Recent Screenings

Transsiberian (2008) - Roy and Jessie (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) are Americans who've gone to China with Roy's church to work with underprivileged children. A train buff, Roy books them passage on the Transsiberian Express from Beijing to Moscow, before flying back to the States. On the journey, they meet Carlos (Eduardo Noriega), a sexy, well-travelled Spaniard who seems to knows a lot about Customs, and Abby (Kate Mara), a young woman who has run away from Seattle.

Meanwhile, Grinko, a Russian narcotics detective (Ben Kinglsey) is tracking down whoever killed a drug dealer in Vladivostok and vanished with both the drugs and the money.

Jessie, who had a fairly wild past before marrying Roy and trying to settle down, feels sympathetic towards the seemingly lost Abby. And she feels something more unsettling for Carlos, who gives off an aura of raw sexuality and physical danger. When the train stops at a snowy village somewhere in Siberia, Roy goes looking at old coal locomotives with Carlos. When the train starts up again, Roy is no longer aboard.

Hoping that Roy has simply missed the train, Jessie gets off at the next village to make inquiries. Carlos and Abby decide they will stay with her until she finds her husband. They're concerned about her safety. In this isolated, wintry and foreign environment, the sexual tension between Carlos and Jessie begins to heat up, culminating in an abandoned Orthodox church off in the woods near the village.

The pacing of Transsiberian reflects that of the train itself. It starts off slowly -- introducing these people, telling their back stories and actually developing characters and relationships -- and then picks up more and more speed as the film chugs along. The subtle tension in one scene links to another, which links to another, until the total becomes almost unbearable. It's Hitchcock, not Quantum Solace or other contemporary "thrillers" that substitute action and quick edits for genuine suspense.

Director and co-writer Brad Anderson (The Machinist) offers some good twists and turns on the trip, which keeps the film moving along in surprising ways. The story of Jessie and Carlos doesn't end in the Orthodox church in Siberia, it only marks the beginning of a new stage in the journey.

Despite excellent acting all around, the film really belongs to Emily Mortimer. Transsiberian is Jessie's story in the end, and Mortimer does a great job of portraying the internal struggle between her restless nature, with its wild past, and her desire to live a positive life and love Roy, who saved her both physically and emotionally after she slammed head-on into his car while she was drunk. Jessie makes some really poor decisions on this journey. But Mortimer gives her the dignity of a human being really wrestling with good and bad aspects of herself, and the fact that they may be more intertwined than we normally care to admit. As she says to her husband at one point, quoting Tennessee Williams, "Kill off all my demons, Roy, and my angels might die, too."(So that's where Tom Waits got the line.)

But this isn't just a metaphorical journey. It is a physical one as well, through contemporary Russia, and Anderson does a great job capturing the ambience of traveling through a strange land, both in the small details and in the starkly beautiful shots of the train passing through the Siberian wilderness. While the landscape and people can seem exotic to the Americans, there's also a sense of the chaos, hardship and danger in the post-Soviet Union era. This becomes more evident as the film progresses. As one character says, "In Russia, we have expression. 'With lies, you may go ahead in the world, but you may never go back.' Do you understand this, Jessie?"

Where is that line? At what point can you no longer turn back? Brad Anderson has fashioned a fine suspense film that touches on these darker questions as it speeds on its way to a dramatic climax, with action sequences that seem to organically rise out of the need of the moment rather than being a constructed set-piece to show off CGI. The writing and directing are excellent. The acting is consistently great, with special kudos to Woody Harrelson, who has the thankless task of playing a fairly simple guy who's positive by nature, but who imbues Roy with real humanity. The cinematography by Xavi Giménez is top notch. There's a lot going on in this film. It lingers well and leaves you slightly unsettled. And it's easily the best movie that takes place on a train in a long, long time.

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED, unless you must have hyper-kinetic action with lots of explosions.


Duplicity (2009) - Clive Owen and Julia Roberts in a corporate espionage screwball comedy. Tony Gilroy, who did such a great job with Michael Clayton, offers up a much lighter take on capitalist morality this time. Owen is ex-MI6, Roberts ex-CIA, and now they both work in corporate espionage, for competing cosmetic companies. They love each other and are scheming together to make their big pay day and get away from it all.

Or are they? She may be playing him. He may be trying to get revenge for the first time they met, when she seduced him, knocked him out and stole Egyptian military secrets from him. That never set well. They're at competing companies, but she's a mole for the company he works for, and now he's her handler. Or is she a mole for the other company, using him to get information?

Gilroy piles on the layers of doubt, especially in the relationship between Owen and Roberts, which is both passionate and wary. They know they're both liars and schemers. Will they stay together, because they understand each other so well? Or will they be unable to resist the temptation of getting the best of the other? It's classic screwball comedy material taken to another level. Despite a deep vein of cynicism, it wouldn't be hard to imagine Cary Grant and Claudette Colbert in the same roles.

The best part: The film feels like it was written for adults. There may not be a lot here, but at least it's smart and savvy and knowing. If you like Clive and Julia, they have some good chemistry and the film is a lot of fun. And we finally know now: Clive Owen can do comedy. He actually has the funniest scenes in the film, getting excited over developments in the secret battles between two frozen pizza giants. This from a man who once stole Egyptian military secrets. (And that is the sly, darker underside to the film. Gilroy, who explored corporate espionage in Michael Clayton, doesn't go in depth much on the subject, but you realize afterwards how weird this whole new era is in some ways.)

The best sequence in the movie, however, may the opening credits, as Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson - heads of the competing cosmetic corporations who hate each other - get into a delicious slow-motion fistfight on the tarmac between their two executive jets.

RECOMMENDED, especially if you're in the mood for some smart fluff. Not recommended for Julia-haters.


Quantum of Solace (2008) - Casino Royale was such a pleasant surprise in the Bond franchise: Action, class and a dash of tough humanity, thanks to Daniel Craig, the best 007 since Sean Connery. Unfortunately, Q of S exchanges any of the human touches in Casino Royale for even bigger and sillier action sequences. The plot of the film is so unimportant that you don't even know what's going on at times. It's like watching a scene unfold as you pass by in a fast-moving car: "What was that? Who was that?"

On the positive side, we get more Judi Dench. M stands for Mother now, with 007 as her favorite son who gets into trouble all the time. (He's gonna break her heart.) How she keeps winding up in obscure international settings so quickly was weird though.

Strangely, I've never seen a Bond film so intricately tied to the previous one. Someone should've warned me that I had to re-watch Casino Royale immediately before starting this one. I'm supposed to remember all of these people and story lines from the last movie? The director and screenwriters obviously don't care about their characters or plot, though, so why should I?

Too bad. There are some interesting elements at play here, but everything get lost in the blur.

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS:

Anatomy of a Murder (1959) - I should write extensively about this one, because it's truly a classic, and a landmark in trial films. If it seems unusually dark and cynical for late 1950s Hollywood, that's because it's directed by Otto Preminger. Jimmy Stewart is great, and well chosen for the role of a small-town lawyer who gets involved in a rape and murder case. Lee Remick was way sexy in 1959 - and later, too. The score is famous in and of itself, coming from Duke Ellington, who has a small role in the film. Highly recommended.

Burn After Reading (2008) - No, it's not up to the level of No Country for Old Men, but it's much better than some reviewers said when it first came out. Funny, dark, weird. It's classic Coen Brothers. Brad Pitt excels. And the scenes between two confused CIA superiors are worth everything. "Report back to me . . uh . . . when it makes sense."

2 Days in Paris (2007) - Julie Delphy wrote, directed, starred in, and even did the music for this film about a New York couple - Jack and Marion - who stop at Marion's parents' house in Paris for two days before returning to the States after a long trip. Things haven't gone well between the couple, with tensions brewing, restlessness showing its head, and possible incompatibility issues. While showing indebtedness to both Annie Hall and Richard Linklater's pair of Sunrise/Sunset films that starred Delphy, 2 Days in Paris creates its own personal identity, thanks mostly to Delphy's intelligent script. Some very funny scenes, a lot of excellent dialog, and delightful performances by the director's real-life parents. Delphy, who recently completed a film-making degree at NYU, has made an impressive directorial debut.

Recent Screenings

The International (2009) - Clive Owen plays a weary but determined Interpol agent and Naomi Watts an assistant Manhattan D.A. who team up for an investigation of the corrupt International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC). Based in part on the real-life Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the IBBC has dealings with every important global player, legal or illegal: drug lords, African terrorists, the CIA, the Mafia, other major banks, and numerous governments. The closer Clive and Naomi get to the heart of the matter, naturally, the more people die around them. Forgoing the hyper-kinetic sprint from one explosion or car chase to the next that's so popular these days, The International proceeds at a nice, leisurely pace, making it feel closer in spirit to an international thriller from the 1960s or 70s. This slower pace gives a screenwriter and director the opportunity to really explore the complexity of a situation - in this case, global finance and all of its interconnections - as well as to develop their characters. Unfortunately, though I kept waiting for the plot and characters to develop, director Tom Twyker and screenwriter Eric Singer don't take much advantage of their opportunity, and the slow pace too often feels, well, slow.

Luckily, there are other elements that make The International enjoyable, especially Frank Griebe's excellent cinematography. There are some wonderful individual shots throughout the film, most of them composed for the big screen, including a marvelous image of Clive Owen ascending the wide and enormous marble stairs that lead up to the headquarters of the IBBC. And then there's the delicious international scenery: Milan, Berlin, New York, Lyon, Istanbul (with a great a roof-top chase), and one stunning sequence filmed in Lake Garda, Italy that took my breath away. How long has it been since I've been able to really dwell in the extoic locations of a big Hollywood movie and not been jerked away by a car chase?

And though there's only one big action sequence in the film, it's definitely a winner: A terrific shoot-out down Frank Lloyd Wright's spiraling rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum. (Though one does wonder why it takes so long for the NYPD to arrive.) They could have actually shortened that scene, however, and used a little more action elsewhere.

Clive Owen looks more like Peter Falk's Columbo than an action hero this time around, the result of his character's obsession with bringing the corrupt bank to justice, which has left him exhausted, world-weary and paranoid. It's an underrated talent for actors to pick roles in good, intelligent films, and Owen is one of the better examples of this right now. I wish, however, that he would start to stretch himself a bit more. Make a comedy, Clive; It won't kill you. His role as Interpol agent Louis Salinger feels too much like previous roles. But I enjoy watching him on the screen, and he definitely carries The International. Naomi Watts does as well as she can with a not very interesting or well-written role. I appreciate the director's willingness to not push a forced romance between Owens and Watts, but they could've used more chemistry. They're both fine actors, but they never find a way to make the screen crackle.

Ultimately, The International feels different from most contemporary thrillers - as if it were, gasp, actually made for adults - and I liked that very much. It's a solid, intelligent film, good but not great. It never quite lives up to its potential, but it's worth watching.

The Dark Knight (2008) - After all the hype and hullabaloo, I finally got a chance to see Christopher Nolan's latest Batman film a few weeks ago at the IMAX Cinema at Lincoln Center on a limited re-release for the Oscars. I felt like I had let go of as many preconceptions as I could and was ready to just go along for the ride, in the mood for a big film on a big screen. And I did go along with the ride for a while, enjoying the first half of the film quite a bit, but after about 100 minutes, I looked at my watch for the first time. After two hours and fifteen minutes, I looked at it again. By the time the film ended, I felt exhausted and relieved to get out of there. Even the IMAX Cinema seemed weary and restless, as twice during the latter part of the movie the lights came on and an automated announcement thanked everyone for coming. (AMC gave us a free ticket for that - good customer service on their part.)

There's a lot to recommend in the film. As everyone and their uncle has mentioned, Heath Ledger does an excellent job as the Joker. His performance turns a normally cartoon villian into a more complex human figure. (Though, if he hadn't died, I wonder if he'd be such a lock to win the Oscar.) On the other hand, few people have mentioned Aaron Eckhart as Gotham District Attorney Harvey Dent, and I thought he did very well with a role that could've easily remained one dimensional. Christian Bale excels as billionaire Bruce Wayne, but his Batman remains unnecessarily irritating and dull. (After all is said and done, I'm beginning to wonder if Adam West wasn't the most enjoyable Batman.) Maggie Gyllenhaal is a definite improvement over Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes, but her vast talents seems wasted in the role. Gary Oldman does a fine job as Commissioner Gordon, and Michael Caine gets all the best lines as Alfred the Butler.

There are several beautifully composed shots in the film - I think of Batman up on the roof at night, looking down on Gotham. And some of the action sequences are first rate, especially Batman's rendition of a crooked Hong Kong business man, and a long chase sequence where the Joker and his henchmen are trying to stop a heavy police caravan transporting Harvey Dent.

But The Dark Knight has some issues. It's too long (by 45 minutes), and it takes itself too seriously. You know it's serious, because Batman speaks in that awful, overly-serious voice. Most surprisingly to me, however, is how flawed the film-making can be at times. Heath Ledger's acting and lots of explosions can't hide the fact that this is one poorly constructed movie, with gaping holes (a showdown between Batman and the Joker at a penthouse party inexplicably stops, for example), a number of philosophical and narrative contradictions, and far too many scenes and sub-plots that serve no purpose. Can anyone tell me why we have to suffer through several scenes of a Bruce Wayne employee threatening to reveal his boss's identity, when, at the same time, Wayne keeps threatening to reveal his own identity at a public press conference? And just how many people are kidnapped in this movie? Can anyone keep count? By the time a woman and son are taken towards the end, I was like, "Oh, please. Just let them die and get on with the film." When you don't care about an innocent mother and child being killed by the villain, something's gone terribly wrong.

Worst of all, however, may be the pseudo-intellectual aspects of the film. The Dark Knight is all about "moral complexity," and Nolan practically holds up flash cards at times in case you miss his point. He explores the motivations and moral complexity of Batman, but this kind of psychological and sociological look at a super hero was already tackled in the first two Spider Man movies, and in a much more effective and entertaining way. Nolan hammers home some vague ideas about our own individual moral complexity via a ridiculous set-up involving two bomb-laden ferries, one full of "normal" people and one packed with the worst bad guys. "See, hardened criminals can act decently and normal people can forsake the Golden Rule." Wow. Complex. (Though this sequence does yield one of the better lines in the movie, spoken by a very serious looking criminal with a deep, serious voice.) Unfortunately, while criminals may behave decently at times (who knew?), it seems that every member of the Gotham Police Department can be easily corrupted, from rookie cops to Commissioner Gordon's closest and dearest friends, one of whom is willing to hand over important people to be killed because mom ran up some hospital bills. In another sequence, Nolan dresses up the Joker as a nurse (nurses want to help people, get it? It's ironic!) and gives him a speech about chaos and the big-shots who make plans and what it all comes to in the end, and the speech probably sounds pretty deep to a 13 year-old. And though the Joker condemns those who make plans, he's obviously spent an incredible amount of time on his own elaborate and complicated plans, because they all go perfectly, allowing him to outwit all of the big shots, including the politicians and the police and even the hardcore and ruthless mobsters - everyone, that is, except for Batman. What's truly impressive is that the Joker, who's escaped from an insane asylum, pulls off all of these incredibly elaborate plans with an endless supply of henchmen whom he repeatedly kills (wouldn't that hurt potential recruitment?) or who are stupid and/or crazy fellow escaped inmates. (I guess no one bothered checking reports about dozens of inmates escaping from asylums.) Amazing what can be accomplished if you're able to motivate your employees.

With the Joker as Osama Bin Laden, threatening the good people of New York/Gotham, Nolan also looks at the post-9/11 world and wonders what people might be willing to do in a time of crisis. The war on terror, you see, is also pretty morally complex. Rendition, it turns out, is okay and even pretty fun. Surveillance of the population is also justified, as long as its only done in extreme cases and by someone who's really trustworthy, which, I believe, was also the Bush administration's argument. Torture, though, is going too far. Batman says so. Thus, when the Joker/Bin Laden comes, we may have to do things we're not always comfortable doing. But it's all for the greater good - a chance to give those hardened criminals who have occasional moments of moral clarity an opportunity to travel by ferry in peace.

Alas, a dark palette and a super hero speaking in somber tones doesn't equate cinematic depth. (Though it's enough, evidently, to make critics giddy.) The problems with The Dark Knight - being too long, taking itself too seriously, unnecessary plot lines, and pseudo-intellectual themes - all point to an even greater issue: self-indulgence. I really enjoyed Memento, Christopher Nolan's film from 2000, but his last three films (Batman Begins, The Prestige, and the Dark Knight) have felt increasingly self-indulgent. And with the financial success of The Dark Knight, I don't know who's going to tell him to do a better job of trimming his screenplay and editing his film.

Despite all of the attention, acclaim and money The Dark Knight has received, I'd have to say it wasn't even the best super hero film of 2008. That would've been Iron Man. Though it wasn't as ambitious as Nolan's effort (or maybe because it wasn't as ambitious), Iron Man was a leaner, tighter, and better-crafted movie. It had just as much to say about society, and it did it with humor and fun. And Robert Downey Jr. didn't have to affect a seriously silly "serious" voice when he put on his super hero outfit. Best of all, I enjoyed watching Iron Man and never once looked at my watch.

Five Graves to Cairo (1943) - Billy Wilder's second effort as director opens with an unforgettable sequence in which a tank full of apparently dead British soldiers rambles up and down the dunes of a desert in North Africa. Eventually, one of the men regains consciousness, only to fall out of the tank and be left behind, absolutely alone in that vast ocean of sand. The solider is played by Franchot Tone, a leading man in 1930s Hollywood who started his career as one of the original members of New York's Group Theatre that first brought Stanislavski's acting methods to this country. After wandering through the desert, Tone winds up at a hotel in a bombed-out and desolate Egyptian village, out of his mind from sun-stroke. Before he can recover, the hotel is taken over by advancing German troops, led by the Desert Fox himself, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, played marvelously by Erich von Stroheim. Tone takes on the identity of a waiter who was a spy for the Germans in order to find out where Rommel has buried several depots of oil, food and ammunition that will allow him to move rapidly across the desert and take Egypt from the British. It's a taut wartime espionage film, with an efficient and intelligent script by Wilder and longtime collaborator Charles Brackett. The black and white cinematography by John Seitz earned an Oscar nomination that year and helps create an atmosphere of tension and intrigue in the old hotel out in the desert. You can almost see Wilder becoming a great director before your eyes, developing his chops on a fairly typical Hollywood film before tackling his next project, Double Indemnity.

Five Graves to Cairo may not be one of Wilder's best efforts, but it proves that even B-Level Wilder was superior to much of what Hollywood could produce.

Recent Screenings - A Year in Cinema

I don't think you should feel about a film.
You should feel about a woman, not a movie.
You can't kiss a movie.

Jean-Luc Godard

Interesting how our perceptions of films can change over time. Sometimes a film I didn't like on first viewing seems much stronger the second time around. On other occasions, the second viewing makes me wonder why I liked the thing so much in the first place. The jokes don't seem as funny, or the plot drags, or the brilliant observations now seem pretentious.

And then there are the films I don't seen again that somehow resonate strongly in my memory. These works leave an almost physical warmth in the stomach or chest. I see a reference to them somewhere and think, "Oh, what a great film," even though I haven't seen the damn thing in 20 years.

And, of course, there are many movies that vanish completely from my mind. Most of the time, these are mediocre efforts, and it's just as well. But there are also good films that somehow just get forgotten. I recently watched Foreign Correspondent, by Hitchcock, because I didn't think I'd ever seen it. Lo and behold, five minutes into the story, I realized I had seen it before, and not even that long ago. (One advantage of getting older and more forgetful, I suppose, is that you get to enjoy films you've already watched.) It was a fine film. But for me, I guess, it wasn't one of Hitchcock's most "memorable" works.

After realizing I had completed my first year of blogging, I decided to look back through the films I had reviewed over the last 12 months. What had my year of cinema been like? Were there any trends I could discern? Had there been pleasant new discoveries of directors or actors? Which films stood out over time? I can't think of a better recommendation for a film than the fact that I want to see it again.

The first thing that surprised me was how many films I wrote about: 76 in total. I did 56 of these reviews for Recent Screenings, and 20 for other posts. I was also surprised at some of the films I really enjoyed in the last year that I didn't write about. Why do I spend time and energy discussing movies I dislike (40-Year Old Virgin) while ignoring ones I thoroughly enjoyed (Death Takes a Holiday)? In part, I think it's easier to write about films that one hates. Maybe that's why so many reviews in the media are negative. At times, I feel a bit overwhelmed trying to take on a truly great film. I don't know where to start. Sunset Blvd. took an incredible effort on my part, even though I love the film and love talking about it. But give me a real dog of a movie, and I can't wait to spew my invectives against the offenders. Not sure that's a great personality trait.

In any case, here's a review of a year of reviews. . . .

I looked over the 56 films I wrote about in Recent Screenings, and, after the passage of time, here are the ten that most resonate with me for one reason or another. With links to my original posts:

Bas-fonds, Les [The Lower Depths] (1936) - Everyone needs to see a film starring Jean Gabin. This isn't Grande Illusion or Pepe Le Moko, but it was directed by Jean Renoir and has a great atmosphere.

Through a Glass Darkly (1961) - Bergman and Sven Nykvist, the cinematographer, create a beautiful and haunting film.

I Married a Witch (1942) – Fredric March and Veronica Lake. Funny how films that you know aren't the greatest ever made linger so pleasantly in your memory.

Le Mépris [Contempt] (1963) - Godard directs Bardot in his one big Hollywood-ish production. With Michel Piccoli and Jack Palance.

De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté [The Beat That My Heart Skipped] (2005) - One of my discoveries during the year was French director Jacques Audiard.

Quai des Orfèvres (1947) – Henri-George Clouzot. I see this DVD at the local public library all the time, and every time I want to check it out again. Damn it, I'm going to. This week!

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) - William Wyler directs Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews and Teresa Wright. Just one of the best films ever made.

The Croupier (1998) – Clive Owen. A failed writer, gambling, a big heist. Not sure why this one lingers more than others I saw last year, but it does.

Children of Men (2006) - More Clive Owen (scary.) I still think this was the best film of 2006.

Sunset Blvd. (1950) - Just posted on this. One of the other best films ever made.

I saw two films again, because La Reina was watching them to use in her English as a Second Language-American Culture Through Film class. I liked Little Miss Sunshine more the second time, but there's still something about it that I find annoying. The ensemble acting is great, however. Inside Man held up surprisingly well. In fact, I think I liked it even more the second time, because I could see Spike Lee's craftsmanship more clearly.

I've seen a lot of films that I never reviewed. For some reason, I never wrote about Galaxy Quest, even though I wound up watching it three times during the last year, because I liked it so much. That will change soon, as I saw it again on my trip to Texas and will include it my next Recent Screenings.

I've been watching a lot of French films and older American films. I guess that's not really a surprise. I haven't been watching many Asian films. No Kurosawa in the last year? That's hard to believe.

Fredric March and Clive Owen showed up a lot. La Reina may have something to do with the latter.

I'm not sure at this point I would list The Illusionist as HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. That may have been the excitement of a first viewing. I need to see it again.

In fact, it's somewhat ridiculous for me to offer up "reviews" of films, when I've only seen some of them once. What can you really tell about a film after one viewing, beyond an overall like or dislike? What if I was in a bad mood when I saw something? What if I had a headache and the neighbors were blasting music, and I had wanted to see a comedy instead of a drama? What about films that I see after they've been hyped so much? I would like to see more films a second time before writing about them. But that probably won't happen.

I am, however, going to try and re-watch a few of the films from last year. Mostly ones that I enjoyed, to see how well they hold up. But I'd also like to view Pan's Labyrinth a second time. I was pretty hard on it, but others I respect have said it was great. My curiosity is piqued.

Here's the full list of Recent Screenings films from the past year:

September 1, 2006
Bas-fonds, Les [The Lower Depths] (1936) – RECOMMENDED
Through a glass darkly (1961) - RECOMMENDED
Jane Eyre (1944)
Stalker (1979)
Enigma (2001)
The 40 year old virgin (2005)

September 20, 2006
Winter Light (1962) – RECOMMENDED (But Not for Everyone)
I Married a Witch (1942) – RECOMMENDED
Syriana (2005) – RECOMMENDED
The Farmer's Daughter (1947) – RECOMMENDED
Portrait of Jennie (1948)
Gaslight (1944) – RECOMMENDED
The White Countess (2005)

October 19, 2006
The Illusionist (2006) - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Le Mépris (Contempt) (1963) - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
'I Know Where I'm Going!' (1945) - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Before Sunset (2004) – RECOMMENDED
Pal Joey (1957) – RECOMMENDED
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) – RECOMMENDED

February 4, 2007
Laberinto del Fauno, El [Pan's Labyrinth] (2006)
De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté [The Beat That My Heart Skipped] (2005) - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Quai des Orfèvres (1947) – RECOMMENDED
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Thank You for Smoking (2005)
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Hoagy Carmichael watches as Harold Russell plays the piano with hooks in place of the hands he lost during World War II. Fredric March, playing another veteran just home, looks on. The film won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and two acting awards for Harold Russell.

February 25, 2007
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Sur mes lèvres [Read My Lips] (2001) – RECOMMENDED
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) – RECOMMENDED
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) - RECOMMENDED - but only if you've seen Laura first!
Angel (1937)
V for Vendetta (2005)

March 11, 2007
Le Cercle Rouge (1970) - DEFINITELY RECOMMENDED
The Croupier (1998) – RECOMMENDED
The Conversation (1974) – RECOMMENDED

April 14, 2007
The Prestige (2006)
Intrus, L' [The Intruder] (2004)
The Reckoning (2003)
Blow Dry (2001)
Calendar Girls (2003)
The Contender (2001)

June 16, 2007
Children of Men (2006) - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Babel (2006) – RECOMMENDED
The Departed (2006) - RECOMMENDED, unless you're un-American and don't like seeing people get SHOT IN THE FACE.
The Queen (2006) – RECOMMENDED
The Good Shepherd (2006) – RECOMMENDED
The Good German (2006) – FAILED EXPERIMENT
Casino Royale (2006) – RECOMMENDED
Inside Man (2006) – RECOMMENDED
Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) - END OF CIVILIZATION

August 18, 2007
Sunset Blvd. (1950) - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

September 18, 2007
The Science of Sleep (2006) – RECOMMENDED
Blood Diamond (2006) – RECOMMENDED
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Alvarez Kelly (1966)
One Touch of Venus (1948)
Lemming (2005)

And here are the other 20 films:

Barbara Stanwyck as Sugarpuss O'Shea, with Gary Cooper as Professor Bertram Potts, and the other scholars putting together an encyclopedia, in the Billy Wilder-scripted, Howard Hawks-directed Ball of Fire (1941).

Barbara Stanwyck Films
The Lady Eve (1941) – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Double Indemnity (1944) – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Ball of Fire (1941) – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Meet John Doe (1941) – RECOMMENDED
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) – RECOMMENDED
To Please a Lady (1950) – RECOMMENDED
Executive Suite (1954) – RECOMMENDED

5 + 5 Movie Meme
Ran [Chaos] (1985) – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
To Have and Have Not (1944) – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Holiday (1938) – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
La dolce vita (1960) – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Swing Time (1936) – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Et Dieu... créa la femme [And God. . . Created Woman] (1956) – RECOMMENDED
French Kiss (1995) – RECOMMENDED
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azakaban (2004) – RECOMMENDED
Quick Change (1990) – RECOMMENDED

Christmas Meme (Movies)
The Bishop's Wife – RECOMMENDED
Christmas in Connecticut – RECOMMENDED
White Christmas – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Recent Screenings

I've been trying to catch up on some of last year's movies that I missed. No grand reviews here - just a quick run-through. Overall, looking back at 2006, I think it was one of the better years for film that we've had in a long time.

Children of Men (2006) - Directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine.

This may have been my favorite film from 2006, edging out The Illusionist. Though it was nominated for three Oscars (Editing, Cinematography and Adapted Screenplay), I'm still puzzled that Children of Men didn't receive more recognition. It's just excellent filmmaking down the line: great directing, acting, cinematography, editing, and choice of material. Alfonso Cuarón is one of the best directors around for creating "atmosphere" in a film, and, more importantly, wedding it to the story. He doesn't rely on it too much, which makes the result all the more powerful. Children of Men is a fascinating and haunting science fiction set in England a few decades from now. Women, as it turns out, are no longer able to conceive. Human beings are literally dying out. Meanwhile terrorism abounds. Illegal immigrants are herded into pens. It's an apocalyptic setting that terrifies because it doesn't seem too far removed from our present-day reality. Cuarón maintains an effective balance throughout the film, however, never overstating the connections to our own situation. In tone and feel, it reminds me of those brooding, more literary sci-fi films from the late 60s / early 70s, such as Andromeda Strain, Soylent Green, and especially Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451, back before George Lucas turned the genre into a multi-billion-dollar special effects industry. The ever-watchable Clive Owen does well as a cynical former political activist who winds up getting involved in trying to help a mysteriously pregnant woman reach safe haven, navigating between terrorist groups and a prying government. Michael Caine excels as a kooky, old hippie. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.


Babel (2006) - Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, Rinko Kikuchi.

This was an excruciating film to watch at times. It seems that González Iñárritu wants you to share in the emotional or physical pain his characters are going through. He also creates suspense so thick in some scenes [oh G-d, Cate, please move away from the window], that you want to flinch. By the time we finished watching Babel, I was exhausted. But it was also something of an exhilarating experience. The film felt new and powerful in ways that most Hollywood movies don't.

The next morning, however, after a good sleep, I started wondering about a number of plot holes. Why would she have done that? Why didn't they just do such and such? If you analyze the narrative very closely, it starts to unravel here and there with startling frequency. The emotional power I had felt the night before started to feel a little manipulative. If a writer and director don't care enough to catch glaring problems with the storyline, how much do they really care about the story itself? And, thus, the people in the story? But was Babel any less manipulative then Scorsese's The Departed? At least Babel felt like it was trying to do something innovative.

The narrative involves four different stories, three of which are directly connected: 1) A Moroccan man sells a rifle to a neighbor, which leads to disaster, because any fool knows that you can't introduce a gun into a film and not have it go off; 2) An American couple has recently lost a child and now their marriage is struggling, so, of course, like most Americans in the same situation, they head off into the middle of the Moroccan desert; 3) Upset over losing their child, the couple naturally decides to leave their two surviving children behind in California with a Mexican housekeeper. The housekeeper can't find anyone to take care of the kids so she can attend her son's wedding across the border, because Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, despite being such beautiful people, evidently have no friends or family anywhere in the Western United States. When the well-intentioned, but not necessarily judicious, housekeeper gets her crazy, gun-toting nephew to take her and the two blonde-headed offspring of Pitt-Blanchett into Mexico, trouble ensues (Imagine that!); 4) A young, deaf Japanese girl really, really wants to get laid. This is, evidently, emotionally powerful. And, believe it or not, connected to the other parts of the story. Really.

González Iñárritu may turn out to be one of this generation's great directors. Whatever the problems of Babel, it was a powerful film at times, and it felt like he was stretching what cinema can do, exploring more than most current Hollywood filmmakers. But, hey, Alejandro, pay more attention to your script next time, eh? RECOMMENDED.


The Departed (2006) - Directed by Martin Scorsese. Starring Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin.

Out of the five nominees for Best Picture last year, The Departed seemed to generate the least exciting word-of-mouth, so I was a bit surprised when it won the Oscar. (Though still being surprised by the Academy at this point in my life only shows my lack of intelligence.) I don't care for Scorsese much to begin with, so I never rushed out to see this, and I wasn't expecting much when I finally did. Lo and behold, I found it quite entertaining. At least until the last section, which goes on too long and seems to lose focus, the film sputtering to an odd close.

Jack Nicholson, who portrays a Boston mob boss named Costello, actually "acts" again rather than just hamming his way through a role, and he delivers one of his best performances in years. Matt Damon (yawn) plays Colin, who as a boy was taken under Costello's wing and now, as a grown man, has joined the police force and uses his position to tip off his boss/father figure at important moments. Leonardo DiCaprio, an actor I've never really clicked with, does an excellent job as Billy, who grew up in the same tough environment as Colin and has also wound up as a cop. Only he takes his lower-class angst and uses it to infiltrate Costello's mob. It's an elegant construction for a film, as Colin tries to figure out who the mole is in Costello's gang, while Billy tries to discover who the mole is within the police force. The tension builds up accordingly, helped along the way by a solid script that explores father-son relationships, internal boundaries of good and evil, and class differences, while serving up a good dose of action and suspense. Mark Wahlberg, who can go from dead-on delightful (I Heart Huckabees) to stiff and awkward (Planet of the Apes), offers one his better efforts and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin (my, hasn't he been busy lately) round out an excellent cast.

Scorsese can't seem to help himself with the overblown violence. Plot keywords on IMDB include: Bleeding To Death, Gash In The Face, Severed Hand, Shot In The Chest, Shot In The Head, Shot In The Face, Shot In The Forehead, Shot In The Knee, Shot To Death . . . and, well, you get the picture.

And though I enjoyed the film, I don't think The Departed deserved an Oscar for Best Picture. (But how few of them do.) It doesn't feel particularly important or new in any way, and, in fact, was a remake of a Hong Kong trilogy known in the U.S. as Internal Affairs. Babel and Children of Men were much more innovative films, and The Queen was better made. RECOMMENDED, unless you're un-American and don't like seeing people get SHOT IN THE FACE.


The Queen (2006) - Directed by Stephen Frears. Starring Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen and James Cromwell.

This may have been the most finely executed film of 2006. Well-written, well-directed, and wonderfully acted, not just by Helen Mirren but also by Michael Sheen, who does a better job as Tony Blair than Tony Blair. Despite all the accolades and great word-of-mouth, I initially ignored The Queen, because I just didn’t think I’d be interested in a film about . . . well . . . the Queen. The lives of modern-day monarchs usually lead me to either yawn or say something nasty. But I was wrong. The film has a great pace, a good sense of humor, and well-timed suspense that makes it feel almost like a political thriller. The action centers around Diana’s fatal car accident in 1997, and how the Royals deal, or don’t deal, with what happened. Meanwhile, Labour’s new Boy Wonder, only a few months after becoming Prime Minister, tries to navigate between seeming indifference on the part of the monarchy and tremendous mourning on the part of the British people. Blair senses a real crisis as public anger at the Royal Family mounts to the point where some begin to question their very reason for being. What’s the role of a monarchy in a supposedly democratic society in the 21st century? It’s an excellent question, and Frears explores it to a degree, though not as much as he could have. I thought he chickened out in the end. We’re left feeling like Her Majesty’s a pretty nice gal, though she doesn’t have a lot to say. To quote the Beatles on the same topic, circa 40 years ago. Ah, the Brits and their Queen It’s a relationship I don’t understand. Luckily, one doesn’t have to. It’s just a very good film.RECOMMENDED.


The Good Shepherd (2006) - Directed by Robert De Niro. Starring Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, William Hurt, Alec Baldwin (again!), Michael Gambon, Robert De Niro, Timothy Hutton, etc.

I like a good spy story, and this tale of the origins of the CIA and what a life of espionage can do to a person was pretty good. Some people may find the movie slow, but I really appreciated De Niro taking the time to develop his characters and the plot. It's a stellar cast, though the two main leads, Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, were probably the least interesting of the whole bunch, particularly Jolie, who seems miscast or uninterested. Eric Roth, who wrote the screenplay, seems to have done his homework on the CIA, as I recognized from my own reading several actual episodes from the history of the agency, and the overall atmosphere seems close to reality. The ending's a little disappointing, but I enjoyed the well-executed and thoughtful ride to get there. RECOMMENDED.


The Good German (2006) - Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Starring George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire.

This is what you call a "Failed Experiment." It has so much going for it: a star cast, good acting, tremendous cinematography, an interesting story, moody atmosphere, intelligence, humor, etc. But it's just not a very good film. Everything feels stiff and out of rhythm. It's hard to connect with the characters. We always seem to be on the outside, looking in. Basically, Soderbergh couldn't convert his IDEAS into an actual MOVIE.

But they were good ideas. Unlike the 95% of critics who savaged The Good German (and some of them really, really hated it), I think the film has a lot to offer. I've found myself talking and thinking about it much more than other more successful films. First of all, nobody's ever come closer to capturing 1940s cinema - except, of course, 1940s directors. Soderbergh pays homage to noirish classics such as Casablanca, The Third Man, and A Foreign Affair, combining amazingly accurate 40's style black and white photography (actually color film with the color drained out) with real footage of post-war Berlin. But he's not just content with homage; he also subverts various myths about World War II and turns filmmaking conventions of the time on their head. (A couple of ignorant critics assumed he was making fun of 40s films, but this is so obviously a work of love by someone incredibly knowledgeable about cinema of that era.) Clooney, for example, is no tough Humphrey Bogart, but is always getting his ass kicked by the bad guys. At any given moment, everything can look and feel like we're deep in an old black and white movie, then, suddenly, there's a brutal sex scene or language that would never have come out of the mouth of Bogart or Bacall. He uses our nostalgia for and expectations of old movies to slap us across the face with a sandal. We're jolted, at times, into thinking in new ways about history and cultural memory.

Tobey Maguire delivers a particularly inspired turn as your All-American GI who loves Mom's homemade pies but who turns out to be, uh, not quite what he seems. Another interesting and daring aspect of The Good German, and one that wasn't mentioned in any of the many reviews I read, is its take on the Holocaust narrative. What would a Jew do in order to survive in Nazi Germany? What would a Nazi-hunting Jewish D.A. from New York do to track down some of the bad guys in post-war Berlin? What would the U.S. Government do to acquire Nazi technology and expertise? These kinds of questions, and others like them, are at the heart of the film. The Good German may be shot in black and white, but it's moral universe is as far from black and white as possible.

In the end, as I said, the film just doesn't work. Or, it works in the mind, but not necessarily on the screen. But, hey, it's got secret Nazi rocket bases built into mountains, espionage, murder, blackmail, and the exotic and bizarre milieu of Berlin in 1945. And I give Soderbergh kudos for experimenting. NOT REALLY RECOMMENDED, per se, but film buffs might want to take a look.


Casino Royale (2006) - Directed by Martin Campbell. Starring Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench.

I'm a Sean Connery Bond man. But I'd join others in saying that this is probably one of the best Bond efforts since those glory days of the series. Didn't like the overblown opening chase sequence, but I know others loved it. Daniel Craig makes a good Bond - tougher, definitely, than the last few playboys, and yet also more human. What may have surprised me most was that the writing - for a Bond film - was much better than it has been in a long time. It allowed Craig to really do some acting. I look forward to the next installment - which hasn't been the case for a long, long time. RECOMMENDED.

Inside Man (2006) - Directed by Spike Lee. Starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe.

A solid bank-heist thriller with enough Spike Lee touches here and there to remind you that he’s at the helm of this otherwise typical Hollywood affair. It’s a good cast, though Clive Owen seems a bit of a throwaway. Foster has some pretty delicious lines as a fixer for the elites of New York City. If you’re in the mood for a fairly intelligent heist film, this is pretty good stuff. RECOMMENDED.


Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) - Directed by Chuck E. Cheese. Starring Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom, Bill Nighy.

A veritable roller-coaster ride. But who in the hell wants to be stuck on a damn roller-coaster for two and half hours!?!? The kids are upchucking chili dogs and cotton candy; grown men are in hysterics; teenage girls are fainting or going into epileptic fits; you’re dizzy, hot, and nauseated; your head hurts and your arms are bruised from being slammed around endlessly; and the damn noise and excessive motion JUST WON’T STOP!!! For the life of me, I can’t figure out the appeal of this series. It’s brutally violent, not just in the action on screen but even down to its baseball-bat-to-the-side-of-the-head editing. But its Disney and it’s all in good fun and parents let their children watch this crap and buy all the tie-ins at McDonalds and then wonder why kids are stupid, fat and gunning each other down at school. By G-d, it’s the bloody END OF CIVILIZATION!

But very, very profitable, so expect it to NEVER END.