARNSWORTH, SISSY SPACEK
Brilliant, rollicking, compelling film about dogs , dog fighting,and life being a bitch.
Tom Wilkerson is Roy, an employee at a farm implements plant in a small mid-western town who discovers one day, just after his 25th anniversary, that he is a woman living in a man's body. He tearfully announces that he will no longer live a charade. He is going to take the therapies and have the surgeries that will turn him into a woman. His pastor is astonished. Everyone is astonished of course. And it is the strength of this movie that none of the humour of the situation is lost even as the characters retain their dignity. They all have their reasons and their own perspectives, from the curious 13-year-old daughter, to the cretins on the shop floor, the pastor, even the woman at the thrift store where Roy makes his first attempts to buy clothes. For most of them, the very idea is beyond the pale. But Roy and his family are able to forge stronger connections through crisis. This film does a lot of things right. It is not always inspirational, but it is generally honest and authentic.
TOM WILKINSON, JESSICA LANGE, HAYDEN PANETTIERE, CLANCY BROWN, JOSEPH SIKORA, RANDALL ARNEY, RICHARD BULL
The first bad sign is "based on a true story". The second is "directed by Denzel Washington", one of the stars. The third is "produced by Denzel Washington". As with many "based on" true stories, the original true story does sound somewhat interesting, though I suspect it was jazzed up considerably, if not by the director of the film, then by the writer himself, Antwone Fisher. Fisher is a navy boy (played respectfully since the Navy cooperated in supplying an aircraft carrier for filming) who misbehaves a few times-- mostly attacking people who make fun of him-- and gets sent for counselling. And here we have the saintly psychiatrist played by Washington. In the movies, of course, psychiatrists never say "look, if you don't want my help then don't waste my time. Call me if you ever do want to talk..." Oh no. That would be considerably less gratifying to the ego of the writer who wants us to believe that he had to be dragged kicking and screaming into making those unbearable confessions about the time he was molested and how his aunt, who brought him (and fed and clothed him, presumably) used to whack him when he misbehaved. In films like this, the "victim" never behaves badly, of course, though, in real life, even if he had, we wouldn't blame him. But no no, let's clean that story up a bit. And when he finally does confront Mrs. Tate, and his aunt, unlike most people in real life (including, as I recently saw in a documentary, the mass murders of Cambodia), they are slain by the truth, and cast their eyes downward in shame! This scene, one of the weakest in the movie, demonstrates that while Washington may have mastered some of the technical requirements of the film, he had no insight into character, in one of the most potentially powerful scenes in the movie. Where was Mrs. Tate's most obvious protestation? I raised you! I fed you and clothed you and housed you! I'm an old lady! How can you treat me this way. I'm not saying the possible guilt of this woman should be diminished-- I only ask that it be made real by not having everyone play cardboard cutout for Fisher's -- truth be told-- self-centred suffering. That said, the scenes following, are better. Antwone's reception by his father's family in particular is resonant and effective. And his confrontation with his mother has the good sense to give the woman dignity that it denied to Mrs. Tate. They are believable. And then that disgraceful last few moments, in which the psychiatrist too, as per the textbook, must have learned something important! You almost want to hurl something at the screen when such a delicately likable sequence of scenes is so painfully kludged downwards, probably to satisfy the vanity of the actor Washington. Joy Bryant, as Antwone's girlfriend, Cheryl, is magical, but not given much opportunity to stretch. She ends up being nothing but a foil for Antwone's self-centred sufferings, which is too bad, because she was ferciously likeable and charming, and would have been even more so if the makes of this film had had the guts to give something of her own life.
DENZEL WASHINGTON, DEREK LUKE, JOY BRYANT, VERNEE WATSON
The film that established Rob Reiner as an astute, sometimes superior director of honest but low-key entertainments. As I watch any Rob Reiner film, I can never stop thinking of the fact that the big scene of "When Harry Met Sally", the uttlery over-the-top preposterous "fake orgasm" scene, including Reiner's mom's lame "I'll have what she's having" line, should have been cut. And I would have been wrong. Everybody loves that scene, no matter how ridiculous it is. And it is ridiculous. It takes you out of a sensitive but hilarious character study and into a pratfall, a pie in the face. "The Sure Thing" has it's charms, including likable leads (always a key to a Reiner film), and a reasonably well-written script. But it fizzles at the end because Reiner doesn't take big risks.
JOHN CUSACK, DAPHNE ZUNIGA, ANTHONY EDWWARDS, TIM ROBBINS, NICOLETTE SHERIDAN
Even for Spielberg... this one reeks. Pointless and aimless and utterly coy and fey and phoney.
ROBIN WILLIAMS, DUSTIN HOFFMAN, BOB HOSKINS
Very entertaining, funny story about Andy, a stock boy at a technology store, who has never had sex. When his co-workers and buddies discover the fact, they resolve to put an end to the deprivation by setting him up with someone. This story doesn't quite hang together and feels episodic, but there are some hilarious moments and Steve Carell is likable as Andy. Much is made of him really having his chest hair removed in that scene but, oddly, it's not that funny as he curses his cosmetologist and screeches. Nice idea but didn't work. And Catharine Keener is loud and brassy and not entirely adorable when we clearly should find her the right match for Andy. It's in the vein of "Something about Mary" and even borrows the ending from that film, but it's amusing and generally fresh and well-acted.
STEVE CARELL, CATHARINE KEENER, PAUL RUDD, ROMANY MALCO, SETH ROGEN, ELIZABETH BANKS
Entertaining and pleasing documentary built around the technology of flying ultralight planes with migrating birds. The birds, geese, storks, and other larger fowl, were imprinted upon the human handlers and the ultralight. The resulting footage, birds in flight, close-up, is astonishing and beautiful. The film, however, meanders through space and time without developing any kind of narrative structure. The result is a pleasant diversion-- eye-candy--but not much more. Not as compelling as "March of Penguins".
The classic Peckinpah western, older men reflecting on the courses of their lives, complex, double-dealing, violence and gunplay, and the code of the west, which, despite Peckinpah's innovations, prevails at the end. This is the story of Pike Bishop and his gang, and their attempts to steal rifles from the U.S. military and sell them to the Mexican army-- or the rebels fighting the same army. For such a bold film, the virtues of pure, real manhood is rather traditionally expressed. Honor and courage and loyalty-- even among thieves. William Holden is Pike and Robert Ryan is the bounty hunter who is after him, though even he respects Pike. Why? Pike kills people and steals. But he does it like a "man", which means, he does it the way men in movies do it-- without real consequence or convincing self-interest.
WILLIAM HOLDEN, ERNEST BORGNINE, ROBERT RYAN, EDMOND O'BRIEN, WARREN OATES, BEN JOHNSON, BO HOPKINS, STROTHER MARTIN
Joel MaCrea and Randolph Scott, two leading men approaching the ends of their careers, reversed type-casting to play to aging gunslingers hired to protect a shipment of gold down a mountain. On the way, Elsa Knudsen (Mariette Hartley in major film debut) runs away from religious fanatic daddy to marry Billy Hammond, who turns out to have something like fraternal gang-rape in mind. Above average script and acting, and the intriguing give and take between Gil Westrum, who is planning to steal the gold, and Steve Judd, who wants to go straight. Both are smart enough to know about options and consequences.
JOEL MACREA, RANDOLPH SCOTT, MARIETTE HARTLEY, EDGAR BUCHANAN, HENRY OATES, JOHN ANDERSON, JAMES DRURY
The very definition of quirky, idiosyncratic, independent film. Miranda July plays a performance artist (Miranda July is a performance artist) named Christine who becomes interested in a shoe salesman named Richard who is recently separated from his wife. Richard has burned his hand in a ill-advised attempt to impress his boys, who trade off between him and his ex-wife. The boys, and a pair of neighborhood girls, and a co-worker of Richard's, provide interesting sub-plots, but the film is about love and sex and connecting with people in suburbia. Christine in fact provides a driving service for elders and helps an older man romance an older woman in a wheelchair. Like many independent films, the film is technically clumsy at times, and unevenly performed, but more than compensates with the strong personal vision of it's creators.
JOHN HAWKES, MIRANDA JULY, MILES THOMPSON, BRANDON RATCLIFF, NATASHA SLAYTON, NAJARRA TOWNSEND
As always, Gilliam is wildly inventive and incredibly rich; but also cluttered and confused and some of the energy of this film dissipates with the overwhelming level of mechanical business. The Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm and Jacob, are travelling con artists who are forced by a French general (Jonathan Pryce) to deal with real disappearances from a German village. They encounter real magic there, which confounds Wilhelm's respect for reason and science. The French General, Delatome, also believes in reason and philosophy, but he is caricatured so broadly that the tension between science and fantasy dissipates, and we have, instead, a comedy of terrors. It's fun watching elements of traditional Grimm's fairy tales interact with the lead characters, but there are no magical moments of apprehension or perception, like there were in Baron Munchhausen, or Time Bandits.
MATT DAMON, HEATH LEDGER, PETER STORMARE, JONATHAN PRYCE, LENA HEADLEY, MONICA BELLUCCI, LAURA GREENWOOD
Enchanting and entertaining documentary on the mating habits of penguins, who march to the harshest place on eart,deep in the Antartic, to mate, deliver an egg, and hatch it. Penguins, of course, are phenomenally campy without any help from a narrator, but framed within this narrative construct-- survival against all odds-- the story is oddly compelling and moving.
Superior but ultimately conventional thriller about a hotel manager who is taken hostage by a terrorist as part of a plot to assassinate the leader of homeland security. Makes the usual mistake of assuming that the security men surrounding such a person not only immediately "get" what is going on, but respond in perfectly coherent, cohesive, and rational ways. So when the heroine finally gets word to these men that an assassination attempt is going to be made on the hotel floor, they amazingly make all of the right decisions extremely quickly. Rachel McAdams should look for a really good role-- she deserves something meatier than this and should shine in it. Cillian Murphy is nicely creepy.
RACHEL MCADAMS, CILLIAN MURPHY, BRIAN COX, LAURA JOHNSON
Extremely under-developed and under-realized story about an aging "Don Juan" who receives a pink letter from a former lover advising him that he may have a son out there who is looking for him. On the same day, his most recent lover, Sherry (Julie Delpy) leaves him. His best friend and neighbor, Winston, insists he track down the girl who sent the pink letter. For reasons that are unclear and unconvincing. Why does Murray get credit for playing this role again? It's the same character he played in "Lost in Translation" and "Life Acquatic with Steve Zissou". This time, he simply reigns in the character even more, stripping it down to this dour, expressionless shell of man, who just is not very interesting. In the theatre as I watched this film, I heard sporadic laughter at several incidents in the film that didn't seem to be intentionally funny-- or maybe they were, but just didn't succeed very well. I suspected that many in the audience were laughing at Bill Murray's deadpan delivery, but here it's become a schtick and it's sad to see.
BILL MURRAY, JULIE DELPY, JEFFREY WRIGHT, ALEXIS DZIENA, SHARON STONE, JENNIFER RAPP, JESSICA LANGE, TILDA SWINTON, CHLOE SEVIGNY, FRANCES CONROY
Disappointing remake of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (now named after the book). I don't think
JOHNNY DEPP
Riveting drama about the Odessa Texas high school football team, the Permian High Panthers, in the year of 1998, during which they took a run at the state championship. Billy Bob Thornton makes John Travolta's "Bobby Long" look like caricature, with his subtle and rich characterization of Coach Gary Gaines, a decent man capable to inspiring his team, but with quiet observance of the cost of victory, and maybe the price the town pays for being obsessed with the sport. The book for this movie did not inspire kind thoughts from the residents of Odessa, who saw it as mocking. The movie surely toned it down-- it's generally flattering. And the story of Boobie Miles' fate is utterly compelling. One of the best sports movies ever made. Incidently, most of the important facts are correct, but not the final score, or the sequence of events in the final game.
BILLY BOB THORNTON, LUCAS BLACK, GARRETT HEDLUND, DEREK LUKES, TIM MCGRAW
Sincere but cloying drama about a couple of losers squatting in a house that turns out to be owned by Scarlett Pursy Will (Scarlett Johansson), a bequest from her singer mother. This is supposed to be touching and deep, at least, the writer thinks it is, but the big scenes in which revelations are suppose to create an impact fall flat. It's pretty well what you expect to see, which you realize, is not what you want to see. The acting is okay, and the cinematography unremarkable.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON, JOHN TRAVOLTA, GABRIEL MACHT, DEBORAH KARA UNGER
Absurdly entertaining film about a nerdish high school student, his hispanic friend, and his odd family. His Hispanic friend, Pedro Sanchez (!) (Efren Ramierz) decides to run for class president, and Napoloen becomes his campaign manager. You either love this film or hate it. Napoleon's brother decides carries on a search for a mate on the internet and improbably lands one. The wedding at the end seems strangely arbitrary but funny.
JON HEDER, JON GRIES, AARON RUELL, TINA MAJORINO
Emily Mortimer is Lizzie, an attractive woman fleeing an abusive relationship with her young son. She tells the son that his father is actually a sailor, on a ship called the Acra. When the Acra actually docks in the town they are living in, she has to scramble to conjure up a "dad" for Frankie. Gerald Butler as the "dad" does more than conduct a charade for a day or two. And, predictably, he and Lizzie develop feelings for each other that may or may not go anywhere. It's not as bad as it sounds. The principles are likeable and it is filmed with restraint.
EMILY MORTIMER
Topher Grace about a young wise guy who becomes the boss of a girl he is dating. Moderately tasteful. Moderately interesting.
It's not a really bad movie, as a movie. It's just utterly, appallingly deceitful. Like "Beautiful Mind", it takes a character with a few good qualities and few really, really bad ones, and sanctifies him. J.M. Barrie came to write Peter Pan at least partly out of the experiences he had playing with the four (five,in real life) Davies boys. They were children of Mrs. Llewelyn Davies, whose husband died shortly after she met Barrie. Barrie in all likelihood sexually molested the boys, and at least one of them commmitted suicide when he grew up, and two more of them died unhappyily young.
JOHNNY DEPP, KATE WINSLET
Somewhat likeable but unsatisfying account of a young boy who believes devoutly in saints and goodness, and who finds a bag of money, and tries to figure out how to do the right thing with it. Sounds a lot better than it really is-- never quite takes off, though you can't help but like the effort.
ALEX ETEL, LEWIS MCGIBBON, JAMES NESBITT, DAISY DONOVAN
The beginning is a the traditional cliche of the inept foreigner-- Bruce Wayne-- coming into contact with exotic eastern culture and consciousness, and thereby learning how to headbutt. The kind of set pieces with Liam Neeson that are easily mocked, and should be, the film pulls it together in Gotham with Batman building his cave and making his first tentative forays into crime-fighting. Christian Bale (the little boy in "Empire of the Sun"!) is good, and Caine is always a delight. Oldman is excellent and so is Cilian Murphy as Dr. Crane. Katie Holmes should have stayed homw with Tom for this one.
KATIE HOLMES, CHRISTIAN BALE, MICHAEL CAINEM, LIAM NEESON, GARY OLDMAN, CILLIAN MURPHY, TOM WILKINSON, KEN WATANABE
Very unusual, sensual film about a threesome, a brother and sister, and an American, in Paris, all of whom are in love with film. They play and explore sexuality and you realize that a good deal of the perversity of their relationships is in your head.
Contrived from the very first moments, unduly pompous and liberal and enlightened, with some exciting battle scenes, and Eva Green, and David Thewlis-- so not a total waste. The romance, of course, is totally, absolutely contrived as well.
DAVID THEWLIS, ORLANDO BLOOM, EVA GREEN
Esteemed actress Laura Linney tales up most of the screen time in this stodgy, uneven, and limp look at a woman's middle-aged crisis. Louise Harrington is a registrar at Columbia University. A student applies for admission to the fine arts program and he seems familar to her. In fact, he has the same name, F. Scott Feinstadt, and uses some of the same language as a former lover of Louise's, who died in a tragic car accident (are any accidental deaths not "tragic"). Topher Grace from "That 70's Show" is F. Scott, and he's okay, but it's hard to figure what the movie wants to show us: is Louise a later day, sympathetic Mrs. Robinson? Or just trying to find herself? Or a victim of fate or destiny? Will anyone care after watching an hour of this film? No.
LAURA LINNEA, TOPHER GRACE, GABRIEL BYRNE, PAUL RUDD, MARCIA GAY HARDEN
"Crash" swings wildly from extremely promising, "Magnolia" type multi-threaded tragedy, to contrived and preposterous muddle. Concerns a police detective who uncovers possible corruption on the force, but plunges into an analysis of race relations, distinquished by the problem of reverse descrimination-- what if the black really is going to jack your car? Sandra Bullock plays against type as a woman whose race paranoia appears to be justified by events. Matt Dillon plays a racist cop who-- surprise-- is courageous, and cares sensitively for his ailing father. Intriguing and sometimes even inspiring-- but, oh, those preposterous coincidences! Does that mean it's meant to be a fable? But why not clue in the audience, instead of following the path of realistic, gritty drama?
SANDRA BULLOCK, MATT DILLON, DON CHEADLE, JENNIFER ESPOSITO, WILLIAM FICHTNER, BRENDAN FRASER, THANDIE NEWTON, TONY DANZA
Charming, likeable story about a very young boy who lives with his grandmother. His mother has abandoned his family-- his grandmother calls her a "slut"-- and father only reappears rarely, and then is stern and angry. Valentin is transformed after a meeting with one of his father's new girlfriends, with whom he develops a real rapport-- with disastrous results. Bittersweet story, realistic and true to life, and admirable.
JULIETA CARDINALI, CARMEN MAURA, JEAN PIERRE NOHER, RODRIGO NOYA, MEX URTIZBEREA
Unmitigatedly boring rendition of the Sylvia Plath myth-- without the use of her poetry, for which rights could not be obtained! Everything is wrong about this movie, from it's ambivalent attitude to Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig) to a whiney and self-absorbed Sylvia Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow). What exactly was the point intended to be made by Sylvia's repeated acknowledgements of earlier suicide attempts-- almost as a tactless warning to Hughes to not react too harshly to Sylvia's unhealthy dependence on him? Badly misjudged-- this should have been a nonstarter, without the poetry.
GWYNETH PALTROW, DANIEL CRAIG, JARED HARRIS, BLYTHE DANNER, MICHAEL GAMBON, AMIRA CASAR, MARTHA BERGSTROM
Comic books might be known for graphic excellence, and original and innovative visualizations, but they don't generally strike me as particularly subtle or wise about morality or psychology. Sin City is true to Frank Miller's superior comics in all respects. Visually, it is stunning at times, exciting, dynamic, and original. The shots of cars rising into the air going over curves is particular fresh and unusual. There are three inter-weaving stories here. Mickey Rourke is amusing as Marv, a dim-witted, earnest brute who gets framed for murder. Hartigan (Bruce Willis)_ likewise suffers unjustly for his virtue but gets his revenge, of course. Rutger Hauer makes and appearance, as does Powers Boothe as a Senator, and Elijah Wood as an unervingly slimey abuser, Kevin. Dark and disturbing at times. The morality is dark, of course. The good guys behave largely like the bad guys, except that we're supposed to be on their side. There is an interesting subplot about a group of prostitutes that have taken over their part of town and maintain an uneasy detente with police and pimps.
MICKEY ROURKE, BRUCE WILLIS, JESSICA ALBA, CLIVE OWEN, NICK STAHL, RUTGER HAUER, ROSARIO DAWSON
Juliette Lewis plays a high-powered corporate lawyer, who, urged to take on a pro-bono case by her boss, takes up the cause of a young Afghan women applying for refugee status in the U.S., and imprisoned, as per U.S. policy after 9/11. Lewis is suprisingly good, especially during the scenes with Meena, where she maintains a professional detachment while eliciting details of torture, murder, and abuse. The weight of this story is the humanitarian angle, and Lewis' strong performance. The film notes that many, many more Meenas languish in custody in the U.S. Pedestrian film-making at it's finest, but oddly moving at times.
JULIETTE LEWIS, LAYLA ALIZADA, DANIEL LIBMAN, BRIAN MARKINSON
Strange and pensive little film that goes nowhere. About a young woman, and animal rights activist, who has an abortion and then murders a man who processes fish, and then has an affair with his son. But has the odd flight of perverse imagination.
MARIE-JOSEE CROZE, JEAN-NICOLAS VERREAULT, STEPHANIE MORGENSTERN, PIERRE LEBEAU, JOHN DUNN-HILL
Hokey but generally likeable story about a 14-year-old boy who believes that winning the Boston Marathon, in 1954, will be the miracle that he needs to bring his widowed mother out of her coma (she suffers from a vague, unspecified disease). The plot is pure hokum and often flatly unbelievable and Gordon Pinsent chews up the scenery as the arch-villain, a doctrinaire priest who weirdly believes that the boys desire to compete-- even when he displays promising ability--will be damaging to his psyche. But the secondary roles are well-played and the boy is pretty good, and the film is lavish, for a Canadian film-- in masking Cambridge as 50's Hamilton and then Boston. The music is over-bearing, just to make sure you get it at the end.
ADAM BUTCHER, GORDON PINSENT, JENNIFER TILLY, CAMPBELL SCOTT, SHAUNA MACDONALD, MICHAEL KANEV, TAMARA HOPE
Inexplicably well-received movie that is the very definition of treacle and slop. Especially in the way James Garner, as the aged Noah Calhoun, turns into mush for inexplicably perfectly coiffed Gena Rowlands (an Alzheimer's patient groomed so beautifully, she must have a full time stylist as well as nursing care). When his children urge him to return home, he claims that his great love is in the nursing home. That's a pretty accurate emblem of the narcissistic nature of this kind of film. He thinks he's a love god, but this film is really about completely self-absorbed and self-serving this view of love is. But before you even get there, every clich in the book-- the rich girl, the disapproving parents, the funky dad of the poor but authentic American boy (who, also inexplicably, has no interest in hunting, guns, and isantiseptically enlightened about women and sex). Ebert liked it, which made me think he had gone soft in the head. Incidentally, Rachel McAdams threatened to save the film all by herself with an unusually tasty performance that was head and shoulders above the material. Gosling was not too bad, by Macadams almost made the film work. Garner was pure slop. Rowlands was okay.
RYAN GOSLING, RACHEL MCADAMS, GENA ROWLANDS, JAMES GARNER
Hard to believe this modulation of "the Out of Towners" is by the same director as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. This is a dark comedy about someone having a really, really bad day. And though Scorcese's camera work and sense of rhythm and pace is there, the story spins out of control with a mob thinking Paul Hackett is a local burglar and chasing him down the streets into the arms of a psychotic sculptress... just a bit too much. Good performances, generally, and the city is a star, but the material just doesn't deserve it. An oddity-- a major character dies early in the film. It's unexpected, a bit shocking.
GRIFFIN DUNNE, ROSANNA ARQUETTE, VERNA BLOOM, TOMMY CHONG, LINDA FIORENTINO, TERI GARR, JOHN HEARD, CATHARINE O'HARA, LARRY BLOCK
Unusually tight thriller, well-acted and staged, and well-directed by Michael Mann. Max is a taxi-driver with ambitions of owning his own limosine service some day. We are supposed to believe that this is a noble aspiration. Tom Cruise happens to jump into his cab at a pivotal moment and we're off on a very intriguing night of murder and pursuit. Mann keeps it believeable with his tight direction. He smartly makes the city an actor in the film, the highways and lighted skylines, and open spaces-- though it all ends on a subway. A little preposterously, Max learns, from Vincent, that he should compromise on his dreams. Yeah. That's true whether you are driving a cab or a hit man.
TOM CRUISE, JAMIE FOXX, JADA PINKETT SMITH, MARK RUFFALO, PETER BERG
The true original of the Hannibal Lector series (spelled (Lecktor in this one) about a detective called back --da da da da da because he's the only one who understands the crime, la ti da, etc., and so on. All right, the cliche's out of the way, it's actually a fairly fine thriller, intelligently scripted, and well-acted by the secondaries, though Peterson (as Will Graham) has watched too many Bogart films for his own good. Above average, tightly, suspensefully directed, and lively. And Brian Cox is about the only actor who make you question whether Anthony Hopkins should even have considered the roll.
TOM NOONAN, WILLIAM L. PETERSON, KIM GREIST, JOAN ALLEN, BRIAN COX, DENNIS FARINA, STEPHEN LANG
Why am I the only one who cares that Ray Charles' carefully calculated indifference to the civil rights movement is twisted in this film to show that he actually had some guts. Or that his wife actually left him in the 70's, and that he did not quit drugs, as claimed, or that the carefully selected moments of "honesty" in this film are contrived to have the precisely opposite effect-- how hard is it for Ray to admit that he fooled around and had sex with lots of beautiful women. Ow! Ouch! No! I deny it! Women never found me attractive... I hope in a few years some of the critics who gave this film a rave review actually read a biography of Ray Charles and take a second look at the film, and realize just hwo self-serving it is. Of course that doesn't take away from his talent, or his courage in dealing with his disability, or his shrewd management of the financial side of his career. It just means that I am really sick of people using their control of important copyrights to influence how they are portrayed in films. It is clear that without the use of Ray's music, no film was going to be made, and the rights were controlled by Charles and his family, and the film shows that. My sense is that people believe the film and therefore are hostile if you suggest Ray might not be quite all he is cracked up to be in the film. So the film, like the Gospel, is true because it says it is true. Someone should do a film about this process.
JAMIE FOXX, KERRY WASHINGTON, REGINA KING, CLIFTON POWELL, BOKEEM WOODBINE, CURTIS ARMSTRONG, RICHARD SCHIFF, DAVID KRUMHOLTZ
Stinker of a film that almost won Scorcese an Oscar that everyone knows he really deserved for Taxi Driver or Raging Bull. Biggest flaw: the miscasting of Leonardo DiCaprio-- whose production company was involved in making the film-- as Howard Hughes, a decision so preposterous that it's hard to take a moment of the film seriously. Why is Katharine Hepburn fondling a 12-year-old boy? And why did Scorcese ignore the last, most interesting, 20 years of Hughes life? Why isn't the test flight of the Spruce Goose depicted as absurd and ridiculous, when that is obviously what it was? Nobody seriously contemplated actually using the plane for anything other than a curiousity. The film dragged. It was boring, though Cate Blanchett did a whale of a job with her role.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO, CATE BLANCHETT, KATE BECKINSALE, JOHN C. REILLY, ALEC BALDWIN, ALAN ALDA, JUDE LAW, GWEN STEFANI
If there was a contest for "strangest" film of all time, you might adopt the misleading perception that "strange" is a deliberate result of a courageous approach to artistic material-- boldly disregarding convention and tradition and striking out on a new, original path. If that were the case, than every strange film would be great. But what is "strange" can also be, ultimately, completely self-indulgent and narcissistic. How do you know the difference? I suspect that Eraserhead is primarily self-indulgent, which is not to say that Lynch doesn't have a talent for creating striking, memorable images. Like Dali, he seems to be attacking the viewer through the subconscious-- if you believe in a subconscious. He wants to shock you, to make you free-associate instead of imposing a rigid narrative structure on reality. It's worth seeing. It's worth experiecing a little dislocation occasionally, even if you think it all might be a con, like Mullholland Drive. But is it "high art"? I'm not sure.
JACK NANCE, CHARLOTTE STEWART, ALLEN JOSEPH, JEANNE BATES, JACK FISK
Stiff, deliberate story about a frumpy middle-aged woman (a widow) who meets a vigorous young Moroccan. They fall in love and move in together to the astonishment of neighbors and family. Even Emmi's own children reject her. They call her a whore and slut. She persists and even marries Ali, but they have troubles as well-- Ali briefly wanders. And that's about it. The most astonishing thing about this movie is the fact that the central character is a rather average-looking, middle-aged woman. There's no glamour here at all, but a very harsh indictment of German society. The depth and breadth of racist attitudes seems rather stunning. Only the landlord's son seems to accept Emmi's right to love. The secondary characters are no more physically attractive than Emmi-- they are large and morose looking. Intriguing but almost makes you wish for some Hollywood glitz.
BRIGITTE MIRA, EL HEDI BEN SALEM, BARBARA VALENTIN, IRM HERMANN
Perhaps under-rated. Henry Lair is dying, while charming-- standard movie mode-- and is cared for by grandson and great-grandson. Son Turner shows up to pay last respects, presumably, but Henry has a last trick up his sleeves. He requires his ashes to be scattered at various locations on a road trip he wasn't able to take. So the three-- son, grandson, and great-grandson-- hit the road and learn about each other and uncover a shocking truth and come to celebrate life more passionately as a result. You forget, as you are watching, just as contrived this is, which is a credit to the director, and to Walken, who keeps his reading just slightly off-kilter. The "making of" feature on the dvd is unusually fresh and authentic-- not the smarmy mutual admiration society we have come to expect.
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, MICHAEL CAINE, JONAH BOBO, JOSH LUCAS, GLENNE HEADLY
True story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in Kilgali, Rwanda, who sheltered hundreds of refugees during the slaughter of Tutsis in 1994. Don Cheadle plays Rusesabagina and it is a tribute to his remarkable performance that you don't become aware of any self-serving elements in what is, essentially, a portrait of a saint. And though the film does not include extended graphic passages of violence, the horror is all the more real, reflected in the faces of the people living in the rooms and hallways of the hotel. There is also a United Nations general clearly modelled on Canadian Romeo D'Allaire, who ineffectually pleads with the UN for assistance. (This was the real scandal of the Clinton administration.) As I watched it, I wondered, will see a film in five years on Darfur, to make us feel good about feeling bad once again?
DON CHEADLE, SOPHIE OKONEDO, NICK NOLTE, JOAQUIN PHOENIX
This film almost wanders into that territory occupied affectionately by "Harry and Tonto": Maude is an intriguing and amazing character, and Ruth Gordon plays it for all it's worth. And up to the moment when Maude discusses the flowers with Harold, it was reaching for poetry. But several over-the-top confrontations, that were neither funny nor revelatory, and the gas kind of seeped out of the plot. In fact, the ending is utterly deflating, misguided, and unnecessary. Still, I suppose it counts for something that no other film has ever approached the subject.
BUD CORT, RUTH GORDON, VIVIAN PICKLES
Powerful and sometimes engaging story about a young woman determined to become a boxer and the aging trainer who reluctantly takes her on. Yeah, now that you describe it like that, maybe you can see why Warner Brothers turned it down. Thanks to Swank, however, this film is far more involving than expected, and Eastwood is establishing a reputation for honest, hard-working films that, while rarely showing flashes of brilliance, never feel cheap or manipulative.
HILARY SWANK, CLINT EASTWOOD, MORGAN FREEMAN
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