Compelling drama about Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division, the 80's new wave band. Similar to Party People, in terms of era, personalities, and locale.
Documentary on the predicament of Stephen Heywood, who was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 29. Stephen and his family are unusually honest, acerbic, and poignant as they deal with the onset of ALS and Stephen's slow but steady physical decline. Fresh and at times rivetting.
STEPHEN HEYWOOD
The odd thing... right from the start, I thought-- they are not going to get the girls. Nobody scores. And it will be shown by the movie to be a good thing, after we have laughed and chortled for an hour at Seth's incredibly foul language and disgusting attitude towards "pussy". Why? The logic of the story? The nature of the characters? The offensive bigotry of using Seth's hatred of women as a joke and then telling us that, after all, they didn't mean it: these boys are basically decent human beings because they don't score? For all the critical praise this and "Knocked Up" have received, neither can hold a candle to "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".
JONAH HILL, MICHAEL CERA, CHRISTOPHER MINTZ-PLASSE, SETH ROGEN, EMMA STONE, MARTHA MACISAAC
Traditionally films that deal openly with sexual issues have been liberal in outlook and orientation, because conservatives seem to believe that just talking about sex will lead to action, and most sexual action is wrong, and should only be performed in a distant motel room with someone other than your wife-- preferably a subordinate. So "Knocked Up" bucks the trend: it tells us about a girl, Alison, who has a one-night stand with a crude but allegedly likable schlep, and gets pregnant, and decides to keep the baby. Abortion isn't really discussed. No one really says "abortion is wrong" or "abortion is a valid alternative". She just chooses to keep the baby, and then, inexplicably, decides to try to salvage a relationship with Ben, the father, the schlep, out of the deal. In the conservative universe, you make your bed, and you lie in it. In the contrived universe of this film, Ben turns out to be a decent guy- - after some work from Alison. He's henpecked already but we don't mind because Alison is so darn cute and down-to-earth, and Ben's friends are such obvious jerks. This is not a bad film--though no-one should confuse what Rogen and Heigl and the others do for "acting"--and it's an odd diversion down this neo-puritan path Hollywood is taking nowadays. I was astonished to apprehend that many critics and viewers find the Ben Stone character, eventually, likeable. I was not as shocked that he character of Alison would be attracted to him: what man does not know of a beautiful woman who is mysteriously drawn to jerks and creeps? Also disappointed, frankly, that Heigl, refused to go nude for the love scene. Why? Why was she cast if she didn't want to do what any decent European actress would do for a scene like that? Heigl then criticized the movie publicly for being sexist because-- absurdly-- it made the men likeable and the women shrews. This was "likeable"? Ben is an idiot, overweigh, and narcissistic. The mystery of this movie is why she ever considered a long-term relationship with him. But then again, perhaps he would settle for a wife who never takes off her bra when making love.
SETH ROGEN, KATHARINE HEIGL, PAUL RUDD, LESLIE MANN, JONAH HILL, JASON SEGEL
Dylan liked Todd Hayne's previous work (Safe, Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven) so he did an extraordinary thing. He gave Haynes the rights to his life story and all of his music and carte blanche to make the film he wanted to make, without anyone from Dylan's camp vetting the final product. Dylan specifically decreed that he did not want anything like "Walk the Line" or "Ray", both of which were flawed by a coy reverence for the subject that compromised the integrity of the film. The result is a truely extraordinary film that explores Dylan's many phases with daring and wildly imaginative sequences. Dylan is played by a 12-year-old black boy named Woody Guthrie, by Christian Bale as the folk-singer who becomes a fiery preacher, by Cate Blanchett as a self-obsessed rock icon, by Richard Gere as Billy the Kid, and Heath Ledger as an actor playing an actor playing Dylan as a movie star. Ben Whishaw adds an enigmatic poet named Arthur Rimbaud, while Kris Kristofferson narrates. This is one of the few films of the year I will definitely see again, but it is a challenging, confusing work that takes huge risks with its material, and the theatre was mostly empty when I saw it. The New York Times gave it an 8 page treatment, without once declaring it a great film-- that tells you something about how provocative and interesting it is, without necessarily being completely successful. Someday someone may do a conventional biopic on Dylan, but it won't be as brilliantly realized or poetic as this.
RICHARD GERE, CATE BLANCHETT, BEN WHISHAW, MARCUS CARL FRANKLIN, HEATH LEDGER, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG, JULIANNE MOORE
While some conservative evangelicals and catholics are urging a boycott of the film, the real problem is the film isn't controversial enough. The producers, fearing exactly such an eventuality, gutted the story of the most direct references to religion and focussed on the action. The problem is, the story rushes along, each episodic event designed solely for the purpose of moving the story along to the climatic battle. A second serious problem is the casting of Nicole Kidman as Marisa Coulter. Kidman's method approach might work for a role that called for ambivalence, fear, or seductiveness. But Coulter's part is the covey the seduction of authority and repression, and the strength of command. She simply isn't entertaining to watch in this role at all. As for the theme of the movie-- really, it's not all that different from any other story that portrays authoritarian powers as repressive and intolerant. Coulter could just as well represent a communist government, or Big Brother, as the Magisterium. The supporting cast is fine, especially Eva Green as a friendly witch. There just aren't very many scenes that unfold with anything more than clock-work and rote.
NICOLE KIDMAN, DANIEL CRAIG, DAKOTA BLUE RICHARDS, IAN MCKELLEN, EVA GREEN, TOM COURTNEY
There's a brilliant concept somewhere in this film, but it's execution is marred by two or three gross miscalculations, most obviously the casting of Natalie Portman in two roles, neither of which are credible. Portman plays Ines, a model for artist Goya played by Stellan Skarsgard. She turns down pork at a meal in a tavern and is arrested by the resurgent Inquisition on suspicion of being a Judaizer. Under torture-- being "put to the question" in the charming parlance of the Catholic priests who conduct the inquiry--she confesses. Brother Lorenzo becomes enamoured of the poor girl and in a scene that is kind of brutally gratifying, is himself "put to the question" of whether confessions extracted through torture can be believed. (Take note George Bush). This is actually an intelligent film with some marvelous scenes, including a negotiation for release of a prisoner for money, and a king's explanation of why a portrait of the queen should not, perhaps, be too honest. Historical events sweep through the story-- the French Revolution, the British invasion of Portugal-- and here Forman's execution fails him. I was reminded of the astonishing decision to try to make Elizabeth McGovern look 25 years older in "Once Upon a Time in America": a failure so great, it undermined the entire movie. Those who worry that "Golden Compass" is a threat to the authority of the church might be better advised to boycott this film-- and of course they shouldn't-- it makes a more eloquent statement against any institution that believes it embodies ultimate authority from heaven.
JAVIER BARDEM, NATALIE PORTMAN, STELLAN SKARSGARD, RANDY QUAID, JOSE LUIS GOMEZ, MICHAEL LONSDALE
Giselle is a Disney fairy tale princess whose prince is coming-- until his mother finds out about her and decides to send her off into a well, which spits her into real-world Times Square, as a flesh and blood person (Amy Adams), who has no clue about real life. Well, after all, she is a princess. So inspite of this film's much noted (and somewhat ever-rated) satire of past Disney fantasies, Giselle's real purpose in life is to shop and wait for her prince to come (even if she performs a token rescue at the end in an eerily gratuitous sequence tacked onto the plot). But Amy Adams is so good, you can almost forgive them for it.
AMY ADAMS, JAMES MARSDEN, IDINA MENZEL, SUSAN SARANDON, PATRICK DEMPSEY, TIMOTHY SPALL
No film gathered as much praise in 2007 as this one, by the makers of the legendary "Fargo". It's a good film, but I'm not as high on it as many reviewers. For one thing, as in "The Departed", the body count enters the range of the "ridiculous". That number, accumulated with steady precision as the movie progresses, is out there like a magic power, or the physical unattractiveness of a character we are supposed to believe is beautiful, or a love affair between two characters who are obviously more in love with themselves than anything else. High body counts are the hall-mark of films that ostensibly deal with serious topics-- death, obviously-- but it's a short-cut and can be used as an excuse for developing a narrative punch, as in "No Country for Old Men". In "Fargo", the violence emerged from random arrangements of evil and opportunity and foolishness, and the point was clear-- that the impact of evil is partly determined by will and partly by circumstance. So what is Woody Harrelson's character, a hired killer named Carson Wells, doing here? His only role is to enter, get out-smarted by Anton Chigurh, the cold-blooded killer whose rampage is the centre-piece of the film, and leave the scene. I couldn't think of a point to his character. Nor did it make sense for Chigurh to kill his own handlers-- has he gone mad? Are we asked to believe that the money men behind him honestly won't be able to find someone to take care of Chigurh? Or that Chigurh really believes they won't or can't? I'm not sure what the point of this movie is. That there are really bad people out there? At one point, Sheriff Bell bemoans modern morality and claims that there is more evil in the world today than ever was before. That is a ridiculous claim, and a desperate attempt by the Coen Brothers to give heft to what is really, when it all comes down to dust, a stylish disappointment.
TOMMY LEE JONES, JOSH BROLIN, WOODY HARRELSON, KELLY MACDONALD, TESS HARPER
Amusing independent film about a shy young man named Lars who can't talk to girls... until he orders in an inflatable sex doll and calls her Bianca and develops a passionate but chaste relationship with it. He moves Bianca into his brother's house -- so they won't be tempted-- and brings her to community events and everyone gradually begins to understand something about Lars, including Lars. Fresh and funny at times, with forgivable lapses into dime-store psychology.
RYAN GOSLING, EMILY MORTIMER, PAUL SCHNEIDER, PATRICIA CLARKSON
Why do most Hollywood comedies feel this bizarre, irrational compulsion to impose some kind of positive moral at the end of every story? I don't know. I know that "Blades of Glory" could have been funnier, and likely would have been funnier if the writers had resisted this compulsion to have Jimmy and Chazz come to understand and even love each other, and prove their heterosexuality, and if they hadn't wasted so much time with a rather lame chase scene to the moment of the competition. There is so much in the reality of the figure skating world that is ripe for parody, but by departing wildly from the real life inspirations, the movie loses it's gusto and ends up as extended slapstick. The Iron Lotus schtick really isn't all that funny.
WILL FERRELL, JON HEDER, WILL ARNETT, AMY POEHLER, JENNA FISCHER, CRAIG T. NELSON
It tells you something that the sets and costumes here outweigh the story. Gian Singh refuses to join a Sikh pogrom against fleeing Muslims (after the partition of India in 1946) and finds a lost girl named Naseem hiding in the woods and takes her home. Well, what do you think it is going to happen? Everything is telegraphed to the viewer in this film, including the correct emotions, and the inevitable heart-wrenching feel-good for feeling bad ending. The problem is that the characters have so little personality that it's hard to really get worked up about it in the end. And why is Neve Campbell in this film? To give some kind of white, westerner focus to the tale? This film was a bad idea from the start.
NEVE CAMPBELL, JIMI MISTRY, KRISTIN KREUK, JOHN LIGHT
The celebrated, strange documentary on the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, "Little Edie" Bouvier, aunt and cousin to Jacqueline Kennedy, formerly upper crust and rich, and now impoverished and clinging to shreds of dignity in a 28-room-mansion they can't maintain or even clean. Little Edie steals the show with her dancing and singing, but Edith Bouvier can also sing; the two screech at each other and talk over each other constantly. Exploitive? Little Edie didn't think so, but I doubt her opinion is decisive-- bad attention is better than no attention at all. Eventually, the Kennedy's kicked in some cash and fixed up the place to meet city regulations, after they were embarrassed by this film.
EDITH BOUVIER BEALE, LITTLE EDIE BEALE
It is asssumed but never directly revealed that Shukichi Somiya's wife died in the war (the film was made in 1949). This poignant fact hovers over the unfolding events in "Late Spring" (Banshun), as we watch Shukichi and his 27-year-old daughter Noriko negotiate a delicate arrangement in which she must finally leave the home and marry, and Shukichi live the rest of his life alone. Ozu's masterpiece is so simple, so picturesque, that you never notice the building emotional resonance. Shukichi and Noriko are so sensitively drawn and acted, you may find yourself changing your mind about what you think should or should not happen. The plot is simple: Shukichi is convinced by his sister-in-law that Noriko must find a husband and marry. But she refuses-- who would take care of her father? So her father convinces her that he plans to remarry, though Noriko finds the very idea distasteful. Noriko reluctantly gives in. It is only after watching this marvel of film-making, and other films like it, that you begin to realize just how spoon-fed we are-- how even films that claim to be about serious, adult topics (like "The Notebook", "Shawshank Redemption", "Philadelphia", and so on) can't really bear to present adult realities to their audiences. Ozu never compromises his determination to present an authentic picture of a complex relationship, and the tragic outcome of the conflict between two person's desires to give themselves up for the other. A really exquisite masterpiece.
SETSUKO HARA, CHISHU RYU, YUMEJI TSUKIOKA, HARUKO SUGIMURA, HOHI AOKI
If "Lust, Caution" was really about how the female heart can have mysterious loyalties more intense than nation or family or duty or morality-- we wouldn't have been led to hold such a flattering image of Wang Jiazhi as we are. She is beautiful, talented, courageous, and ... well, a traitor to her country and her compadres, and to herself. She is moved, in the end, by jewelry, in a conclusion right out of the soaps or a romance novel. We are in the end offered a ridiculously cut and dried "they talked" to dispose of her team of captured resistance fighters, as if the question of torture were resolved by the issue of whether or not the victims "talked". That's the trouble with the whole movie: there's not a authentic moment in it; just lavishly filmed set pieces, all tied to one real issue: is Wang loved or not? Why Lee bothered to set this film during Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and Shanghai is beyond me-- he needn't have bothered with the historical baggage-- they aren't germane to heart of his story. Which is a pity because his raw materials are so nice, so elegant, and beautiful. Wei Tang as Wang, in particular, is superb. The period locations and reconstructions are wonderful. The supporting cast is good. It's a pity it's ultimagely inane and vacuous. In "Brokeback Mountain" there was a remarkable balance carved out of scenes of Jack's wife, and Jack's parents, confronting Ennis after the disaster. No such balance exists in this story, because Wang's friends and lovers are too invested in her-- nobody steps back far enough to understand what she is really doing or how she really feels, and Lee doesn't expose those feelings because it doesn't play into the romanticized romance between Wang and Yee. "Lust Caution" is far more elegant than "Black Book", and more focussed, but, in the end, just as unsatisfying.
TONY LEUNG CHIU WAI, WEI TANG, JOAN CHEN
Odd to say but the most refreshing thing about Venus is the fact that it really is about a dirty old man. Peter O'toole is Maurice, an aging actor who cheerfully takes on the task of keeping young, beautiful Jessie out of her uncles's hair. He takes her shopping but forgets to bring money, and gets her a nude modelling job and tries to peak. He shows her to the museum and she agrees to let him smell her shoulders-- but nothing more. Jessie is rude and unsophisticated, but she learns something from him, even if she doesn't really value it. But the movie is really about Maurice, about aging, about seeing your mortality in the face of a flush 19-year-old girl who isn't really even worthy of you. Maurice may be too fond of young female flesh, but he's no bully, and the most poignant thing about the film is his recognition of just what and who he is, in the end.
PETER O'TOOLE, JODIE WHITTAKER, VANESSA REDGRAVE, RICHARD GRIFFITHS, LESLIE PHILLIPS
Quiet, slow-moving, but rich portrait of the members of the White Rose group that opposed Nazism in Munich in 1942-43, were caught and convicted in a show-trial, and executed. The lead investigator comes to have seconed thoughts about the prosecution, as he realizes that these young German students are admirable in many ways, with courage and strong moral convictions. Superb performances that build to a compelling tragedy. And if you think the German prosecutor at the end was a little over-the top is his schrill, hysterical voice, check videos of Roland Freisler on Youtube. (It was reported that when he died in a bombing attack, a hospital orderly pronounced that it was God's will, and no one disputed her.) Rewards patience.
JULIA JENTSCH, GERALD ALEXAND HELD, FABIAN HINRICHS, JOHANNA GASTDORF, ANDRE HENNICKE, FLORIAN STATTER
Disappointing, Hollywoodized story of Mayer Arar-- though it doesn't actually claim to be based on him. Anwar El-Ibrahimi is an Egyptian who moved to the U.S. at 14, lived there for 20 years, and then is suddenly seized after returning from a conference in Capetown. He is send to an Arabic country-- possibly Syria or Egypt-- where he is tortured at the request of the the CIA, who wish to deny, of course, that they torture anyone. An enlightened CIA operative eventually comes to believe El-Ibrahimi doesn't know anything, and frees him, which might lead you to believe that torturing innocent Arabic-Americans is wrong, very, very wrong. Unfortunately, the movie, as presented, clearly implies that it might be all right to torture actual terrorists, and even allows Corinne Whitman, the American intelligence official, to imply, unchallenged, that lives are saved by torture-- neatly side-stepping the problem that torture victims will generally say anything to make the torture stop and the government may not care, since the information extracted supplies them with new individuals to torture who will, in turn, implicated the previously tortured. This is a second-rate thriller, that makes a mere thriller like "The Bourne ULtimatum" look deep. The good-hearted CIA operative sends El-Ibrahimi back to the U.S. without approval of his superiors-- why wouldn't they simply rearrest him? Why does the torturer conclude that his daughter was killed when he finds out her boyfriend was a suicide bomber? Did no one identify her remains? Why does Whitman meet an agent at the airport, where she then decides to have El-Ibrahimi renditioned? Nothing makes sense until you realize that every scene is what the film-makers think the audience thinks would happen, rather than what really happened to real individuals. To top it off, Gyllenhaal and Witherspoon are utterly lost in this film, with no apparent clue as to what they are supposed to be or feel. Gyllenhaal's performance may be the worst of his career. "Three Kings", "Munich", "Paradise Now", all do a better job of exploring these general issues.
REESE WITHERSPOON, OMAR METWALLY, JAKE GYLLENHAAL, MERYL STREEP
Like "Grosse Pointe Blank", "You Kill Me" aims to find the fun in contract killers with personal issues, and at times, it is so witty and fun that you forget the amoral underpinnings of the story line: Frank Falenczyk is a contract killer for the Polish mob in Buffalo, but he has a drinking problem and can't do his job. On the west coast for rehabilitation, he meets Laurel Pearson, a witty, dry, attractive woman, who he meets at the funeral home he now works for, and who doesn't have a problem with his alcoholism or his profession. Frank attends AA meetings while his friends back in Buffalo are getting hammered by a rival mob, thanks to his failure to do his job. It's so much fun watching Ben Kingsley and Tea Leoni in the lead roles that you can almost overlook the heartlessness at the centre of this tale. Okay, it's a character study. And it is amusing.
TEA LEONI, BEN KINGSLEY, LUKE WILSON, DENNIS FARINA, BILL PULLMAN, JAYNE EASTWOOD, PHILIP BAKER HALL
Powerful drama about the early years of the IRA, it's formation as a response to protestant terrorism on behalf of the British occupation, and the split in the IRA as a result of the provisional treaty that separated Ireland into an independent South and protestant dominated north. While clearly sympathetic to the IRA, Loach doesn't hesitate to dramatize the brutality they also practiced, and their treatment of informers. Superbly acted, and filmed in beautiful, sometimes bleak Ireland.
CILLIAN MURPHY, PADRAIC DELANEY, LIAM CUNNINGHAM, ORLA FITZGERALD, MARY O'RIORDAN, MARY MURPHY
This is Oleana turned on its head. Instead of finding more and more layers of complexity behind what appears to be a simple story of sexual exploitation, we find less and less, until the story disappears entirely into a whiff of inept righteousness. Hayley is a 14-year-old girl cruising the internet. She links up with Jeff, a photographer, who happens to have a fantastic house right out of Vogue, and they arrange to meet. Does she agree to go to his house or does he persuade her? Think about that as you watch the movie (if you bother). But once they are in his house (somehow Hayley has figured out that the nearest neighbors are not home), the tables are turned. She drugs him and ties him up and announces that she is going to castrate him, because he is obviously a child predator. This is not a film about something that might have happened in real life. I repeat, I cam convinced that this not a film about something that might have happened in real life. This is a film about what the director thinks might be happening in your head as you watch events unfold. Every twist and development in the story flows from that sense of viewer expectation (or what might surprise the viewer) rather than what might, surprisingly or not, happen in a real-life situationn like this. So if the viewer doesn't find it difficult to imagine that this slight, 14-year-old girl could lift an adult male onto a chair while he is unconscious and truss him up the way Hayley does in the film... you might accept the other developments. That Jeff's ex-girlfriend would come when called, that Jeff could be persuaded to commit suicide, or that Hayley could believe she could convince Jeff to commit suicide, or that Hayley would plan the whole thing before she has any real evidence that Jeff is into child porn. This movie does not deserve this much attention-- this paragraphy-- but there are those would mistake this movie's salaciousness for grit. It's not. This is a genuinely sick film, not because of the salacious subject matter, but because it's psychological reality exists entirely in the heads of the film-makers.
PATRICK WILSON, ELLEN PAGE
In May 1990, Chris McCandless graduated from Emory University with great marks from a program focussed on world poverty and the environment. Instead of proceeding on to Harvard as his ambitious and accomplished parents wished, he gave away $24,000 of his savings to Oxfam and set out on the road, to survive on his instincts, and to experience nature, and to meet other people on similar journeys. His remarkable odyssey ended in tragedy in Alaska where he starved to death in the wilderness only a few miles away from help. Jon Krakauer wrote an exceptional book on McCandless and Sean Penn read it and loved it and spend the next several years trying to turn it into a movie. The result is as exceptional as the book. This is a beautifully filmed story that doesn't take any shortcuts. Penn travelled to most of the actual locations McCandless travelled to (though the final scenes were filmed about 20 miles away from the actual location, due to its remoteness). He has recreated a tableau of dissonant Americans, breathtaking vistas, and the sweep of unplanned adventure, and the mystery of why a privileged young idealist like McCandless would seek solitude with such determination and, in the end, such foolhardyness. A remarkable, moving film that is one of the best of the year. The supporting cast, including Hal Holbrook as a lonely widower who wants to adopt McCandless, give some of the best performances of their careers.
EMILIE HIRSCH, MARCIA GAY HARDEN, WILLIAM HURT, JENA MALONE, BRIAN DIERKER, CATHERINE KEENER, VINCE VAUGHN, KRISTEN STEWART, HAL HOLBROOK
Preposterous and provocative mythical account (forget the ridiculous claims that this is "based" on a true story-- so is Pinnochio) of the adventures of Jewess Rachel Stein in occupied Holland as she shockingly discovers, among other things, that Nazis can be gentlemen and Dutch patriots can be anti-semites. This is the kind of discovery that, while undoubtedly true, isn't nearly as edifying as Verhoeven seems to think it is. Even worse, Verhoeven is so clumsy and contrived at times that you almost long for a Hollywood remake starring Nicole Kidman or Halle Barry or anyone. Carice Houtman plays Rachel Stein who's is forced out of hiding after an aerial bombardment and eventually joins the underground to infiltrate a local Gestapo office and seduce an officer, Ludwig Muntze. Rachel falls for the big lug and then discovers that some members of the Dutch underground have betrayed Jewish refugees to the Germans for money while poor Herr Muntze has lost his wife and family to American bombs. You get the feeling that Verhoeven is convinced that no one else has ever thought of this angle before, and that he has reached for some kind of amazing level of authenticity here and having his star doused with a bucket of excrement gives him a kind of edgy audacity that entitles him to think we should be moved by the last scene in an Israeli Kibbutz. Instead, it feels gratuitous and self-congratulatory. If you want the real thing: see the brilliant "Third Man".
CARICE VAN HOUTEN, SEBASTIAN KOCH, THOM HOFFMAN, HALINA REIJN, WALDEMAR KOBUS, DEREK DE LINT
In some ways, the Royal Tenebaums on a train in India, but less clever. Francis, Peter, and Jack (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman) are three brothers from, you guessed it, a dysfunctional family. Dad has recently died (there are flashbacks to enlighten us) and mom is a recluse in a convent deep in the heart of India. The three brothers travel by train through Rajasthan to bring her the news, and iron out their dysfunctions against the very colourful background of rural India. They announce their spiritual quest and then undercut every spiritual aspiration with ironic self-detachment and petulant grievances against each other and their parents. The message, without too much sentimentality, is that family relationships are like democracy: awful, but better than any possible alternative, and therefore, something we're stuck with whether we like it or not. The three brothers are charmingly open to experience, participating in village life and Buddhist rituals with restrained but affable enthusiasm. There is a suggestion of the Beatles here-- Jack looks like Ringo with his moustache, his bare feet, and suit--and allusions to Renoir's "The River", another film that took seriously the local colour and culture. The simplicity of the plot mechanics is a bit deceptive-- this is genuine post-modernism-- ritual and family and spirituality don't really carry much weight, but it brings colour and texture to our life passages to nowhere and we might as well bear it all with friends and wit. The luggage they lose at the end is timid symbolism that doesn't mess up the charm of this excursion.
OWEN WILSON, ADRIEN BRODY, JASON SCHWARTZMAN, AMARA KARAN, WALLACE WOLODARSKY, ANJELICA HUSTON
Based on Dennis Lehane novel about a young child that goes missing from a downbeat Boston neighborhood. Casey Afflect is Patrick Kenzie who, with his professional and personal partner Angie, is hired to "supplement" police efforts to find the child by the child's aunt. This is the first clue that something is amiss-- the mom is not enthused. The police gather around the house and bide their time, and Patrick uncovers evidence that the mom has not been forthcoming about her activities the night the child went missing. This is a dark, sometimes bleak film that raises the question of bearing the consequences of being right, in truth and in perception. I'm not sure I buy the plot twists at the end, but the rich, detailed exposition of life at the bottom is compelling and the performances are outstanding. Ed Harris and Amy Madigan are sensational and- surprise-- Morgan Freeman comes up with a character more complex and ambiguous than his usual wise old black dude schtick, and Amy Ryan, as the mom, is standout.
CASEY AFFLECK, AMY MADIGAN, ED HARRIS, MICHELLE MONAGHAN, MORGAN FREEMAN, AMY RYAN
This is Erin Brokovitch's honest twin, the one who doesn't tell you she'll always be your friend. A high-powered law firm representing a Monsanto-like agri-chemical giant is notified that one of their top lawyers took off all his clothes at a deposition and fled the meeting. Arthur Edens (an excellent Tom Wilkinson), overwhelmed with the stress of stone-walling honest farmers and families, finally freaked out. Marty Bach, the senior partner in the law firm, calls in Michael Clayton (Clooney), the fixer, to clean up the mess and and get U-North, the Agri-chemical company, back into their good graces. U-North's own lawyer (Tilda Swinton) is less conflicted than Edens: she knows that the company faces big trouble if it is ever forced to disclose everything it knows about the fertilizer in question. Where Erin Brokovitch becomes righteous and self-congratulatory, "Michael Clayton" becomes murky and suggestive. At a pivotal moment, when Michael confronts his boss about the law firm's role in protecting corporate irresponsibility, Marty Bach acutely asks him just what he thought the role of the law firm in these cases was. It's a credit to this film that we hear that exchange, and that we hear the lawyer for U-North trying to feel out the goons the company hired to spy on the opposition about just how far they might be willing to go: too many films act as if the viewer assumes these people know who to talk to but "Michael Clayton" astutely shows us precisely where and how a legitimate lawyer might cross the proverbial line. Make it a double feature with "A Civil Action".
TOM WILKINSON, SYDNEY POLLACK, TILDA SWINTON, GEORGE CLOONEY, MERRITT WEVER, SEAN CULLEN, KEN HOWARD
Sweet, charming independent film about a waitress, Jenna (Keri Russell at her most charming), who is pregnant and facing a dead-end in her life in a small town. Her forte is pies and she creates new ones in response to crises in her life. When a new doctor moves into town, she hopefully begins a relationship with him, while married to the abusive Earl (a scary Jeremy Sisto). Pair this with "Knocked Up"-- both are low key, quirky films, with that pleasant tendency to go for authentic emotions that slowly emerge from realistic characters struggling with realistic issues.
KERI RUSSELL, NATHAN FILLION, CHERYL HINES, JEREMY SISTO, ANDY GRIFFITH
Herzog has an obsession with stories about men who defy overwhelming odds to survive jungles or wildernesses, from Julianes Sturz, who survived a plane crash in the Brazilian jungle, to the Grizzly Man himself, Timothy Treadwell. Here he takes on the true story of Dieter Dengler, an American pilot who crashed into the jungles of Laos on his first mission, was captured by guerillas and handed over to the Viet Cong to be imprisoned for six months before an astounding escape and rescue. It should be noted that the families of some of Dengler's American co-prisoners are angry at the film for it's portrait of the other escapees. We only have Dengler's word for how real events unfolded. But the film is outstanding-- filmed on location in the jungle in Thailand (and it looks it). Herzog disdains Hollywood convention and unfolds the story at his own pace, eschewing action thrills for a sustained exploration of human endurance and determination. Bale is outstanding as Dengler and he carries the film. It should also be noted that there is one jarring scene near the end that, confound it, is as "Hollywood", as they come: in real life, Dengler was quietly moved to a hospital for treatment, not the hanger on an aircraft carrier in front of hundreds of cheering crew. More significantly, Dengler's captors are depicted as monsters who enjoy torturing and abusing their prisoners. That might be true, but Herzog could not have been unaware of how his film would play to American audiences, who perhaps need to be reminded that Dengler, after all, was dropping bombs on these people in an illegal and secret military exercise. Perhaps Herzog doesn't care, or doesn't feel it's material to his "story". Fair enough, but I found it disturbing to realize, after watching the film, that the viewer is led to completely forget about Dengler's mission.
CHRISTIAN BALE, ZACH GRENIER, STEVE ZAHN, JEREMY DAVIES, SOMKUAN SIROON
Sherry has just finished serving 3 years for theft to support her drug habit and returns to her home town to try to re-establish a relationship with her four-year-old daughter. Her brother Bobby and his wife Bridget have been taking care of Alexis and aren't completely pleased to have Sherry back in their lives, and not confident in her parenting skills. Sherry uses sex to manipulate her half-way house director and other men in her life. She really wants her baby back but her own temper and poor judgements get in the way. Gyllenhaal is outstanding as Sherry, and the supporting case, especially Danny Trejo as Dean Walker are strong. The strength of this movie is it's attention to detail and it's uncompromising insistence of revealling character through an authentic feel for how real people react to complex problems. It's weakness is the way it gives in to the temptation to blame Sherry's problems on the men in her life one too many times. The pat suggestion that sexual abuse may have driven Sherry into a life of addictions and promiscuity undercuts an otherwise fine portrait of a troubled young woman who finally comes to realize that she is her own worst enemy.
MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL, GINCARLO ESPOSITO, BRAD WILLIAM HENKE, DANNY TREJO, SAM BOTTOMS, RYAN SIMPKINS
Paul Mazursky's autobiographical account of his move out of his parent's home into Greenwich Village in the 1950's, and his attempts to make a career of acting while negotiating relationships with his friends and girlfriend. Suffers a bit from a sense of sophomoric artistic self-awareness, but likeable nonetheless, especially for it's vivid portrait of family and friends, and the authentic feel of the characters: they are somewhat pretentious because they really are pretentious-- not because the writer imposed his own nostagliac vision on them. Supporting cast is very good, especially Shelley Winters as Larry's mom, and Christopher Walken as an arrogant writer. Lou Jacobi and Ellen Greene also give strong performances. Strong Jewish flavour and very nice location shooting.
LENNY BAKER, SHELLEY WINTERS, ELLEN GREENE, LOIS SMITH, CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, DORI BRENNER, ANTONIO FARGAS
This is a nostalgiac film about nostalgia-- not the real experience of growing up in 1940's Mississippi. Black men are wise and friendly, and even the town bully eventually comes around to recognizing what a wonderfully deep and sensitive boy little Willie really is. This is a portrait of children as adults see themselves as children, without an ounce of authentic feeling or attitude.
KEVIN BACON, FRANIE MUNIZ, DIANE LANE, LUKE WILSON, CAITLIN WACHS, CLINT HOWARD
Competent and moving documentary about children working as miners in a Bolivian mountain town, their aspirations, living conditions, and pleasures-- such as they are. Focusses on 14-year-old Basilio and his brother, who risk their lives to buy books and uniforms for school, and support their mother and sister. Not especially well-filmed but tells a worthwhile story.
Slightly worse than you could ever imagine -- a badly-conceived sequel to the Graduate in which Jennifer Aniston plays a lost young woman who thinks she might be the love-child of Benjamin and Elaine, and tracks down her long-lost "father" only to fall in love with him. That sounds salacious but this film doesn't have enough spirit to even mount a hint of anything even remotely shocking. What is shocking is that a major studio put up the money for this mess that goes nowhere, reveals nothing, and is utterly unfunny.
JENNIFER ANISTON, KEVIN COSTNER, SHIRLEY MACLAINE, MARK RUFFALO, RICHARD JENKINS, MENA SUVARI
Unusual and daring, if not quite successful, Year of the Dog is about a frustrated woman who loses the only object of affection in her life, her dog, Pencil, and thus begins an increasingly passionate journey to radical animal rights activism. The film follows it's own odd trajectory, presenting her friends and acquaintances as dim but rational inhabitants of a careless world that can't inspire her sense of belonging.
MOLLY SHANNON, LAURA DERN, REGINA KING, THOMAS MCCARTHY, JOHN C. REILLY, AMY SCHLAGEL, PETER SARSGAARD
If you liked "The Princess Bride", you might like this. "Stardust" is entertaining and lively, but it doesn't have a single scene that's quite as fresh or funny as Andre the Giant's rhymes, or the Sicilian trying to outwit Westley, or Billy Crystal cheering on Westley and Inigo with "have fun storming the castle". It shares another similarity with "The Princess Bride": the romantic leads can't act. Clare Danes has done better work than this, but I'd be astonished if she's done worse. She gives just about the most facile reading I've seen in years-- if there is the slightest emotion or calculation or reflection behind any of her words, she does an excellent job of concealing it. I freely admit this is a minority opinion. Most reviewers liked her performance. Charlie Cox is better, but he is hampered by requirements of the script-- like the scenes in which he is required to suck up to guest celebrity awesome actor having fun and proving he is a good sport Robert De Niro, as the dread pirate Roberts-- oops-- Captain Shakespeare. It's not a bad film, and Michelle Pfieffer is quite good, as are some of the other secondary characters. But we're insulted when the director expects us to believe that Tristan might have left Yvaine all alone without explanation in the hotel to go back to Victoria (he actually went to tell Victoria that the deal was off), and that Yvaine would then wander into the path of the witches... a really unnecessary blip in the plot.
CLAIRE DANES, CHARLIE COX, IAN MCKELLEN, DAVID KELLY, SIENNA MILLER, PETER O'TOOLE
This is a well-executed suspenser, with good performances all around. It's too bad the fundamental premise can't hold up under scrutiny. Ted Crawford (Hopkins) has discovered that his wife is having an affair with a policeman (Billy Burke). He shoots his wife, waits for the police, and surrenders without a fight. He gives and signs a confession. District attorney Willy Beachum has risen from a lowly, rural background to the bright lights of L.A., and is ready to move to a large corporate law firm. Crawford lands on his desk as an open and shut case, suitable for a quick wrap. However, he discovers things are no simple: the cop who interrogated Crawford after his arrest was none other than Rob Nunally, the same detective who was having the affair with his wife. And the ballistics of the gun don't match the bullets found at the scene. A little preposterously, the judge decides there isn't enough evidence to make a case. But the real story is about ambitious but uncultivated Beachum being outfoxed by the urbane, sophisticated Ted Crawford. Beachum's ego takes a bruising: he thinks he's reached a new level of sophistication, but his understanding of how the ruling classes actually work is only skin deep. And then there is the odd Teri Schiavo reverberation: Crawford's wife is in the hospital on life support and after the trial, Crawford wants to pull the plug. Beachum suddenly, passionately, believes Crawford must be stopped--- but why does Beachum believe that? Does he really belive that Jennifer Crawford might recover? Is he a devout Christian? (No evidence of that up to that point in the film-- he quickly sleeps with Nikki Gardner, his boss.) Really well acted, and generally well-written, if only you can believe that Crawford could have been sure that Nunally would have been so ridiculously cooperative when he came to investigate the shots. David Strathairn and Rosamund Pike are quite good as well.
ANTHONY HOPKINS, RYAN GOSLING, DAVID STRATHAIRN, ROSAMUND PIKE, EMBETH DAVIDTZ, BILLY BURKE
Funny and fresh satire of police work, village life, and action movies, starring Simon Pegg as Sergeant Nicholas Angel, a rigid, authoritarian police officer who gets transferred to a quiet suburb because he makes his colleagues look bad. Everything seems pretty bucolic in delicate Sandford until Angel starts to uncover various nefarious plots. A little over-the-top towards the end, but the scene with the goose redeems Wright's excesses.
SIMON PEGG
Take "The Three Days of Condor" and remove all the compelling drama and character development and replace all of it with chase scenes and gunplay and you have the highly over-rated Bourne Ultimatum. Matt Damon continues the series as Jason Bourne, who has lost his memory but remembers his martial arts training, and who sets out to find out why he is so good with guns. Turns out he is part of a secret CIA program of dubious legality to assassinate various targets. There really isn't any drama in this excursion into his own memories: it's not very clear what his problem is with the job-- he's just the clean-cut, nice hero, who finds out he has been doing nasty work-- but he doesn't seem to really have any moral perspective to offer himself. The movie leaves you with-- but there really are bad guys out there. A bad guy is defined as someone who threatens America's interests, but what those interests are is not nearly as clear as it is in, say, Syriana, or Three Kings, or "The Three Days of the Condor", all of which are vastly superior. Why does everyone like this film so much? The edgy, hand-held camera work? The thrilling chase scenes involving real objects instead of computer graphics? Hard to tell. Even the love interest in this entry-- Julia Stiles as another roge CIA agent with a conscience-- is just a timid rehash of the romance from the first entry. Perhaps the biggest problem is the preposterous plot sequences: Noah Vosen's(David Strathairn-- best thing in the movie-- crew have astonishing abilities to tap into cameras and databases all over the world with even more astonishing efficiency. This is a fictionalization -- in the truest sense of the word-- of the agency that can't even find Osama Bin Laden after six years. In this fantasy world, they are able to muster countless agents on the ground in a London transportation hub within minutes, to follow a journalist and then assassinate him. Just think-- if the CIA actually had that many agents in every possible city Bourne could go to and they could communicate that effectively... It's a dream world. If you can't buy it, it's hard to share the visceral thrill of it all. There is far richer suspense in Redford's question to his handler in "Condor": "Why is it I have to identify myself to you but you don't have to identify yourself to me?" The confrontation between Finny and Damon at the end has echoes of the confrontation between Peter Finch and Ned Beatty in "Network". Bottom line: Robert Ludlum, who wrote the source books for this series, was an absolutely wretched writer, and all of the kinetics in the world can mask the triviality at the heart of this story.
MATT DAMON, JULIA STILES, DAVID STRATHAIRN, PADDY CONSIDINE, ALBERT FINNY, JOAN ALLEN
Edith Piaf had a remarkable life, worth a movie or two, and worth the dignified treatment given here. Piaf was born to a couple of young artists, who gave her up when she was little, and she ended up being raised, largely, in a bordello. Reunited with her father, while contorting on the streets in front of a restless crowd, he tells her, "do something". She sings "La Marseilles" and it's a hit. She leaves her father, joins up with a part-sister, and gets spotted by the inevitable producer/talent scout. He is murdered. She recovers, gets bigger and bigger, and inevitably begins to indulge in self-destructive behaviors. That's what the movie version of your life is for. The film ignores World War II, which is a bit strange since she helped the resistance, while singing for the Nazis. Marie Cotillard is very good as a somewhat unlikeable Piaf. Thank goodness they had the sense to leave the singing to a talented imitator: Cotillard lip syncs.
Tries hard and appears to be a sincere attempt to create a quirkly independent film about real humans in real situations-- but just isn't all that well written or conceived. It's like a weak first draft of "Junebug". Ashley Judd is fine, and the rest of the cast does well. I wanted to like this more than I did. Lucy Fowler goes to bars, meets and beds men, and then leaves them the next day. When she meets a genuinely decent man, she seems to sabotage the relationship. Could her problem be her distant father or bickering grandparents? Or just a writer who couldn't quite pull it all together. My wife and daughter thought the ambiguous ending implied a happy development that I didn't expect...
ASHLEY JUDD, JEFFREY DONOVAN, LAURA PREPON, STACY KEACH, SCOTT WILSON
Absolutely wonderful animation about a gourmet rat who only wants to prepare and enjoy fabulous meals, and a young dishwasher who becomes his proxy in the kitchen of a formerly glorious French restaurant. Lovely story and outstanding graphics, especially the rapid-fire chases sequences through walls and sewers. More substantial than Shrek or Toy Story or Nemo, and less prone to cheap humour and wise- cracking side-kicks. Question though... why does Linquini not have a French accent? Obviously he is French... the other French characters have accents... bizarre. And the annoying trope of having the elite, the sophisticated reviewer, Anton Ego, play the evil snob (the heroic Gusteau died after getting a negative review)-- while simultaneously craving his approval. (In fact, earlier in the film, the characters are shown to be joyous when another food critic lavishes praise on Remy's soup.) And why is the chef, Skinner, so short, and vaguely ethnic? And what's with the idea that people shouldn't discriminate against rats? Just a cheap platitude to add some moral authority to the tale? The truth is Remy is brilliant precisely because he has elite skills, precisely because not everyone can cook or should cook.
JANEANE GAROFALO, PATTON OSWALT, IAN HOLM, LOU ROMANO, BRIAN DENNEHY, PETER O'TOOLE
Wonderful role-playing British actors, exceptional special effects-- but the drama is still pedestrian at best. None of these characters seem to have any of the idiosyncracies of real, breathing teenagers-- not the false bravado, the quirkiness, petulence, or impulsiveness, at least, not in any way that is not very literal or schematic. There's just not a lot of play here. The supporting cast is without exception wonderful, and they bring more personality to their roles than exists in the script. It's also not clear where the strings are in the structure of Hogwarts-- how is authority invested in the headmaster-- why are parents "approving" of Umbridge's innovations, but not supportive of their own children? You get the feeling that everyone stays in the same room because they have to enact the drama, rather than from any internal logic or feeling. It's also a pity that Hermione and Ron have to wait a round for Harry to stop his self-pitying for any action to result: they too feel like appendages to the plot. I really don't believe the drama here strikes any deep resonant chord, on an emotional level, with anybody.
EMMA WATSON, DANIELLE RADCLIFFE, RUPERT GRINT, EMMA THOMPSON, ALAN RICKMAN, EVANNA LYNCH, IMELDA STAUNTON, MICHAEL GAMBON
Fascinating and beautifully acted depiction of the Robert Hanssen case, the FBI agent responsible for the biggest-- allegedly-- espionage disaster in U.S. history (some say Aldrich Ames was bigger). Chris Cooper is outstanding as Hanssen, cold, arrogant, devout. Ryan Phillippe is pretty good in the vanity role (the character of the writer of the book on which the movie is based-- and no, in real life, Hanssen never waved a gun around, visited O'Neill's home, or saw him in the elevator after his arrest). Hanssen supplied the Soviets with critical information for 15 years-- yet the movie manages to make the FBI look smart for finally figuring it out-- but you can read between the lines. The FBI actually created a fake position for Hanssen and build a phoney office to try to catch him in the act-- and still almost failed. Incidentally, the movie doesn't make it clear but Hanssen was a member of Opus Dei, as was his family (of an Opus Dei church).
CHRIS COOPER, RYAN PHILLIPPE, LAURA LINNEY, CAROLINE DHAVERNAS, GARY COLE, DENNIS HAYSBERT
Exquisite, delicate little film about a busker on the streets of Dublin and the young Czech girl who takes an interest in him. She is married and he still pines for a former girlfriend living in London, but they have music in common, and some scenes of them collaborating are marvelous, and utterly compelling. "Once" resists every temptation to turn this into a crappy Hollywood fantasy. Audiences don't rise up in acclaim, record company executives don't fall over themselves, and egotistical rivals don't even enter the picture. Just about gets everything right, from the forlorn, melancholy of their relationship, to the thrill of jamming in the studio, and the carefully attuned respect of the recording engineer. One of the best films of 2007 so far.
GLEN HANSARD, MARKETA IRGLOVA, ALAISTAIR FOLEY, BILL HODNETT
All of the tension in this movie is sapped away within the first five minutes when you realize how violently average this film intends to be. So you know that Harry Tasker is not going to die, Helen Tasker is not going to commit adultery, and Tom Arnold will provide comic relief, and Tia Carrere will be a villain because she is beautiful and sexy and not married. Unless you really desperately like special effects, you can snooze through the entire movie and not miss a thing. Unless you are curious about the fact that Tasker is allowed to incinerate the bad guys with gasoline-- we can stomach our hero doing that and still love him-- but his wife can't even kiss Simon, because then the audience would regard her as soiled in some way and unworthy of our emotional attachment. Curtis is actually quite funny, as is Tom Arnold when he is allowed to be. Schwarzenegger is wretched even by his own low standards. Given the triviality of the entire film, it might be too much to even ask if it is fundamentally racist in tone.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, JAMIE LEE CURTIS, TOM ARNOLD, BILL PAXTON, TIA CARRER, CHARLTON HESTON, ELIZA DUSHKU, ART MALIK
Nothing works in this misguided concept movie about a man who edits digital records of peoples' memories to create a "rememory" of their lives, for consumption by family and friends. It appears to be understood that he will act as a kind of intermediary for the family, bearing the burden of the knowledge of the loved one's sins so that the family can be spared the tawdry details. There-- I've already made the movie sound a lot more interesting than it ever really is. Too bad such a clever concept was executed so unbelievably poorly. Nothing redeems this complete waste.
ROBIN WILLIAMS, MIRA SORVINO, JAMES CAVIEZEL
This is a decent, well-made film; it's serious and substantial and provocative, if not entirely satisfying. Matt Damon plays Edward Wilson, a composite, largely, of James Angleton and Richard Bissell, two seminal creatures of the CIA. Wilson is a poet in college but after he joins the CIA, marries, and devotes himself to intelligence matters, he becomes a creature of cold war paranoia, almost subhuman, and so completely immersed within his profession that he loses his humanity. Damon plays him with extreme restraint, hold everything back so that eventually this vacuum defines the character. With women as with politics, he chooses according to his strong personal moral beliefs but ends up trapped by the inadequacy of his own perceptions. The man is all duty, and while the film doesn't go so far as to suggest that Wilson is perverse, it does raise questions about what price must be paid ... for what? That's what the film doesn't succeed, and perhaps never attempts, in convincing us: that Wilson is fighting for anything other than the sick pleasure of outwitting his opponents who are all only, merely as duty-bound as he is. There are a lot of good performances in this movie, including a rare recent appearance by Pesci. Hurt, Dullea, Gambon... all give life to their parts.
ROBERT DE NIRO, MATT DAMON, ANGELINA JOLIE, ALEC BALDWIN, TAMMY BLANCHARD, BILLY CRUDUP, KEIR DULLEA, MICHAEL GAMBON, WILLIAM HURT, TIMOTHY HUTTON, JOE PESCI
Uneven but occasionally fresh and funny film about a young woman whose fiance dies in an accident on the eve of her wedding. She moves into a house with three other men and it is obvious that a love interest will develop. But Juliette Lewis, as a woman with a secret from the past, and Kevin Smith, as misfit Sam, bring life to the film, and there is a charming, meditative quality to many of the scenes that lifts this film above chick-flickdom into a charming, lowkey drama.
JULIETTE LEWIS, JENNIVER GARNER, TIMOTHY OLYPHANT, KEVIN SMITH, JOSHUA FRIESEN
Story of Jacob who leads a dissolute life for a time, and breaks up with his girlfriend after sleeping with her best friend. She returns to Denmark and he eventually ends up working in an orphanage in Calcutta. When the orphanage runs out of money, a rich Dane invites him back to Denmark to negotiate a large donation. He discovers that the Dane's wife is his former girlfriend, and other revelations come. It's a bit like a soap opera with substance at times, and none of the major characters are entirely likable, but they are fully developed characters. The biggest surprise is the somewhat tidy ending. It's really about the tension between humanitarian love for strangers and the essentially selfish aspect of romantic love. Jacob strives, through these revelations, to find a balance between the two that he can live with. Superbly acted and well-filmed.
MADS MIKKELSEN, ROLF LASSGARD, SIDSE BABETT KNUDSEN, STINE FISCHER CHRISTENSEN
My first thought is: well, it's not totally bad. It's a classic Hollywood attempt at liberal politics-- all concern and feeling good about feeling bad-- and it has a nice moment in which the link between worthless diamonds and North American attitudes towards engagement rings ("three months salary") is made... but DiCaprio is still the worst prominent actor of this generation and his bad attempt at a South African accents hobbles the film at every turn. And once again, we have a film about Africa that is made palatable to mainstream audiences by presenting Western oppression through the prism of the pricked white pretty-boy Western conscience. The plot is ridiculously improbable at times-- Solomon Vandy's son, who has been kidnapped and programmed by guerrillas, ends up at the same diamond mine his father and Danny Archer end up at-- and the love story between Archer and Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly) is so bereft of any believable emotion that you almost feel like handing out the glycerine for them... Almost every scary headline from Africa is tossed into the mix here and I wonder if a film like this actually does any good-- especially since blood diamonds are really only a small part of the world market, which is controlled by an illegal monopoly in the first place. It won't be hard for DeBeers to join the campaign to keep them off the market -- after all, it won't hurt their prices.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO, JENNIFER CONNELLY, DJIMON HOUNSOU, KAGISO KUYPERS, ARNOLD VOSLOO, MICHAEL SHEEN
Hugely disappointing film version of the broadway musical-- which allegedly is better-- about a black 60's singing group clearly modelled on the Supremes. In fact, rather slavishly modelled on the Supremes. This is not about Motown-- the music is really 80's pop via '90's Broadway and there isn't a single really distinctive tune in the whole lot. Just how shameless is this movie? A keystone of the drama is the way that Mary Wilson, the real-life model for Effie, was pushed out of the Supreme's because she was large and BLACK-black, as opposed to Diana Ross' more acceptable blend. When Beyonce Knowles was signed for the part of Deena, lo and behold, Jennifer Hudson's part had to be scaled back to make room for a pointless subplot so that Knowles would have more screen time commesurate with her "status". And while the movie ridicules Pat Boone-style ripoffs of funky black songs from the 50's, it does exactly the same thing to the Motown sound. But the worst thing about this movie is that the musical material doesn't stand a chance against the memory of real Supreme's hits-- songs I was never particularly fond of but which make the music of Dreamgirls sound pallid and colourless in comparison. And why, in Heaven's name, couldn't Eddie Murphy have ditched the talking mule schtick for his role in this movie?
EDDIE MURPHY, JENNIFER HUDSON, BEYONCE KNOWLES, JAMIE FOXX, DANNY GLOVER, KEITH ROBINSON, ANIKA NONI ROSE
The most over-rated performance of 2006 was Forrest Whitaker's in this unapologetically fictionalized packaging of Idi Amin's reign in Uganda in the 1970's. Whitaker is okay-- but not great. He is lively and loud and funny and dominates the screen, but never brings out that scary intensity you see in documentary footage of the real Amin. The doctor, played by James McAvoy, is a ridiculous construct, the white man's window into Africa, with the fey guilt of having participated in Amin's early reign, and then his desire for "redemption" by "telling his story", as if he was a real person. There is no need for redemption if Garrigan is fictional, as he is. Nor is his affair with Kay Amin anything short of preposterous. Why not let him channel the British, who installed Amin originally and thought he was okay when he led the coup-- he could play good soccer. The producers offer an explanation of why they included a mythic account of Amin having one of his wives killed-- but it's a poor one. They might have well just admitted they hoped to attract a bigger audience.
FOREST WHITAKER, JAMES MCAVOY, KERRY WASHINGTON, GILLIAN ANDERSON, SIMON MCBURNEY, DAVID OYELOWO, ABBY MUKIIBI NKAAGA
Quite probably the worst film by a noteworthy director ever, and one of the most tedious, boring exercises in self-indulgence every backed by a studio. This is the story of Jeliza-Rose whose parents are junkies, whose mother dies one night, whose father hauls her off to the prarie to live in her grandmother's abandoned house, whose father then dies leaving her with a jar of peanut butter and her dolls. Jelize-Rose, played wonderfully by Jodelle Ferland, lives in a fantasy world that isn't quite fantasy-- why? Why doesn't Gilliam go to down with her dreams? And if he's not going to give us a visualization of her fantasies, why not at least make the narrative more interesting? The neighbors, Dell (Janet McTeer) and Dickens ((Brendan Fletcher) are even more depressingly whacked out than her parents and helpfully embalm her father. If there is some allegorical or symbolic value to any of these items, it will have completely escaped the viewer by now who is left to witness akward sexual innuendo between a ten-year-old girl and a demented adult male, who appears to be doing a imitation or parody of Forrest Gump. Not an interesting failure-- just a pure waist of time.
JODELLE FERLAND, JANET MCTEER, BRENDAN FLETCHER, JENNIFER TILLY, JEFF BRIDGES
All you need to do is add the nazi arm-bands and you have a film Goebbels would have been proud of. 300 not only rewrites history-- drastically-- but it rewrites ideology: mindless obedience to the dictates of military discipline and glorified death in the face of overwhelming odds are lovely and wonderful and should be every red-blooded male's lasting wish. The question is, would this film have had an ounce of weight if it hadn't been for the utterly tenuous link to a real, remarkable historical event? If it didn't pretend to be a "true story", would anybody have seen it as anything other than what it really is: comic book, at the intellectual and emotional level of a 12 year old adolescent boy? EVen the allegedly amazing graphics do get tiresome by the end, and with the slightest of nudge, nudge, wink, winks, the incessant proclaimations of lasting glory (why is that movie caricatures seem to know what history books are going to say, when they clearly rarely say what the participants think they are going to say)? Really probably deserves less than 7.5.
GERARD BUTLER, LENA HEADEY, DOMINIC WEST, DAVID WENHAM
Very enjoyable Korean fantasy about a creature living in the Han River who snatches a little girl and disappears. Her family-- sort of like "Little Miss Sunshine" but Korean-- sets out to save her, while addressing their own neurotic failures. The police and the Americans decide to gas the entire city because of an alleged virus carried by the monster, but the political message is secondary to the fun of the creature, a kind of giant swimming lizard who behaves like an animal, and not like a one of those American bears, robots, killer whales or whathaveyou that frequently announce their intent to to create mayhem with a pose and long photogenic roar, so the actors can get maximum mileage out of their expressions of horror.
KANG-HO SONG, HIE-BONG BYEON, HAE-IL PARK, AH-SUNG KO
Absolutely the best movie of 2006, the Departed be damned. Ofelia and her mother are moving to a town somewhere in the Spanish countryside. It\'s nearly the end of the civil war and Ofelia\'s new step-dad is an army officer in charge of mopping up operations. And he is a brute, though Ofelia\'s mother pleads with her to accept him as he is their only hope for a good life. Ofelia instead retreats into a fantasy world-- or is it real-- in which she is a princess-- maybe. A faun demands that she complete certain tasks to prove her worthiness. She bravely undertakes them, and the challenges she confronts parallel her growing awareness of her step-father\'s brutal activities, and the unjust world she has been thrown into. Beautifully filmed and acted, great music, and a story with meat on it: what more could you ask from a film not directed by Martin Scorcese?
IVANA BAQUERO, SERGI LOPEZ, MARIBEL VERDU, DOUG JONES, ALEX ANGULO, MANOLO SOLO, ARIADNA GIL
Carlos is the son of a Republican fighter in the Spanish Civil War. He is shunted off to an orphanage run by leftist sympathizers where he discovers the ghost of a boy named Santi wanders the isolated compound, haunting the orphans. There is an unexploded bomb in the middle of the courtyard. There is a kindly doctor Cesares, who loves poetry, and a woman with a wooden leg, who turns out to be their teacher and headmistress. There is a young thug named Jacinto who knows about something valuabe hidden in the building and wants it badly, and who romances beautiful Conchita while carrying on with the headmistress. It's a rich, dark, violent world, and, like the war that continues in the background of the movie, it is going to end badly. Beautifully filmed, as Del Toro's work usually is, and well-acted if occasionally clumsy and physically unconvincing, as when the boys pull Jaime out of the cistern. There's something very likeable about Del Toro-- maybe that he honestly loves film and loves to entertain, but also wants to tell you something that maybe isn't the most important thing in the world, but wants to be remembered.
EDUARDO NOREIEGA, MARISA PAREDES, FEDERICO LUPPI, FERNANDO TIELVE, INIGO GARCES, IRENE VISEDO, JUNIO VALVERDE
Fine, carefully nuanced film about two elderly sisters living in a coastal hamlet who happen upon a shipwrecked sailor. They nurse him back to health and he fills their lives with charm and life, and the bittersweet inevitability of departure. The ending is not completely satisfying and perhaps improbable, and weakens a script that is already a bit light on substance. Fun to watch Smith and Dench work, and to see a film that doesn't see old women as the object of sexual ridicule.
MAGGIE SMITH, JUDI DENCH, NATASCHA MCELHONE, DANIEL BRUHL, MIRIAM MARGOLYES, DAVID WARNER
Superior thriller about the Zodiac murders in California from 1966-71 (depending on how many murders you ascribe to Zodiac). Based largely on the book by cartoonist Robert Graysmith, who devoutly believes in the guilt of Arthur Leigh Allen, who died before police could complete their investigation of him. Shot is very ordinary, chronological order-- reminds you of just how powerful a strong, literal narrative film could be. Almost every role is filled by a good actor, especially Ruffalo, Downy, and Lynch. Compelling story that never goes cheesey, with the exception of one or two contrived false alarms.
ROBERT DOWNEY, MARK RUFFFALO, ANTHONY EDWARDS, BRIAN COX, JOHN CARROLL LYNCH
Fine film shot from the Japanese point of view of the battle for Iwo Jima, a companion piece to "Flags of Our Fathers". Interesting comparison to 300 in that both armies, Sparta and Japan, are determined to fight to the death on behalf of a greater cause, but Eastwood has the humanity to show at least one soldier who values his life, who craves to be reunited with this wife and daughter, and doesn't totally embrace the culture of death of the Japanese army.
KEN WATANABE, KAZUNARI NINOMIYA, TSUYOSHI IHARA, RYO KASE
Highly regarded in some quarters, and generally well-made, the Prestige is about two magicians, Angier and Border, who build up an intense rivalry in turn of the century London, and even begin sabatoging each other in a struggle for supremecy. Borden is working class, and a bit of a purist: the trick itself is the thing. Angier is more of a show man-- the audience will believe what it wants to have scene. It is really unfortunate that the film doesn't follow through with this polarity consistently: eventually, Angier wants his tricks to not only look better-- but really be better. Performances are pretty good, except for when Christian Bale woefully enters his method-acting mode, which is defined as mumbling and whispering your lines incoherently so the audience thinks that what you're saying is important, and forcing the actors around you to sound silly when they speak in a normal, audible tone of voice. Fortunately, Michael still thinks he can act, and breathless Scarlett Johansson knows how to squeeze into those period constumes, and Bowie is delightful as Nikola Tesla, so the film isn't a total waste. In fact, it's enjoyable-- it just could have been a lot better.
MICHAEL CAINE, CHRISTIAN BALE, HUGH JACKMAN, PIPER PERABO, REBECCA HALL, SCARLETT JOHANSSON
Harmless, uninflected, sentimental cliche-ridden.... Max Skinner (Crowe) has to choose between the exciting, satisfying life as a high-stakes stock trader, or that boring, horribly awful life as a wine grower in France, with a beautiful, young sexy woman and a dreamy old house with a pool. The suspense will kill you.
RUSSELL CROWE, ALBERT FINNEY, MARION COTILLARD
Serviceable but rarely inspiring, and inflicted with gratuitous arty fast cuts and random clips of various related events and persons.... just kind of a mess, of which it is hard to determine if Stone really believed his approach to be enlightening or just flashy. Hopkins is not bad; Joan Allen is pretty good. Almost everyone else is moderately interesting-- celebrity actors playing famous politicians.
ANTHONY HOPKINS, JOAN ALLEN, POWERS BOOTHE, ED HARRIS, BOB HOSKINS, E.G. MARSHALL, PAUL SORVINO, MARY STEENBURGEN, JAMES WOODS, BRIAN BEDFORD, FYVUSH FINKEL
The legendary cinematic disaster, the Titanic of film history, it turns out, is not all bad. There are some exquisitely beautiful scenes, and the remarkable attention to detail can, at times, be exhilirating, and make you realize, with the dominance of 3d computer graphics, you may never see the likes of these crowds scenes again, nor the abusive animal fights, the falling horses. That said, the script is unbelievably lame and the dialogue stilted, clumsy, and embarrassing. Worth seeing? Probably not, unless you're curious about the biggest career crash ever, or the historical events upon whcih the movie is based.
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, JOHN HURT, SAM WATERSON, ISABELLE HUPPERT, JOSEPH COTTEN, JEFF BRIDGES, RONNIE HAWKINS, RICHARD MASUR
Bridge to Terabithia is a veritable textbook of how Disney turns stories into corporate products, while striving mightily to present an image of substance and wholesomeness. Jess is a misfit at school, picked on by bullies, marginalized by his own family, and demeaned by his no-nonsense dad. Of course, he has an artistic aptitude-- he draws well, though nothing the movie shows us looks convincingly like the work of a talented 10 year old. Then a new girl moves next door-- though he only becomes aware of her when she shows up at school. This kind of odd mechanism is typical of how schematic the film is: the director and writer wanted to place that first meeting in a classroom, so the story is akwardly twisted to accommodate that sequence. It's not unbelievable-- just clumsy and insulting to the viewer's intelligence. So is the way Leslie tries so hard to ingratiate herself with Jesse-- as if 10-year-olds didn't have any dread of rejection or embarrassment. Again, it's not that she is so unbelievable-- it's just that her actions are so transparently manipulated to move the plot in the direction dictated by the scheme, rather than in any kind of honest exploration of character. AnnaSophia Robb is mesmerizingly beautiful-- she's actually 13 and looks it when she's supposed to be 10-- but her character is kept antiseptic and correct and her sense of mischief is confined to the kind of behaviours adults actually find pretty adorable, which is odd, because she is supposed to connect with Jesse because she is also an outsider, and she is also rejected by her classmates. She is an atheist and Jesse-- we are shocked to learn-- is from a Christian family, and his little sister actually tells Leslie she is doomed to burn in hell. The religion is safely compartmentalized-- we are shocked when Jess announces he is going to church on Sunday. And it is another indication of how schematic the movie is that the viewer immediately realizes that church doesn't usually take all day so he would still have time to play with Leslie at their fort. Again, we are expected to accept what the movie gives us on a platter and not ruminate around for the implications of the what the characters do or say. I had a relationship like this when I was that age and speaking from experience, I really think Bridge doesn't get it. It doesn't pick up on the wittiness of kids that age, or the love of mockery and parody, and the sensitivity to minor slights. The kids virtually never touch each other and AnnaSophia behaves with considerably more lady-like decorum than any ten-year-olds that I ever knew.
JOSH HUTCHERSON, ANNASOPHIA ROBB, ZOOEY DESCHANEL, ROBERT PATRICK, BAILEE MADISON, KATRINA CERIO
Entertaining-- at least at first--Woody Allenesque comedy about two couples struggling in the mid-terms of their relationships. Tom and Rebecca seem to have everything they want, including two kids, but Tom wants more sex and Rebecca does not, and she suspects he might be getting some on the side. Elaine, in the meantime, wants to get married and have kids, but Tobey is a rather insensitive clod who doesn't know when or who to move. She gives him the heave-ho and he spends most of the second half of the film trying to conince her to take him back. Too bad the film started taking itself too seriously near the end, and became bizarrely determined to deliver a happy ending. Made "Love, Actually" look deep. But, for a movie that failed in the end, it has more than a few original, spiteful moments of glee, as when Rebecca provides her husband with play-by-play from a porn video, or or when Dante strokes his moustache after encountering Tobey trying to get into the apartment building to see Elaine.
JULIANNE MOORE, DAVID DUCHOVNY, BILLY CRUDUP, MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL, GARRY SHANDLING, JAMES LEGROS, EVA MENDES
Unremarkable film about an aging Lesbian school teacher who sets her sights on a young art teacher and fortuitously discovers she is having an affair with a young student. Echoes of "History Boys", except that, in this instance, the illicit relationship is scene to be sinister rather than liberating... or is it? The odd thing, is that the boy isn't really exploited by the teacher-- Sheba Hart is curiously passive in this relationship, resisting, and then moved by compassion. It's hard to jive this with the idea of abuse, because, I think, the relationship shown is dishonest. She is the authority figure-- there has to be a moment where she allows that barrier to fall, but I suspect the film wants us to think of her more as victim. And yet no one bother to really convince us that she was a neglected wife, as her husband seems to admit to later.
CATE BLANCHETT, JUDI DENCH, BILL NIGHY, ANDREW SIMPSON, TOM GEORGESON
Remarkable exploration of body image through interviews and exposure of six unique individuals, including a man with no legs, and a supermodel, and a woman dying of cancer. They talk about their bodies, their lives, their social relationships, and in so doing confront and challenge the viewer's assumptions about what is "normal" or beautiful. Moving and, at times, amazing.
This had all the hallmarks of a runaway potboiler: well-known stars, controversial subject, big Hollywood budget-- but this is a surprisingly well-written story about a substantive issue, the corruption of the jury system by consults and experts who try to preselect the kind of jury that will give them a favorable verdict. Dustin Hoffman is the rumpled lawyer who has taken on the case of a woman whose husband was killed by a disturbed colleague, a broker, who purchased a semi-automatic weapon on the black market. She is suing the gun manufacturer for complicity, an angle which, in real life, has never yet been successfully pursued in the U.S. (and which, in some states, the NRA has succeeded in extinquishing through legislation exempting gun manufacturers from civil law suits for negligence). Bruce Davison is the oppostion, part of an expensive team that includes jury consultant, Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman). Fitch tries to guarrantee his client that the jury will absolve the gun manufacturer, but there is wild-card in the deck: Nicholas Easter, an unprepossessing young man who succeeds in getting on the jury, displays a suspiciously astute ability to manipulate events. Turns out there is a plot afoot to control the outcome, but it is a tribute to the makers of the film that the twist is not where we think it is. Well acted and well-written. The legendary Hackman-Hoffman confrontation is a let down, but the supporting cast is strong, especially Bruce McGill as the judge, and Rachel Weisz as Marlee.
GENE HACKMAN, DUSTIN HOFFMAN, RACHEL WEISZ, JOHN CUSACK, BRUCE DAVISON, JEREMY PIVEN, JENNIFER BEALS
Somewhat deliberate and occasionally sophomoric discourse on "the right to die", based on the real-life case of Ramon Sampedro, who fought for this right for 30 years. He recruits a lawyer, Julia (Belen Rueda), to take his fight to court. Most of his family and close friends, naturally, are ambivalent about his wishes.
JAVIER BARDEM, BELEN RUEDA, LOLA DUENAS, MABEL RIVERA
Starring the amazing Louise Brooks, one of the most compelling figures of the silent era, and certainly one of the most alluring, as a the femme fatale who seduces a doctor, and his son, into ruin. Pictorially splendid, superbly acted and filmed. The look on Brook's face when the son and the father's fiance discover her with the doctor in her arms-- amazing.
LOUISE BROOKS, FRITZ KORTNER, FRANCIS LEDERER, CARL GOETZ
About as ridiculous as it sounds. This film tried to cash in on it's B-picture status by playing itself up as a kind of hokey comic thriller, but it wasn't quite that funny, nor really suspenseful, nor even all that entertaining. Breathlessly implausible, but doesn't make it fun.
SAMUEL JACKSON, JULIANNA MARGUILIES, RACHEL BLANCHARD, NATHAN PHILLIPS
Intriguing rotoscoped drama about an undercover narcotics agent named Bob Arctor, in the future, who begins to doubt his identity, and starts wondering if he is actually a narcotics user impersonating a cop. His confusion becomes even more acute when his superior, who doesn't know his real identity, orders him to investigate himself, as a possible drug dealer. Whenver Arctor interacts with his police handlers, he wears a "scramble suit" that protects his identity. Meanwhile, his paranoid drug-user friends are descending into their own webs of insecurity and paranoia. Donna Hawthorne is Arctor's girl, but she doesn't want to be touched. James Barris develops sophisticated theories of global conspiracies. And Charles just completely loses it. Not always coherent or focused, but always interesting, and one of a handful of really original films in the last few years.
WOODY HARRELSON, KEANU REEVES, ROBERT DOWNEY, RORY COCHRANE, WINONA RYDER
Doug Block discovered that his mother had a secret life, in her letters and diaries, and that his parents' marriage may not have been what he and his sisters had always assumed it was. As he peels away layer after layer, from interviews with his father, and his mothers letters and diaries, he reveals a complex relationship that resonates in ways he did not expect, with his own marriage, and his own experience of his family. His parents are both articulate and relatively open on film. Their friends and children also provide insightful commentary. He has done us all a service by offering a rare glimpse at a marriage that was faulted but functional-- and perhaps he reveals more about the compromises that make up our lives than he ever intended. A moving, quietly powerful film.
DOUG BLOCK
From the Pulitzer Prize winning musical about idealistic Bohemians in the East Village and their struggles to make a living, pay the rent, and find love, and cope with AIDS, in the 80's (?). Gritty and sometimes bitter, but always intriguing and has the feel of authentic disappointment and disillusionment-- in a redemptive, anguished way.
ANTHONY RAPP, ADAM PASCAL, ROSARIO DAWSON, JESSE MARTIN, WILSON JERMAIN HEREDIA, TRACIE THOMS, TAYE DIGGS
The producers thought they had a pretty good small film, with Chris Farley as the Cable Guy, until someone showed the script to Jim Carrey. Carrey got $20 million to do the picture, and he hijacked it, and any charm or wit in the original was lost to his utterly self-centred performance. If this is what Carrey fans want to pay to see, by all means. For the rest of us, this was an interminably dour and sour film that didn't work on any level.
JIM CARREY, MATTHEW BRODERICK, LESLIE MANN, JACK BLACK, GEORGE SEGAL, BEN STILLER, JANEANE GAROFALO
I feel a strong urge to give this film the lowest possible rating, but it's not really totally worthless. The animation is actually fun to watch, and there are some clever special effects and occasional snatches of interesting dialogue. The rest of the movie consists of a continuous sequence of insults to the intelligence of children who, I can only presume the film-makers presumed, cannot process logic, motivation, or subtlety. This is the kind of film in which every development in the narrative is intended to provide the film-makers with another opportunity to make a loud, scary noise, spin the virtual camera around dizzyingly, or introduce another stereo-type, including, offensively, a black cop who seems to be an echo of "stepinfectchit". Technique is employed for the sake of technique, there's no character development to speak of, and the animation itself is actually pretty mechanical and boring. Think about this: you are not going to see a sudden trend towards films with monster buildngs. The fundamental concept of the movie is very thin. When they try to flesh it out, by making the house into the corporeal expression of Constance, Nebbercracker's gigantic wife, they still have to find a way to have a big explosion at the end, so they tack on some weird developments about Nebbercracker being enslaved by his wife the house, rather than in love with the old hulk. I didn't know this but, in order to maintain a PG rating, the film also must resurrect all of the creatures who were "killed" by the house during filming. This is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of. Towards the end of the film, as the children try to kill the house with dynamite, I told myself that, given the complete lack of inventiveness or originality, they are never going to let the girl be the one to blow up the house.... they didn't. Was that because even young children expect to see the boy committing the heroic act?
STEVE BUSCEMI, MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL, SAM LERNER, MITCHEL MUSSO, JASON LEE, CATHARINE O'HARA, FRED WILLARD
Superbly written drama about the tension that develops in a group of friends when three of the couples are rich and the one, single woman who is part of the group (Aniston) is not. Christine and David are writers who work together at home. While writing, they sometimes begin to argue, and it can be difficult to sort out which is which. They decide to build an ugly addition to their home that will block their neighbor's view of the ocean. Richard and Franny get along pretty well, make good money (she is a home-maker and he does something that makes him a lot of cash: they are, unexpectedly, happy together-- one of the movies' most original ideas), and have frequent sex. Jane has stopped washing her hair and gripes about everything, while her husband is frequently mistaken for gay, by both men and women, including women who know him well, Christine and Franny. Jane also delivers one of the most poignant lines of the film: what pisses her off is that there is no more waiting to see what it will be like. But Olivia (Aniston) is the one who points out that the lavish dinner they are attending to raise money for ALS is a waste of the cash needed for the cause. These people are narcissitic and self-absorbed, but this is not a cruel portrait. They just don't seem aware, anymore, of how their wealth and privilege isolates them. Beautifully written and filmed.
JENNIFER ANISTON, CATHARINE KEENER, JASON ISAACS, JOAN CUSACK, GREG GERMANN, SIMON MCBURNEY, FRANCES MCDORMAND, TIMM SHARP
I'm not sure what to make of this film. On the one hand, there is clearly a courageous attempt to deal realistically with a child molestor (a man named Ronnie who is accused of having exposed himself) and his impact on the community he resides in after release from prison. On the other hand, the two adulterous adults in the movie seemed to pay for their crime, as in an old-style crime-drama from the 1950's. They cannot be allowed to end up together, happy and prosperous, especially since both have children with their faulted mates. Should this film be paired with L'Enfant?-- also about adults that have not yet learned the lessons that make them adults, capable of love, or even of seeking something that doesn't benefit themselves? The "children" learn through suffering, and, in this case, it seems arbitrary and random, yet is positioned in the narrative as if it were a consequence of the bad choices of the adults. So Sarah and Brad meet in the suburban park where they take their young children play during the day. Both have successful spouses who, of course, are somewhat unfeeling and insensitive. The neighborhood womem fantasize about Brad but don't have the guts to actually talk to him-- but Sarah does, and she and Brad discover they like each other. They start an affair. Things role to a crisis-- and then that arbitrary event comes along to end things. As in Field's other recent film, "In The Bedroom", and arbitrary act of violence also intrudes, and in both films you wonder why. Well acted, generally well-written and filmed, but not totally satisfying.
KATE WINSLETT, PATRICK WATSON, JENNIFER CONNELLY, GREGG EDELMAN, SADIE GOLDSTEIN, NOAH EMMERICH, JACKIE EARLE HALEY, PHYLLIS SOMERVILLE
This is the biggie-sized Hollywood version of "The Conversation", which might have been a much better film had the makers indicated even the slightest regard for human inefficiency or incompetence than it did. Will Smith plays Robert Clayton Dean, a lawyer (of course) who inadvertently comes into possession of an incriminating video tape, which just happens to show the murder of a senator (Robards) who was opposed to a new piece of legislation designed to empower the NSA to monitor all phone calls and other communications in the U.S. That's an extraordinarily prescient plot for a movie made in 1998-- it describes what did in fact happen under Bush. But this hodgepodge and mishmash of plot and issues becomes ridiculous at least five or six times, and several of the best moments are stolen from "Marathon Man" or the original "Conversation". The bad guys show an amazing ability to tap into surveillance cameras in stores within seconds, move satellites through space at will, instantaneously, receive live images within seconds, acquire audio from remote microphones competing with traffic, etc., etc., etc. And then, after all that effort to spy on Dean without being detected-- suddenly decide to burst into his hotel room instead. This movie is all chase. It's slick and fast-paced and Gene Hackman is fun-- but it ultimately can't even keep it's own issue straight: does it even know that it's ironic that the Senator's murder was captured on a hidden camera? Did anyone at anytime give any thought to the fact that the "fun" in watching this movie derives from the same voyeuristic impulse that it condemns? Is there any insight into the corrosive nature of spying and surveillance?
GENE HACKMAN, WILL SMITH, BARRY PEPPER, JON VOIGHT, LISA BONET, REGINA KING
Tightly and astutely directed fantasy about a baby demon-- or not-- brought up to fight for good, who becomes the subject of a revived Rasputin's plot to unleash the forces of hell on earth... yeah, does sound like a comic book. And it is a comic book, but directed with gusto and wittiness by Gullermo del Toro, and acted by Ron Perlman-- it's actually a very serviceable film that kind of sits in its own niche of intelligent schlock. It just doesn't feel cheap or contrived as you're watching. It doesn't even get unbearably fey or coy, as the Terminator series could at times. Was there a homage to Kubrick in here? When Professor Bruttenholm is working in his study, we hear "We'll Meet Again". There were more than a few other "tributes".
RON PERLMAN, DOUG JONES, JOHN HURT, SELMA BLAIR, RUPERT EVANS, KAREL RODEN, JEFFREY TAMBOR, LADISLAV BERAN, BIDDY HODSON, BRIAN STEELE
Tight, well-crafted vampire-thriller about a heroic vampire fighter named Blade who must work with a commando unit of vampires to take on a new breed of mutations who attack both humans and the undead. Why does this work, as a thriller? I'm not sure. The scenes move along quickly, and the characters are economically defined, and played with a certain verve and commitment. There is a gruesome amount of blood-letting and spurting, and the odd moment of levity. There is also a kind of beauty to the sets and lighting-- never quite feels as silly as you might think. Certainly owes something to "Buffy" in its measured tone, the "lived-in" feel of the characters.
WESLEY SNIPES, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, LEONOR VARELA, RON PERLMAN, NORMAN REEDUS, LUKE GROSS
We've seen this formula so many times, and what happens when a leading actor is a producer on a film-- all the bad signs were there. But "Pursuit of Happyness" is unexpectedly vital and fresh, mainly due to a sense of restraint and a feeling of authenticity (it is based on a true story, of couse, which is usually Hollywood Code for preposterous and dishonest). Will Smith is Chris Gardner, a medical equipment salesman whose life is not going well. His wife works two shifts, he can barely sell any machines, and his child's daycare doesn't seem to be too concerned about educational activities (the kids watch a lot of tv). After seeing a group of happy stock brokers emerge from a building, he applies for an internship and unexpectedly is given a chance-- after giving an unusually creative explanation for why he showed up for the interview in cover-alls with paint smeared in his hair. He also finds out the position is unpaid for six months, after which only one of the twenty will be offered a full-time position. He and his son Christopher lose their apartment and car and struggle to find a place to sleep and money for food as Chris strives to succeed in his internship. His colleagues are shown as neither grasping unfeeling capitalists, nor improbably compassionate cheer-leaders. He gets no breaks at all. Nor does he treat his son with that unrealistic solicitousness we so often see in movies. Really a surprising film. Note: Gardner actually did receive $1,000 a month "intern pay" from Dean Witter during the period of the film. He was also allowed to stay in the shelter for women and children because a minister, Rev. Cecil Willians, took a liking to him. And Gardner did not insist on custody of his son as shown in the movie: his girlfriend showed up one day and announced she couldn't take care of him anymore. The son, Chris junior, was actually a toddler-- not the five-year-old portrayed in the film by Smith's real-life son. He later had a daughter-- no details of her mother are given.
WILL SMITH, JADEN SMITH, THANDIE NEWTON, BRIAN HOWE, DAN CASTELLANETA, TAKAYO FISCHER
Utterly predictable "Fatal Attraction" retread with Aniston as the femme fatale and Clive Owens as the hapless victim. The usual cliche-ridden associations here: rock music when the couple think of committing adulter, rap when it turns violent, the black dude working in a brokerage who has connections to the street, and the sinister extortionist who intrudes on the home charming the wife and threatening the daughter while pretending to be a business association. Mildly interesting.
MELISSA GEORGE, JENNIFER ANISTON, CLIVE OWEN, VINCENT CASSEL, AMY TIMLIN
Likable but very uneven adaption of the Alan Bennett play about a group of school boys in Sheffield trying to get into Oxford with the help of an indulgent, gay, lovable old wreck of a teacher, and a new, more pragmatic instructor who who doesn't believe in knowledge for it's own sake. Unfortunately, takes a turn near the end, into a propaganda piece for a rather dubious argument that exploitive gay teacher-student relationships can be healthy and fun for all concerned. The crash conclusion can't quite obviate the memorable portrait of a genuinely likeable character, the teacher, Hector, and his unconventional methods. This is what part of "Dead Poets Society" would have been like if it had had any guts.
RICHARD GRIFFITHS, FRANCES DE LA TOUR, STEPHEN CAMPBE MOORE, SAMUEL BARNETT, DOMINIC COOPER, JAMES CORDEN, JAIME PARKER, CLIVE MERRISON
Surprisingly engrossing study of CB radio and it's passionate users, their "handles"-- forming false identities-- and real personalities, loves and losses, in a rather free-wheeling, loosely assembled pastiche. The CB conceit is actually relatively integrated into the story-- characters interact in that sporadic, loose-jointed way that people connect with their radios, with interruptions, brief, intense flurries of words and sounds, and then disconnects. Paul Le Mat plays "Spider", who decides to purify the airwaves by knocking off abusers with a baseball bat, while taking care of his drunken father who keeps threatening to kill the family dog, and fighting with his brother who feels excluded from the family. Some decent actors at the starts of their careers here, including Ed Begley Jr. and Candy Clark, and Le Mat and Bruce McGill.
BRUCE MCGILL, CANDY CLARK, PAUL LE MAT, ROBERTS BLOSSOM, CHARLES NAPIER, ED BEGLEY JR., MICHAEL ROTHMAN
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