The fanciful world created in Thomas and the Magic Railroad is one that you have to work for. It's extremely well-etched and certainly thought out in a way that will appeal to kids who imagine a world larger than the one they inhabit. Trains have two visual standings : they are the cuddly working engines with faces - who talk and move their eyes about - and they are physical trains, identical to any other train you've seen. This kind of dimensional doppleganger works with the world as well as with the people in it. The plot isn't driven too far from what is necessary to satisfy the animated crowd. Everything is almost too simple to be happening in a place that resembles our world in the least. There is a touch of magic and a touch of alienation and when they mix, the film seems to take on an oddly sustained state of double-edged bliss : so light that children can delight in it easily and completely, but almost too light to be of any intellectual or distracted use to viewers. It's fun to watch Baldwin and Fonda play such morally-centered, one-dimensional characters. Each has done their share of turns playing amoral, complex characters and in this context, it works almost as well as George Carlin does on the television show this film derives from. No fun however, is the fact that casting agents continue to include Mara Wilson on their lists. Admittedly, this film probably wasn't a pinnacle of strong direction (everything seems to be pulling at the scenes every moment and the setting, models and special effects clearly stop at a television level of competence), but Wilson isn't much of an actress anyway. This could be a great segway into my gripe about the lack of good child actors and our quick embrace of any of them who are attractive, but I'll spare you this time. Thomas and the Magic Railroad isn't necessarily deep or intelligent - but it has an element of childhood fun that I just couldn't turn off, no matter how far the movie fell into a pit of mediocrity. I was interested in what was happening and by the end, I wasn't conflicted about how much of my life I'd given up to watch this film. I'd sit on the fence, but Thomas and the Magic Railroad was good - not great - but worth entertaining and certainly worth a viewing by children for its straightforward and easily attainable morality lesson. Harmless.

Yet another vain and unfunny attempt to render the casual daily routines of the hood into a comedic, ah hell, a Friday follow-up. It starts out all wrong with
sympathetic voice-over about how an anti-hero stressing out over his third strike ("Two turns in the joint are alright - in 1993, the third one got you twenty-five
years". "For $200, Alex, "'What is the 'Three Strikes' law?'". "You are correct!"). Rob (Brian Hooks), our protagonist (must the black community have to look up to
a man able to use the word 'pussy' forty times in a sentence, even speculating on some sort of "pussy pot pie"; a native dish, I suppose) gets himself near danger time
and time again - the police hot on his trail - he drags his ass through the hood spewing familiar dialectical jokes, even more familiar bathroom jokes and a plot point
involving a fat girl that was point blank stolen from the aforementioned film titled from a day of the week. Three Strikes even ends in a complete state of cop-out:
the whole premise based on this idea that Rob is inches from danger and, in the end (notice how I don't even bother with a bleeding spoiler alert?), the judge simply
calls his vast quantity of crimes (even in 84 minutes, he does enough wrong to put him away for two lifetimes) a broken parole and not a third strike. Geez, why
couldn't they have let that out of the bag in the opening moments, saved me the trouble of being bored with this piece of cinema veri-garbage. Saving grace earning
the one star? David Alan Grier. The comedian manages to be funny even in the face of unconscionable chagrin. Any funny man able to overcome those odds has
performed a feat. Any film this bad should have been banished straight-to-video.

The best part about being a Tiggr (no, this is not a misspelling), according to Tigger, is that he is the only one. And in The Tigger Movie, he challenges his own credo. He decides there must be another on the earth like him - as we all do at some time. Ah, the universal element of kids movies. Though The Tigger Movie runs it’s course with a familiar, cookie-cutter produced children’s movie plot - it’s interesting contextually to note the enchanting approach that is done of the forest - to find out where this Tiggr comes from -which leads us to a pivotal scene (yes - that's right - A Pivotal scene!) in the film in which Pooh, Eeyore and Piglet go searching for other Tiggrs and find only frogs and bees - other creatures that have stripes and “bounce” (the major trait that creates a Tiggr). Maybe they have found the origin of this mythical Children’s creature concocted by A.A. Milne. Maybe they have found other gentle creatures sharing their space with neither the boisterousness nor the good-spirited personable quality that makes a Tiggr. As they find - among themselves - they like having him around. And they find - that maybe all the creatures come from somewhere beyond the capacity of their understanding. Oh, bother. It’s not really quite kosher to scold a movie like this one, an animated vehicle for youngsters, for being simple, preachy and very, very obvious. Not all animated movies can be as high-minded and independent of commonplace elements as Toy Story 2 or The Iron Giant. Rather, the most grand quality of this film lies in it’s portrayal of the relationship between Tigger and Roo (the marsupial pouch dweller of Kanga - the resident mom to the bunch). Roo sees Tigger as a substitute for both a brother and a father - in many ways. In other ways, there is noo substitute for Roo’s father - as it is never mentioned and is seeminglly unimportant. All he, or any of them for that matter, need in guidance or nurturing, comes directly from Kanga - who acts as both mother and father. Roo and Tigger are both childlike (Tigger reminds me of an animated Kramer from ‘Seinfeld’ in this film).  In this case, as Roo perfects a particularly tricky “bounce”, he becomes a Tigger - without losing his own identity. It’s almost as if any creature in the forest can be a Tigger - as long as they can mimic him on all levels (which all the characters do at one point - dressing up, but not filling the part nearly to the letter as would be necessary). So, whereas the frogs and the bees can be thought to be Tiggers - maybe Tiggerdom is a state of mind. Finally, it’s mesmerizing simply to view the creations that spark from those classic stories - and their classic illustrations. Tigger’s manner of speech, a combination of a child’s mispronunciation and a poet’s purposeful alliteration - is such a wonder to listen to. It’s like a beatnik with the flow of Shakespearean verse - all rolled into one (boy, does that sound a bit lofty - at times it lives up to that very description!). The beautiful backgrounds are always constant like a fantasy existing in a painting. For me, they’ve always been very evocative of the seasons and of the general air projected by the animals occupying the woodland. Here, the foreground acts as motion - while the background stands perpetual. There’s something nostalgic about this (as it evokes older, more pleasant cartoons of my youth) and something very artistic about it. It seems less of a cheaper, easier way out - than a statement about the very nature of the place they live, and it’s sheltered and enduring place in their lives.

En Masse - Time Code is a good idea. In it's entirety - at least following Alex's (Stellan Skarsgård) unveiling of the film's real atmosphere (I’m talking self mockery here!) - the film acts as it's own propaganda : the type of film that almost begs a second viewing out of curiosity and fascination rather than admiration and impression. But, again, it was a good thing. Not only is Time Code immensely entertaining to watch, but it’s gimmick, the four-screen simultaneous presentation, is in fact, the major reason the film holds our attention so well. Though not discussed outright by director Figgis, my take on Time Code is that it exists as a film for the generation that holds the remote control out to be it's editor. In a medium where cuts, dissolves and music dictate our emotions as fervently as trauma and joy - - Figgis gives the audience a free-hand decision, one that's neither infuriating nor entirely pleasing, and asks us to indulge him. Having shot the film in it's entirety, not using any cuts - it's a toss-up whether he's merely throwing the ball into our court, begging us to manipulate his raw footage randomly, on our own; or he's simply so moved by his own creation in it's own state that the conception has now transcended the final product in such a way that we're not really editing (or DECIDING) at all - we're simply downloading a fourfold soap opera into our consciousness. Whatever the case (and Figgis believes it is the latter) may be - Time Code is detached. But, oh, how intriguing it is to watch these relationships develop - from the objective audience seat we are inhabiting. And there's the rub in the perfect plan. In essence, while giving us a hand in our own viewing - the plan both works - since I did enjoy being able to choose which frame I examined at any give time; but it backfires as well - because those good old American viewing and perceiving sensibilities come into focus just long enough to render all the material on the screen so completely un-affecting - we're blown into a strange tizzy of utter dismay at the disempowering effect the film presents us with, while all the time marvelling at beholding four spaces in time as they unfold (even if they are fabricated). And above all - the fate lies in the acting - which is good, but raised into far too many generic characters. It's not really that this affects what is, truthfully, a somewhat generic narrative - but it shows a major flaw in the machine - the actors who easily
could've erased some of the absurdities of Figgis's story and re-created them as something obscure and addictive. But, in a "here's-a-revolutionary-breakthrough-concept-let's-run-with-it" situation, I think my purpose as a critic is rendered somewhat into two parts, as it were. On one hand : the film is really brilliant, conceptually, and a huge payoff for the technique, which is manipulated with restraint and precision to form a satisfying aesthetic - especially what Figgis does with the credits, both opening and closing. (That’s your Three and One Half Stars). On the other hand : the recycled melodrama (that I loathed in Mr. Jones and One Night Stand) of Figgis, something that is often unintentionally funny is in bold opposition to the style. (your Two and One Half Stars)
A Ben Trout soundbite : "If you're going to do something special, have a good story or you're doing something less than special". (your Three Stars)

[I totally fucking disown this review.]

God, how long till the summer is over and I can stop overusing words like 'familiarity' and 'cookie cutter' because I don't know how to justify mediocrity by
breaking things down to their simplest form. In the case of Don Bluth's film, 'Titan A.E.', all these things apply - but like 'The Perfect Storm', the protocol low-rent
story/dialogue transcends some higher expectation of mine - the visual feast I've been dying to swallow (and outside of 'The Perfect Storm' - I've gone mad famished
hungry, let me tell you). In this film, it's every scene for itself, begging you to look it's way as it tries to top the last one in aesthetic beauty and futuristic interpretation.
This is the world of junked-out space heaps, vast and surprising vistas, fast and dangerous alien foes and wonderfully imaginitive terrain encircling all. As a film where Matt Damon is one of the last humans and bears the map to the Titan, a ship that can save the human species (a little too close for comfort to 'Waterworld' for my taste) - 'Titan A.E.' falls well below the mark. Everything about it smacks of Bluth's other films. Neither the haunting meditation on personal loss that 'The Land Before Time' was or the boldly entertaining romp that 'An American Tale' was, this film manages to construct itself from the dusty remains of those films' scripts - and take the next step in technology, puushing ahead into eye candy the likes of which cineastes crave (Remember the orgasm I had over 'Princess Mononoke' - same kind of worship over the visuals, none of the same appreciation for narrative). As there's little else to say about a film that I know is a standing cliche, but carries all of the powers of swift, solid entertainment I crave in a popcorn flick, I'll leave you with these three pieces of information :

    1. I can't wait until the summer is over, as far as the cinema goes.
    2. The new theater we tried out, Village Mall Cinemas in Horsham, is exactly the
        second-run dump that I miss from 'Fox East Boscovs' in Reading and the 'AMC' in Exton.
    3. Their popcorn gave me a headache even two gin & tonics couldn't cure.

        Little else on my mind eighty minutes after the film is over. Forgettable entertainment, unforgettable visuals.

"Oh boy, Rehab!"

I wondered to myself while watching this filth, "Should I really be enjoying this, should I really feel entertained by this, shouldn't I be taking this seriously?". The
answer is clearly yes, yes and no. And those are just the wrong answers to arrive at. A film that is content to blame an addiction on the sins of the mother - never
uncovering the gap Gwen (Bullock) would've had to bridge in order to become an addict (and once more, how shameless is a film that shows the childhood in
flashbacks but just plum leaves out ages 10-29, you know, the ones where she became a damn addict). But to more deeply explain just how out of touch this film is
with itself, it breaks a huge rule by almost always telling us (rather than showing us) the effects of drug & alcohol abuse. And beyond that, Gwen is so vividly painted
as a deep, hard core addict yet she emerges twenty-eight days later, able to continue her life easily. We never feel - not once - that she could be tempted back into
the drug hazy world she inhabited for (as the film tells us) fifteen years. That just couldn't be unless this were a Hollywood film, the leading actress was the executive
producer and, well, if it weren't meant to be bankable. Truth be told, Bullock does some acting in this film (sandwiched between projects in which she is or is in love with undercover agents - think of the subconscious flair exhibited by her choice in roles here). She brings a delightfully off key note to her usual cutesy gallivanting that brings her just far enough away from being Sandra Bullock to be grungy drug/alcohol freelancer Gwen - but just close enough to the cutesiness that we can't help but see an actress exorcising the demons of an admittedly ridiculous career. Turns out it is utterly wasted, as are turns by Viggo Mortensen and Steve Buscemi, particularly the latter who, combined with 'Animal Factory', has pulled off two memorable turns this year with less than ten minutes of screen time between them. (Makes you remember just how prolific an actor he is.) Betty Thomas has no trouble creating an entertainment - as she did in The Brady Bunch Movie and Private Parts (films I admire) - but here, she's way off target. For subjects like rehabilitation and addiction, there should be no need to populate the film with scenery chewing flamboyants like the ?-accented homosexual who always seems to arrive with the most inappropriate of lines anytime the movie seems to be getting within a mile of being reverent or disquieting. By the time Gwen is discharged, the film seems to be built around how large the contrast between her quick fix-it job/ happy-go-lucky smile and how pathetic the other patients' reoccurring admittance to the clinic is. This is more than a little jolting. I was curious just how a director could allow this to happen and then I remembered - nobody wants to see an actress men fantaasize about blow her big chance to get sober and made-up again. Then I breathed a sigh of relief that this abhorrence was over. One final note: Is there room for the existence of 28 Days and Requiem for a Dream in the same world? Certainly not. I hate to get bogged down in a pissing contest between an obviously flashy three act throwaway and a hard-hitting artistic anti addiction statement; but I couldn't help but recall Requiem for a Dream while watching 28 Days. I kept wondering when 28 Days was going to grow some balls and step up to the plate and give a wider audience something they could take with them. As it is, all they're likely to remember is that Gwen was triumphant in the face of an alarming addiction that she probably overcame and who cares what else. In 'Requiem for a Dream', the characters clearly remain addicted at the end of the film. Lack of closure left all of them in my brain and I can't shake them. 28 Days is Hollywood drama at its best, skirting the issue for a happy ending.

Though it takes forty-five or so minutes of expository garbage to really sink it's claws into our attention, U-571 works so terrifically once the momentum builds that
I almost wanted to deny the existence of it's previous fault. The suspense boils to an alarming degree and all the actors are really good at yelling, bouncing echoes off
of a claustrophobic hunk of metal under the sea. This is the kind of film DTS sound was made for :  it's hidden component of blazen nerve-jangling : that 8-channel
surround sound, amped up and overused (well). When the film stops being watered down pseudo-Das Boot and starts to take on it's own form,  it becomes a
pleasing thrill ride, one that's worth taking in the theater and one that's totally and completely a pro-American low-rent period piece: An action movie trapped in a
story that couldn't possibly interest me.  In short, it uses the money and the tactics well. You'll want to shake the hand of the editor when it's over - and snub the
under-directing auteur, who clearly wanted to tell a story in the space where there should be loud explosions and chaotic action.

(lowered to C+ upon second viewing)

If he keeps making films, the figurehead of Shyamalan's career should be Unbreakable. This is the kind of film that weaves a reverent, spooky tone into a
more realistic world - the kind that craves a preamble like the aforementioned ghost story to offset just how deep and enticing Shyamalan's imagination is willing to
bend the medium of film. This is the product of tinkering, a film about the supernatural that is engrossing - but feels vulnerable and relevant at the same time as it is
confidant and fanciful. His characters, left at a magnificent twofold set of crossroads, teem with the ability to surprise us and keep us interested in just what is
controlling their personal navigation skills as they pick up from a disturbing yet uplifting event in their lives. It's Shyamalan's style, one that after two films we can
almost reach out and pinpoint, that makes a film like Unbreakable so riveting and a film like The Sixth Sense so outwardly creepy. (all right, the former has
some goofy moments as well - paint cans and "We don't point guns at friends!" come to mind; but the The Sixth Sense may be the most widely forgiven
use of a gimmick as a film rather than the other way around. It treads the thin line between being the king in what Elijah (Jackson) calls a "mediocre
world". In the film world, The Sixth Sense is just that subordinate when viewed next to its sister film, Unbreakable.) A prophet and a strongman (if you go by their biblical counterparts), Elijah and David (Willis) are each the kinds of film characters long absent from the genre - whatever you the viewer perceives the geenre to be - driven, extra human and eloquent. Bruce Willis, sullen and withdrawn, a very menacing - almost darkly foreboding brooder, wears the mask of a slowly mixing awe and bewilderment just as well as he did in The Sixth Sense. As a child looking up to him, Spencer Treat Clark (as David's son, John)  is a wonderful addition to Willis's growing army of child actors, responsible for tons of work thanks to his loving and worthy chemistry. The man is becoming an actor with each and every film he puts between he and the action hero career of yesteryear. And as he unfolds his mysterious new discovery, with the help of a very bold and startlingly obsessive Jackson, David becomes the kind of mythical journeyman Shyamalan seems to write so well. In Unbreakable, it works because both David and the audience know he's on a quest, in search of something. In other words, he doesn't turn out to be dead the whole time - he just looks it. Unbreakable is the kind of cinematic achievement directors get with the freedom to do such things as shoot in sequence, choose their own crew and location, and market their own skill as part entertainer, part artist. The tone, pace and skilled final product are the payoff. I was ready, willing and able to comment on where the film goes, using the ever handy spoiler alert, but I think I want to see the film again before relinquishing details to those who have seen it - and not have those details be sharp. Yes, this is an apology. I would love to share my absolute joy with where Unbreakable lands itself, the territory and the similarity to another film I'm quite passionate about seeing a second time. I think I've probably said too much as it is... ("The kids call me Mr. Glass.")

The real genius in The Virgin Suicides has got to be the delicate and attentive emphasis it places on point-of-view parlayed from adult reflection back to the good ol’ days: Youth. How beautiful are scenes where things appear mythical, surreally passionate and desperately remembered. How powerfully remembered is the balance between the haunted disbelief surrounding the title actions and the chummy-transcending-coming-of -age sense of nostalgia the movie vibrates. This is a film that respects the near-fictionalized memories of young people and the importance of such reminders, while creating, dare I say it, a Psycho-esque twist of narrative (when the main focus changes so drastically, it’s jarring), elevating the film above any light handling or amateur visions the audience might have had for it. Here is a masterful and wonderful film about people growing up, barriers we all remember and the greatish moments when we peeked around the corners of those barriers - if only for a moment. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Coppola (the younger) has created this world as if it were a series of paintings. Here lies : the suburban wonderland of sprinklers, poking sunshine rays and soft, silky-green blades of grass; the cluttered homes, studded with iconography - from fashion and records to Catholic memorabilia; the aquamarines interrupted by stark browns and yellows to make a ‘seventies’ feel that is equal parts the cover of a Catholic Sunday School workbook and the unequivocal massage of images personal to each of our perceptions of the decade, whether we lived it or saw it on the television or movie screen years later. And the beauty held on high is made all the more digestible by Dunst, in a performance that is astounding. Here is the actress of Interview with a Vampire, whom I specifically remember branding the ‘no talent’ red letter upon. As I hinted at after seeing Dick, she does have some talent. In The Virgin Suicides, we see an abundance of girlish sexuality being radiated like the rays of the sun, burning and blinding everyone she comes in contact with (even a knife salesman, who gives her a free ten minute demonstration when she lies out on the lawn in her bathing suit). As Lux (great name), she  protrudes that flirt so effortlessly, we become her victim. She hypnotizes us with her eyes. We’re there, back in high school, lusting after her (and her kind - the sexy supervixen) again.
And the superbly (comical?) turns by Josh Hartnett and James Woods, as Lux’s admirer and father, respectively; deserve recognition as well. They both bring an amazing charm blazing around Lux like victims at her innocence-cum-maturity sacrificial bonfire. They both wonder why they’re caught in her tractor beam - but not enough to want to be left outside of it. As Trip Fontaine, Hartnett, especially, was born to wear that badass wardrobe, strut around in a haze and strike his head on the tunes of Todd Rundgren. There is a scene where Lux kisses him that’s so brutally meshing fantasy and memory, it’s a giddy thrill for us. That’s the power of this film : it remembers things “...the way [it wants] to, not necessarily the way they happened.” (Bill Pullman, Lost Highway). And of course, the bump in the road - the boldly wooden Kathleen Turner, a performance as menacing as her character in Body Heat (without the nudity). Imagine a full transformation, complete with the over-protective mom (turned up at full volume) hatred for rock music, boys and logic in general. Never would you suspect that Turner could be such a wonderful backside to her chameleon-esque usual self. A brave and wondrous show. (And come to think of it, picture her in Serial Mom, but not in a satire-ish way, and more churchy. Now you’ve got it). Every touch seems to magical. And back to the two things I want to stress before I finish the orgasm here: The Virgin Suicides is all about nostalgia and remembering things in a way that’s pleasing in terms of personal ego, evolution and simple existentialism. It’s these four boys, obsessed to the gills with four sisters whose lives have the lock and key - and whose aura radiates into the annals of sexual growth in the collective consciousness of those men who came in contact with them. And I love that absolutely pitch-perfect, image-soaking score by Air. (And particular Kudos to Coppola for not making a movie with a superiority complex that makes the seventies look really enticing to everyone who didn’t live it and thumbs it’s nose down at us. This film is universal.)

This is a haunting, extremely absorbing and undeniably affecting experience. Its a take on madness that views obsession and closure as one. Its an exploration
of the potent disturbance that time squeezes us with. Its a gambling session with an ambitious political frontrunner choosing ambiguity and distraction over following a
lifelong dream. And its Billy Crudup, perhaps the best up and coming actor working today (Without Limits, Jesus' Son),  reinventing psychological breakdown and
fervent passion as if no one had ever expressed such feelings onscreen. Waking the Dead doesn't always work. Crudup's relationship with Connelly is certainly meant to be more interesting after she passes away, but the film pushes too hard on obscuring their relationship while she is are alive, leaving Crudup to fill in the attached emotional gaps left by the film's strangely detached flashbacks. Its not really as glaring an error as you'd expect; Crudup is certainly up to the task and performs it without skipping a beat (no one I'd rather see lose his mind - an exasperating and beautiful thing to watch - an achievement, if you will). Connelly is sufficiently angelic as his Catholic do-gooder girlfriend, killed in a politically motivated car bombing. Its a testament to these actors that when he envisions her "ghost" after she dies, time stops and the passion immediately locks us in. Even what's missing can't tear us away from how fascinating and reverent the film makes their sudden, disquieting reunions. And that's the extent. This is a film that is pleasing to watch for its effect, but not entirely pleasing to experience as a piece of cinema. Keith Gordon, whose Mother Night also overcame some vibrant miscalculations (for instance, being unearthly slow), directs his films with the better part of his heart and a seeming lack of his mind. The incorrect balance isn't at all jarring or really that distancing, its a wonderful mixture to stir into a film. And I do enjoy watching his films. I almost wish while watching them that Gordon would keep his head focused and create a film that's not interested in the payoff - which he is so skilled at delivering - but I have to stop myself because, everything would topple and the sometimes corny and speech-heavy dialogue might overtake the often brilliant and moving excess of raw, driving human consciousness and experience. There is also a level in this film that's worth addressing in a very admirable fashion. The film does not outwardly distiguish or close the door on whether Jennifer Connelly's character is living or dead and Billy Crudup must survive not knowing the difference - or the reality of it - either. The mere fact that the film suggests a giant of a thematic element like this is beautiful. What a concept. The way it handles it, with a haunted hum that grows louder and more refined as the film proceeds, is quite simply the perfect way to handle it. Would I like to have seen the whole film surround itself with this very delicate - and perhaps to some, proposterous, idea - in a very selfish way, I would. I also hate to think everyone could connect with this - because of the perhaps too convenient way the story hands the circumstance to us - but, nevertheless, because of the kind of director Gordon is, the film does invite us to pool our own general associations and past links with this type of feeling and this type of pain and pleasure. Its often the kind of film we would feel strongly about and feel close to because these are wonderful moments to feel in real life - and exciting moments to witness in the movies. More and more in films, old-fashioned styles fuse with new orders to create one side of an extreme - or another. In this case, an old-fashioned, constantly straight-forward love story (even though told in idiot-proof flashback and flash-forward mode), is melded with a new order of visualization and aesthetic sculpting. The haunting score by Tomandandy, the interior urban tightness and snow-soft dreaminess of Tom Richmond's cinematography, the bold and astonishing performance by Billy Crudup and the emotionally heavy (but not heavy handed) direction of Keith Gordon do what old-fashioned films did not do: they tell a story in and out of focus, unsure of its own reality and often so concentrated, it becomes blurry. All of this is almost enough to make this film into the magic it deserves. As it stumbles, I was sort of hurt that I had to ignore what was both creating and killing the movie, but that dualistic cog is enough to make this machine properly overpowering.

I'm betting that a week or so down the road, someone is going to tell me all the inside workings and special payoffs that they were able to grasp from The Way
of the Gun. And I'm betting that I'll hear the better story from them than was actually put on screen. And I'm betting that no matter how much water they add to the
genre films reminiscent of The Usual Suspects (which McQuarrie himself wrote) and Pulp Fiction, they won't seem more than a few tinges of originality in the face
of blatantly overused material. McQuarrie seems content to disturb the balance of crime dramas by over-loading the film with plot strands, characters and double-crosses, but he has failed to make any of it exciting. He has no trouble creating precise, intelligent characters, but he's more interested in having them survive (or not survive) gunfights than anything else. (SPOILER ALERT) In fact, I'd have been very moved to see a crime drama whose main goal was to show that crime doesn't pay by pitting some intelligent kidnappers against a rich, forceful crime syndicate and, in the end, having the realistic side win (namely, the crime syndicate). McQuarrie almost seems to want to do this, as he ends his film this way, but he never really lets these characters speak for themselves. Everyone in the film, though talky and sharp, seem to have less to do with an actual narrative than with a sick ploy McQuarrie is purporting to challenge himself: Can I heap all of this complicated structure together and still have it come out as clear and electrifying as The Usual Suspects? And the answer is a resounding no, simply because McQuarrie is not the director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, X-Men) is. While Singer had no trouble taking enough plot for five films and making the confusion seem necessary and the conclusion seem lucid; McQuarrie seems to enjoy the confusion much more than the conclusion, which, honestly, is a non-balletic shoot-out so loud and dull, you'll wish this slightly-higher-than-cable movie would just end already. Some poor casting choices don't help. Though Del Toro and Phillipe are intact - and even fun to watch - Lewis is a horrible choice for their kidnapping victim. The movie is so preoccupied with making the kidnapping seem different than any other cinema kidnapping, it makes Lewis's character, who is surrogate mother to the crime syndicate head's child, seem an obsure reference in an otherwise straightforward gallery of characters. It doesn't help that Caan is played off as a mumbly old man whose experience alone makes him worthy to win this little game of McQuarrie's. And finally, if Katt and Diggs were written any more detached, I was really going to wonder if they were just wandering over to the set from another film to shoot the breeze while the camera was rolling (there's even a dim subplot where the crime syndicate head's wife is seeing Diggs, which, upon first inspection seemed to be just another branch on this front-loaded tree of plot elements; but upon closer inspection, it is one of the many nuances in the film actually are familiar). Finally, to add spite to this clunker, there are some scenes near the opening of the film that are nice because they are confidantly told in a visual - rather than verbal manner. I couldn't help wondering if McQuarrie were going to be as haphazard to include so many elements that don't gel or work together, why not experiment by making this film dialogue-less? Another of my brilliant, however useless suggestions to those in charge of churning out films. If McQuarrie really wanted to wow us, he'd have made a film that had zero criminals in it - but read just as gracefully as The Usual Suspects.

Michelle Pfeiffer curls up in the bathtub. It’s an image that’s not only central to the star vehicle that What Lies Beneath defies for the majority of it’s spindling; but it’s also the kind of horror-rich setting that an audience deserves. You know there is something magical present when a filmmaker can pay homage to another filmmaker, occasionally borrowing a little too transparently, but more often than not, painting with a palette of love - rather than a palette of grand larceny. It’s true that What Lies Beneath bears a similarity to Stir of Echoes that is often a little too close for comfort - but it also understands the concept of cinematic ambience: the white noise of a surrounding pattern of themes and visuals that can correctly render a film’s necessary push; it’s drive; it’s intention. Besides, for all the plot it appears to have in common with that film, it's really not about anything worth noting to begin with. Forgiven. Zemeckis wisely keeps his two actors as busy as possible with a plot that’s nuances are never subtle and whose open-and-shut twists are merely window dressing meant to allow for spine-tingling chicanery. There are some classic jumps, motions meant to give the audience a heart-beating, skin-tightening rush. There are occasionally too many blatant pans of the camera into unknown places in order to boost the suspense of what may lie in sed unknown (in the worst moments, it’s not what we think). What I like about the film is easily bogged down by the density of it’s obvious audience-pleasing aspects. I can’t even begin to tell you how irritating it is to have a subplot meant to throw you off of the film’s main sequence and have that subplot surface as an ambiguous cloud, forgotten in the mix. The teasing sensation of the film’s closing twenty minutes, while the momentum is borrowed from Vertigo, it isn’t always piano-wire tight. For the most part, it’s a series of predictable and numbing thrusts of the ever popular “Is that character dead or just unconscious?”. The main excitement, I’m afraid to say, comes from watching the leads (megastars Pfeiffer and Ford) parade about, shuffling off their former personas to have a bit of fun. While it’s not a good idea for me to give away things, since this film is based on the idea that it’s secretive (it’s not, anyone who’s seen the trailer knows every little thing about it - Oops!); I’m going to do it anyway. It’s an honor to watch Harrison Ford play a bad guy who is
trying to kill his wife (which he tried to convince us he’d never do seven years ago in the brilliant The Fugitive). And Pfeiffer, for all the crap she makes that I’ll never see, manages to come alive enough to spark the all-beauty-and-some-brains heroine reminiscent of any of Hitchcock’s films - or any of the great thrillers for that matter. While What Lies Beneath may be a bathtub too shallow for any real fright - it’s just deep enough to pass for a cheap thrill - - - which is precisely what Zemeckis was firing for, I’m certain.

Immensely surprised, says I, at what is the prime example of a ass-on-couch "rental film". A premise that can only be backed by sharp one-liners and shiny big
supporting casts - like this one about an alien that poses as a human to procreate and thereby, take over the planet - What Planet Are You From? suffers only from
a terminal sense of sitcom-itis. We know where it's going, we can feel the familiarity of where it's prodding. Then why was I so pleasantly surprised? Maybe it was
the presence of Garry Shandling, doing little else but being Garry Shandling (am I the only one who misses Larry Sanders on HBO?). Perhaps it's the scene where
Annette Bening (playing her character from Mars Attacks! up for all it's worth) sings "High Hopes" with child. Or maybe it was the carefree vibes the film gives off -
everyone seems to be having fun goofing around with Mike Nichols - and it shows. It's a solid comedy and great entertainment. Can I imagine having seen it in the
theater and felt the same response? Frankly, no.

"Occasionally charming" is a waning description I'd fancy retiring. Watching teen comedies - or any teen-inflicted, teen-enhanced or teen-marketed entertainment has begun to rob me of the very ability to deliniate; to see these films as separate entities rather than a clumping pile of regurgitated distractors. This one isn't really all that menacing. A two-fold (and very loosely lifted) version of Cyrano de Bergerac that features the jock, longing to "nail and bail" (on) the nice girl next door, while the accordion-playing introvert casts his ambitious gaze on the school sexpot. If it weren't for how self-conscious it seemed to be about marking current moments (an effort to date itself perhaps) such as the labored Titanic gag, single mom as a prom date and the oh-so-obvious knocks at Beverly Hills 90210, I might be able to overlook the actuality of how simplistic and implausible the very fabric of these characters seems to be (this is yet another movie that takes place in and around a school that none of the students ever seem to attend as students and all of them look at least ten years older than they should). Laughing occasionally - and remarking that this isn't really all that bad - certainly doesn't excuse films like this. Teen films really ought to be backed by at least one brain cell - no matter how dim they are (Perhaps this explains an industry that feels it appropriate to ellide on the immoral sense that big breasts and sex talk among youth is inherently marketable). Nevertheless, I didn't believe for a second that any of these actors could ever exist in any high school anywhere. I am fully aware how far from the point that is. Maybe that's the difference between this and the much more tolerable Boys and Girls: at the very least, that film was content to set its dry story at a college, where I could almost buy that these twentysomethings were interacting in a semi-natural envoirnment. But then, maybe comparing teen movies is like comparing diseases: whether they're getting better or worse - they still suck on general principle.

Though mashed into a whole spectrum of low-key elements that don't always make a viewer want to jump on board a sinking ship (like jokes you'd rather die that
give in to laughing at) in hopes that it will pull off a turnaround, I assure you, The Whole Nine Yards brings it all on home...eventually. You're right. Matthew Perry's
soul is about as thin as cheesecloth (we're all quite bored with his paycheck and it's rare connection to the antics and repetitious existence he inhabits on Friends).
What ends up saving this relentlessly twisty and often hysterically farcical film is the way Perry turns his former deal with the devil on a dime and becomes a buddy
team with Bruce Willis to.....and get this......positive results! The two of them together are nearly brilliant. Hard to swallow most of the stuff coming down the tubes
through the first chopping half of this one but, on the whole, it takes the notches of the sitcom belt and wraps them tightly around a worthwhile exercise in goofball
stunts. The Whole Nine Yards is a mild diversion that, for no other reason, affords one the opportunity to see the following items: a) Amanda Peet topless; b)
Michael Clarke Duncan in a role completely opposite to the one he tackled in The Green Mile; c) Rosanna Arquette dangling a flaky French accent; and finally, d)
a bad, bad film that winds up being just charming enough not to completely suck.

[Note to self : this film constantly reminded me, in the way it was shot, edited and directed, of any of the following eighties memories : What About Bob?, Stakeout and The 'Burbs. I heavily recommend that you leave the video store with one of these films in tow, particularly the last one, as it's consistently one of my favorites year after year.]

Not nearly the equal of Kiarostami's Kokek Trilogy (if only because those films are about goodness and this one is about the reverance of death), The Wind
Will Carry Us actually manages to have even less occur between its opening sequence and closing shot than the usual spectrum of everyday humdrum events the
Iranian master director includes in his features. This is the story of an engineer from Tehran, his associates (whom we never see) and their quest to capture photos of
the mourning ritual performed in a small town called Siah Dareh. The one-hundred year old woman whose funeral they expect to photograph has not yet died - the
engineer learns from a local boy called Farzad - and now two days waiting to capture thiss event has turned into just over two weeks. The calming effect of Kiarostami's sparing photography (more picturesque than I remember it being in his previous films) and lack of music apply here. The difference here is that all of the hidden charms of such airy, narrativeless filmmaking aren't as readily accessible when we leave the theater - perhaps in part due to the film's haunting closing shot, one that really doesn't seem as weighty as the film that preceeds it. It almost seems as if the obssession with reality, no matter how uneventful, has given way to a need Kiarostami feels to define things one last time, as if his audience is no longer the quiet circle of highbrow critics but a universal crowd of filmgoers unfamiliar with the connection their brains often make with the films they inhale. The film contains outside elements such as comedy and irony - things we rarely see in his films. These foreign elements don't quite have the fit of eloquence his usual preoccupation with innate goodness does - but as he removes our expectations, replacing them with a wonderful reflection on the inevitability and unexplained power of death (as he did with suicide in The Taste of Cherry) - he finds a new world in his filmmaking. The role of the filmmaker, usually important, is nearly nil here. The engineer, who must keep driving to a cemetary,  the highest point of the town (to get reception on his cell phone), finds his own role challenged as the time he spends talking to his colleagues in Tehran about rushing death while standing on hallowed ground becomes a sythesized opposition - causing a reflection of a magnitude that shocks even him. We aren't necessarily afforded the complete insertion of nature's wild unpredicability - and the death that can linger in the face of eagerness - which gives way to the quiet epiphany Kiiarostami usually commands, but in The Wind Will Carry Us, we can feel him breaking new territory, gradating his craft with it. If I am right and this is the middle of a grand uphill slope, his next film, should it have themes of death and loss, should be a masterwork.

If visionary legend-in-the-making Tom Tykwer were to have erected a tombstone for this wintery wallop of mediocrity, it would read: Winter Sleepers, Cause of Death: Ambition. Beyond the irritating fact that Winter Sleepers received an American release only due to the success of Tykwer’s mindblowing Run Lola Run lies the question I’d love to ask the director himself : Why release this film at all? If anything - hide it. Bury it deep in the snow where no one can find it (or leave it to the blood-sucking ebay pirates to capitalize on, like they’ve been doing since Run Lola Run was released last August). Full of unfinished experiments with most of the same themes found in Run Lola Run, the familiar thread that inevitably chokes Winter Sleepers is that it’s all too common film territory - especially in America. A film with five main characters that coincidentally cross paths isn’t exactly a fresh or new idea. And it’s obvious target, a bleak wintery tone, is best embodied as “Watered Down Egoyan” (a diluted version of any of Atom Egoyan’s works). This tone should be a traumatic bout with unavoidable hibernation seeping into all aspects of life, not the silly, soapish boy-is-it-cold-out-here tone. And though all of the characters are interesting and show much promise as they bang around in the perverbial “small world” - - they’re given no real foundation to build from, making all of their arguments and subplots feel like a great pause in the overplayed big picture Tykwer is painting. Particularly the lightish debates of Marco (Heino Ferch) and Rebecca (Floriane Daniel), two wholly single note characters offered to us by the film. When they do the classic love-hate seesaw volley of words, their presence against the background of much stronger, deeper things feels so utterly wasteful and useless. It would be like watching The Sweet Hereafter and every time the tragedy in that film was discussed, it was abruptly interruped by two people arguing about the weather and talking about something they saw on television last night.  Another really sandpaper-rough example: When Marco is in the hospital and he says to Rebecca, the nurse (of a dead little girl lying in a bed between them), “She looks unreal somehow”. In that statement he gives off such an unaffected round of psuedo-comfort while also summing up the whole melee that is the characters : they all seem so utterly unreal. And some other really gruff touches. First of all, I’d like to quicky dispense with the cliche of underscoring or even defining a character as “wierd” simply by giving him the hobby of photography. If you do it professionally - you’re interesting. If you do it in your free time - you’re a pervert. Then, there’s the near-hilarious (very unintentionally so) set of sequences when Theo (Josef Bierbichler) becomes obsessed with the scar on the photographer, Rene’s (Ulrich Matthes) head. In the most side-splitting moment, Theo tries to make the wavy likeness of the scar in his eggs a la Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Tykwer was naive to have thought we’d miss drawing such a ridiculous-sounding parallel. Nothing is beneath me. In it’s favor, Winter Sleepers looks beautiful. Shot in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, it’s wintery landscapes and intimately creative interiors glow up on the screen, making us even more wary of it’s overall narrative emptiness. The opening sequence, in particular, rivals the energy and sharp observational editing of Run Lola Run. The movie is consistently striking throughout, but never manages to ape the terrific style of the other film.  There were some nice twists in it - as there always are in films that don’t quite capture your fancy, but exist in their own right as their own thing. It’s just a pity that it feels like a step backward, watching it in April of 2000 - when really it’s 1997 production makes Run Lola Run a step forward. And a big step forward in every way - especially in tightness. At over two hours, not only does Winter Sleepers feel overstuffed, it makes us yearn for the director’s proved conciseness : the mark of nary a few auteurs that can make every frame work for them. And what really drives the nail in is the potential that literally oozes from the screen. And alongside that envious mixture lies the type of film that makes you wish you knew others in the theater - because it begs that need to vindicate your disdain as you stand before it, completely bungling of material that we’ve seen done with expert spins before.  And you want to make comments, but you can’t. Internalized rage is the worst kind. At the very least, your disappointment will be cooled by the wonderful soundtrack. But not much.

What makes Wonder Boys great - as opposed to just good - is that it’s honest and lived in. The gray-speckled, joint-puffing literature professor Grady Tripp (Douglas) opens the film distracted from his pupils’ criticism of one of his students works, James Leer (Maguire). His voice-over narration discusses an incident that occurred that morning - without showing it to us and without making it any kind of focal point in the scene. His wife has left him. And we can tell by the cynical edge and Grady’s preoccupation that he’s conflicted by it - and that it’s probably his fault. And there’s dozens of moments like this in the film - where it’s cast divulges information to us in the way all of us do in real life - by giving off telltale signs on the inside - and by appearing unwounded on the outside. As these signs begin to stack up, everyone’s stance comes into focus. Grady wrote  a well-respected book about seven years ago and is feared a wash up. His editor Crabtree (Downey, Jr., playing yet another role that’s too parallel to the one in his life to be “just a coincidence”) has come to town for an annual college event, but, more specifically, to check up on Grady’s progress. Grady has been seeing the wife (McDormand) of the head Chancellor of the English department at the college. He’s renting a room to Hannah, one of his students (Holmes), who just happens to be in love with him - or, more specifically, the myth of him. And finally, another of his students that just happens along this annual college event, James Leer - who may be both suicidal and a great writer. To further prove my point about the lived-in quality of the film - let’s go back to something the narrator in Magnolia said: “...if that was in a movie, I wouldn’t believe it”. Wonder Boys entire existence topples the meaning of such a oddball and coy reference. It’s all believable - in as much as it’s substance is the stuff that could easily be made implausible. Director Curtis Hanson turns the intensity down so low that even in scenes like the one where James Leer shoots a dog that’s attacking Grady (and all the jokes surrounding the dog’s concealment in a trunk) seem to be on a pleasant note of realism in so much as they defy the very notion of cliche. And again, there are dozens of moments like this that exist in a place that is not routine for the cinema and does not call attention to itself as a plot point or something thrown in to add to our entertainment. Always nice to see a film that’s actually real, as opposed to simply being non-conventional. And there’s a difference. Real refers to actuality, representation of life and at least enough of the general essence of being to strike us as something that could have happened. Non-conventional is simply another way to say that a film didn’t do what we thought it would do and doesn’t do what most other films do. So, off on a tangent - I admire the non-conventional road the film takes because it’s real.But wait - there’s room for the one thing we all yearn to experience in life - Passion (nicely situated between the honest moments). Bob Dylan’s “Not Dark Yet” blares over a scene where Michael Douglas returns to his home. A simple scene. All the dialogue still there - almost conveniently placed between the ssong lyrics. Almost. And as he staggers through his house, observing James and Hannah asleep - which he has not been - and talking to Crabtree, the whole flurry of attention comes to Grady as if he has been majestically lifted beyond his exhaustion to experience the pure bliss of the people around him - osmotically. And is his mind on his conversation - or the situation he’s caught up in? Probably not. He’s shifted from being high on drugs - to being high on life - and he’s a writer. And what’s spectacular here is the mere fact that this scene is still going with the grain of the film, but riding on the contrast. As vigor has been left out of most of the movie (purposefully) and when it’s introduced, if only once and only for a moment - it’s breathtaking. What a technique. The casting is flawless as these characters begin to move and interact in this completely unpretended world. Douglas is not the ideal choice to play a teacher that’s skillfully teetering on the fine line between inspiring and being inspired. But Douglas is perfection in the role. While he’s out there showing his students the depth of literature, the preciousness of stories in life and the value of text - he ends up in the most comical and absurd of circumstances and grabs from his own situation the enlightenment he needs. Isn’t it something to watch a teacher being taught? Isn’t it something to watch Douglas, weighed down in the same roles for years, come out of his shell and enter the soul of Grady Tripp? It is something indeed. Something wonderful. James Leer is also teetering between galvanizing others and the need to be galvanized. Lasse Hallstrom, who directed Tobey Maguire in The Cider House Rules, put it best, and for my purposes - ideally, when he said “I wouldn’t say that [Tobey] understates, he refuses to overstate. He just states”. Wow. He just states. Face value, full-blown interpretation of what’s there with nothing left unsaid - here’s an actor who deserves recognition. He’s always kind of quiet and kind of bland - but three different types of bland (in the films I’ve seen him in - The Ice Storm, Pleasantville and The Cider House Rules - we’ll discount that bit part in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and three different, very well conceived adaptations of his roles. And I don’t mean bland in a bad way. At all. As simply as I can - this guy has mastered his craft. At 24. Finally, again, my hat must go off to Curtis Hanson (writing his own ticket after L.A. Confidential). In what could have easily been flubbed into another “teacher/pupil education of the heart gobble-de-gook fest”, Hanson brings the film in at an astounding level of proficiency. I completely and utterly applaud this film, it’s intentions and it’s unique presentation. So early in it’s duration it was leaving it’s impression on me and when it was over, I was really happy to have been within it. And for a film this eventful - it’s the mood I took with me more than the chain of consequences and the overall singular happenings in the film. Perhaps I was in need of illumination.

In some ways, Wonderland is a sly picture. It infuses, though sparsely, the digital age's intrusive verite ramblings - life at 24 frames per second - with enough
cultivation executed in the cutting room plus just a hint of sparkle (the boundlessly up-front score, occasional fast motion and obnoxiously bright title cards). In its
own way, save for a touch of dryness in its segway, the film really appears to be a cineaste's wonderland. Goldmine pickins' like sisterly frolicking (even if it is
hopelessly one-sided and sorta anti male in it's display) and the dismalness of urban London, certainly warrant what I call "Dogme-knock-off-photography" (taking
the current minimalist film movement and adjusting it to fit the maker's needs : here grainy, now obsessed with multi-colored lights, now too dark to make out the
figures, now natural light, now fudged lighting techniques, etc.). My personal feeling leaves this film somewhere in-between or subordinate to films that capture the
surrealness of reality better and with a more admirable vigor (Nil By Mouth springs hastily to mind, Raining Stones and Ladybird, Ladybird on its heels). I've
dubbed Wonderland Eastenders-dark. It does manage to transcend and justify it's extremely soapy first impression, accounted for the most part to a flawless
ensemble cast, none of which surprise me in the least : films like this always have terrific actors demonstrating naturalistic acting in spades. And in the end, I'm
wondering why Wonderland has even undertaken the fanfare of a theatrical release. No more entertaining or less entertaining than dozens of similar films - some
which probably appeared on British television long before arriving at the cineplex, Wonderland is stuck in the most boring kind of limbo imaginable : It isn't
necessarily unique or ordinary.

The first half-hour of X-Men is absolutely riveting. This introduction of sorts is a serene, almost dead halted collection of moments that set up the X-Men
universe, a future world in America where mutated strength is as feared as racial difference is today. The senate is bogged with a battle over whether these mutants
should have to register themselves with the government, (like sex offenders, you may think). Marie/Rogue (Paquin) has just discovered her power to steal another
person's energy simply by touching them, with dire consequences. Logan/Wolverine is exploiting his power, a bullying extrahuman strength coupled with razor sharp
claws that protrude from his hands at will. And brave Professor X (who runs a school where mutants can hone their ability), confined to a wheelchair with the most
powerful quirk of all - the ability to read minds - confronts Magneto in a hallway, politely musing about the tiffs of humankind and mutantkind. Only it is Patrick
Stewart and Ian McKellan playing X and Magneto, respectively; so the scene is a breathtaking head-on of intellectual titans. And as Rogue and Logan descend
upon Professor X's school for mutants and Magneto quietly plans a war, all of this occurs with a slight-of-hand hush, the kind of moviemaking that unfolds in
arthouses with deep, meaningful issues exploding on the screen and not a hint of the $75 million dollar budget in sight. This of course, doesn't last. The action scenes in X-Men are terrific, and all of them have the kind of ring that a natural born director - not an action stand-in auteur - brings to the screen. Bryan Singer, director of the great The Usual Suspects and the mediocre-to-bad Apt Pupil, manages a kind of spry gentility in the comic book to big screen world of summer movies. He allows these characters the kind of human defined emotions that most high dramas are built upon. So why bother with the action at all? Because these are super-heroes. And apparently, they have to save the world (hence the labored, almost irritatingly reversible third act battle sequence on Ellis Island). Myself, a comic book dimwit, would have preferred a one-hundred and four minute talking film - short on action and excessive on the themes this brand creates. Luckily, Singer knows he's under contract to live up to - or at least come close to meeting - the high standards of X-Men readers the world over. The special effects in X-Men are of what I call a Star Wars quality, in that they interweave into the fantasy world created as if they were real - not simply special effects on display. The fascinating world Singer allows us to behold - while littered with gross throwbacks to 20th Century Fox's marketable instruction (no doubt) - is still a realistic fantasy world, one that transcends that obvious contradiction in terms. I was tuned to every minute of X-Men because it was done with love. The kind of film fans expect comes only from a fan - but one deft at direction - and Singer wwas the right choice. Though not a fan, I am still in awe of how concise and exciting Singer has turned this francise into on the big screen. At one point in the film, Bruce Davison's character, an anti-mutant crusader, is turned mutant by Magneto. Only in a film where everything is confidant, its world structurally sound and its characters flowing evenly, step by step with the tone, could such a delicious ironic commentary arise and work. X-Men, though sometimes dipping into an explosion-happy groove, is quite possibly the most highbrow superhero movie I've seen since the original Superman.

I guess it isn't necessarily pertinent - or unheard of - that foreign films, particularly Asian films, are, by nature, bewilderingly good by percentage. I can't recall
ever having seen a blatantly bad film to come out of an Asian country. This little - or should I say big - very, very big import - comes from Taiwan and attacks its
everyday life setting with an anti-ephiphany, quasi-Magnolia strategy of quiet observation in the way a collection of photographs, each with a vivid, attached
memory would look if assembled onscreen. In this film, a man's business becomes unstable as his family life comes into focus. Though his only true love was willfully
sacrificed years earlier for selfish reasons, NJ has the opportunity to see her once again. His wife is at a religious temple, hoping to find the strength to cope with her
mother's imminent passing. His 8 year old son has recently discovered a channel for his mischief: photography. His teenage daughter is involved with the neighbor's
boyfriend. The man's brother-in-law has married due to pregnancy and holds onto his own true love - and more than a few debts. The brother-in-law's wife holds
fickle favor with him. Their lives don't so much converge, as much as they just unfold. Before your eyes. Gently. Subtly. Often times, the smallest pearls of wisdom
don't so much have to be dug out as they just roll out. A big step from most lauded American familial epics that broadside us with loud, colorful moments of clarity
(not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that - if that's who you are). What struck me so nicely about the simplistic progression of the three-hour Yi Yi was that about 2/3 of the way into it, I was so desperate for more. The satisfying thing about the length of this intimate epic is that it paces itself in such a way that leaves you craving it and experiencing its magic while it still contains a good chunk of wondrous duration. By the time it is over, there have been more than a few conventional sections that don't always gel - mixing with a character arc that is so foreign and so unheard of, it sings alone in the film (beautifully, I might add). The end result of Yang's near masterpiece is a quiet, almost completely relaxed feeling that centers us in the matters of the universe. It is Kurosawa without the poetry, in the best way possible.

(upgraded to an A- on second viewing and, subsequently, to an A on third approach)

Naturalistic comedy comes out of almost entirely playwright infused writing style; actors Ruffalo and Linney create long lasting, memorably quirky characters.
Found myself confronted with the opportunity to laugh out loud and get mushy inside - a peppier but less profound riff on the "long lost sibling comes of age late in
the game" theme explored in Ulee's Gold (for example). Often there are moments when things seem too neat, too coincidental and even too easy to swallow.
Perhaps this is a given, due in part to a majority of the film seemingly left oozing over the edges, as if the characters are not meant to find any kind of real perfection
or answers - just paths to experiment with. The real kicker comes when it decides to frame its hero - an eight year old boy trapped in a late twenties immature man -
as so human, he's willing to come up with philosophical trappings on a bench that reduce his kind hearted but wild at heart sister to the tears we long to see him cry
again (in an earlier scene he breaks down and as an audience, we revisit just how wrenching and beautiful it is to see a man cry from his very gut). Eventually, my single reservation tied to all of these little things lies in the fact that the strongest scenes in You Can Count On Me are still the ones where Ruffalo is being more of a friend/brother to Culkin than an Uncle - and in a film where as much moral hub-bub is suggested as immoral justification is pondered - it seems that one should at least leave the theater moved by the plight of how easily the shift in consciousness was if the characters only looked around and had separate epiphanies. It still irks me; but I guess I sorta have to deal with the fact that this kind of depth is impossible to nail. Lonegran frames his film with a complicity (there are over 200 scenes) that requires his characters to make observations, which, in the long run makes for a better film - but not necessarily for a better transition from literary conciseness to "after the movie" realization. In short - Lonegran sacrifices the big "Oh, now I get it" for a more realistic indecisiveness that simply gives way to how awesomely he has sculpted these characters and how beautifully he as directed them (complete with "every word counts" precision of Mamet). And a funny, funny film to boot - the laughs, like in Almost Famous, come from delight and a deeper resonance and intimacy we are invited to experience within the world of the film. When these characters make us laugh, we almost get the sense that they are laughing with us, or at least that Lonegran full well intended such a jolly reaction to come out of their often candid, affirming humor. And let's hear it for Matthew Broderick, Linney's vicious boss - playing yet another role where he is required to cheat on his wife and be a generally unpleasant prick. This is a fine film, one worth a second viewing.