Beowulf: The IMAX Experience (2007, Robert Zemeckis)

I don't know about you folks, but I thought this was pretty awesome. Admittedly, a lot of it has to do with the spectacle, especially when you catch it with all of the 3D IMAX trappings. But while I'm a little uneasy judging this movie by a different technological yardstick than most movies which I'm content to see in a conventional theatre or on DVD, the truth is that Zemeckis pretty made this for IMAX, and it uses the format so well that I find the idea of watching this in any other format kind of unappealing. But sweet jeebus is this thing beautiful just to look at- the humanoid character designs are still a bit off (though they're certainly a vast improvement over The Polar Express) but the settings and especially the monsters are sort of breathtaking. But beyond the eye-candy aspect of Beowulf, I also enjoyed how screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary dove into the ideologies of story's setting- namely, a pagan kingdom on the verge of being taken over by Christianity. The hedonism and dick-measuring, ¿quien es mas macho? monologues that the heroes freely indulge in during the early scenes later give way to a more measured, morally-questioning mentality as Christianity takes over. Beowulf himself even admits that this is happening as he approaches middle age, remarking that people often seem to be more interested in being martyrs than heroes. Somewhat miraculously, the film is fairly consistent in this regard- compare to the muddled ideologies of 300, which claimed to advocate freedom for all while glorifying a proto-fascist culture. Some of the unironic testosterone-spouting (and Austin Powers-style genital-covering in the Beowulf vs. Grendel fight) comes off as silly, but while I admit that I laughed at these moments I like to think that I was laughing WITH the movie. In his best films, Zemeckis has taken effects-heavy projects and somehow made them lots of fun- harder than it sounds, I'm guessing- and he does the same with Beowulf. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007, Sidney Lumet)

OK dudes, I don't get it. What are you seeing in this movie that gets you all excited? Maybe it was the incestuous crime story and the Carter Burwell score, but for at least the final hour of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead I kept flashing back to Fargo, a movie that does a story like this RIGHT. A lot of it comes down to directorial style, or in Lumet's case a lack thereof- in Fargo, everything was in the service of a specific Coen brothers worldview, albeit one that's darker than usual. By contrast, Lumet has never been one to impose himself too heavily on a film, which often means that Lumet's work succeeds or fails based on two things- script and performances. Sadly, the script here comes across less as a finished, ready-to-film work than a first draft waiting to be ironed out by a John Sayles special spit'n'polish. As a result, the snazzy chronology doesn't work as well as it should, since too often it feels like if the story was told in a straightforward manner the reviews would probably be mediocre instead of the cavalcade of raves I've read thusfar. In addition, the characterizations are for the most part sketchy, which means that the talented cast has to shoulder the burden of answering our question, "who are these people?" Alas, few of them do. The women come off worst- Rosemary Harris has almost nothing to do, Amy Ryan doesn't have a single significant line of dialogue that doesn't revolve around wheedling ex-husband Ethan Hawke for money he doesn't have, and Marisa Tomei (who is so hot here, BTW) ends up playing the unsatisfied wife role. Even actors in more significant roles tend to go overboard on the tics- Hawke appears to be on constant anxiety mode, while the usually-dependable Albert Finney screws up his face and stumbles around like he's drunk on grief. There are two exceptions. Philip Seymour Hoffman actually makes the lead role work, but seeing as how he's playing an amoral sucker who gets himself in over his head and isn't expected to endear himself to the audience, some of that is just that he was the right guy for the job. But best of all is Michael Shannon, last seen in William Friedkin's Bug, who displays the same unhinged intensity here in a mere two scenes that cut through the actorly bullshit and chronological dicking around in a way that made me briefly sit up and pay full attention. But these two aside, I was left with thinking, in the words of Matt Damon, "qui gives a shit?" And more importantly, why should I? Is it a case of Imminent Death Syndrome? Because that would place us all in an awkward position.

And remember kids, crime doesn't pay.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Control (2007, Anton Corbijn)

There's very little a filmmaker can do to transcend formula, once he's committed himself to a fairly straightforward retelling of a famous musician's life. Which is another way of saying that Corbijn can't quite break out of the musical biopic template with his account of the rise and fall of Joy Division's Ian Curtis, although it's to his credit that I thought he might after a while. For most of the film, I was struck by how Corbijn transcended the clichés largely through directorial choices. There are many bleak offerings in the genre, but none so consistently downbeat as this. The black and white 'scope (mmmmmmmmm... b/w 'scope) goes a long way, removing a lot of the happiness from the images, but I also appreciated that for over an hour, Corbijn mostly sticks to diagetic music, either from the band's performances or from the radio. In doing this, he successfully avoids "Walk the Line" style pitfalls, in which the songs the characters sing parallel their lives or vice versa. Sadly, this doesn't last- once Debbie finds out Ian's been cheating, Corbijn holds on her while "Love Will Tear Us Apart" plays on the soundtrack. Pity, really- I'd though Corbijn might've known better. Nonetheless, well worth seeing, with Morton awesome as usual and Sam Riley uncannily embodying Riley throughout the film. And it's hard to argue with the songs themselves, innit? Rating: 6 out of 10.

No Country For Old Men (2007, Coen brothers)

I'll do my damnedest not to spoil this for everybody, but sweet mother of tears is this thing BLEAK. It doesn't start out that way- for most of its running time, Country is a superior crime thriller, with Lewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) being pursued by "ultimate badass" killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem, scary as fuck), while Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) follows at a distance and tries to make sense of it all. Make no mistake about it, these scenes become almost painfully suspenseful, not least for the way many of them elide dialogue almost entirely. But about twenty minutes before the end (I'll tread lightly), the film undergoes a shift in gears as profound and fascinating as anything I've seen onscreen since Lars cued up the Bowie at the end of Dogville. Rather than showing us the showdown the story has been working up to, the Coens back away and let us see the aftermath through the eyes of Sheriff Bell. At that point, it becomes fairly clear that Chigurh is meant to be something beyond a simple psychopath, perhaps even the very embodiment of Evil (strange then, how specific Bardem makes him, all the more chilling for the small touches he brings). It's here that Bell's presence in the story comes into focus, as a witness to the encroachment of evil into the world he thought he knew, not only in the form of Chigurh, but also the teenage boy he speaks of at the beginning, the California senior-citizen killers, and so on. "You can't stop WHAT's coming," as a character says, since after all he's talking more than just a human being. The end of No Country is almost bereft of hope, imagining a future in which Evil becomes a tangible part of everyone's lives, taking their souls as a matter of principle, never so sinister as when offering people a slight glimmer of hope that they'll make it out alive. You can fight, you can run, or you can bury your head in the sand, or you can accept that evil is coming for you- in the end, it won't make a lick of difference. But at the same time, it's too simple to chalk it up to a "fear the future" mindset- Evil has always been around, says the film, and the only reason Sheriff Bell is around to fear its coming is because it hasn't yet come for him. At the screening I attended, the crowd seemed genuinely disturbed and kind of annoyed by the film, due in no small part by its refusal to play nice. But for those of us who are actually willing to listen to what the Coens are actually saying, No Country For Old Men is a masterpiece. Rating: 10 out of 10.

American Gangster (2007, Ridley Scott)

Every movie has its own optimal duration, and in the best cases the movie that makes it to the screen is exactly as long as it needs to be. Both Satantango and The Heart of the World are sort of unimaginable at any length besides the ones they so fortunately ended up with. American Gangster isn't one of those cases. At a shade over 2 1/2 hours, it's long enough to announce that it means to be taken seriously, but not long enough to really delve into the details it needed to show us. I can imagine this story playing out at 100 minutes as a tense, gritty crime story, or at 3 1/2 to 4 hours, or even at miniseries length, getting down to the nitty gritty of the case. But the rule here is to judge the movie on the screen, and in that respect it's pretty good- a thoroughly professional job, but hardly revelatory. Washington gets the showier of the two principal roles, and while he's fine in the role, it's really not much of a stretch for him, even when he's lighting a man on fire and then shooting him. He's all steely intensity here, occasionally allowing a wide smile to play across his face for any number of reasons, but concentrating much of his performance into his darting, ever-calculating eyes. However, unlike most reviews so far, I was actually more interested in Russell Crowe's storyline, especially in the way his dogged band of do-gooder drug dicks solved the case not necessarily by being smarter or craftier than the crooks, but by catching lucky breaks and flying by the seats of their pants (look at the way one of his team, played by RZA, improvises during a bust). Also, Josh Brolin continues to surprise- he was one of the few bright spots of Planet Terror, and by all accounts he's great in No Country for Old Men. So nice to see that there are still some man's man actors around, eh? Rating: 6 out of 10.

Lights in the Dusk (2006, Aki Kaurismäki)

I would be tempted to call this “minor Kaurismäki” but for the fact that that sounds almost redundant. The “minor-ness” Kaurismäki’s work in general is the source of much of its charm- it’s not so much love-it-or-hate-it as it is be-on-his-wavelength-or-just-shrug-him-off. His work is fascinating in its low-key way, and even his best movies (like his masterpiece Drifting Clouds) aren’t great due do their ambition but rather because the usual Kaurismäki ingredients have combined to make something particularly tasty. Lights in the Dusk, by comparison, is minor even by Kaurismäki standards, possessing most of his trademarks- sad-faced put-upon heroes, offscreen violence, jukebox classics, and the like. Plus it’s gorgeous in the usual Timo Salminen way (although I always imagine Aki’s lighting directions sounding like “OK Timo, let’s light this scene like we did on The Match Factory Girl, OK?”). But I missed the other stuff that distinguishes his best work from the rest. For one thing, where is his usual stock company? The film’s hero seems too young and unformed to have arrived at that patented Kaurismäki worldview. Meanwhile, the great Kati Outinen is relegated to a bit part, and guys like Sakari Kuosmanen and Markku Peltola are nowhere to be found. In addition, the inspired offhands bits of business are relatively sparse. The hero’s response to the question “what was [prison] like?” is a strong contender for the year’s best line, but nothing else quite equals the scene in Juha where a gunshot rings out and none of the extras seem to notice (since it’s a silent movie and all), or the drinking scenes in Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana. Also, I miss Matti Pellonpää. Just wanted to get that out there. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Lars and the Real Girl (2007, Dan Gillespie)

Sure-footed execution triumphs over dicey subject matter in Lars and the Real Girl, a surprisingly affecting indie about a young man, his realistic sex-doll girlfriend, and the community that rallies around them. It's important that the film takes place in a small town- this is a close-knit community that protects its own, and it's inconceivable that the story would play the same way in a big city. I think the tone is key here, since while it's pitched as a light comedy, it never becomes smutty and rarely dabbles in irony, which makes the occasional points where it does stick out all the more (like the throwaway joke where we find out that "Bianca" has gotten elected to public office). I believe these two points go hand in hand- the portrayal of a small town is less Napoleon Dynamite than All the Real Girls, and it can't be accidental that Gillespie cast two of the film's stars, Patricia Clarkson and Paul Schneider, in significant roles here. Gillespie also takes the central premise seriously, which becomes clear in the directing choices he makes throughout the film, shooting Bianca as a flesh-and-blood character, even giving her the occasional reaction shot. But that the laughs the film gets are almost all of the "good" variety is as much as tribute to the actors, beginning with Ryan Gosling as Lars. Gosling doesn't play Lars as crazy or a yokel, but as a gentle, painfully withdrawn young man who latches on to his delusion. Surprisingly, he doesn't use Bianca for sex, but role-plays with her much the same way a child does with a favorite doll or stuffed animal, projecting his own somewhat arrested ideas of what it means to be a boyfriend and to care for/about a woman. And the supporting cast- Clarkson, Schneider, Emily Mortimer, Kelli Garner- is just as assured, putting over a storyline that might seem simultaneously icky and quirky and making it surprisingly affecting. There were times when I had a hard time buying how completely the town embraced Lars and Bianca, but the film works surprisingly well, which under the circumstances was no mean feat. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Things We Lost in the Fire (2007, Susanne Bier)

Yeesh, would someone please cheer Susanne Bier up already? A veteran of the Dogma 95 movement, Bier has become to grief what Von Trier once was to martyrdom, although without his experimental tendencies or bad-little-boy sense of humor. With her American debut, Bier examines the fallout from the death of Brian (David Duchovny), in particular the effect it has on his wife Audrey (Halle Berry) and his heroin-addicted best friend Jerry (Benicio Del Toro). It would be affecting stuff if it didn't feel so programmatic- Audrey resents Jerry but has him move in, he stops taking drugs, he endears himself to her kids, she kicks him out, he falls off the wagon, she rescues him, and so on. In addition, Bier overdoes the extreme-closeups- eyes, hands, ears, mouths, and the like. These shots become too insistent in a story that's already plenty melodramatic. The same might be said of Berry's performance, which is pretty good in her lower-key moments but descends into histrionics whenever the grief hits her. Much better is Del Toro, who is as good here as he's been in anything since Traffic. There's a scene where Jerry tries to kiss Audrey, perhaps out of gratitude, but she recoils, and Del Toro throws in a small gesture in which he places two fingers over his lips. It's an inspired touch, and I don't doubt that it was Del Toro's idea. I also liked his scenes with John Carroll Lynch, as a neighbor and friend of Audrey's who's facing his own private hell, a loveless marriage. Del Toro is one of Hollywood's best and most inspired performers, but gets precious few chances to show it, although I'm grateful that he hasn't taken to making schlock like Nicolas Cage, a similarly inspired actor who too often spins his wheels. Del Toro never steps wrong here, and any flaws this movie has are counterbalanced by his performance. Rating: 5 out of 10.

Dan in Real Life (2007, Peter Hedges)

I don't know what it is, but I sort of balked at this when I saw how ridiculously happy this extended family was. To me, the portrait of a resolutely upper-class family that gets together at grandma and grandpa's fashionably rustic beach house and plays charades and has boys-vs.-girls crosswords competitions and runs a family talent show sort of makes me balk. It's not that I doubt families this happy exist- more that I can't help but shake the feeling that Hedges makes everything feel so warm and friendly so he won't complicate the main storyline. I mean, come on- there's not even really a scene of someone making derogatory remarks behind someone else's back, and no matter how happy a family is, there's ALWAYS bound to be some of that. But I think this is emblematic of something I resist in both of the films Hedges has directed to date- a tendency to freeze out the messy background stuff, the better to focus on the often contrived setups. Dan in Real Life isn't as annoyingly contrived as Pieces of April (really, how could it be?), but the writing of the film feels unnecessarily writer-ly. Even setting aside the setup- Dan (Steve Carell) meets the perfect woman (Juliette Binoche), who turns out to be his brother's girlfriend- everything in this movie feels like setup-and-payoff, and as a result nothing really breathes. Consider the blind date Dan's parents (John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest) set him up on with a local girl- before she shows up, Dan's brothers give Dan a hard time about what the girl looked like when she was younger, in particular an unflattering nickname she had, "Pigface." Soon, they sit down at the piano and improvise a song around the nickname, and keep on going until she knocks on the door and reveals herself to be... Emily Blunt. Ho, ho! Surprise, everybody! Also, Binoche is so obviously perfect for Carell that the plot mostly becomes a game of waiting for them to overcome the stuff that gets thrown at them and make the leap. That said, once you get past the contrivances and Hedges' occasional tendency to shoot his goodwill in the ass, the movie does have a certain charm, owing largely to Carell and Binoche, who are relaxed and engaging individually and have real chemistry together. Ebert is spot-on when he compares Carell to a young Jack Lemmon- he can do the fussy and the neurotic stuff (I'd love to see him and, say, John C. Reilly or even Seth Rogen do The Odd Couple onstage) but he brings a real humanity to all of the performances I've seen. Even Dane Cook is surprisingly watchable here, when the massive self-involvement he always projects isn't getting in the way. For a movie that was always coming thiiiiiiiiis close to annoying me, I enjoyed Dan in Real Life more than I expected. Rating: 5 out of 10.

Early Oscar™-bait Roundup

Into the Wild (2007, Sean Penn)- it's illustrative to see this movie the same weekend as The Darjeeling Limited, as the two movies so clearly illuminate the differences between spiritual tourists and honest-to-goodness seekers. Anderson's heroes see India as a kind of quick fix for their troubled souls, making a whirlwind tour of the most "spiritual" stops situated along the route of their train before ending up confronting the mother who ran out on them, all in an attempt to confront their troubles. But Into the Wild realizes that it's not as simple as that. Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) had his share of demons to be sure, but then so did his sister, and she didn't take to the road. The film shows us that while some people turn their backs on the past and make a new life outside the mainstream, it's got just as much to do with their psychological wiring as it does with the circumstances they seek to escape. But even more importantly, it also says that the seeker's tendency- be it wanderlust or spiritual unrest- is something that can never quite be quenched. I'm not sure about some of Penn's aesthetic choices here- the onscreen text, the occasional chronological jumbling- but there's no denying that this is his most assured film as a director, due in no small part to his kinship with McCandless, being something of a seeker himself. Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007, Andrew Dominik)- first, the obvious: this movie is completely bleedin' gorgeous. The only movie I've seen recently that can rival this for sheer visual pleasure is Silent Light- it's that beautiful. But it would all just be eye candy if not for the compelling story at its center. Many critics have remarked about the way James' mystique presages our modern-day celebrity culture. But this wouldn't work half so well if Jesse himself wasn't so aware of it. Even in the eyes of his own men James is a towering figure, which goes a long way to explain his power over them- they drop everything to do his bidding, and when he comes around they're justifiably nervous. Jesse is completely mindful of his legend, which made his untimely end sort of inevitable, not least in his own eyes. Being the notorious Jesse James, the only death that would have made sense would have come from the barrel of a gun, and as the idea starts to consume his thinking, he figures why not just offer the chance to someone who's aching to do it? As such, the film becomes a dance of death in its second half, involving the increasingly paranoid and death-minded James and Bob Ford, whose obsessive man-crush (less sexual fixation than childish hero worship) has become bitter and resentful. But for me, the movie really cements its awesomeness in the final reel, following James' death, when it examines the fallout of the killing in the lives of Ford and others. The celebrity that Ford was afforded for a short time after the killing soon gave way to a lonely existence, as James' mystique only grew from being gunned down before his time. Suddenly a cold-blooded killer became a legend of the lawless west, and the man who effectively ended his killing spree was an unloved coward. Shooting Jesse James in the back was simultaneously the best and worst thing that Robert Ford could have done for himself, with his story culminating in one of the most lonely and senseless deaths I've seen onscreen in a long time. I hope to see this again in the near future, and urge all of you (especially you Muriel Awards voters looking for a prospective winner in the Best Cinematography category) to do the same. Rating: 8 out of 10.

Lust, Caution (2007, Ang Lee)- maybe it's just that I was so bowled over by Black Book earlier this year (scroll down to May for review), but while I respected Lee's Occupation drama, it didn't really do much for me. For the most part, Lee's style feels very middle-of-the-road: the visuals are handsome but not lush, the period feel is convincing but never immersive, the story is involving but rarely compelling. Like much of Lee's oeuvre, it's about repressed desire, which this time finds an outlet in the much-ballyhooed NC-17 sex scenes (acrobatic but rarely erotic). But given the relatively tepid approach Lee takes to the majority of the film- sex scenes and protracted stabbing scene aside- I longed to see what a more expressionistic filmmaker like Wong Kar-wai, or a more poetic one like Hou Hsiao-hsien, might have made of this story. Another problem is that despite being more than 2 1/2 hours long, it very much feels like an expanded short story, with a somewhat bloated narrative through-line and some vagueness around the edges. What, for example, were we to make of Yee's wife, played by Joan Chen? We mostly see her playing mahjongg or going shopping, but what is her relationship with her husband (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) like? The film doesn't seem to know, and Chen projects almost no inner life for the character. Clearly the resistance fighters would see her largely as an obstacle to getting to her husband, but there's got to be more to her than that. Also, Tang Wen is pretty and more than willing to get naked, but I wasn't all that taken with her as an actress. She seemed too opaque to successfully sell the role- not opaque in the repressing-her-feelings-for-the-cause way needed for the character, but more in the not-particularly-expressive way. Nice nipples though. Rating: 5 out of 10.

Gone Baby Gone (2007, Ben Affleck) [8]

Well, dress me up in a Santa Claus suit, because I'm just giving 8s away! But I honestly wouldn't be if I didn't think the movies deserved them, and this one is no exception. Like fellow actor-turned-director Clint Eastwood did four years ago with Mystic River, Affleck has turned a Dennis Lehane novel into potent cinema. But although Affleck isn't nearly the director Clint is, I actually think that works to the film's advantage. Eastwood's direction of Mystic River was moody and portentous from get-go, signaling that we weren't just watching another urban murder mystery, but Affleck's more meat-and-potatoes filmmaking actually gears the audience up for a fairly conventional, though well-told, whodunit, all the better the spring the serious stuff on us unawares. Gone Baby Gone is the rare Hollywood movie that actually gets better as it goes along, revealing more interesting shadings. The key to this movie isn't the solving of the mystery or the finding of the little girl, but the moral debate at its center, a conflict between absolutism and relativism. Interestingly, Lehane flips the usual pattern of these films by making the private investigator the story's primary proponent for black-and-white morality. SPOILER: It's because of this that the film's final reel, which will no doubt prove to be a point of contention for many audiences and critics, worked wonderfully for me. Time and again in the film, the line of morality isn't drawn between cops and civilians, but the older and younger characters. Patrick (Casey Affleck) has never really gotten his hands dirty, so he isn't sympathetic to the moral code of the older cops (Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris) who are willing to bend morality to serve the greater good (someone should book a double bill of this and Hot Fuzz in my opinion). In many ways, Patrick is still thinking in the mindset handed down to him by his childhood priest- "clever as snakes, innocent as doves." Yet by the end of the movie, he begins to come around to their way of thinking. He fulfills his moral obligation to return the little girl to her skanky, unfit mother, but while he knows he did the right thing, he finds himself sharing the older men's compulsion to do right by the girl above all else. So he takes it upon himself to keep an eye on her. What else is there left for him to do? END SPOILER. Now, I'm not advocating that Ben turn all of his attention to directing- the jury's still out on how much talent he has in that area. But he's smart enough to stay out of Lehane's way, and in this case that's more than enough.

Michael Clayton (2007, Tony Gilroy) [8]

Over the last few years, more filmmakers have been gravitating toward minor-key films in a style closer to that of 70s-era filmmakers, before the studios decided movies needed to be for everyone. Michael Clayton, much like We Own the Night last night, is a superlative example of this kind of movie, moving at a leisurely pace yet containing almost no wasted brush strokes. It's key that almost every important character, save Michael's young son, is over 40- Michael Clayton isn't a film about youngsters on the make, but about grown adults who have sacrificed a lot to live the lives they lead, and who stand to lose even more. But while the film has the trappings of a legal thriller, it's at its heart a character study, a blinkered story about a blinkered man. Michael doesn't have much of a life- he's always traveling between assignments for his job as a law firm's "fixer," and in between he picks up his kid, occasionally plays in a backroom poker tournament, and worries about the debt he's incurred on his failed restaurant. He almost never smiles, and I don't think we ever see him at home. He's always being sent somewhere or other on business. Clooney is perfect for the role, a well-dressed professional with no small amount of skill but who feels no love for what he does. And the rest of the cast is just as good- Tom Wilkinson somehow pulls off crazy without resorting to histrionics, and Tilda Swinton plays her cool-customer corporate counsel while suggesting the great sacrifices that she's had to make along the way in tiny but indelible touches (the no-nonsense suits, the on-the-fly makeup job, etc.). Like a con artist has to be more convincing than the people he's trying to imitate, so she has to be even more on her game than the men surrounding her in the boardroom boys' club. Michael Clayton is that rarest of things, an entertainment designed specifically for adults, and it's even more impressive for being Gilroy's first film behind the camera. Many screenwriters-turned-directors can't strike the right mix between screenplay and direction, but Gilroy is a natural.

We Own the Night (2007, James Gray) [8]

One of the charms of James Gray's films is his unabashed love for classical style. Gray has never been one to rely on narrative tricks or show-offy direction, grooving instead on sturdy, unhurried storytelling, handsome cinematography, and atmosphere to burn. So it is with his finest film yet, which falls under the Howard Hawks rule for a successful film- three great scenes, no bad scenes. I'll leave the pleasures of the three scenes for you to discover, except to say that I find it admirable that Gray, who can shoot a crackerjack scene of action and suspense as well as practically any filmmaker currently working, doesn't allow the film to get bogged down in action. We Own the Night is at heart a drama about family- the somewhat dysfunctional family at its center, the police who protect their own, the Russian mafia who welcomes a trusted surrogate son as long as he's not a risk. It's also a world of men in the old-fashioned sense, men who keep their own counsel, who bottle up their emotions even at the most difficult of times, who recognize the value of duty and loyalty and keeping your mouth shut and ears open. There are few stars of the younger generation who can pull off characters like this, and it's a credit to Mark Wahlberg that he manages to pull it off from the get-go, and to Joaquin Phoenix that he can convincingly and seamlessly show his character changing from a hard-partying, independent-minded youth into something resembling Gray's concept of the old-school "man." I wasn't quite buying his character's naiveté in being blind to the club owner's mob connections, but that's a minor quibble. Gray keeps most of the film at a simmer, but when he turns up the heat, We Own the Night cooks. The film's title was taken from the NYPD's motto in the late 1980s, which is when the film is set, and Gray perfectly captures the gray, dingy New York of the period, back before it got a fresh new coat of PR paint. In addition, the tension between law enforcement and the crime element at the dawn of the War on Drugs is surprisingly palpable. Gray isn't interested in a neon-colored VH1-style nostalgia trip dress-up party, but in portraying a time and place where people actually lived.

Week of October 1-7, 2007

The Heartbreak Kid (2007, Peter and Bobby Farelly) [4]- it's sort of bracing to see a big-budget comedy that's this brazenly caustic nowadays, unafraid of giving the audience a weaselly protagonist who lies and cheats on his wife and acts like an all-around assbag. In addition, there's the Farellys' usual body-panic issues, plus a lot of anti-romantic, male-centric thoughts on modern marriage that no doubt will alienate any unsuspecting women in the audience. But just because it's interesting doesn't make it especially good. The film has ideas, but they don't mesh especially well, nor does the movie really do a whole lot with them. Instead, the story eventually settles into a predictable, almost lazy rhythm, with Ben Stiller skipping out on his honeymoon with his convalescing, hot-psycho wife Malin Akerman to spend time with the adorable Michelle Monaghan, another in a long line of super-cool Farelly dream babes, who can swear and drink and play with the boys but still be, y'know, hot. Hell, there's even one of those scenes where Stiller and Monaghan try to have an important conversation but aren't actually talking about the same thing- what's the Ebert's Movie Glossary name for that again? Glad to see the story take a darker turn at the very end, but unfortunately the film just kind of throws it out there before the credits. And I won't even start comparing it to the Elaine May version of the film, not just because it's been years since I saw that one, but also because this film has enough problems without comparing it to its betters.

The Kingdom (2007, Peter Berg) [4]- another film that feels a little schizo in its execution, and not necessarily in a good way. After an opening-credits rundown of American history in Saudi Arabia and a double act of terrorism in an American compound near Riyadh, the movie is mostly content to be an procedural thriller, closer to network television than big-screen cinema. In fact, aside from the costumes and the heavy artillery, this could easily be a story about a serial killer or mad bomber on U.S. soil. Supercool FBI agent Jamie Foxx assembles a crack, motley crew to investigate the case, and with help from the Saudi military, headed by a west-sympathetic family-man officer, they hunt down the terrorists responsible for the attacks. For most of its duration, the film is clearly for U.S. involvement in the investigation- there's even a face-off between action-minded bureau chief Richard Jenkins and wishy-washy cabinet member Danny Huston ("interventionism: not a funny matter"). And then when the team is attacked, there's no choice left but to strike back. But in a movie that practically ignores the geopolitical implications of its storyline, the final scenes feel like a last-minute stab at topicality. Without them, one might half expect a fade-out followed by a sneak peek at next week's episode. There's certainly a place for something in the style of CSI or 24 against the backdrop of the Middle East, but if you're going to do it, fer chrissakes commit to it.

Rocket Science (2007, Jeffrey Blitz) [7]- as a former high school policy debater, I was grateful to see that for once a movie got the world right. Real-life policy debate is a far cry from the common image of two polished speakers standing at podiums and oratorically delivering prepared speeches. Instead, it's standing at a table, evidence at hand, and aggressively barreling through as much as you can in 8 minutes (the technical name is "spreading"). But this but one of the many ways in which the film defies expectation. The film sets up conflicts and situations but resolutely refuses to resolve them in a conventional manner, often just letting them simmer through the very end of the movie or just die away. Nothing is ever quite solved in Rocket Science, and the film ends up becoming not about how we overcome our problems but rather how we eventually learn to resign ourselves to them and move on. But even this doesn't quite happen for our hero, in large part because he's too young to know better. But by the final scene, he's well on his way.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007, Seth Gordon) [7]

Not being a gamer myself, I had a hard time believing the hype about this crowd-pleasing documentary. However, I was quickly won over, largely because the characters are so engaging. There surely must be some editing-room magic at work in making Billy Mitchell into the manipulative villain here, but no matter- the film works best as a contrast between cunning gamer-world "insider" Billy and straight-shooting outsider Steve Wiebe. Steve doesn't fit the gamer stereotype, but more important he's completely guileless, challenging Mitchell to a mano-a-mano to break the Donkey Kong record in the spirit of healthy competition. For his part, Mitchell shirks from the challenge, covering his anxiety with mindfucks and manipulating the system, run largely by his cronies. In a way, gaming needs guys like Mitchell, charismatic lifelong gamers who have built a mystique through decades of long-standing records. But what the film shows us in the end is that gaming also needs someone like Wiebe, who can claim the record as his own and give hope to all others who would try, and do so in the most sportsmanlike manner.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966, Mike Nichols)

I've seen this before, but the older you get, the more it hits home. I really liked the way the filmmakers didn't really disguise the film's theatrical roots, but at the same time added some subtle touches to make it work as cinema. Of particular interest are the occasional bits of behavior that might involve a character walking offstage, doing something, and then returning to the main action, but here Nichols holds on these people for just a moment, not just as a concession to the new medium, but also because that's where the really interesting stuff is happening. And make no mistake, this works like gangbusters as cinema. Despite the theatrical acting and the talkiness of the script, the end result is a movie instead of simply a filmed play (hard to believe it was Nichols' first feature). On top of that, this is one of the few movies that actually benefits from the very public relationship between its stars. Rather than distracting us, the film assumes that the audience knows all about its principal performers, and it builds on this knowledge only to shoot it right in the ass. Liz gets the really showy moments, and she sells them wonderfully, but it's Burton who really kills here. Instead of simply indulging in histrionics, he gives a magnificent, completely lived-in performance that's a wonder to behold. Oh, that voice! Rating: ***1/2 out of ****.

Zoo (2007, Robinson Devor)

While I certainly applaud Devor's avoidance of sensationalism in addressing "zoo culture" in general and the late Enumclaw horsefucker specifically, but I'm not sure this is a satisfactory alternative. So committed to making non-exploitative art is he that his film is gorgeous but has nothing to say. Devor speaks with everyone except those who might have made the film complex and interesting- no interviews with the deceased's ex-wife, no ER doctor or coroner, but hey, they found time for one of the actors in the re-enactment. Another problem is the idea of "bad laughs"- sure, I understand that with such a touchy subject you can't tear your hair out about the parts that will elicit nervous titters in audience members, but certain parts of this movie (like the bit with the miniature horse) were just a bad idea. Rating: 4 out of 10.

Brand Upon the Brain! (2006, Guy Maddin)

As clever as anything Maddin has done, but doesn't quite satisfy otherwise. Maybe it's just that it's too long- all the frenzied imagination wears me out after a while, while Cowards kept it brief at a little over an hour. Pure unadulterated Maddin can be wearying, at least for me, and around the 80 minute mark it just got to be a little much. Still, if that's the worst I can say about it then maybe I'm underrating it after all... Rating: 6 out of 10.

3:10 to Yuma (2007, James Mangold)

Fair to middling oater for most of its running time, but rallies in the final reel with an exciting final gun battle. Nice to see Crowe playing his role with a light touch for a change, and Bale's just as good here. Biggest complaint is that Ben Foster as Crowe's lieutenant is too self-conscious to work in the context of the film. Mangold is mostly an anonymous hack, but at least he's smart enough to stay out of the way until he's needed. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Angel-A (2005, Luc Besson)

Dopey, semi-worthless cinema du look version of It's a Wonderful Life, with a statuesque blonde angel coming to Earth to pull shlumpy loser Jamel Debbouze out of his rut despite the fact that he's one of the least appealing onscreen heroes I've seen in ages (not his appearance necessarily, but the fact that the character is such a cartoonish, uncomplicated loser). Notable only for the black-and-white 'Scope views of Paris, and for the super-foxy Rie Rasmussen- previously featured as the slow-motion legs in Femme Fatale- as the angel. Not that she's very good in the movie (or has much to work with) but she's extremely easy on the eyes, and this film made them eager to latch onto anything worth looking at. Rating: 3 out of 10.

2 Days in Paris (2007, Julie Delpy)

Unlike many films set in Paris, both good and bad, this one doesn't romanticize it, and it's this warts'n'all portrayal of the city that really makes the film feel lived-in. I also like that the central relationship story never quite goes where one would expect it to go- yes, he's jealous and neurotic, but she's no prize either, and if they decide there's going to be a happy ending then it's going to be a hard road to get there. Also, Adam Goldberg gets more comedic mileage with his sotto voce kvetching asides than anyone since Woody Allen in his heyday. The ending is a botch, but it's still well worth seeing. Rating: 6 out 0f 10.

Half Moon (2006, Bahman Ghobadi)

Starts off promisingly, as Ghobadi's direction feels more expressionistic than usual, and his story contains quite a bit of humor. However, the spirit of the early scenes eventually gives way to Ghobadi's usual miserablist portrayal of modern Kurdish life. And while I know that life isn't easy for the Kurds, Ghobadi's insistence on turning every film of his into a tragedy makes it feel like he's making his films solely for Western festival audiences grooving on liberal guilt. Put it another way- if Kurdish life was as consistently bleak as Ghobadi shows it to be, how could they possibly live? Rating: 5 out of 10.

Halloween (2007, Rob Zombie)

Sure, it's an uneasy mix of the original's narrative and Zombie's frenzied imagination, but it's pretty fascinating stuff. And despite all the references to the original series and to other old-school B-movies, Zombie mostly takes his story seriously. My favorite scene finds the grown-up Michael Myers killing a mental hospital orderly played by Danny Trejo. As Myers drowns his victim in a sink, Trejo can only whimper and cry out, "but I was good to you!" It says so much about Trejo's character that he would be nice to this monster and that he believed his kindness would be returned, and so much about Michael that he could find no place for gratitude or sentimentality. Also, great art direction- as in The Devil's Rejects, Zombie takes sets that are atmospheric as hell and makes them look grimy and lived-in instead of simply dressed the morning of the shoot. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Eastern Promises (2007, David Cronenberg)

Pretty good genre film, but little more. Could have done without the plot device of the newborn baby, for one- Naomi Watts gives a solid performance, but I'm not sure an audience surrogate was altogether necessary here. Much more interesting is Cronenberg's portrayal of the cutthroat underworld of the Vory v zakone, ruled over by the sinister yet avuncular Semyon (the great Armin Mueller-Stahl), and the rise of driver Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) in the Vory's ranks. Here's where the film's fascination lies, and whenever we step outside that world the interest flags. Likewise, I'm not sure I liked the plot revelations that occurred near the end of the film, but after the already famous naked fight scene I was willing to forgive quite a bit. Worth seeing, but something of a disappointment from Cronenberg. Rating: 6 out of 10.

In the Valley of Elah (2007, Paul Haggis)

Yes, you read that right- I preferred the new Paul Haggis movie to the new David Cronenberg. Maybe Crash was a movie Haggis needed to get out of his system, as if the film's success allowed him to make a movie that wasn't trying nearly as hard to impress people. Or maybe it's just that the murder mystery story of Elah hews more closely to Haggis' background in episodic television, giving him a clean narrative through line rather than the tortured contrivances of the previous film. Wisely, Haggis lets his actors shoulder much of the emotional weight of the film, and Tommy Lee Jones is more than up to the task, giving perhaps the best performance of his career. Hank Deerfield is a hard, emotionally withdrawn veteran, and Jones gives a performance with no wasted gestures or actorly mannerisms. Look at the way he trembles during the fateful phone call to his wife, or the un-softened manner with which he tells the story of David and Goliath to Charlize Theron's young son. In the Valley of Elah is surprisingly apolitical in his approach to the War in Iraq, as Haggis doesn't lay the blame at the feet of the government or the armed forces, but merely questions and despairs at the logic of our country sacrificing its young on the battlefield. Much to my surprise, I was actually thinking Elah might be one of the best films of the year, but then I saw the final few minutes of the film, in which we first see the characters underscored by a baldly heartrending ballad, after which Haggis feels the need to go and Haggis up an otherwise fine film with a positively groan-worthy final shot. Why, Haggis? I was with you right up until the end, pal- why did you have to piss it away? Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Matador (2005, Richard Shepherd)

As expected it's even better the second time. The funny stuff is just as funny, the emotional stuff hits even harder, and my misgivings about the ending melted away. Julian and Danny are more than just an odd couple- they're yin and yang, and that's the key to their friendship. They don't need to spend all their time together, but each needs the other in the world, and they both acknowledge this without having to come out and say it. It's there in the way Danny runs to answer the door to his hotel room when the drunk, sobbing Julian comes knocking, and it's there in the way Julian makes his final exit at the end of the film. Also, if there was ever a director who was born to adapt Hunter S. Thompson, it's Richard Shepard. Rating: 8 out of 10.

Killer of Sheep (1977, Charles Burnett)

After I saw this for the second time in two days, I was leaving the theatre and the two douchebags leaving behind me complained about how it sucked because "it didn't have a plot." Yes, and? Killer of Sheep isn't a plot movie, but that's why it's a masterpiece, I think. It's a portrait of lives from which there is no escape- with a plot there has to be resolution, and resolution would magically clear up the troubles from which Burnett's characters suffer. It's the difference between the games the kids in the film play and the lives of their parents. When something happens to a kid, he'll walk away, cry it out, and then continue like nothing happened- problem resolved. But the problems facing the adults linger. The gangsters who try to bring Stan in on a crime will eventually be replaced by other gangsters, the white woman who runs the liquor store will keep trying to sweet-talk him into working for her (and screwing her on the side). And Stan's bone-deep weariness won't subside, despite his wife's hopes that it will. I didn't get a good look at the naysaying cheesedicks behind me, but when they complained that Killer of Sheep "didn't have any redeeming value," I quickly pegged them as spoiled rich kids. Anyone who has ever worked paycheck to paycheck, or has despaired that life seems like nothing but a long string of jobs interrupted occasionally by sleep, or has simply gazed at a loved one and wanted to cheer him but had no idea how, will find something in Killer of Sheep that speaks to them, no matter what color he is. And all that aside, Burnett gives us one small, perfect moment after another. Like Stan's daughter singing along with Earth Wind and Fire's "Reasons" and stumbling through the words until she gets to the "la la la" interlude, which she sings with the utmost confidence. Or Bracy berating Eugene in rhyme for getting a flat during a road trip to the track, but running out of words to rhyme: "you need to have a spare/but you's a square/that's why you ain't got no spare." Or the rare instance of Stan smiling in the film, when he jokingly explains to his daughter why it rains, and his wife beams back at him, as though she's finally seen the sun break through the clouds.

Also, having come to Killer of Sheep through George Washington- a film I love, mind you- I couldn't help but think of something John Lennon once said in an interview. When a reporter asked him what he thought of kids imitating the band by wearing Beatle wigs, he responded, "they aren't imitating us because we don't wear Beatle wigs." It was a joke, but it says a lot about the nature of homage. Whereas David Gordon Green paid homage to Killer of Sheep as a deliberate, affected style, Burnett simply made his film that way because it was the best way to tell his story under the circumstances. It was born of necessity, but it worked. Someone also needs to take a look at the influence of Killer of Sheep on Stranger Than Paradise. Jarmusch's film is more self-conscious to be sure, but it's also a similarly low-key, black and white portrait of go-nowhere city life. Even when Jarmusch's heroes take to the road, they don't really go anywhere in a deeper sense. Rating: 10 out of 10.

Across the Universe (2007, Julie Taymor)

There's a good reason why Beatles songs are covered again and again- aside from the band's enduring popularity, the songs are compulsively singable. However, most people can't resist the temptation to over-sing- whereas the Beatles themselves generally sang the songs pretty straightforwardly, most who cover them feel the need to squeeze every drop of emotion from the lyrics, tricking them up in order to make them their own. This is one of my big issues with Taymor's film as well- she just can't stay out of the way of the songs. She lavishes layers of visual pageantry on songs that don't really need the extra goosing. For the most part, the numbers that are most effective are the ones that are fairly straightforward- the dual-funeral "Let It Be," "Because" in nine-part harmony, and especially Martin Luther McCoy's take on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Meanwhile, the big production numbers are mostly labored, none more so than the Army-induction number that funds a group of new draftees carrying the Statue of Liberty on their backs while singing "She's So Heavy." The screenplay doesn't help matters- the format is little more than the miniseries The 60s but with all-Beatles music, and too often the transitions between the songs and the dramatic scenes are forced and obvious, as when a lovesick girl named Prudence locks herself in a closet. Gee, wonder what song her friends will sing to cheer her up? Might have been more interesting- if not necessarily better- had Taymor ditched the spoken dialogue altogether and made the movie all Beatles, all the time. There was a dust-up earlier this year between Taymor and studio head Joe Roth when Roth tried to pare down this movie. Now, I don't condone studio intrusion on an artist's vision, but on the basis of the three films she's made to date, Taymor could really use someone to keep her more indulgent side in check. Not studio meddling, mind you, but friendly constructive criticism. Someone to tell her, say, that the Eddie Izzard version of "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" serves no purpose in the film, shoots the pacing all to hell, and is incredibly annoying to boot. Rating: 4 out of 10.

September 2007 mini-reviews

9/29- Feast of Love (2007, Robert Benton) [w/o] {Now that I'm paying to watch movies, you'll probably see more of these than before. Between Freeman on autopilot, Kinnear as the world's most oblivious man, and the vapid kids, I found absolutely nothing to latch on to here. I bailed just after Fred Ward threatened his son's girlfriend with a knife. No compelling reason to stick around- even the musical choices are lazy. I hope I never hear the Jeff Buckley cover of "Hallelujah" again in my life, and the Frames song just made me wish I was watching Once instead.}

9/23- Inferno (1980, Dario Argento) [***] {Bugfuck and nonsensical, but not in a bad way. Definitely suffers with home viewing (I saw it dubbed onto VHS from a DVD), will need to catch this on the big screen. Only real quibble is how dated the Keith Emerson (of ...Lake, and Palmer fame) score is, although it also contributes to the crazy otherworldliness of it all. And the scene with Kazanian and the rats is pretty goddamn incredible.}

9/23- Phantom Lady (1944, Robert Siodmak) [***1/2] {What she said, basically. Ella Raines- whoa. Raines aside, what really makes this cook is that it's a scruffy, seedy noir, but it's also at its heart a love story. Raines isn't a goody-goody, but she's not a femme fatale. She's a smart, resourceful woman who will do whatever it takes to free the man she loves. In a genre full of double-crosses and friends who are really users, this kind of unconditional devotion is rare and special.}

9/16- The Crying Game (1992, Neil Jordan) [***1/2] {What more can be said? Jordan's knack for switching gears both tone-wise and narratively is uncanny here. Jaye Davidson gives one of the great one-off performances in cinema history, but it never feels like a stunt. And Stephen Rea is of course a treasure.}

9/15- No End in Sight (2007, Charles Ferguson) [7] {The perfect film to pair with Redacted for your why-Iraq-is-a-clusterfuck double feature. Still mainly a talking-heads-and-stock-footage affair, but the talking heads are so well-chosen and insightful that I didn't really mind.}

9/14- The Italian Job (1969, Peter Collinson) [***] {It's illustrative to compare this to the 2003 version, which added a revenge plotline and the father issue, while subtracting the very specific British humor and setting the main heist in L.A. instead of Turin. Also, I like Wahlberg, but he can't match Caine at his most caddish, plus there's no Noel Coward or Benny Hill ("I like 'em biiiiiiiiiig!") equivalent. I think the chase is actually more exciting in the original, and certainly more intentive. Also, LOVE the ending.}

9/12- Wojaczek (1999, Lech Majewski) [**1/2] {If Aki Kaurismaki made a biopic, it'd probably look something like this. Worth seeing, but lacks the rigor of Van Sant's Last Days and doesn't give much insight into what made the title character a compelling poet. But then, that may be the point- he drank and screwed, he threw himself out of windows, he finally OD'd on pills, but before that he wrote some poems. It's almost an afterthought.}

9/6-9/11- Toronto International Film Festival

The Earrings of Madame de... (1953, Max Ophuls)

Look in the dictionary next to "elegance" and "sophistication" and it'll say "see The Earrings of Madame De...". But if this was all about making a movie look pretty and moving the camera like a champ, this wouldn't be a classic. What sets it apart is that it successfully overcomes the biggest trap for films about the privileged classes- the thing most of these movies get wrong but what nearly all the best ones (Barry Lyndon aside) get very right. Its characters transcend their social class and are engaging and sympathetic, and Ophüls makes us forget that they were all born with loads of money and are passing around earrings that are probably worth more than most people's cars. And that's no mean feat. People never tire of quoting Rules of the Game in reviews when they say, "everybody has his reasons," but they almost never quote the whole line, which begins, "the great tragedy of life is this." By the time Madame de..., approaching death, staggers up the hill to the place where her husband and lover are dueling, this idea is unmistakable in Ophüls' film as well. Rating: ***1/2 out of ****.

Les Enfants Terribles (1950, Jean-Pierre Melville)

I wasn't sure what to expect from a Melville/Cocteau collaboration, but their styles fit together surprisingly well. It's not as fanciful as one of Cocteau's own directorial efforts- compare the snowball fight here with the one in Blood of a Poet- but Melville is able to stylize this in his own way. The biggest kinship I see between the two filmmakers is that their best works deal with death, although they diverge there, and instead of the blurred line between the living and dead common to Cocteau's work, Melville imbues the story with a sense of gloom, like a fog that settles in over the action. Watching it, I never quite felt like I was watching events play out- rather that they'd been filtered through the prism of memory. But whose? Cocteau's, I dare say. I can definitely see the debt The Dreamers owes to this film, and Dreamers writer Gilbert Adair freely admits it, to his credit. Rating: ***1/2 out of ****.

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, Paul Greengrass)

The most exciting Bourne adventure yet, all the more surprising from being crafted seemingly from thin air. Bourne may be impeccably played by Matt Damon, but he's still defined largely by his momentum, not unlike Walker in Point Blank. His motivation never changes- he wants to find out who he was before he lost his memory, and will barrel through anyone who tries to stop him. While this has been called a "thinking man's action movie," that has less to do with any substance than with the chilly, Jean-Pierre Melville-esque tone that's maintained throughout. Truth be told, the Bourne movies have always been more setpiece-dominated than most action movies, and this has three of the series' best- the Waterloo Station sequence, the three-way pursuit in Tangier, and the New York switcheroo followed by a car chase that's simultaneously ridiculous and grounded in real-world physics. And even more than the other Bourne films, this is wonderfully cast- even Julia Stiles seems more at ease now that she's more than a surveillance functionary behind a desk. Sure, it's all motion, but when you're watching you'll be too wrung out to complain. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Talk to Me (2007, Kasi Lemmons)

Solid entertainment, and occasionally more than that. Don Cheadle's performance as Petey Greene has been getting most of the press, and it's nice to see him really dig into a showy lead role- he sells the funny stuff but also the more serious moments, especially when Petey takes to the airwaves on the night of Dr. King's murder. But Chiwetel Ejiofor is just as good, taking an upright Sidney Poitier type and showing both the careerist hunger that drives him and the difficulties he has as a minority in a white-driven world. Dewey may be an exec at a station catering to an urban audience, but aside from the on-air talent and the receptionist he's the only black face in the office, which obviously weighs on him. I appreciated that the film doesn't shy away from the racial issues at play, not only in Dewey's life, but in his relationship with Petey as well, which play out nicely in an early game of pool and take off from there. Ultimately, despite the historical backdrop, the film works primarily as a story of their friendship, which causes both of them to grow. This is why I think the film's final half-hour is necessary- rather than finishing up at the high point of Petey's professional career, Lemmons shows us how their rather unlikely friendship plays out over the years. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Red Desert (1964, Michelangelo Antonioni)

Visually, as gorgeous as anything Antonioni has ever done, but as wonderful as the images are, they're never comforting or reassuring. As with L'Avventura and later Blow-Up, Antonioni places his protagonist in a situation from which she'll never emerge, but unlike those films she's already there when the film begins. Having sustained minor injuries in what was by all accounts a small car crash, Giulietta (Monica Vitti) has become deeply wounded psychologically. Those around her can't relate to her troubles, and the only one who tries is her husband's friend Zeller (Richard Harris). But despite his attempts to get to the bottom of her condition, nothing changes. It's a deeply existential problem from which she suffers, and one can't help but wonder if she's been predisposed to her mental illness all her life and the accident merely set it off. But Antonioni isn't about analysis, nor does he even try to answer the question, and good on him for that. As expected, there are a handful of magnificent setpieces, like the extended party/aborted group sex experiment at a boathouse, as well as a strange fairly tale Giulietta tells her ailing son during his temporary paralysis (when he recovers, it's almost as though he's mocking his mother's lingering malaise). The film lacks the kind of bravura ending usually associated with Antonioni's work, but the film was so deeply rewarding that I didn't really miss it. Two more thoughts: (1) I need to see this on a big screen, like, yesterday, and (2) maybe it's just me, and I know this is kind of heretical, but Monica Vitti was actually foxier with dark hair. Rating: ***1/2 out of ****.

Bamako (2006, Abderramane Sissako)

My reaction as the credits rolled: "if the trial scenes weren't real, they should have been; if the non-trial scenes were't fake, they could have been." In many ways, Bamako is a unique achievement- an unapologetically political statement about the World Bank and the pragmatic side of international humanitarianism in which the African people, usually presented only as smiling children or miserable adults in charity ads, have a say about their plight. It's talky as hell, but all the better for it, and the trial scenes are so fascinating that they give didacticism- a word often connoted as negative- a good name. I could've watched 90 minutes of these scenes, frankly. The scenes not devoted to debate are more uneven, sadly- Sissako too often resorts to uninspired setup-and-payoff, most egregiously in the subplot involving some business over a gun. Some of this seeps into the trial as well, when the man not permitted to speak in the early scene finally leaps up during the final arguments and pours out his heart in song (I was kind of troubled by the lack of subtitles here- if it was the filmmakers' idea, it strikes me as a clumsy way to portray a pure, un-Westernized bit of African culture; if it was the subtitlers' doing, what gives?). Fortunately, the good stuff far outpaces the dodgy stuff, and Bamako proves far superior to Sissako's last film, the inexplicably-lauded snoozer Waiting for Happiness. Also, while I'm not as high on Bamako as this guy is, I'm with him on what the final shot should have been. Don't you hate it when directors have a perfect finish in their grasp but can't manage to stop there? Rating: 7 out of 10.

Broken Trail (2006, Walter Hill)

There seems to be a strain of hybrid Western, existing between the old-guard oaters of John Wayne and the bleaker, more self-aware reinventions that sprung up starting in the late sixties. Like its spiritual brother Open Range- and to a lesser extent the films of Sam Peckinpah- Broken Trail contains some blood and brutality, but it nonetheless has a moral code to it (loyalty, caring for women and the helpless, etc.), and its tone isn't so much despair as elegy. A lot of the charm comes from the leisurely pacing- the baddie don't even show up until an hour in, giving us time to immerse ourselves in the lives of the heroes and to enjoy their relationship before the plot comes a-callin'. Mostly Broken Trail is just a rock-solid Western, with an entertaining old-lion performance from Robert Duvall- also in Open Range- and a surprisingly effective taciturn one from Thomas Haden Church. Broken Trail touches on some unsavory ideas about the old West- our government's eradication of Native Americans, the selling of young Chinese girls into sex slavery, and so on- but the film treads lightly, with Hill satisfied to simply make a good cowboy yarn. And it's a damn good one, truth be told, which is too rare a breed nowadays, no matter what strain of cowboy movie you're talking about. Rating: 8 out of 10.

Superbad (2007, Greg Mottola)

Consider this rating highly tentative, as it's hard to this independently of the obviously-awesome experience of seeing it in a full auditorium. But yeah, it's damn funny stuff. Strangely enough, compared to most of the best recent comedies, this goes fairly light on the real-life themes, although a few times when they pop up, they overwhelm the plot by being used in fairly unimaginative ways (like the temporary falling-out between Evan and Seth, to be followed by the inevitable reconciliation). There's also a strange but not unwelcome tension between the authentic nature of the heroes' friendship and the sumo-wrestler's-ass-broad scenes involving the local police. But while the tension makes the film interesting, it's the slapsticky, repetitive feel of the cop scenes that keep Superbad from really attaining classic status. Don't get me wrong, the movie is funny as hell, but only sporadically does it show real comic inspiration, although when it does, buckle up (I especially loved the bit involving a stain on Seth's trousers). Jonah Hill (as Seth) and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (as Fogell aka McLovin) are awesome and will almost certainly become fan favorites, but I think Michael Cera should be singled out for recognition. While his costars play to the rafters, Cera grounds the film firmly in reality, reacting in a wholly believable- and hilarious- manner to the chaos that mounts around him. Plus his timing is spooky and- at age 19!- he's already a master of the throwaway line, as when he randomly references a lesson in health-class while in mid-seduction. I was also pleasantly surprised by the strangely bittersweet tone of the final scene, which true to form the movie follows with a bunch of drawings of cocks. Rating: 7 out of 10.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987, Chuck Russell)

It's refreshing to look at an early entry in this deathless series again, from back when they were still trying to make them interesting, rather than just a series of clever, convoluted kills. Part of it is that there's just enough Freddy to make this a Nightmare movie- in the small doses we see him in here, he's still a frightening boogeyman, rather than the quippy parody of same that he would become later on. I also enjoyed the effort they put into advancing the mythology of the Nightmare universe- the characters still relate somewhat to the events that started it all, and in an interesting twist, one is even able to call others into her nightmare to fend off Freddy. Watching this, I figured out what bugs me about Patricia Arquette nowadays- it's that marble-mouthed girlishness, which doesn't really wash when you're 40 years old but actually suits this role pretty well. Rating: **1/2 out of ****.

The Man With Two Brains (1983, Carl Reiner)

As the Bible might have said, it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a movie this silly to actually be good, but somehow this one manages it. Really, either it works for you or it doesn't- like the fellow said, these are the jokes, people. But if it's your thing, The Man With Two Brains is pretty sublime in its ridiculousness. The closest recent equivalent I can think of is something like Anchorman, in which the story is a clothesline for the silliness, and the whole cast is completely game. Compare Steve Martin here to contemporary comics like Adam Sandler or Dane Cook- whereas those guys seem just as concerned with looking cool and acting likable as they do with making you laugh, Martin was 100% committed to the silliness, and wasn't shy about making himself look like an ass if it would get laughs. Martin's innate likability helped- it's the disconnect between his whitebread charm and the goofiness of his early characters that made them so funny. But most of all, The Man With Two Brains survives on its jokes, mini-masterpieces of silliness. From the time Martin recited "In Dillman's Grove" (written by John Lillison, England's Greatest One-Armed Poet) to the bedridden Kathleen Turner- so soon after Body Heat, no less!- I was hooked. I just feel sorry for those kids out there who don't recognize the true identity of the Elevator Killer, since this deprives them of perhaps the film's biggest laugh. But if the face of Merv Griffin hasn't quite permeated the consciousness of the younger generation, they can always enjoy "Pointy birds, oh pointy-pointy / anoint my head, anointy-nointy..." Rating: ***1/2 out of ****.

Lady Chatterley (2006, Pascale Ferran)

What I enjoyed most about Lady Chatterley was its focus on the physicality of sex, something that is often sketched over by most "erotic" films, with their sex positions which are dictated more by their effect on the audience than their relation to the characters involved. In addition, the lack of physicality in most American films seems to be a way of turning attention to the emotional and psychological states of the characters in those films, perhaps due to the guilt and shame that has been handed down from our forefathers. But enough of this tangent- Lady Chatterley is pretty potent stuff, beginning with the strange tension between Britishness of the original story and the Frenchness of the production. In addition, I appreciated the sensuality that went hand in hand with the Lady's sexual awakening- as in other female-directed sex-themed films like The Piano and Friday Night, Lady Chatterley makes one acutely aware of the sensory possibilities of the film's setting, be they a field covered in daffodils, or the layer of sweat that covers the heroine after a day planting in the garden. Most Chatterley adaptations before this concentrated mostly on the erotic aspects of the story, but much of the added running time of this one is devoted to painting the mundane, repetitive life of the Lady, who as a result of her position has almost nothing to do with her days, which makes her ripe for an awakening, both sexually and to the possibilities of life in general. There are a few things that don't quite work, in particular the simplistic dichotomy between Parkin, the personification of the physical, and Lady Chatterley's husband, all upper-class haughtiness in his wheelchair (although the scene of the motorized chair struggling up the hill is a vivid portrait of impotence). However, it's a major work, and certainly one of the best sex-themed films to come along in years, and good on Ferran for not casting the lead roles with toned, contemporary-looking hotties- Marina Hands has a tantalizing bit of tummy, and Jean-Louis Cullo'ch looks like a burly outdoorsman, and since that's who he's playing it works. Also, this is the rare erotic film that doesn't front-load its nudity, which was nice. Rating: 8 out of 10.

Regular Lovers (2005, Philippe Garrel)

In a way, this movie is almost all third act, with most of the film comprised with the fallout of May '68. The funny thing about revolutions- people can only sustain their revolutionary impulses for so long before their more basic concerns can no longer be ignored. In other words, changing the world is good and noble until the food and money run out. So it goes in Regular Lovers, and the tragedy of Francois (Philippe Garrel) is that he lives for his ideals long after everyone has moved on. The revolution is over, the survivors are hooked on drugs or in debt or working for a living, anyone who looks suspicious is subject to random frisking by cops, and the pure artist of the bunch dies without publishing a word. Also, William Lubtchansky's black and white cinematography is pretty breathtaking in my opinion, and man it's been ages since I listened to the Kinks. Will rectify this situation momentarily. Rating: 7 out of 10.

In the Shadow of the Moon (2006, David Sington)

This is a solid crowd-pleasing documentary that should do good business with arthouse audiences and maybe get an Oscar attention. But while the copious NASA footage is impressive, this is the rare documentary where the talking heads (all former Apollo astronauts) are actually the highlight. What comes through even now in the interviews is Tom Wolfe's idea of "the right stuff"- that these men were intelligent, engaging, and above all fearless. The Apollo program captured the hearts of the nation in large part because it presented them with real heroes at a time when they needed them. And while I'm skeptical of people being anointed as heroes willy-nilly, these guys really deserved it. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Janus Films Retrospective

Vengeance Is Mine (1979, Shohei Imamura)- What makes this work is the way it so resolutely resists psychoanalysis. A lesser film would fixate on Iwao's shame at his father for being the wellspring of his insanity, but here it's at most the incident that sets him off. Many people experience disillusionment when they're young, but they don't all go on murderous rampages- clearly there was something amiss with Iwao, and a simple Freudian reading of the story seems woefully inadequate. But I also was taken with the way the film portrays all of its principal characters as highly flawed- Iwao's father and wife have a quasi-incestuous fixation with each other, Iwao's inkeeper mistress is basically kept woman to her landlord, and so on. Perhaps what separates Iwao from the rest isn't simply his acts, but that he doesn't feel guilty about them? Rating: ***1/2 out of ****.

WR: Mysteries of the Orga[ni]sm (1971, Dusan Makavejev)- In many ways, this feels like a "you had to be there" sort of experience- distant as we've grown from the world of the Iron Curtain and Vietnam, there's something vaguely alien about a movie that takes on both of these targets, and more besides, but doesn't so much take them down as tickle them for 80-odd minutes. One gets the impression that Makavejev put just enough controversial stuff in his movies to get the censors steamed, without actually compelling them to cut him down, which is no small feat considering the environment he was working in. Plus it's really goddamn funny, which shouldn't be ignored. But even more than with most movies, your mileage may vary. Rating: ***1/2 out of ****.

Cria Cuervos... (1976, Carlos Saura) This is one of the most bracingly unsentimental portraits of a young girl dealing with the presence of death in her life I've ever seen. Little Ana has been present for the deaths of her mother and father, but she doesn't know how to process it in a mature way, and as such the concept of death becomes almost trivial to her (for example, how casual she is about trying to poison those she dislikes). I also liked the ambiguousness of the scene with her father's handgun. I doubt she actually intends to use it, and I'm not even sure she knows it's loaded, but what would an 8-year-old want with a gun? To be honest though, I don't think this would have been nearly so effective if not for the perfect pairing of Ana Torrent and Geraldine Chaplin- there's one scene in particular in which Torrent is photographed from below and her facial structure matches Chaplin's so well that it's almost eerie. Also, there's a guinea pig, which was fun, although I have to admit that mine are cuter. Rating: ***1/2 out of ****.

Death of a Cyclist (1955, Juan Antonio Bardem)- Alternately compelling and hamfisted exploration of upper-class morality in Franco's Spain works better now as a cultural artifact than as straight drama. Unfortunately, Bardem's use of a reluctant member of the ruling class strikes me as misguided, since he's too obviously meant to be a surrogate for the director's own feelings about social stratification in his native land. Technical issues aside (it appears than Spanish dramas of the period were roughly equivalent to mid-30s Hollywood from a tech standpoint) the film would have been helped most with a greater emphasis on its female protagonist over the more wishy-washy male lead, not least because of Lucia Bosé, who had screen presence to burn. Rating: **1/2 out of ****.

Autumn Sonata (1978, Ingmar Bergman) This, folks, is what you might call "minor Bergman"- not a disaster like The Serpent's Egg, but more of a regurgitation of pet Bergman themes and tropes than a fully-realized vision. The film works mostly because of the onscreen pairing of Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Bergman as daughter and mother, and the clash of styles that results. Ingrid always feels a little out of place in Ingmar's world, which creates an interesting tension that might not have resulted had the director cast one of his regulars in the role. Ingrid feels too composed for Bergman-land, but that's the point- she's so unwilling to feel the world around her, so prone to keeping them at a distance with lots of talk and easy laughter, that she's become alienated from everyone, especially those who love her most. If the long and impassioned two-hander that dominates the film's second hour works at all, it's because of her and Ullmann. Rating: **1/2 out of ****.

Cléo From 5 to 7 (1962, Agnès Varda)- I love how much Cléo grows during the course of this film. At the beginning, she seems to fear death mostly because it'll wreak havoc on her looks and her youth, but she has very little stake in anything else. But it's as though when she whips off that wig and storms out of her flat alone, she willfully pursues her own betterment. Could make an interesting double feature with INSIGNIFICANCE, another movie about a famous blonde who refuses to play the vapid sex object so many others would have her be. Rating: ***1/2.

The Cranes Are Flying (1957, Mikhail Kalatozov)- Still gorgeous. It's actually more emotionally overwhelming on the big screen, and not just because of Kalatozov and ace cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky's use of closeups. Amid all the bravura direction, the emotional timbre of this feels almost like Jacques Demy, trading in the same kind of sad irony as a film like THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG. Rating: ***1/2.

Summer With Monika (1953, Ingmar Bergman)- First time seeing the original cut [as compared to the STORY OF A BAD GIRL cut]. While I admit that this one works better, I still have my reservations about it. From a storytelling standpoint, the deck feels a little too stacked to me. Aside from his drunk and largely-absent dad, practically every adult in Harry's life at the beginning of the film is an asshole, and so when Monika comes along the choice to steal away with her is remarkably easy. And then after she gets pregnant and has the kid, her character turns on a dime into a bitch (I almost said irresponsible as well, but she was always that). As a result, the film comes off as baldly moralistic- if you turn your back on responsibilty to spend your youth frivolously, you'll end up paying for it the rest of your life. What mostly makes the film work in spite of the message is the magical middle section, in which Harry and Monika enjoy their titular summer together. In keeping with the film's message, Bergman's style in this segment of the film is strictly in-the-moment, as heedless of what is to come as his protagonists. Once the fun stops, it gets more boilerplate, although two extended closeups- one of Monika, one of Harry- are justifiably acclaimed. Rating: ***.

Lola (1981, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)- Sweet Jesus is this movie gorgeous. For my money, Fassbinder's talent as a visual stylist doesn't get nearly enough press- most of the stuff I see about his work tends to focus on his pet themes (sexual power dymanics, recent German history, etc.) and how the film relates to Fassbinder's own life. But any filmmaker who does work that's even remotely "personal"- even visually-impaired dudes like Kevin Smith who might as well be directing for radio- has his own bunch of pet themes and obsessions. But Fassbinder is visually gifted, and versatile to boot, which may have been why his talent as a stylist are overlooked (stylistically speaking, The Merchant of the Four Seasons is not Effi Briest, which in turn is not The Marriage of Maria Braun). Of the Fassbinders I've seen, Lola has to be the most visually ravishing. Fassbinder's use of color and lighting is stunning, especially in scenes where he washes different actors in different hues, even within the same shot. It's also sort of amazing how quickly he was able to get his cast, many of whom were Fassbinder newcomers, on his wavelength so quickly, a testament not only to the strength of his material but also to his sure-handed direction. I'm so glad I saw this for the first time on the big screen, since the directorial niceties wouldn't have hit me nearly as hard on DVD. Rating: ***1/2.

The Flowers of St. Francis (1950, Roberto Rossellini)- I'm woefully underversed in Rossellini, since Italian New Wave has never been my favorite period in film history. Like many Italian works of the period, I respected this but didn't quite manage to love it, although admittedly if I was one of the faithful I might feel differently about it. I'm just waiting for some Final Cut Pro-savvy movie nerd to post The Wacky Adventures of Brother Ginepro on YouTube. Rating: ***.

The Boss of It All (2006, Lars Von Trier)

In a way, this feels of a piece with Von Trier's more polemic works, particularly the way it holds the greedy capitalists up to scorn. This time around, Von Trier goes about this by making the big-business character a coward who would rather be loved by his coworkers than fess up to the unpopular decisions he makes, and eventually the character he exploits- an actor he hires to play the feared "boss of it all"- ends up taking him down by giving him a big, bitter spoonful of his own medicine. But this is also a film about ceding control, not only by the characters in the film, but also by Von Trier himself, who famously used a computer program called Automovision, designed to control camera framing, editing, and sound mixing randomly. Surprisingly, it's not as distracting as I'd feared, especially not the visual style, which merely feels skewed and sort of quirky (the non-matching soundtracks did get jarring at times). Mostly though, it's just funny, and if you'd told me a year or so ago that the biggest impression I'd take from an upcoming Von Trier film was that it was funny, I would have looked at you funny. But there you go. Rating: 7 out of 10.

My Best Friend (2006, Patrice Leconte)

Fascinating and exasperating in equal measure, Leconte's latest film is a step toward lighter fare that left me conflicted. Many of my negative feelings toward the film comes from the dum-dum premise, in which a friendless man is bet by his business partner that he can't produce a best friend within 10 days. The film's first reel or so is easily the least interesting part, as associates of Daniel Auteuil's character, with next to no provocation, come right out and tell him that he doesn't have any friends. Now come on dudes- I don't think there are any adults, particularly not in the cultivated circles Francois runs in, who come right out and tell someone this. They'd be more likely to simply humor him until he does something abominable, at which time someone would blurt it out and everyone else would find themselves inclined to agree. Fortunately, the film gets better, due in large part to the performances of Auteuil and Dany Boon, who plays a cab driver Auteuil enlists to teach him about friendship. The two actors have an easy chemistry, and their scenes together are charming, up until a boorish miscalculation on Auteuil's part alienates his new pal and they have a sudden falling-out, in a scene that feels forced and silly. However, the film rebounds in the final act, involving Boon's last-minute booking on Who Wants to Be a Millionare?, works like gangbusters, with Leconte milking real suspense partly by exploiting the manufactured suspense of the game show, and partly by the turn of events. My Best Friend is inconsistent and occasionally exasperating, but I'll certainly take it over the somnambulent Intimate Strangers. Rating: 5 out of 10.

Blue Collar (1978, Paul Schrader)

On one level this is a bitter portrait of organized labor, but delve a little deeper and you'll see that this is Schrader's attempt at bemoaning the death of 60s idealism. The film's multiracial trio of heroes gets pissed off with their lot in life and decide to stick it to the man by ripping him off, but they end up either dead or manipulated so that they're against each other in the end. Schrader comes right out and says it- the powers that be keep the rest of us down by steering our hostilities away from them and toward each other, and most of us don't realize it until it's too late, if ever. Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto are solid as expected, but Richard Pryor owns this movie. It's fascinating to see him outside his straight comedy element, with the anger that he leavened with hilarity onstage standing on its own here. Pryor's character is the one who changes most over the course of the film, and not always for the better, but throughout his metamorphosis from angry worker bee to union patsy he's always completely authentic. It's sad to think what potential he held as an actor that remained untapped due to his self-destructive tendencies and his all-too-frequent retreat back to safe low-comedy vehicles and late-period Superman sequels. Rating: *** out of ****.

Offside (2006, Jafar Panahi)

It's a crying shame that this never made it to Columbus screens, since it's really the sort of crowdpleaser that should be enjoyed with a nice big audience. As with many of the most lauded Iranian films, Panahi is dealing with his country's treatment of women, this time by centering the story around the banning of women from sporting events. But his approach is neither satirical nor didactic. Instead he tells his story in microcosm, focusing on a small group of female soccer fans and the soldiers who guard them after the women are arrested and sequestered from the male spectators. By situating his story at the fringes of a major soccer game (Panahi shot large portions of the film at a 2005 World Cup qualifying match versus Bahrain), the absurdity of the situation can come out through the characters and their actions rather than the convolutions of the story. It's telling that the soldiers are extremely pissed off about their task, not just because they can't enjoy the game, but also because they're sort of at a loss to explain why female soccer spectators are such a bane on society. They hem and haw and regurgitate the orders they're given, but in the face of the women's conviction they're sort of helpless. Against this lazily united front, the women band together. They knew the risk when they came to the game, and now that they've been caught they're going to make the best of it. After Iran wins the game, the women end up getting away, but it's telling that their joyous escape isn't a victory for feminism, but nationalism. And what is nationalism if it can't be shared by everyone? Rating: 8 out of 10.

August 2007 mini-reviews

8/31- Lonely Hearts (2006, Todd Robinson) [4] {Mostly forgettable, aside from the ways in which director Robinson practically jumps through hoops to lionize his grandfather, the detective who cracked the case, played by John Travolta. The connection is pretty cool, I guess, but it doesn't exactly make for riveting cinema. The real story is Beck and Fernandez, and whenever we're not with them the movie sags, sags, sags.}

8/26- Ball of Fire (1941, Howard Hawks) [***1/2] {Was Barbara Stanwyck the coolest actress from the golden age of Hollywood? She very well might've been. She was just about the most versatile- not in the Master Thespian look-how-I-transform-myself-for-my-art sense, but in the sense that she could kill in damn near any genre. And she was sexy as hell, all the more wondrously so because she wasn't as conventionally glamorous as many of her counterparts, but unlike them she realized that sex appeal was above behavior more than appearance. Who else could've pulled off a character named Sugarpuss O'Shea? Yeah, didn't think so. Oh, and the movie's pretty damn great too.}

8/24- She Done Him Wrong (1933, Lowell Sherman) [***] {If Mae West's innuendos have lost much of their shock value, they're as funny as they ever were. What keeps this from being a really great film like the best work of Fields and the Marx brothers was West's use of conventional plotting. Much of the charm of those Fields and Marx classics was their cavalier disregard for conventional narrative setup-and-payoff, but in the world of She Done Him Wrong the true wrongdoers get punished, and the wrongs are made right. If there's any outlaw charge at all, it's that West herself is exempt from these rules, partly because she talks bad but isn't a crook, but also because of her ever-present belief that sex cuts through morality, rather than the other way around.}

8/24- Cobra Woman (1943, Robert Siodmak) [**] {Not a good movie by any means- I can't imagine watching this alone- but certainly a lot of fun. Sequences of this movie, especially the notorious King Cobra dances, are so jaw-dropping that they're unforgettable. Easy to see Jack Smith's obsession with Maria Montez too. Like many B-movie icons, she may not have been much of an actress, but she had style and presence out the wazoo, so much that you could forgive her shortcomings as a thespian.}

8/23- Pennies From Heaven (1981, Herbert Ross) [***1/2] {What he said, basically. I actually prefer this to Dancer in the Dark because of Ross' fidelity to the style of elaborate Hollywood musicals in the fantasy sequences. Whereas Von Trier's visions look like just regular Von Trier but with music, the contrast of the fantasies in Pennies make them switch between fantasy and "reality" all the more jarring. And strangely poignant too, as when Steve Martin finds himself alone but for his Hollywood-fed fantasies at the end of the film. I guess I need to see the BBC original, but as a remake this blows the 2003 Singing Detective out of the water.}

8/19- The Band Wagon (1953, Vincente Minnelli) [****] {Doesn't quite sustain the level of joy one gets from Singin' in the Rain, but that's about the only thing you can say against this. So many pleasures to be had- the urbane elegance of Fred Astaire, the in-every-way awesome legs of Cyd Charisse, the great songs, the gorgeous sets, and so much more. And why has Eli Roth's Thanksgiving trailer been posted dozens if not hundreds of times on YouTube while nobody has bothered to post "Triplets?" A sad state of affairs for today's tech-savvy movie lovers...}

8/7- Lorna (1964, Russ Meyer) [**] {As propulsive and convulsive as Meyer's films tend to be, I never expected to say this, but Lorna is mostly just kinda meh. A lot of the blame can be heaped on Lorna Maitland who, far from being the archetypal Meyer Amazon, is just sort of a wet blanket. Admittedly she has considerable natural, um, talents (lovely talents too, I must add) but she doesn't have much else going for her. As a result, the film is built around a vacuum, so despite some entertaining business on the fringes- especially Hal Hopper egging on Lorna's husband- the center cannot hold. In addition, the fire-and-brimstone morality of the story (including the "Man of God" narrator) feels fairly cynical here, a spoonful of medicine given to the audience so they don't feel so bad about eating the sugar.}

8/1- # /Mala Noche (1985, Gus Van Sant)/ [**1/2] {It's very much a first film, which doesn't quite make it good but certainly makes it interesting. The black-and-white helps- it lends the images a beauty they would otherwise lack, not to mention that it gives me more motivation to lend the film some extra goodwill. And some of the images are legitimately beautiful, especially the shot of Pepper's newly-dead body, having just fallen out of a window into the street, with steam rising from it as the rain comes pouring down. Still, more interesting as an early indication of Van Sant's later films- especially My Own Private Idaho and his Tarr-inflected "Death" trilogy.}