The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan)

Batman, more than most comic-book heroes, has always been about dichotomies- Batman vs. Bruce, good vs. evil, law vs. order, and so on. But all too often, the series has either expressed these themes in the broadest of terms or smoothed them out to the point of becoming negligible. Thankfully, Nolan plays a different game than his predecessors, exploding the existing dichotomies and throwing in some others for good measure. Nolan’s Batman (Christian Bale) is still a hero, but it’s questionable how much of a good guy he is. Raymond Chandler once wrote, “down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean,” but Batman can be awfully mean at times, and get his hands dirty. More than once in The Dark Knight, he makes morally questionable decisions (such as monitoring every cellular phone in the city) in the name of doing good. The Dark Knight poses the fascinating question of whether we’re able to deal with that.

Most superhero movies square their protagonist off against a nefarious counterpart, but The Dark Knight has more on its mind than a hero/villain showdown. For much of the film’s running time, Nolan contrasts Batman/Bruce with district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), newly elected with the goal of bringing Gotham City’s criminals to justice. The two men have similar goals, but while Batman lacks faith in the system to accomplish his desired end, Dent is the face of that very system. Even though he admires the swift justice administered by the Dark Knight, Dent positions himself as “the white knight,” seeking to eliminate crime through due process. If Bruce Wayne is a pragmatist, Dent is a seemingly incorruptible idealist, a point driven home by his Obama-esque campaign slogan, “I believe in Harvey Dent.”

For a while, Dent’s brand of justice works, cutting a large swath through Gotham’s criminal underworld. But all this changes once The Joker (Heath Ledger) enters the picture. We first see The Joker in the film’s opening scene, staging a robbery on a mob-owned bank only to kill all of his cohorts and escape, alone, with the cash. The Joker isn’t like the other villains prowling the streets of the city. Whereas the established crime syndicates live by their own codes and rules (and have made arrangements with the police in order to survive), The Joker’s sole purpose in life is to stir up anarchy- to leave the populace of Gotham teetering on the edge and let them push themselves over.

Heath Ledger’s Joker has gotten a lot of attention from the press since his death, but I think the character would be one of the great villains even if were still with us. To begin with, Ledger is a far cry from the statelier style of Jack Nicholson. Whereas Nicholson’s Joker was too similar to the Jack persona to be truly scary- more kooky uncle than stone-cold psycho- Ledger immerses himself fully in the character, making him a knife-wielding punk-rock criminal mastermind.

Like Shakespeare’s Iago, this Joker is evil, pure and simple, and every mocking attempt on his part to provide a context or rationalization for his actions only underlines how reductive such rationalizations are when they’re presented seriously in other films. It’s a genuinely disturbing performance, not least to my Knight’s Tale-loving girlfriend. But at the same time, there’s something fiendishly pleasurable about the way Ledger operates in the role, from his delivery of the line, “no, I kill the bus driver” (and its priceless aftermath) to his final fade out. Ledger is in rarefied territory here, joining a murderer’s row- ranging from Alex DeLarge to Daniel Plainview- of irredeemable heavies we can’t help but love.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Nolan’s screenplay is the way he integrates probability problems and game theory into the storyline. Time and again characters are forced to play the odds in order to make a difficult decision. Many of the Joker’s threats carry a heavy price- to name one example, Batman can turn himself in, or the Joker will kill one person every day until he unmasks himself. Or the film’s climactic sequence, in which Nolan employs a variation of the classic game theory problem The Prisoner’s Dilemma to pit two ferries full of people against each other.

But again, Nolan isn’t just showing off here, but setting up perhaps his most important dichotomy- choice versus chance. For all his love of justice, Harvey Dent believes in luck, jokingly flipping a two-headed coin whenever he has to make a tough decision. But when he’s horribly disfigured by an accident (causing him to become “Two-Face”), this belief in chance takes on a deadly undercurrent, as the lives of those who’ve wronged him rests on a coin flip, Anton Chigurh-style.

By contrast, Bruce- who of course is a “two-face” himself- represents choice. As long as he continues fighting crime by night, a happy life with his true love Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal) will be out of the question (can it be a coincidence that Rachel is not only Dent’s current girlfriend but also a prosecuter herself?). Eventually, he must turn his back on the police department and the populace itself in order the catch the Joker. And in the end, Batman takes the rap for Two-Face’s crimes in order to protect the good name of Harvey Dent. In other words, he inverts the prisoner’s dilemma- rather than letting Dent take the fall in order to free himself, he chooses to become a fugitive and face the maximum punishment. This decision affirms not only Bruce’s sense of morality, but his humanity as well. It’s a bold choice, but a necessary one, allowing the city to keep its white knight even while it turns on the dark one.

The Dark Knight isn’t quite a perfect comic book movie- the action sequences are too haphazardly-directed for that- but it lingers in the mind far more than more conventionally exciting superhero movies can hope to do. Unlike most movies of its kind, the film carries a real feeling of danger, as Nolan isn’t afraid of exploring some terrifying areas most movies wouldn’t touch, even killing off more than one significant character in the interest of thematic resonance. Most blockbusters feel like fairy tales- there’s some tension, some suspense, but in the end the bad guys are punished and everyone lives happily ever after. But the events of The Dark Knight will change- even scar- the characters forever. The Dark Knight isn’t just a classic comic book movie, but a pretty great movie in general, and I can’t wait to see it again.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008, Guillermo Del Toro)

One of the reason so many self-professed "geeks" feel a degree of affection toward Guillermo Del Toro is because he's always been something of a geek's geek, in that his work is clearly fueled by fanboy favorites like fantasy fiction, comic books, and classic fantasy movies. As much as anything by Peter Jackson or the genre films of Sam Raimi, Del Toro's films appropriate the highlights of his pop-culture-steeped youth (a touch of George Lucas here, a pinch of Ray Harryhausen there) while doing so in a way that makes the work feel inimitably his, rather than simply the sum total of his influences. Hellboy II is in keeping with this tradition, and while the film is a big-budget summer blockbuster, Del Toro hasn't had his creativity hemmed in, but rather has used his greater resources to create as many magnificent beasties and visual splendor as any film he's made to date. Some critics have complained that Del Toro's primary talent lies in creature design, but with so much creative richness on display it seems churlish to complain. Yet these detractors aren't exactly wrong either. While Hellboy II is awash in visual splendor, the human elements of the movie aren't up to that standard. Many of the more potentially dramatic elements in the narrative- the rivalry between Red and Agent Manning, the romantic subplot involving Abe and Princess Nuala, Red's conflicted relationship with the human race- are ignored for large chunks of time rather than exploited as they might have been by a more assured storyteller. The biggest casualty is the love story between Red and Liz, which should have been poignant but just kind of lays there for a while when Liz takes some time away and Red promptly gets drunk and sings Barry Manilow songs with Abe. It doesn't help matters that Selma Blair is too blank-faced and stilted to make the character work, and when Liz is supposed to be upset she mostly just comes off as a pouty high schooler, whether she's on fire or not. I was also disappointed by the new character of Dr. Johan Krauss, who is an intriguing idea (a sentient, super-intelligent gas being) but doesn't really work onscreen, partly due to the Sig Rumann-esque vocal stylings of Seth MacFarlane, creator of the godawful animated sitcom Family Guy. For his part, Ron Perlman is as perfect for the title role as ever, although it takes a while for Del Toro to really give him much to do here. Still, I enjoyed Hellboy II as a whole, and frankly I loved it in parts, especially when Del Toro really allows the audience to drink in the inventive visuals (the puppet-based prologue, the aftermath of the fight with the Elemental, the Star Wars cantina-inspired Troll Market). I anticipate the possibility of Hellboy III with a certain amount of pleasure, although if it does happen, I hope Del Toro has the good sense to find another co-writer to really keep the screenplay focused. Rating: 6 out of 10.

WALL*E (2008, Andrew Stanton)

(Originally written for a work newsletter)

Disney and Pixar Animation Studios have made another winner with the new computer-animated film WALL*E. Set in the distant future, the movie tells the story of a little robot, the Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-Class (or WALL*E). WALL*E spends his days roaming the abandoned landscape, cleaning up the trash left by the people who’ve abandoned the Earth. Centuries of sifting through human garbage have made WALL*E intensely curious about the planet’s former residents, and he keeps a collection of “treasures” in order to study them. Then one day, a ship descends from space bringing another robot, the sleek, ultra-modern EVE, whose mission is as mysterious as her origins, and who eventually becomes WALL*E’s friend. But when the ship returns to take EVE away, WALL*E sneaks aboard as well, and goes on a journey beyond anything he could have possibly imagined.

As you might guess from the plot synopsis above, WALL*E is not your standard-issue kids’ movie. Since their founding in the 1980s, Pixar has always been committed to expanding the possibilities of animation, and WALL*E continues their almost unprecedented winning streak. In many ways, WALL*E may be their boldest and most experimental movie to date. To begin with, the story doesn’t rely on a comfortable plot so much as it tells a story, seeing its hero’s experiences almost entirely through his eyes as we follow him on his travels. The effect is disorienting at first- the movie doesn’t give us any more information to work with than WALL*E himself would get. Likewise, the story features surprisingly little dialogue, especially from WALL*E and EVE, who have few words at their disposal. But if you’re willing to pay attention and give the movie a chance, your patience will be richly rewarded.

Like all of Pixar’s movies, WALL*E is a feast for the eyes. The early scenes on Earth are wonderful- I could have watched another half-hour or so of WALL*E going about his daily routine- and the animators pack them with all sorts of perfect little sight gags. But the movie’s cleverest visual surprises occur once WALL*E travels into space. I won’t spoil any of them here, except to say that the world WALL*E encounters is a far cry than most movies’ speculations on the future. WALL*E is above all a work of true vision and imagination, one that’s sure to captivate children and adults alike.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Kung Fu Panda (2008, Mark Osborne and John Stevenson)

(Originally written for a work newsletter)

Martial arts has a new legend in Kung Fu Panda, the latest family-friendly blockbuster from Dreamworks Animation, who previously gave the world Shrek. Kung Fu Panda tells the story of Po, a roly-poly panda who finally gets the chance to realize his dreams of kung fu glory, and much of the reason why the movie works is because of Jack Black’s vocal performance in the lead role. Black’s natural exuberance can be hard to harness in live-action roles, but it’s perfectly suited to the childlike, overly enthusiastic Po. Also good is Dustin Hoffman, who voices the role of the wise but skeptical Master Shifu, but the other recognizable names in the cast don’t get a whole lot to do. Why cast a star like Jackie Chan if you’re only going to give his character a handful of lines?

Of course, anyone who is even remotely familiar with kung fu movies (or movies in general, really) will be able to successfully predict where the story is headed. But the movie is entertaining enough that you probably won’t mind. And kids will eat it up- the 7-year-old boy sitting next to me certainly did. Compared to other Dreamworks Animation releases, Kung Fu Panda is surprisingly free of wholesale pop culture references, to say nothing of the bodily-function humor that has become a far too common hallmark of family entertainment. The slapstick humor about Po’s weight gets a little out of hand at times, but in the end it serves a purpose, as our hero learns to accept his size and even use it to his advantage in the kung fu tradition. But the best parts of Kung Fu Panda are the action sequences, which are unimaginable in live action. The tradition of animators bending the laws of physics to their own ends goes back to the Road Runner, and here the filmmakers take advantage of the medium to create exciting (if impossible) fight scenes. All in all, Kung Fu Panda is not a great family movie, but it’s a lot of fun for kids, and surprisingly entertaining for adults as well.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Get Smart (2008, Peter Segal)

(Originally written for a work newsletter)

Popular TV secret agent Maxwell Smart makes the jump to the big screen in Get Smart, starring Steve Carell in the role immortalized on television by Don Adams. The movie is entertaining, but it’s also an uneasy mix of silly comedy and slam-bang action that doesn’t always work. Part of the problem may be the summer release date, a time when the movie has to compete with mega-budgeted spectaculars, causing the filmmakers to inject special effects and action scenes in order to keep up. However, the action almost always gets in the way of the funny stuff, causing the movie to drag in spots. This is especially true near the end of the movie, when Max and his partner Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) are called upon to save the world. Whereas an out-and-out comedy like The Naked Gun took its climactic scenes to almost surreal extremes to uproarious ends, Get Smart plays its plotline fairly straight. As a result, the movie never quite pays off as it should.

That said, a lot of the movie is pretty funny, in an agreeably silly vein similar to that of the original series. Hathaway has little to do but play straight (wo)man to Carell and look great, both of which she does fairly well. Terence Stamp’s super-villain is a bit of a bust, a victim of the filmmakers’ unwillingness to give him anything funny to do. However, other supporting cast members make more of an impression, especially Dwayne Johnson as the hotshot Agent 23, and the ever-priceless Alan Arkin as the unflappable Chief. But it’s Carell who owns the movie, mostly by treating the role of Max as an engaging character rather than simply a schtick. Carell may be the most talented actor among the current crop of funnymen, and he’s quite good here, resisting the urge to mug for the camera like, say, Steve Martin in the Pink Panther remake. Carell gives an honest-to-goodness performance here, turning what it other hands might have simply been a bumbling idiot into a kind of everyman who always means well, even when the results are disastrous. Max made me laugh, but I also genuinely liked the guy, and as a result I liked GET SMART enough to make me wish it had been better than it actually was. As Max himself would say, “missed it byyyyyyyy… that much.”

Rating: 5 out of 10.

My Blueberry Nights (2007, Wong Kar-wai)

If nothing else, My Blueberry Nights makes for an interesting critical exercise, asking Wong fans to ponder the question of whether Wong’s romantic dialogue is easier to swallow in subtitle form, or if new collaborator Lawrence Block pushed it over the top into abject ridiculousness. Either way, the dialogue is merely one factor in the ultimate failure of the film. Another is the lead performance by singer-turned-actress Norah Jones- the character is written as a passive observer anyway, and Jones lacks the gravity or comfort in front of the camera to really make this work. She never quite manages to engage with her costars, and it’s hard to care about her she seems less like she’s listening than waiting to say her next line. Similarly, Wong doesn’t do his supporting cast any favors- the only one with even a fraction of Tony Leung’s soul is David Strathairn’s drunken cop, but in the end he falls prey to Wong’s inertly romantic vision. It should go without saying that the images are ravishing- not simply for the colors but also the graininess of the film stock- but instead of the seductive qualities they carry in Wong’s best work, they merely hold you at a distance here, inviting you to marvel at their beauty rather than pulling you into the story. Put it this way- as I longtime blueberry pie fan, I was curiously unmoved by the repeated shots of the tasty dessert, even with ice cream slowly melting over it. And friends, that just ain’t right. Rating: 4 out of 10.

Hancock (2008, Peter Berg)

Certainly not the best blockbuster to come down the pipe this summer, but this is almost undoubtedly the strangest. Starts off with a bang, although not in the way you might expect, as Will Smith's reluctant superhero stops a violent crime in progress but leaves a whole mess of destruction and ill will in his wake. Victor is right on in spotlighting the way the film's first hour is primarily a prickly pro-interventionism allegory and satire of guilty-liberal bugaboos- it's so apparent you couldn't even call it subtextual- and it's bracing to see a big-budget summer movie that's not only unabashedly political but successfully works it into the narrative rather than simply paying it lip service. Hancock (that name, I mean duh) is called upon to clean up crime only to be vilified by the people when he doesn't make it pretty or heroic-looking, only to be called back into action when he's put out of commission for his infractions. I'm not remotely the biggest supporter of American militarism out there, yet I'd be lying if I didn't find this part of the movie surprisingly engaging. However, about an hour into the story (following the logical conclusion), Berg and distributor Columbia Pictures suddenly remember that they're trying to make a big summer tentpole superhero adventure, and everything starts to go to hell. After an intriguing, unexpected reveal, we're subjected to a subpar take on the usual formula- the origin story, the moments of doubt, the vulnerability, and finally the hero rising to the occasion. Unfortunately, Hancock doesn't work nearly as well as a loud, self-important superhero spectacle as it does as the satire its early scenes would lead one to believe it is (not sure which is worse, the lame-ass ending, the lame-ass villain, or the awful performance by Charlize Theron). What's more, Berg has no idea how to handle the twists the script throws at him and the tonal shifts that result from them. The most egregious example of this (SPOILER) is the fallout from the unveiling of Theron's character as one of Hancock's fellow superheroes. To begin with, it's not nearly as big a twist as the film makes it out to be, since Berg relies far too heavily on seemingly unmotivated closeups of her staring skeptically at the unkempt superhero that hubby Jason Bateman has brought into their lives. And once it's happened, the movie kind of goes to hell. This is most apparent in a scene where Smith and Theron zip around downtown L.A., fighting like a couple of petulant children. Ideally, this scene is funny because the two of them are obviously on another plane of existence and their issues are out of scope with the mortals who surround them. So when they fight, obviously they'll leave destruction in their wake. However, Berg never gets the scope of the scene right, thus killing the comedy, and the scene becomes nothing more than a series of loud, punishing effects. (END SPOILER) The movie doesn't get much better from there, finishing in a warm-fuzzy ending that it hasn't earned and which doesn't begin to satisfactory wrap up the story. It's a shame- what started as perhaps the summer's best surprise quickly turned to disbelief and, finally, disappointment, and that's not the kind of ride you want to get from a blockbuster. Rating: 6 out of 10, although it's more like a split decision between 8 and 4.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008, Steven Spielberg)

After a nineteen year hiatus, everyone’s favorite whip-cracking archeologist is back in INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. First things first- yes, Harrison Ford is just at home in the role as he ever was. The movie wisely moves the story into the 1950s, which allows Ford to play his age, making Indy older, wiser, and crankier than we’ve seen him before, but while he has lost a step or two he’s still a great action hero. Likewise, the new time setting for this adventure gives him a new group of villains to contend with- now, instead of Nazis they’re Soviets, headed by diabolical officer Irina Spalko, played by Cate Blanchett, who’s clearly having a ball. Spalko isn’t an especially complicated character- she’s basically there to chase Indy and go after the titular skull, but she certainly makes an impression, and is on par with the best previous Indy villains. The other important character is Mutt, a motorcycle-riding kid played by Shia LaBeouf, who ropes Indy into the quest without knowing who exactly he is. The rest of the film’s supporting characters aren’t so well-drawn, although it is nice to see Karen Allen again, looking surprisingly like she did in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. However, John Hurt’s character is given exactly one note to play (Crazy Crystal Skull guy), and Jim Broadbent, as Dr. Jones’ new boss, pales in comparison to his predecessor Marcus Brody, played by the late Denholm Elliott. Worst of all is Ray Winstone, typically so magnetic, whose largely gratuitous role consists of him switching allegiances at the drop of a hat.

CRYSTAL SKULL also suffers from a little too much story- not merely that unfortunate recent Spielberg tendency to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s, but also too much exposition about the legend of the skull. While RAIDERS and LAST CRUSADE both had easily recognizable MacGuffins, the Crystal Skull mythology is obscure and convoluted, leading to too many scenes in which characters have to stand around and explain what it’s all about- TEMPLE OF DOOM, to its credit, more or less forgot its artifacts altogether. There’s also about two too many endings- pretty good by recent Spielberg standards- and a somewhat hit-and-miss deployment of references to previous installments in the series (my girlfriend enjoyed the Ark shout-out somewhat more than I did). However, I did like the similar motivations of a few of the characters during the climactic sequence- not only a nod to the climax of RAIDERS, but also the way another character’s downfall was caused by his greed, like Elsa in CRUSADE. And of course, the action scenes more than deliver. Spielberg still has a gift for classically-styled action scenes, and there a couple of doozies here, in particular a car chase/fight scene through the jungle, that are refreshing in the way he shoots them primarily in nice long takes that allow the action to play out before our eyes. INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL isn’t a classic like some of the previous Indy films, but it’s certainly worthy to stand beside them, and certainly worth the price of admission.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Speed Racer (2008, The Wachowski Brothers)

The seventies cartoon cult classic revs its way onto multiplex screens this weekend with Speed Racer, the latest film by the Wachowski Brothers, who created The Matrix. Whereas that film and its better-left-forgotten sequels were pitched mostly to teenagers and young adults, Speed Racer is more of a family movie. But don’t let that fool you- aside from some kid-friendly business with Speed’s little brother and his pet chimpanzee, this is anything but a cutesy kids’ movie. Instead, it’s a high-powered action adventure, featuring a charismatic lead performance in the title role by Emile Hirsch (last seen in last year’s Into the Wild) and some solid supporting performances, particularly from John Goodman as Speed’s car-builder dad and Matthew Fox (from TV’s Lost) as the mysterious Racer X. But the real stars of the movie are the visual effects. The Matrix pushed the envelope for effects technology nine years ago, and Speed Racer does it again, creating a candy-colored world of visual wonderment (word to the wise: sit up close and let the movie wash over you). Whereas most effects-heavy movies tie themselves in knots to make their worlds realistic, Speed Racer goes the opposite direction, sending its cars jumping, spinning, and flying in ways that defy every conceivable law of physics. In lesser hands, this would feel cheesy, but not here. Yes, the racing scenes in Speed Racer could never be possible in the real world, but it’s a testament to how entertaining the movie is that I wished they could.

But what really sells Speed Racer is how completely it embraces the absurdity of its premise. Like the Matrix trilogy, this is a story about a “chosen one”- I mean, duh, the kid’s named “Speed Racer,” like he could be anything else. But the Wachowskis never make the mistake of bogging the story down with any more significance than it can bear. Even the heavier stuff in the film- the race-fixing subplot, the backstory involving Speed’s dead brother- is played broadly, so as to fit into the live-action cartoon world that the brothers have created. And really, it’s the eye-candy that makes the movie soar, making it easier to forgive the occasional sop to the family audience. Speed Racer isn’t without its issues, but it’s also such a rush that they hardly matter. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed the hell out of the movie, even if it was only the second-best thing that happened to me today.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Iron Man (2008, Jon Favreau)

The summer movie season gets off to a roaring start with Iron Man, a big-screen adaptation of the Marvel comic book series. Iron Man isn't a household name like Spider-Man or the Incredible Hulk, but this is no cut-rate superhero movie. The film, directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Jon Favreau, is both funny and exciting in the tradition of the best superhero adventures. But while the studio spared no expense bringing the film to life, its real ace in the hole is star Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role. Much like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, Downey reveals himself as a bona fide movie star in Iron Man, showing real charisma without sacrificing any of the infectious unpredictability that's made him such a fascinating character actor. Downey is so good as Iron Man's alter ego Tony Stark that it's almost disappointing when he disappears behind the suit... almost.

But what makes Iron Man an irresistible character is that he's in almost every sense a self-made hero. Most obviously, there's his powers, which derive not from natural means or some strange twist of fate, but largely through his own ingenuity. He flies, stands up to heavy fire, and fights with superhuman strength because he invented the means to do so. But in a deeper sense, he's a hero because he chooses to be one. It's key that Tony Stark is quite a bit older than most comic book heroes. No babe in the woods, he's lived through a lot, and is floating through life aimlessly buoyed only by his money. His kidnapping jars him out of this inertia and leads him to build the original suit out of necessity. This, in turn, reinvigorates his sense of purpose, to quote another recent Downey character. Seeing the destruction and despair that his weapons have caused, he instead uses his formidable intellect and almost inexhaustible means for good, and once he's chosen that path there's no going back. I think it's interesting that once Stark has decided to devote his life to heroic endeavors, there's never any angst about it- he's seen the light, and isn't the least bit conflicted about it. It's also telling that there's never any real hand-wringing about his decision by his assistant-turned-love-interest Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow)- once she finds out, she's concerned for his life, but she also respects the decision he's made. More than most comic book movies, Iron Man genuinely believes in the possibility of heroism, and for that reason alone it's well worth seeing. Well, that and it's a lot of fun.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Counterfeiters (2007, Stefan Ruzowitzky)

I hate to be one of those writers who makes snarky comments about how the Academy's Foreign Language branch can't resist Holocaust movies, but movies like The Counterfeiters just make it so damned easy. The film takes as its inspiration a fascinating footnote to World War II- the Third Reich's attempts to counterfeit American dollars and British pounds by enlisting Jewish prisoners- but unfortunately it's not quite sure how to handle the story. There's an uneasy mix between the Holocaust aspect of the film and the moral quandary at its center. The film attempts to ask the question of whether it's better to survive in the face of evil or to risk your lives to try to bring it down. However, in its attempts to address the question, the film becomes curiously cold, and once the counterfeiters begin their work, there seems to be very little in the way of a serious threat to their lives. A lot of this is inherent in the story itself- the counterfeiters are isolated from the rest of the prisoners and made to feel safe, all the better to do their work. Yet the film gives almost no sense of the world outside their comfortable little world, aside from a few glimpsed or overhead instances. I can imagine a more rigorous filmmaker making this story work, but Ruzowitzky isn't inspired or intellectual enough to really pull it off. As a result, the film's eventual solution to its question is a fairly uncompelling compromise, which finds protagonist Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) cooperating with the Reich as long as he can and then sticking it to them after he thinks he can get away with it. In addition, the story turns into a strange bit of hagiography for the character of Adolf Berger (August Diehl), who wrote the novel on which the film is based and is painted as the story's true hero, having resisted the Reich from the beginning and whose efforts to delay the production of counterfeit dollars helped- in the view of the film- to cripple the Reich economically and led to their defeat. To me, that explanation feels too tidy, and if there's one thing a movie like this really shouldn't be, it's tidy. I sort of respect what the film is going for, but for me it's a near-miss. Rating: 5 out of 10.

Chop Shop (2007, Ramin Bahrani)

It's a measure of how far "neo-realism" has come in the past six decades that films that fall into the category are much less concerned with tidy narrative structure and stabs at social concern than with unvarnished portrayals of difficult lives. Freed from the need to couch its storyline in a message, Chop Shop is primarily a character study, and it succeeds mostly by giving us a window into the life of its protagonist, Alé (played by Alejandro Polanco). Alé is a young Latino, about 12 years old or so, whose life is spent in the relentless pursuit of money. As a young immigrant with no parents to speak of, he spends most of his days doing what he can to get ahead, making the most of his natural hustler's confidence and gift of gab. What's most striking about the film is that we get very little background into his life, yet we find out everything we need to know through his actions. Alé spends most of his days surrounded by adults, particularly those who work in the chop shops in the Queens neighborhood where the film is set, and like any kid he wants to like them because he only sees the freedom that comes with adulthood and overlooks the responsibility. But unlike most kids, he doesn't see the commitments of adulthood because he's taken on most of them himself already- making the money he needs, keeping himself fed and sheltered, saving for the future. Mostly, what Alé wants is to be treated with the respect the adults in his life receive, to be truly a part of the world rather than in the outsider position that's afforded children. He wants to be treated as an equal, rather than someone who's just there as cheap labor, as when his boss (and makeshift landlord) curtly admonishes him for counting his money in front of him. Alé is more streetwise than anyone his age really ought to be, but his youth also makes his prone to the occasional child's mistake, as when the food truck he's saved up to buy for him and his sister turns out to be a wreck. Alé and those around him live lives unimaginable to most of the film's viewers, yet the film never becomes a wallow or a tale of woe. In fact, the only thing that keeps Chop Shop from being a really top-notch film of its kind- like the works of the Dardenne brothers- is the spiritual and religious undercurrents of their stories, which tend to give them the feel of hardscrabble Biblical parables. But then, I don't think that's Bahrani's goal, and he's one of the few American filmmakers who has successfully captured the lifestyles of poor immigrants in our large cities. And really, I'd say that's enough. Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Animation Show 4 (2008, presented by Mike Judge)

Since their beginning of The Animation Show four years ago, I've been a supporter of their goals- to bring animated shorts by established and up-and-coming animators to theatrical venues in order to educate moviegoers in the diversity of the medium. But while the previous years have showcased some fascinating work, 2008's crop was pretty thin. I'm such a lot of this has to do with the increasing numbers of animated shorts programs that have gotten released in theatres since TAS's inception- for example, no Oscar nominees are included this year, probably because they just played two months ago with the Oscar shorts program. But I wonder if the dip of quality might also be reflective of TAS founder Don Hertzfeldt's lack of involvement this year. Between his artistic cachet and Judge's marquee value and particular brand of comedy, the first three programs struck a worthy balance between art and entertainment, showcasing everything from new short films by Bill Plympton to gorgeous, deadly serious works like last year's Overtime. But without Hertzfeldt on board this year, the balance has tipped toward snarky, wiseass comedies. Sure, there's still some art in the proceedings, although these films aren't of the caliber of previous years- there's an occasional keeper like Georges Schwizgebel's Jeu, a geometric, Escher-inspired short about human leisure. But most of the arty stuff is flashy and soulless, like Animation Show regular PES's Western Spaghetti and BIF Productions' Raymond. Meanwhile, a large percentage of the funny stuff is more loud and shrill than humorous. The introductory short, Joel Trussell's fittingly-titled Show Opener, feels like little more than a lo-fi homage to the priceless beginning of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. In addition, for the first time this year, several of the animators contributed series of shorts, which unfortunately are among the most tiresome on the program. Usavich, a Japanese CGI series about a pair of silent bunnies, is flashy but never entertaining; Dave Carter's Psychotown series plays like an Australian version of Terrance and Philip but quickly wears out its welcome; and Corky Quackenbush contributes Yombi the Crotch-Biting Sloup, which has little going for it other than the title. There's the occasional genuinely funny short film- the low-key Operator and Nieto's live-action/animation combo Far West are pretty fun- but not enough. All in all, there's not enough good stuff to wholeheartedly recommend this year's incarnation of The Animation Show. If Judge wants to compete with the other theatrical animation programs out there, he'll have to try harder next time around. And distribute it on film like he used to, for that matter. Overall rating: 5 out of 10.

Married Life (2007, Ira Sachs)

There are many fans of Sachs' last film, Forty Shades of Blue, out there, but I wasn't really one of them. Consequently, I found Married Life to be a real leap forward for him stylistically. What really stuck out to me was how lightly he treads on his period setting- rather than using it like Far From Heaven to comment on the widely-accepted conventions of the times, Sachs' approach is far more subtle. Rather than taking the approach of breaking open the squeaky clean mores of the fifties- with the shocking (SHOCKING!) revelation that all is not well with Ward and June Cleaver- Sachs' characters are all fairly good characters who are teetering at the edge of a more modern, Freudian style of self-actualization. At several points in the film, characters repeat the line, "I can't let our happiness be built on the unhappiness of another," and to me that's the key. For many in our contemporary society- with its self-help tomes and overanalysis- self-centered happiness is seen as the acme of existence, and anything that impedes this happiness is seen as counterproductive to the forward progress of our lives. But in a marriage, such self-centered questing is more than callous- it's the antithetical to the idea of the marriage oath- "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live." Not being married, I can't speak from my own experience, but from what I do know, the marriages that last aren't the ones who've never experienced difficulty, but rather the ones who've been able to weather the storm. The characters in Married Life stand astride these two ideas- the modern-day need for happiness and the old-school commitment to making a successful marriage. Even the single characters- Rich (Pierce Brosnan) and Kay (Rachel McAdams)- respect the latter, even as their efforts appear to push the marriage of friends Harry (Chris Cooper) and Pat (Patricia Clarkson) apart. Rich is particularly surprising- what appears on one level to be a self-serving flirtation with Kay (who begins the film as Harry's mistress) ends up helping his best friend as much as it does him. And at the center of the film is the strange and ultimately touching love story that takes place between Harry and Pat, two characters who seem to exist at cross purposes but who care about each other too much to cause the other any pain. The murder plot in the story is a little too literal an expression of this in my opinion, but it ends up leading to a lovely- and it must be said, impeccably acted- climax in which the two stand in separate rooms, a closed door between them, and reckon with their improprieties while they try to mend what they've almost lost. As a portrait of a man learning to love his wife, it isn't nearly the equal of The Age of Innocence, but it's well worth a view. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037 (2006, Ben Niles)

One of the strengths of cinema that other media can't touch is its ability to show, in detail, how an act is performed. Sadly, this procedural aspect is too often neglected, especially by fiction filmmakers, who are all too eager to move the story forward. However, when it's done right, I'm fascinated. It's one of many reasons why I love The Son, it's why I prefer the first half of United 93 (with its detail re-enactment of how shit went down on 9/11) to the second, and it comprises the one scene in Zhang Yimou's otherwise risible The Road Home that had my full attention. With Note by Note, the procedural stuff is foregrounded for a change, as we follow the creation of a brand new grand piano from the lumber yard to the concert hall. All in all, a Steinway concert model requires roughly a year to make, a task that's accomplished with old-school hand craftsmanship. And through the process, we meet many people who are in charge of various aspects of production, from the guy who selects the wood to the men in charge of the "belly" of the instrument, to the technicians who put every piano through a battery of tunings. It's also interesting to see the makeup of the people who create the pianos- working-class types, many of them immigrants, all of whom despair that too few young people will carry on the tradition they've worked so hard to maintain. It's this tradition that attracts many gifted pianists to Steinway, and a "subplot" of the film finds renowned pianists- from jazz men Bill Charlap and Kenny Barron to concert pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard- testing out Steinway after Steinway to find the one with the character and timbre they want. With the human touch all over the making of each Steinway, there's no wonder that no two instruments are exactly alike, and this is appreciated mightily by those in the know. To the film's credit, we come to appreciate this as well, not simply because the people onscreen say so, but because when they test a room full of Steinways in rapid succession, the differences quickly become apparent. But whether you're Harry Connick Jr. (who also appears) or one of the lucky kids whose parents purchased them a Steinway during the factory sale we see in the film, there's no substitute for quality. I for one hope that the Steinway company is able to maintain their traditional methods for years to come. Rating: 8 out of 10.

Side note: Back in my piano-playing days, I had a huge crush on French concert pianist Hélène Grimaud, beginning when my mother took me to see her perform Chopin. Part of it no doubt had to do with the fact that she was probably the first young, hot female concert pianist I'd ever seen perform, but I was pretty smitten back then, and I found as many of her recordings as I could. Imagine my surprise when she turned up here, as delightful as ever. Will have to seek out some of her more recent albums and do some catching up.

Shine a Light (2008, Martin Scorsese)

After a long career capped by his recent Oscar win, Scorsese has more than earned the right to make whatever he damn pleases. If he wants to do a large-format Rolling Stones concert film, that's fine. But while Shine a Light is entertaining, it's scarcely more than that, and its only real justification is that Marty always wanted to film a Stones concert. Perhaps it would have felt like less of a disappointment if not for the opening ten minutes- a montage of the frenzied preparations for the show, with Scorsese poring over obsessively detailed camera setups for all possible songs the Stones might perform while he sweats what the actual playlist might be. It's a mini-gem, with Scorsese placing it in a tiny square in the middle of the frame and filming everything in black-and-white. It's so much fun, and so jazzily-edited, that it sets up something big to come, but once the concert begins and the image expands to fill the frame (a great moment, by the way) it becomes a pretty standard-issue concert film. In fact, it's the extent to which Scorsese prepared that's part of what keeps Shine a Light from really soaring- because everything is so planned, there's little room for the little offhand moments and found shots that distinguish some of the greatest concert films out there. But then, I'd argue that the lack of stylistic surprises from Scorsese perfectly fit this concert, with Mick Jagger & Co. playing the hits everyone expects (except "Gimme Shelter" for some reason). Although everyone puts in a good day's work onstage- at twice my age, Mick is nimbler and more energetic than I can ever hope to be- they've played these songs too many times and for too long for them to hold any more surprises, either for them or for us. It's hard to argue with the songs themselves, although for my money the earlier stuff just doesn't sounds quite right with Ronnie Wood instead of Brian Jones or especially Mick Taylor. But aside from some good music and a handsome look, it's little more than a better-than-average concert film. That'd be enough for most filmmakers, but given the involvement of Scorsese and his Murderer's Row of cinematographers (Richardson! Lubezki! Toll! Kuras! Elswit! Dryburgh! Lesnie! Maysles!!!!), it feels vaguely like a squandering of talent. Still, well worth seeing if you dig the Stones- but then, who doesn't? Rating: 6 out of 10.

Paranoid Park (2007. Gus Van Sant)

In many ways, this is the film Van Sant has been working toward for years. Much of his work has dealt with pretty young men and the outsider communities in which they live, but Paranoid Park takes this one step further, by telling its story almost subjectively. Along with his ace sound designer Leslie Shatz- almost certainly his key collaborator at this point- Van Sant immerses us in the point of view of Alex (newcomer Gabe Nevins), who wanders through the film without a clear place to fit into its world. His home life is in flux with his parents' divorce about to finalize, and as a high schooler he doesn't pay his parents much mind anyway (rarely do we see them straight on, as Van Sant shoots them primarily outside or at the edge of the frame). Likewise, he's an outsider in school by virtue of his skateboarder status. Yet while he runs with the "skateboarder community" (dig the shot of them walking down the hallway, one at a time joining them), he never even fits in with these guys. Consider that we never actually see him skateboarding at the Park- he tells his friend "I'm not quite ready," and late in the film he admits to his dad that "I mostly just practice when I'm alone." But it's not until the central killing that he more or less severs his emotional ties with those he's closest to- his girlfriend, his best skateboarding bud, and so on. Even when his friend Macy invites him to reach out to her by suggesting he put his thoughts in a letter, he takes the letter and burns it instead. If Gerry was exciting for the boldness with which Van Sant experimented with his new-found style, Paranoid Park is equally bracing, albeit in a different way, as the ultimate distillation of his influences and inspirations into a unique Van Sant-ian aesthetic. And unlike his previous films Elephant and Last Days, Paranoid Park frees Van Sant from the burden of dealing with historical record and the moral quagmire that entails, instead allowing him to groove on the pure-cinema possibilities of his characters' situations. Perhaps it's for the best that Van Sant has declared that he's moving in a new stylistic direction with his next films, as I'd imagine it'd probably end up bringing in diminishing returns if used over and over again. Rating: 8 out of 10.

Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2007, Jamie Babbit)

There's always been a certain amount of sex appeal inherent in activism. In young people especially, activism is a turn-on, as it combines two of their biggest sweet spots- idealism and breaking the rules. There's a great film to made about this idea, but for now the best example I can think of is Bruce La Bruce's The Raspberry Reich, in which a German terrorist cell doesn't even come close to accomplishing their goals because the members are too busy balling each other. More conventional is Itty Bitty Titty Committee, which comes armed with a truckload of Angry Feminist talking points- body image issues, phallic imagery, etc.- and then promptly turns them into what's basically a lesbian sitcom. A big part of the problem is that Babbit is clearly on the kids' side, making practically every character who doesn't agree with them a cartoon, unworthy of being taken seriously. I mean, hey, I don't like boob jobs either, but they're such an easy target, even without the inflated bottle-blonde bimbo working alongside our heroine (Melonie Diaz) at the plastic surgeon's office. Practically the only character who gets to offer a dissenting opinion is Courtney (Melanie Mayron), but her pragmatic solutions are eventually shoved aside in favor of her dissolving relationship with the younger, more idealistic Sadie (Nicole Vicius). And of course, there's some bed-hopping drama which derails- albeit temporarily- the gang's plans. Babbit's style is somewhat less oppressive than in 1999's dire ...But I'm a Cheerleader!, but she's retained her overeagerness to please the audience, which dulls any edge the film might have had. Likewise, aside from a choice cameo by Melanie Lynskey, the acting is fairly mediocre, with none of the actors making much of an impression. Truth be told, I'm surprised this review is as long as it is, given that I've already sort of forgotten this harmless but inconsequential movie already. Rating: 4 out of 10.

Snow Angels (2007, David Gordon Green)

One of the key conversations in this film comes just after high schooler Arthur (Michael Angarano) discovers the body of a young girl. After he finishes talking to the police, his mother takes him aside and warns him not to allow this tragedy to cause him to bottle up his feelings. What makes this conversation interesting is the way Green parallels Arthur's life with that of the older Glenn (Sam Rockwell), an alcoholic who turned to Christ after a failed suicide attempt, whose biggest problem may be the freedom with which he pours out his feelings. Glenn is not shy about giving of himself, whether others want it or not- one can sense the unvarnished sincerity of his intentions even when he's at his most threatening. Green's film, his fourth, is his most plot-bound to date, but he has retained his knack for balancing sometimes wildly different tones in order to keep the audience from slipping too far into melodrama. He also, for the most part, manages to coax natural and assured performances from his cast, particularly Angarano and of course Rockwell, who continues to be awesome. The weak link is Kate Beckinsale, who just can't drop her actorly primness to make the role work- she's fine when she's doing the Good Mom thing, but whenever she loses her cool one can see her straining. But the bigger problem comes from the film's construction itself. While Green creates some additional levels of interest in the story by contrasting his adult characters with the younger ones, this also leads to an overly deterministic dichotomy which basically shows the young people as happy and full of promise and the adults as damaged and hopeless. Of course, with age comes disappointment, but it all felt too neat to me, not to mention too nostalgic about the magic of youth. Still, Snow Angels is a worthy addition to an already-promising career, and if nothing else it'll make a nice contrast to this summer's much broader and more audience-pleasing Pineapple Express, which I don't think I have to tell you is going to be so awesome. Rating: 6 out of 10.

The Band's Visit (2007, Eran Kolirin)

Not much to report, alas- aside from the culture-clash element, The Band's Visit is pretty much your basic festival-friendly foreign comedy with a heart. Early scenes of incongruous Egyptians in powder blue uniforms looking out of place in an arid Israeli town give way to scenes in which they try to bridge the gap with their unlikely new friends. There are a few inspired spots, but just as often the movie retreats into "look-at-these-backwards-small-towners" gags, as when one of the band members tags along with some locals to a roller disco. The film only really takes on a life of its own when the principal duo- Sasson Gabai and Ronit Elkabetz- are onscreen. The actors have an unforced rapport between them, Gabai with his courtly nobility, Elkabetz with her knack for cutting through the bullshit. Unlike the rest of the film, their moments together are filled with genuine feeling, which makes it all the more disappointing when Kolirin cuts away to, say, the sweaty local who waits by the pay phone for his girlfriend to call. The Band's Visit is no better or worse than the hundreds of other films like it, and for all the outcry over its being disqualified for Oscar consideration by the foreign-language branch, I think the publicity may have raised its profile with audiences, because on its own is really nothing special. Rating: 5 out of 10.

Funny Games U.S. (2007, Michael Haneke)

If nothing else, Funny Games U.S. constitutes a bold experiment in form even Gus Van Sant couldn't have managed, with Haneke leveraging his Caché, uh, cachet to make a movie that's pretty much a carbon copy of his 1997 succes de scandale, aside from the cast. But while others will question the viability of this experiment, I think it works in the same way Van Sant's remake of Psycho couldn't quite manage, by replicating an already-existing template, and in doing so to emphasize what made that film (and by extension this one) work so well. It's clear now that Haneke made Funny Games as an anti-thriller, by shoving the familiar, comforting tropes of the genre through the proverbial wood chipper. The reason why thrillers (good and bad) are so popular with audiences is that, while they provide vicarious excitement and shocks in the moment, they do so in a tried-and-true framework that allows audiences to relax in the idea that nothing truly disturbing will happen. Some characters may die, others will certainly suffer, but the bad guys will get theirs in the end at the hands of someone we like. In short, the thriller genre has an established set of rules that the films almost always adhere to. Time and again, Haneke subverts our genre-driven expectations, which decades of clichéd offerings have ingrained in our minds. For example, the film begins with us in Naomi Watts' corner, so we expect her to be the film's protagonist, but that's not the case. What I think has most audiences up in arms about Funny Games is, like No Country for Old Men, the baddie isn't on a level playing field with the rest of the story. But whereas Chigurh differed from his surroundings by being a spectral, possibly supernatural presence, Paul (Michael Pitt in the remake) lords over the story in Funny Games and dictates where it goes. Not content to play by the rules that have been set down for him, he makes rules of his own, sometimes revealing new ones or changing the existing ones as necessary. What's more, Haneke pulls a bait-and-switch in the film's point of view, moving the audience from Watts' perspective to Pitt's once he arrives on the scene for real. In doing so, he turns the audience into co-conspirators with Paul and his partner in crime Peter (the chillingly earnest Brady Corbet), at several points making this explicit by having Pitt turn to the camera and ask questions like "do you think that's enough?" It's these provocations that keep Funny Games (both this version and its Austrian predecessor) from being classics- such intellectual, audience-baiting gamesmanship feels cheap and sort of tacky, compared to the sly deconstruction of the thriller mechanism that Haneke pulls off for most of the film. Funny Games is at its most potent when Haneke seems to promise the usual thrills, only to withhold them from us- not just the famous "rewind" scene, but also the film's lack of explicit violence. In addition, for all the humiliations vested upon Naomi Watts' character, there really isn't much that happens to her for most of the film that doesn't also happen to the more traditional "action heroine" in Doomsday, who is tortured twice, both times while wearing a form-fitting tank top that prominently shows off her cleavage. By contrast, Watts' character is forced to strip by her captors, but Haneke withholds even that from the audience, as if to ask us why we would want to see T&A from a character who's so clearly traumatized. In addition, there's a 10-minutes stationary shot of a stripped-to-her-underwear, trussed-up Watts struggling to free herself from her constraints that might have come off as shameless if not for the courage with which she embues the character. We really feel for her and hope for the best for her in spite of what we fear the film has in store, which makes her pitiable (yet almost offhandedly casual) fate hit like a sudden blow to the head. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Doomsday (2008, Neil Marshall)

A few years ago, Marshall won the love of horror fans with his scary girls-in-a-cave chiller The Descent. However, those expecting the elemental terror of that film will be sorely disappointed in his follow-up project. Doomsday is a futuristic thriller set in the aftermath of an epidemic that has ravaged Scotland, causing the British government to quarantine that entire country. Decades later, Scotland has become a wasteland, but when the virus rears its ugly head in London, the British government sends a team of soldiers behind the wall to locate a cure. It's not a particularly inspired storyline, and Marshall seems to realize this, as the movie is largely memorable for the random directions he takes. It's one thing that, after arriving in Glasgow, Maj. Sinclair (played by Rhona Mitra) and her team find a band of cannibalistic punks who look like a roving band of extras from The Road Warrior. But then the movie takes a bizarre, Uwe Boll-esque turn after Mitra and company run afoul of a reclusive doctor (Malcolm MacDowell) who lives in a castle and leads a band of warriors who wear armor and ride horses. Finally, Marshall senses that he's backed himself into a corner, so a shiny new Bentley materializes more or less from thin air, and the movie morphs once again, this time into a Cuisinart-edited, shaky-cammed sub-Michael Bay actioner, as Mitra and friends race back to the wall. Trouble is, it's somewhat less fun than it sounds, since although it's odd it's never endearingly crazy enough to truly entertain. In addition, Maj. Sinclair isn't a very compelling hero, because although we're given some background to the character (her mother gave her up so she would escape the original virus), she never really seems to be motivated by anything other than the need to keep the plot moving forward. She's little more than an action figure- even the fact that she lost one of her eyes as a child seems mostly like an excuse for her to have a snazzy robotic one- and while I suppose it's encouraging that movies have progressed enough to have action heroines as one-dimensional as their male counterparts, that doesn't make her all that interesting to watch. Still, if you liked Dog Soldiers (Marshall's pre-Descent film) more than I did, perhaps you'll dig this one too. And David O'Hara's line readings are, as in The Departed, still fascinatingly weird. Rating: 4 out of 10.

Youth Without Youth (2007, Francis Ford Coppola)

Many critics out there piled onto Coppola's first completed film in a decade, and objectively speaking I suppose it's not very good. But it's MY kind of not very good, the kind of sorta-brilliant mess that fits squarely into that wonderful category called film maudit. The plot- something about a seventyish linguistics professor who gets struck by lightning, only to have thirty years taken off his life and intimidating mental powers- is both ridiculous and perfect for the film, propping up such wide-ranging ideas as Eastern mysticism, the origins of language, metaphysics, and the history of modern Europe between the rise of Nazi Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Youth Without Youth will never be mistaken for a masterpiece, but it's easily the most blissed out "failure" I've seen in ages. Just as importantly, it's the kind of wildly experimental, to-hell-with-the-consequences film that could only have been made by a filmmaker with nothing left to prove to anyone but himself (see also Les Amours d'Astrée et de Céladon). It's not a film from the guy who made Jack and The Rainmaker, but by the guy who spent five years going crazy to bring the world his vision of Vietnam, then risking his fortune on the studio-bound blue-collar anti-musical One From the Heart. I don't think it's an accident that Youth Without Youth is Coppola's most fascinating work since that notorious flop, mostly because it's almost certainly his most experimental since then. At a time when Coppola could be playing the Grand Old Filmmaker, living off his Godfather residuals and his winery profits, he's getting back out there and trying something new, and I for one hope it's not a one-off. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Lake of Fire (2006, Tony Kaye)

If anything can be said to be the defining domestic policy issue of our time, it's abortion. This is due in no small part to the fact that it opens so many other cans of worms- religion, science, family, women's rights, and personal freedom, among others. While most films (fiction and documentary) about the abortion debate in America limit themselves by sticking to a particular political agenda, Tony Kaye's searing film- more than a decade in the making- approaches the issue from all sides. Kaye's film is nothing if not comprehensive, covering in its 152 minutes everything from the scientific debate over when the fetus should truly be considered a living being, to the gory details that many pro-choice advocates tend to shy away from while their pro-life counterparts use to draw attention to abortion's unpleasant reality. By examining both sides of the argument, Lake of Fire is neither pro- or anti-abortion, but it's definitely anti-zealot, devoting a good deal of attention to the brutal slayings of doctors who perform abortion, which in the eyes of the film only serve to intimidate other doctors and to create martyrs for the pro-life cause. But Kaye never has an axe to grind, instead training his often pitiless yet humane camera on his subjects with a great deal of patience and curiosity. In doing so, Lake of Fire illuminates what may be the only reasonable method of trying to resolve the abortion debate- not shouting, but listening. To take time to hear the beliefs of others with an open mind rather than simply propping ourselves up with our prejudices. To learn to see the complexity of the debate, rather than operating simply in shades of black and white, like children or, yes, zealots. And to try to understand the women- the conscious centers of the abortion debate- rather than simply demonizing them. Lake of Fire- at last, the great film this issue deserves- does all these things and more, which makes it not only the year's best documentary, but its most empathetic film as well. Rating: 9 out of 10.

Cloverfield (2008, Matt Reeves)

I've got to give Reeves and producer JJ Abrams credit for actually following through and making a monster movie entirely shot with a subjective camera, but it doesn't quite work as it should. It starts well enough, with a party that's shown for long enough that the initial monster attack comes as a genuine surprise, but it's the same party that reveals how much tidier Cloverfield is than it really should be. Despite trying to make the party footage feel slipshod and amateurish, the film clearly singles out half a dozen characters who are worthy of attention, and once the attacks happen, guess who we end up following? Also, the device of the "taped-over" footage is sort of lame and obvious. But the bigger problem is that the film never feels as chaotic as it ought to feel. Much of the inherent interest of a movie shot like a home video is that the camera operator generally can't help but let his mindset dictate his so-called style- if he's curious, the camera wanders; if he's interested, he zooms in on the object of his interest. And most importantly to Cloverfield- when things get chaotic, the footage becomes sort of messy and incoherent, reflecting the chaos that's around him. With a few scattered exceptions, there's very little chaos in Cloverfield. Sure, when bad stuff is happening the camera shakes and waves around, but everything feels a little too calculated, like there's a professional hand guiding things. Compare to the obvious example of Blair Witch, where it's obviously the actors holding the cameras, and you'll see how much more interesting this could have been. Cloverfield was a bold gambit, and the marketing campaign was sort of brilliant, but the film, while certainly of interest, is kind of a disappointment. Rating: 5 out of 10.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007, Julian Schnabel)

Some critics I greatly respect have balked at this film's reliance (over-reliance in their eyes) of subjective camera. They say it's gratuitous, show-offy, sub-Brakhage noodling, and the like. But for me, this story doesn't work half as well without it, especially without Schnabel's bold gambit of starting out the film with over half an hour seen almost entirely from the point of view of the protagonist, Jean-Dominique Bauby (played by Matthieu Amalric). For one thing, we're not dealing with a familiar ailment or disability here- were he merely blind or deaf or a paraplegic, we would have had some frame of reference handy. But given the severity and rareness of "locked-in" syndrome, I think it's of paramount importance (especially for the story he's telling) that Schnabel really establish the harsh realities of Bauby's life. So for more than half an hour, we see what Jean-Do sees- occasionally we escape with him into his dreams or his imagination, but mostly we're trapped in that bed with him, one good eye darting about the room tentatively, trying to make sense of it all. And once we finally see Bauby in earnest, we truly understand the situation he's in, so he's not simply a pathetic figure on a bed, but one who we know full well has a brain firing on all cylinders even as his body has almost entirely betrayed him (how is it that Amalric's performance hasn't gotten more awards buzz? Sure, he mostly acts with his eye, but it says a ton, and his natural Amalric-ness suits the part perfectly in a way Schnabel's original intended star, Johnny Depp, wouldn't have.) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is in many ways a movie about seeing, not just the things Jean-Do sees but also the way he's seen by others. His wife's mother instinct kicks in, his mistress refuses to visit because she doesn't want to remember him that way, his father wants to see him but can't. Sometimes the different perspectives on Jean-Do are at cross-purposes, especially in a great scene involving the bedridden Bauby, his speech therapist, and two telephone installers (it's almost certainly a future Movie Moment). But even more than asking us to empathize with Bauby and his plight, Schnabel's insistence on subjectivity is very much in keeping with his directing style. All three of his fiction films to date have been based on true stories of artists or creative people, and Schnabel, for the most part, allows his subjects, and the work they did, to dictate the style of the film. In doing so, he refuses to adhere to the standard biopic story arc, especially in Diving Bell, in which we only get a handful of scattered memories. He also dispenses with a lot of the psychoanalysis we tend to see in films like this. For example, I love that we really never find out why Jean-Do wants to write a book- does he think he's got something to say? Is he just looking for something to do? Does he want a purpose, something to keep him going? The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is being sold as an inspirational true-life story of triumph over adversity, but it's actually more about the difficulty of survival, and Schnabel is to be commended from not trying to sugar-coat the realities of Jean-Do's plight (for example, the last memory we share with him before his death is the stroke that put him in a coma- hardly an up note to send the audience home on). As a filmmaker, Schnabel's talent may not be especially broad, but it's deep, and that too should be treasured. Rating: 8 out of 10.

The Kite Runner (2007, Marc Forster)

The more Forster films I see, the more I think that the best he can manage anymore is workmanlike proficiency. None of his movies is poorly made, but they're just kind of bland and uninspired. It's for this reason that when he takes on respectable subject matter, the results are invariably labeled "Oscar-bait"- they're so middle-of-the-road that if the material does it for you, you're bound to respond favorably to the movie. Problem is, I'm not sure he's the right filmmaker for The Kite Runner. It may have seemed so at the time, as it's based on a respected bestseller, but this really needed a director willing to really dig into the more emotional aspects of the story. After all, we're dealing with lifelong guilt and shame born from fear of emasculation, both real and imagined. Sure, the Forster version might elicit approval from critics who respect his restraint and treat melodrama as a four-letter word, but seeing the tepid result makes me wonder how much better a Sergio Leone version would have been (were he alive, that is). The Kite Runner is prosaic through and through, and so when the big narrative reveals come in the story, nothing registers. For example, the scene where the adult Amir finds out the truth about his childhood friend Hassan falls flat because Forster is afraid to really embrace the melodramatic nature of the moment. In this way, Khalid Abdulla is the ideal lead actor for Forster's telling of the story- his performance is perfectly serviceable, but reveals almost nothing about the character. And let's face it, we're not talking about the hero of a Jean-Pierre Melville protagonist here- we're supposed to feel the weight of this guy's emotional struggles, and we never do. Too bad... this could've been pretty darn good. Rating: 4 out of 10.

The Savages (2007, Tamara Jenkins)

If nothing else, The Savages should be considered a success because it acknowledges something that the syrupy romantic tragedy Away From Her did not- that the elderly are not simply wise and brave and saintly, but complicated humans whose bodies are beginning to fail them and whose proximity to death can be frightening. That Jenkins refuses to sanctify the "golden years" the way many films do is the most noteworthy aspect of The Savages. Beyond that, this is a pretty good movie that works largely by virtue of its modest charms. For one thing, Jenkins never tries to make this a universal story about siblings reuniting to care for a dying parent. The characters- schlubby professor John (Philip Seymour Hoffman), neurotic would-be playwright Wendy (Laura Linney), and father Lenny (Philip Bosco)- are too specific for that. Thus, freed from the need to make a larger statement with her story, Jenkins considers these three people, placed into this awkward situation. The Savages is never the stuff of heightened melodrama- there are no medical procedures, no third-act confessions, no tearful bedside farewells. In fact, Lenny is kept offscreen altogether for most of the film. Instead, the main crux of the story is the contentious relationship between John and Wendy, whose troubles and resentments can't be put on hold while their father's condition worsens. I can't quite embrace The Savages wholeheartedly- the film's too low-key to really be more than pretty good- but it's definitely worth a look. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007, Jake Kasdan)

Since Freaks and Geeks, I've been pretty predisposed to cutting the Apatow comedy factory a lot of slack. But the truth is that Walk Hard finds them sort of coasting. Don't get me wrong, Walk Hard is pretty funny, but there are also some pretty long dry patches in between the laughs. What's more, the running gags are extremely repetitive. Of course, that's part of the joke, the predictability of the story arcs in straight musical biopics being held up to scorn, but around the fourth time we saw Dewey hit rock bottom and tear apart a bathroom, it stopped being funny. In addition, the cameos are starting to get ridiculous. It's one thing to throw the Beatles into the storyline, but when the Beatles are played by Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Justin Long, and Jason Schwartzman affecting bad Liverpudlian accents, it's more distracting than humorous. To say nothing of Jack White as Elvis, Frankie Muniz as Buddy Holly, and many more. That said, I laughed a good amount in Walk Hard, and I was doubled over with laughter more than once. The original spoof songs are a hoot ("Let Me Hold You (Little Man)" may be the funniest song I've heard since "My Stepdad's Not Mean, He's Just Adjusting"), and the way the film lampoons the various musical periods Cox travels through during his career is sometimes priceless, especially when he shuts himself in the studio for months on end recording a SMiLE-esque opus. And John C. Reilly is just about perfect as Cox, throwing himself into even the most outrageous comic scenes and showing off the musical chops he first exhibited in Chicago. Walk Hard is no Superbad in the laughs department, that's for sure. But as far as spoofs of the musical biopic go, the genre has it coming, and I think we can all be thankful that it was Kasdan and Apatow- rather than the dudes who made Date Movie- who made this. And if you see this, be sure to stay until the end of the credits. It's definitely worth it. Rating: 5 out of 10.

Charlie Wilson's War (2007, Mike Nichols)

At the height of a highly divisive overseas war, two of Hollywood's biggest stars, along with one of his most respected character actors, teams up with a leading director and a big-ticket screenwriter to make a movie that more or less celebrates interventionism. Now, I'm not totally opposed to American intervention overseas- it's a tricky issue to be sure, but both sides of the argument make valid points. But I'm not sure that in our current climate it really behooves us to be approaching the issue by telling a fairly cut-and-dried story in such a toothless manner. Sorkin's script, reportedly much softened in its transition to the big screen, basically celebrates the cleverness with which its heroes facilitated the defeat of the Red Army in Afghanistan and helped bring about the fall of the Communist Soviet Union, a story that's recent enough that much of the audience will still feel that old anti-Soviet feeling. But how many cases of U.S. interventionism are this simple? Precious few, I'd wager. Late-reel stabs at problematizing our involvement in the war only make this more frustrating, since while they vaguely hint at darker times to come due to our withdrawing our support once the Soviets had turned tail, but also because for all the unease they're trying to stir up they're the most blatantly pro-intervention scenes of all, because they argue that we didn't go far enough. At no point in the film does it occur to a character of any substance that making our presence felt in the Afghanistan/Soviet war might not be an idea touched by unqualified awesomeness. What, was there no devil's advocate character worth mentioning? None of this would bug me so much if the movie was more entertaining, but it's neither as sharp or as funny as it wants to be. For a star-driven vehicle, the superstars leading the cast don't make much of an impression. Little wonder that Philip Seymour Hoffman waltzes away with the movie- he's the only one of the three who's well-cast for his role. Hanks conveys Wilson's integrity- after all, he's Tom Hanks- but he never convinced me of his less savory side. The boozing and womanizing and good ol' boy hellraising just don't wash with the forthright way Hanks approaches the role. Julia Roberts fares worse, as she projects far too much self-regard and composure to pull off such a passionate character- I weep to think of what a younger Jane Fonda or Jessica Lange might have done in the role. Oh, and how many mediocre movies has Nichols made in the last two decades since his ex-comedy partner Elaine May tanked with Ishtar? Come on, Hollywood- she can't be THAT big of a pain in the ass, can she? Give her another chance in my opinion. Rating: 4 out of 10.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007, Tim Burton)

Unlike most people, I approached Tim Burton's big-screen take on Steven Sondheim's Broadway classic with some trepidation. Perhaps that's because of my mixed feelings toward Burton's career. Burton has become Hollywood's Prince of Darkness, but I've always found his work to be sort of juvenile, though sometimes in fascinating ways. In the past, his best films have worked primarily as magic realism, with misunderstood man-children and baby-doll women, and chock full of lovely, off-kilter imagery. But his vision is rarely as dark as his fans insist it is- at his heart, Burton isn't a nihilistic soul but a goth romantic who grew up Fangoria and Vincent Price. Which makes him the right director for Batman and Sleepy Hollow, certainly, but Sweeney Todd is much harsher stuff. Could he manage it? Turns out I needn't have worried. Sweeney is easily the bleakest film in Burton's oeuvre, not shying away from the more unpleasant undercurrents of Sondheim's original version. Occasional trips into the more comfortable climes of Burton-land were initially distracting, but after a while I realized that Burton was actually complicating his beloved, almost schticky style. In this regard, Sweeney Todd is Burton's most self-aware film. The world inhabited by Sweeney (Johnny Depp) and Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) is an unforgiving one, figuratively putting people through the meat grinder even before the protagonists make the metaphor literal. So whenever the film escapes into the familiar Burton look, it's always a signal of the innocence and hope that Sweeney has long since lost. Such trifles are for the young and foolish in Sondheim's world, and Burton underlines this in the fantasy number when Mrs. Lovett dons an outfit that makes her look uncannily like Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. But even in this fantasy, Sweeney will have none of this. Much like Hamlet, his thoughts be bloody, and Burton obliges them with plenty of throat-slashings and arterial splatter (Sweeney Todd might be a musical, but leave the kids at home). But Burton isn't simply indulging the gorehounds in the crowd- he's exorcising his more sinister demons, the ones that are often glossed over in his work but occasionally peek their heads out, as in Batman Returns. The key moment in the film comes near the end, when Sweeney has discovered his disguised daughter hiding in his flat, and when called away on urgent business, he (not knowing who she is) tells her to forget his face. Time will tell if this is the case, but I interpreted this as Burton's way of telling those who love him for his more cuddly work to turn back and remember him for Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Edward Scissorhands. But rather than staying with the girl, the movie follows Sweeney to the terrible, inevitable end. Sweeney Todd isn't perfect- HBC's singing voice would have been dubbed had she not been married to the director- but it's riveting throughout. Rating: 8 out of 10.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007, Jon Turteltaub)

Pretty good fun, truth be told, mostly because the movie wholeheartedly embraces its ridiculousness. In fact, Book of Secrets is actually more enjoyable than its predecessor. It's certainly more outrageous, as the mystery takes the cast to some of the world's biggest landmarks- Buckingham Palace, The Library of Congress, Mounts Vernon and Rushmore- as well as taking on some pretty big game, like a conspiracy to kill Lincoln and a super-duper MacGuffin called the President's Book of Secrets. In my review of the original I derisively referred to it as "The Da Vinci Clone," but comparing Book to The Da Vinci Code movie makes for a study in contrasts. Think about it- if you're making an adventure/puzzle movie in which the heroes are trying to uncover ancient mysteries while jetting around the world, would you want it to be dour and humorless or light and fun? Book works where Code didn't because Da Vinci played the shadowy intrigues deadly seriously, whereas Book makes the right choice and kids them. Also, Cage has more fun this time around, whereas last time he was squarely in action hero mode and let sidekick Justin "Is This the Baywatch?" Bartha tell all the jokes. Sadly, Diane Kruger still mostly a wet blanket, although at least Helen Mirren and Ed Harris are along for the ride, to varying returns. And of course, best not to pay the story too much mind, especially not the weird thematic inconsistencies- OK, so it's fine for Cage to chuck a wooden artifact into the Thames to get the baddies off his tail, but not so much for Harris to burn a letter from Queen Victoria? But I did have a pretty good time, I must admit. Book of Secrets will never be mistaken for great cinema, but it'll certainly make a passable rental next spring. Rating: 5 out of 10.

I Am Legend (2007, Francis Lawrence)

As a longtime writer for TV and the movies, Richard Matheson's work even in novel form lends itself to a cinematic feel, and as long as filmmakers who adapt his work remain fairly close to the intent of the originals, the stories are hard to mess up. I had some reservations these last few months about this, the third big-screen adaptation of Matheson's I Am Legend, fearing that star Will Smith and director Francis Lawrence (of the putrid Constantine) would turn this into an action thriller. Thankfully, Lawrence and his screenwriters realized that much of the novel's power lies in its starkness, its portrait of a man who represents the last outpost of humanity fending off the monsters, set against a metropolis-turned-ghost town. It's a lonely life, with Smith hunting and gathering and experimenting to find a cure during the day and barricading himself in his home by night, with only his dog to keep him company. There's something uncanny about a city that has been emptied of all other human life, not least when Smith finds himself in deep trouble with no one to bail him out. But even the more mundane details of city life are gone, especially the din of human noise that one learns to tune out after living in the city long enough (this is why the flashback scenes, which would under most circumstances feel perfunctory, make sense here, as they're a flurry of human activity that contrasts with Smith's present-day life). I was so impressed with how well Lawrence captures this undercurrent in Matheson's story- much better, it must be said, than The Omega Man, which stupidly turned the non-speaking monsters into Communist hippie Druid dudes who never shut up- that I was a little disappointed when the film became a more conventional humans-vs.-monsters thriller once a few more people arrived on the scene, although I did appreciate how ill-prepared mentally Smith was for their arrival. Nonetheless, I Am Legend is surprisingly satisfying for a big-budget SF thriller, with Smith at his most restrained in ages (no "aw hell nos", for one thing) and some impressive production design of NYC in ruins. Last Man on Earth is still the best adaptation of the story, but as a remake, this will do quite nicely. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Margot at the Wedding (2007, Noah Baumbach)

After 2005's The Squid and the Whale and now Margot, Baumbach has become a kind of poet laureate of domestic dysfunction, crafting precisely-written tales of epically strained families that exist that elicit just enough uneasy laughter to qualify as comedies. In many ways, Margot is even better than Squid, although its problems are also more pronounced. But first, the good stuff. As expected, the cast shines, from the great performance by Nicole Kidman on down. Even Jack Black, who seems like the oddball in the bunch, rises to the occasion- as Malcolm, the layabout fiancée of Margot's sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Black channels his manic presence into a role so convincingly that for the first time I could imagine him stepping outside the kuh-razy Jack Black persona in future projects. In addition, the family dynamic, especially between Margot and Pauline, rings uncannily true, with the two sisters feeling completely free to pummel one another with put-downs and snide remarks because they know each other so well- and indeed are so similar- that they know exactly how far they can go with each other. The stuff within the family- what with Margot and Pauline, and Malcolm, and Margot's distant husband and the writer she's sleeping with, plus the preteen children of Pauline and Margot, who are about as well-adjusted as kids could be under the circumstances- is so good that there's a near-masterpiece hiding inside Margot at the Wedding. So it's more than a little disappointing when Baumbach leaves the nest for even weirder pastures. Was the stuff with crazy neighbors the Voglers really necessary? I don't think so. Likewise, the business with an old family tree feels too on-the-nose symbolic for the movie, especially when it comes to when, and where, and how it comes crashing down. Still, Margot at the Wedding is sort of stunning when it's in its element, which thankfully is most of its running time. I'd gladly sit through the more iffy material again and again for moments like the one where Pauline, in mid-argument, addresses her older sister as "dude."

Also, FYI, since I saw her in The Squid and the Whale I've had a gigantic crush on Halley Feiffer, and with Margot at the Wedding it continues unabated. Just in case you were wondering.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Sleuth (2007, Kenneth Branagh)

I count myself as a fan of the original 1972 version of Sleuth, but I wouldn't presume to say that the story couldn't be told again in a different style. But not this- anything but this. As if to willfully distance themselves from the film's predecessor, Branagh and (slumming) screenwriter Harold Pinter play a kind of mind game with the original's fans by keeping little other than the premise and the character names. What's more, Branagh attempts to allay the stagebound setup by tricking up his direction practically beyond comprehensibility. Branagh fills the screen with surveillance cameras and tight closeups of his actors, and the set, which in the Mankiewicz version was overflowing with the ornate toys and games with which Andrew Wyke amused himself, now feels like nothing so much as a challenge to the production designer to dress the set entire from the Sharper Image catalog. In addition, Branagh and Pinter lose the class envy that was so integral to the 1972 version. Whereas the original Andrew Wyke (played deliciously by Sir Laurence Olivier) was the son of a noble family who resented the low-class upstart Milo Tindle (Michael Caine) horning in on his woman, here Wyke (Caine again) is merely a rich guy who doesn't want to give his wife up to Tindle (Jude Law) without a fight. As a result, much of the character's motivation is lost- when Olivier's Wyke plays mind games with Tindle, it's because he's entitled- no, duty-bound- by his position to do so, in order to put him squarely in his place. Without the class issues in play, the characters' gamesmanship becomes little more than dick-measuring, which is borne out in numerous distracting exchanges between the two ("Is that your car?" "Which one?" "The little one." "Yes." "Mine's the big one."). Likewise, the scenes with the inspector are seriously bobbled. SPOILER: While Mankiewicz was content to show the characters mostly in long shots, which accentuated the stagebound setup, Branagh pushes all the way in on his actors' faces, which causes the inspector's secret to have the exact opposite effect as it should. Mankiewicz's theatricality was ideal, underlining the nature of the inspector as a theatrical device. By comparison, Branagh's closeups on his face don't so much defy us figure out what's going on as they clue us by their very insistence that this guy who isn't listed in the opening credits and who we've never seen before now might not in fact be who he seems. It's a colossal miscalculation on the film's part, and consequently it never recovers. In the final reels, Branagh and Pinter tack on an additional act that delves into darker thematic territory, but it's both gratuitous and sort of ugly, with an unfortunate attempt to sway the audience's sympathies towards one of the two men, when part of the deliciousness of the original was how these guys, for all their differences, were kindred spirits in gamesmanship. So, for the second time in as many days, I find myself taking a movie to task for taking itself too damned seriously. And shouldn't Sleuth, of all movies, be fun? Rating: 3 out of 10.

The Golden Compass (2007, Chris Weitz)

This one's got visual spectacle and invention out the wazoo, but it's curiously inert and joyless. A lot of that has to do with the nature of fantasy on film- more than any other genre, fantasy has a certain out-there element that tends to come off as goofy in the wrong hands, even with the best of source material. The key to doing fantasy well is to acknowledge the goofier aspects of the film, rather than trying to play them off with a straight face. Consider the difference between the infectiously cornball original Star Wars trilogy, with its gee-whiz hero and puppety oddball creatures, and the dour sequels, bogged down by galactic politics and thin-ass characters who Lucas tried to fob off as Shakespearean. So it goes with The Golden Compass, a perfectly serviceable fantasy movie that is rarely much fun. Oh sure, it's a treat for the eyes, with effects that don't aim for photorealism so much as a painterly beauty, and the sets and contraptions have a degree of wonder. But even from the beginning, the storytelling is so portentous that it becomes suffering. After all, we're talking about a movie in which the characters' souls manifest themselves externally as animals- surely you could have a little fun with this. There are a few moments in which the goofy stuff is played at the right pitch- the ursine battle only needed the Channel 4 News Team to become a bear fight for the ages- but not enough to make the movie enjoyable. Likewise, the only cast member who appears to be enjoying himself is Sam Elliott- Daniel Craig and Eva Green have almost nothing to do, and Nicole Kidman is perfectly OK in the as Mrs. Coulter, but although she's pretty and cold, a little comedic haughtiness would have served the role well. Also, Alexandre Desplat's score sometimes sounds a lot like the song "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail, which got a bit distracting, as I doubt it was the filmmakers' intention to make me think of Feivel during the climactic ice battle. Still, hardly the worst post-Rings fantasy around, I suppose. Rating: 5 out of 10.

My Kid Could Paint That (2007, Amir Bar-Lev)

I'm not as effusive about this as a lot of people, but there's a lot to respect and enjoy about it. Frankly, I didn't find the Bar-Lev's portrayal of art-world fickleness to be half as interesting as the larger story it tells, a real-life distillation of the principle put forth by Freddy Riedenschneider's old pal Heisenberg. What begins as a happy little girl who enjoys painting gets pulled every which way- by art dealers with dollar signs in their eyes, by art-world tastemakers ready to jump on a hot new talent, by journalists who first smell a story, only to change the story once the original well has run dry. Most compellingly, Bar-Lev isn't immune from this level of interference, although he doesn't realize it until too late. He comes into the Olmsteads' lives in the interest of telling the truth and quickly ingratiates himself into the family, but in the end even he has an artistic agenda he's working, and to his credit he keeps that in the film. But amid the storm, the still center is Marla herself, who is able to ride it out mostly because she's oblivious to what's going on. Yes, she's carted around to openings and TV interviews, but she's young enough that she doesn't seem to realize that there's anything strange about the things happening around her. Lucky her. Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Mist (2007, Frank Darabont)

There's a lot to like about The Mist, which if nothing else is one of the bleakest big-budget genre movies released by a studio in years. The effects are surprisingly good, the acting solid, and if nothing else I can take away the image of Toby Jones, badass. And it's nihilistic as hell- not only does a character actually utter the line, "put more than two of us in a room and we'll start figuring out ways to kill each other. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?", but the film actually shows his insight to be well-founded. So why did I come out of this feeling vaguely disappointed? Three reasons: (1) it's not nearly as claustrophobic as it ought to be. I wasn't expecting the director of The Shawshank Redemption to be particularly adept at bringing the scares, but for all he does right here, most of the mistakes he makes as a director would be fairly easy to fix if he'd only keep the damn camera inside the store. The secret to making a great film like this is to make the claustrophobia palpable. Keep us with the characters and don't show us anything they don't see. Romero knew this when he made Night of the Living Dead, and Carpenter when he made Assault on Precinct 13 and the like. Every time Darabont cuts to a needless shot outside the store, the tension is defused, which is never a good idea. (2) The Marcia Gay Harden stuff is too broadly played. As the fire and brimstone Bible thumper who uses every misfortune vested upon the people in the story to win converts for the Lord, Harden doesn't necessarily give a bad performance, but the character seems too convenient a villain. I have no doubt that given a big enough crowd in this situation, someone would emerge spewing bile in His name, but the film makes it too easy for us to boo and hiss at her from the audience. A better film might not be able to make her sympathetic, but it might at least allow us to understand what it is about her that wins over her followers, beyond the demands of the plot. And finally, there's the little matter of (3) the ending. A perfect ending for this story might have allowed me not necessarily to overlook the film's flaws, but to forgive them. And for a minute there, the film has that perfect dark ending in its grasp. But just when it appears that Darabont will have the balls to fade to black at just the right time, the delicious irony ends up giving way to a cheaper, sub-Rod Serling brand of irony that leaves a bad taste in the mouth as the end credits roll. Seriously, Darabont- you had it. Why did you have to keep going? Rating: 6 out of 10.

Enchanted (2007, Kevin Lima)

So here it is, a Disney Princess™ movie for a post-feminist generation, in which the little girls still love their princesses but mom and dad want positive female role models for their daughters. What is an international multimedia conglomerate to do? "It's only a movie!" they say. "It's just for fun, so sit back and enjoy the ride!" But setting aside the fact that there may potentially BE an Enchanted ride in Disney's future, there's something sticking in my craw about the movie. Yes, it's kind of entertaining in its way, with the wide-eyed charm of Amy Adams and lively supporting work from James Marsden (so much more fun to watch now that he's embraced the square-jawed goofball within) and the ever-reliable Timothy Spall. But in an attempt to appeal to the princess-loving girls and appease their parents, the message at the heart of Enchanted becomes so muddled that it's hard not to doubt its sincerity. The filmmakers are at great pains to paint Princess Giselle as a strong young woman, even picking up a sword at the end to help save the day and ensure a happy ending, but the truth is that this is still the story of a girl who just wants to find true love and falls (1) at the drop of a hat for a prince that just so happens to catch her as she falls from a tree, and (2) for the first guy in New York City who shows any kindness whatsoever, who just happens to be a single dad played by hunky Patrick Dempsey. On top of that, there's an insidious undercurrent of little-girl wish fulfillment here, in which problems can be solved by singing a happy song, or worse, by stealing daddy's credit card and shopping 'til you drop (spend the pain away, girls!). There's an early scene in the film in which Dempsey gives a book about accomplished women throughout history to his clearly uninterested daughter- the same little girl who falls for Giselle soon thereafter. The camera lingers on the photographs in the book- Rosa Parks, Marie Curie- clearly underlining how old and plain-looking they are. Is Disney trying to teach children that the only women worth admiring are young and pretty? Also, the evil queen Narissa spends almost all her time decked out in a vampy black getup- when she isn't disguised as an old hag or transformed into a dragon. But you get the idea- feminism this ain't, no matter how hard it tries to tell us otherwise. Rating: 4 out of 10.