This is that sort of film that takes a healthy swing at about three too many thematic concepts, namely the enrichment of an unusual - but probably rather common - family unit in a NYC housing project, the sway of the title character from transparent charmer to sincere romantic, the deepening of sibling bonds (all at once - all of the sudden, it seems) and the games of defense all of these teens play while keeping their offense in check. It all sort of muddles into one big, over-emoting resolution, which you can see sticking out in plain sight almost forty minutes in the film's future. What's delightful about it, though, is how terrifically easy these characters are to watch and, almost without exception, how natural and well-formed they are. The satisfying arc to the romance between Victor and Judy gets buried under his nutty grandmother's ramblings and demands in far too many ripe scenes - but when amor is at center, the film is smoking. The logline divulged something about Victor getting himself a hot girlfriend to shut everyone up about his dating the (aptly named) Fat Donna. I'm pretty sure Sollett doesn't have the drive (or interest) to make that tasteless, goofball premise work over ninety minutes - but my guess is that Victor Rasuk, who plays the title character, could pretty much pull that, or any subsequently required performance, out of his ass on command. He is the real find here.
 

Why would anyone think it's a great idea to combine the twist where everything prior was a figment of someone's imagination (a la Fight Club and The Usual Suspects) and the twist that renders the carefully explained rules of the first twist's imaginary world *also* a mistake? Why even include the throwaway twist within this imaginary world where one character turns out to be - get this - not what he seems! Why would a writer create something so redundantly unsatisfying? Who likes to be lied to? And lied to again?

[Film, even when you're buying into the whole Ten Little Indians scenario is shrill at best, with standard imagery and shocks - most borrowed from Psycho - that rarely zip above a bounce. None of the actors contribute as if making more of a dent than an impression; the storytelling, in all its half-baked glory, seems to value upstaging its characters with silly symbols rather than creating a harmony with them. What to say for it: This is the absolute culmination of a market where twists have become so standard and so necessary that they're barely surprising enough to be called twists (read: E-fucking-nough already!). This is that script, the one that undercuts the few achievements of its genre - I'm thinking of Memento in particular - without a shred of mercy.]

An immensely better Ripley than Matt Damon (though grown-up and not exactly comprable), Malkovich slithers and slinks with a calm destined to be misinterpreted as sedate. Instead of using a phony nervousness and boyish charm, the grown-up, amoral Ripley is a more assured, more suavely vicious calculator: He has all the attributes of a brutal villain, with none of the flashy, overwrought presence. Ripley's Game - based upon the same story as Wim Wenderss' ultimately too abstract The American Friend - finds Ripley coaxing a dying man (who insulted him at a dinner party) into killing off a former partner's rivals. The film itself moves very casually, as if working out whether or not it cares to drum up a simulacrum of suspense (it does, eventually). What Cavani seems to understand that Wenders was hell bent on ignoring is that the story - as with, I assume, most of these storiess - is one big character study, split up over a lifetime. The stories are merely delivery devices for probing a Ripley, an absolutely magnetic and mysterious character in his own right. The film feels perhaps a little too perfect on the small screen, as if destined to play there from the start. I'm going to go ahead and be disconcerted with that, even though I doubt I'd have made the journey were it actually playing on the big screen. Great yarn - worth seeking out, for sure.

Entirely jubilant, often rather clever  - but desperately reeking of a sitcom's instincts. Certainly not the uncovered masterwork baab makes it out to be. Speaking of which, follow this link to baab's site for a ride on the justification railroad. (Good luck passing go while you're at it.)

Where it lacked focus, it made up for in blah; Typically HBO-esque, small-screen entertainment (an arty version of a TV movie, to say the least). Banderas's Villa is shy the scene-chewing eccentricity to benefit the film as a whole. Instead, the film remains dry at best, whipping out cliches and double-crosses in such classically obvious maneuvers such as the split-up brothers, the good guy whose morality is decidedly grey and the romance that arrives and leaves in less time than it takes to rig a revoloution. Less lame than RKO 281 but, then, wouldn't it have to be?

The very picture of a film made up of that's-my-favorite-scene moments - - - none of which add up to a hill of satisfaction. The same spun carbon emptiness wafting around in Rodriguez's Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams permeates through nearly every anticipated fizzle of adrenaline, making each gunfight just a glide of John Woo on autopilot and every stylish one-liner a successively deeper hole of misfired deadpan. What's especially nasty about Once Upon a Time in Mexico is how reductive it is: The main character has adopted the mythics-don't-speak-much character trait (which doesn't suit Banderas at all), the effects are clearly meant to be passable (with very little on the outer edges or interims of these digi-explosions to give them a bloated, goofy context) and the narrative is about ten too many strands of unnecessary plotting, adding up to a conclusion of horribly dull proportions. The film has style to spare; while you're watching it, indulging the calories, it rattles enough, and moves around, staying decidedly lively - - - what's missing is a sense of mystery in the characters. CIA agent Sands is quirky because he's Johnny Depp, Rourke is typical Rourke and Willem DeFoe slinks with a slight nod to Bobby Peru - but they're no sense that any of them will do anything to surprise us (even when they do their inevitable 180' on the catwalk). Ruben Blades, on the other hand, as a retired FBI agent (who mumbles as if talking into a two-way radio he doesn't have), nearly steals the movie from the headlining cooks who are steadily spoiling the pot.

Terrifically told yarn with the dark, epic-feeling spindle of The Goonies as well as the plush camaraderie of The Sandlot. Whoever that kid is in the lead needs to be given a career. Pronto.

I think it helps if you like the music - as I do - because near the end of A Mighty Wind (which is, in spots, a mighty funny movie) everything almost transcends its chicanery and leaps into (gulp) a genuine straight face. (Hard to believe, though, with Eugene Levy's constantly annoying character, that I didn't turn the damn thing off long before then). Midway through our viewing, somebody (outside our house) got hit by a car going rather fast. I think it helps a comedy be more funny if someone almost dies while you're watching it. Truly.

By the time Bardem (who escapes this dreck unscathed, btw) gets around to his "obsession" with the dance teacher, and the connection between his case (which has more in common with a run of the mill serial killer procedural than a political thriller) and said dance teacher "obsession", this film has made it very clear that its only got the steam to operate in moments and in scenes: As a whole, it's utter preposterum. (And I don't care if that's not a word. I really don't.) As off-puttingly pompous as as it's director.

Coppola feels the rhythm of quiet, human conundrums - and their familiar, deeply universal ressonance - with the kind of precision and grace that makes it extremely hard to believe that she's only 32, with only two films under her belt. (Albeit, the other one is one of my very favorite films of the decade (thus far), The Virgin Suicides). Not as breathtaking or mind-blowing as that film, Lost in Translation has an absence of intensity that makes it feel like the ultimate improv movie - - - even though we know that it has been carefully scripted. Johanssen in particular, comes through with a magnetic maturity and a startlingly glamour less bent. Murray is hilarious, believably wise, world wearied - for me, it's a building block that startted with (and brought to memory constantly) the interview he did with Charlie Rose to promote Rushmore, when he talks about his time in Paris and how he bummed around and went to the movies all the time. The film is slight (and occasionally too repetitious with lowbrow plays on the title), but it's got a big sound to it. Perfect Sunday afternoon film - perfect stage of reflection; Miss Coppola is exciting stuff.

This film's world - set in a completely generic work-a-day Los Angeles - has this wishy-washy intimacy that seems at odds with its sense of voyeurism; It's compulsively watchable, but utterly unsubstantial. I could completely see people deriving much more from it than necessary - because it so obviously appears to be sttock indie love triangle #41 of 3000. It's not exactly Cassevettes - or even Holofcener - but Charlotte Sometimes has the miraculous ability to be able to sidestep its colleagues' usual blunders: It looks cheap - but it's well acted; It's standard - but it's brief; It's not reliant on an underlined ethnic demographic - but it still bothers to point it out with a note of subtlety; It's like one of Erich Rohmer's all-talk movies without much dialogue - we pay attention to all the things their body language and facial expressions are saying instead of - - - I'm getting way carried away here. It doesn't suck like so many movies in its bucket usually do.

[Great idea to include Cody ChestnuTT's music. It rarely brings anything more to the proceedings, but it sounds terrific.]

Most of it glides on Cage's usual bravura fumes, inhabiting an OB/C con artist so hysterically that he makes upstaging the rest of the cast seem like the right thing to do. Ridley Scott follows him, with largely unobtrusive filmmaking, allowing the con (told crystal clear) to take over. It's reminiscent of House of Games in a dozen different ways  - all of them good - right down to how much of a ridiculously long shot the con itself actually is. That's great fun, but what is borderline impressive (and, what reccomends it), isn't the juicy con at center, but how cruel and twisted said con is to the mark. (I'm speaking in general terms here as not to ruin things). If you felt like the wholeheartedly self-important Confidence spoiled things for you in the genre (I guiltfully declare), Matchstick Men is a welcome antidote.

Made of Stephen King leftovers; There's the strange sense that the clichés are busily being buried by the erratic refusal to stick to a single genre. Movie only survives with what little suspense it charges the air with: Yes, the next thing that happens may be completely wacky and unexpected, but rarely does Dreamcatcher go forward with that logic. Instead, the film seems content to iterate and reiterate the obvious King-isms buried underneath. What detaches us as an audience, especially, is the completely unnecessary presence of the insane military general character (a rock bottom and then some Freeman) and his cronies, doing exactly as we expect them to do and rarely impacting what's happening on the main stage (in fact, near as I can tell, the only purpose they serve is to provide vehicles for main characters to get to various setpieces). Four principles talk in the usual form of Stephen King's patented Stand By Me foulspeak, using bad words in odd places and generally creating the warm, tight-knit feeling through disturbing, life-affirming avoidance of violence. (In this case, you'll be blown away by how easily they avoid said violence). Hard to stand around buzzing about a movie that begs to be taken seriously and also features an obvious infusion of significantly more interesting camp wherein sharpy-teethed aliens are forced through the rectum with maximum gore.

Lin's idea isn't an altogether bad one: Asian high schoolers, otherwise obsessed with their performance and how it can land them a ride on the Ivy League gravy train, decide to break (or, what they really mean is to extend) the cycle of ease with which their culture and its tendencies inevitably write in stone successful but empty futures. Unfortunately, as soon as the teens start breaking the cycle - by executing outlandish cheat sheet scams and, oh by the way, dealing a little coke on the side - the movie turns down the same dead-end street so many other genre pics in the kids-gone-wrong (and, coincidentally, small-time-hoods-up-and-coming) vein. I've got some obvious questions: Why does the main character, Ben, act surprised by the sight of a dead body in one of those opening scenes that precedes a title card reading "Four Months Earlier"? (Later, we find out that he had just finished burying that body) Why set your movie in such an implausible light ? (As if all of this could happen in the first place (uh-uh) and then simply by leaving teachers and parents out of the film we'll forget they could possibly exist - only to flirt with the dark and the dangerous at close.) Why then, double back on yourself, and give the main character some sort of catharsis - and only note it, lamely, on the soundtrack? Why, in 2003, would a director choose to use vocabulary words Ben was memorizing to comment on what's happening in the film? Why would they be printed with inter titles, as if a descriptor to accompany the freeze frame in a Wile. E. Coyote cartoon? A short attention span-ready label like MTV films is just right for a film that aims to have far more on its mind than it actually does. Even the performances (which are, for the most part, quite good) seem to derive more from the idea that the film might somehow follow the thesis divulged in the first sentence of this notice.

Thirteen is much like a commentary on an audience's worldview staged as a social consciousness film strip for overprotective parents: "Quick, everyone consider the world's worst case scenario!" What's somewhat effective - but clearly not a success - is how the film doesn't really scare us and doesn't feel shocking or new. Yeah, it's far-fetched in spots, but man, the disaffected reaction I had to it bummed me out. Suddenly, I found myself actively ignoring the relatively easy-to-ignore cries for help of a pair of seventh graders from broken homes in various stages of repair (or disrepair, depending on perspective). By the last second, I couldn't wait to be out of the presence of these unpleasant people. Preachy and in-your-face, Thirteen doesn't seem to have too much pity or compassion for its characters (and once more, it seems to want us to notice this; it snowballs from good to abysmal with flashy filmmaking - and fast). The main characters are tirellessly authentic, although it never ceases to amaze me when young actresses (one of which co-wrote the script) are over praised for reliving their own natural environments. Magnificent Holly Hunter performance, though; It's the closest thing to saving this, uh, after school special-as-a-horror-movie. (I especially like her dorky surfer of an older brother. His best line? To Estranged Father #1: "Dad, she needs help.")

There is, spinning through Stevie, the same powerhouse quotient that distinguishes Hoop Dreams, namely Steve James' formidable time applied (here, it's nothing like the 8 years he spent making Hoop Dreams, but the sort of commitment and thoroughness is still visible and still manages to set Stevie apart from most documentaries in recent memory). What's especially brutal is the sense we have that no character is left without a deep, desperate need for our pity. The title character - an abused child now in his thirties who is accused of abusing his 8 year old niece - is certainly the most sorrowful, but I couldn't help finding myself more interested in what James was doing (as he narrates in classic Ross McElwee style). James forged his relationship with Stevie over a decade ago by participating in the Bigger Brothers organization. We can't help but feel the film is a chance at vindication and even before it's revealed that he (and it) pretty much fails on that front - I was reeling over just how much self-pity he chose to infuse in the film from the outset. Best moments are when the film indulges Stevie's nature - esp. when he's showboating for the camera, or making important legal discussions while slumped in a chair, or chasing a frog that might make terrific bait. It's not really a towering achievment or an especially important-feeling (in the medium) film - as a whole, it feels generic and slightly unprofessional (re: the excess of self pity) - but it is incredibly moving (and, as a side note, kind of be-nice-to-your-kids sobering). Tough to ignore a movie you can't shake.

Blurry with anticipation, I barely think its possible that this movie could receive a fair shake from myself or any of the dozens of single men I counted around me as the lights dimmed. What followed, I believe, was the kind of film Tarantino has been angling to make all along: A completely brilliant genre re-creation, swelled to bursting with his trademark egomaniacal (and admittedly boner inducing) grasp and execution of the cinematic landscape. It's a popcorn movie for buffs of at least three genres (including the QT genre, er...following), a cocky collection of excess and homage, and once more, it's got a viciously agonizing built in tension (fuckin' Vol. 2 is four months away! Even for those of use who read the damn script!) It's a vehicle for a chick super hero in bright yellow, played by said vixen's co-creator, a female presence as strong as any on the screen at present. I'm twiddling here - yes - but what I'm getting at is how exciting Tarantino can so effortlessly make going to the movies. The experience alone is fulfilling because it is ensured that, elementally, the film will be molded as his, with the added mandate that it retain the sort of in-joke phenomenon that make his films appeal to so many people. To call Kill Bill: Vol. 1 something easy that was just, uh, popped off, would be underestimating the genius of its continuing (and astonishing) contextual glee. Start thinking; Ready? Last time you went to the movies and felt that the director actually had a passion for his medium? Quick. We're talking about a passion so violently uncontrollable that everything this filmmaker touches looks like something made with carte blanche control, leaving investors and producers at his mercy, in his wake and, simultaneously, in awe. One more. Last time you saw a film where a director actively took the time to make watching the film so unbelievably entertaining that you were able to overlook the true-to-genre shortcomings of its host story (which all the Bride's revenge vacation really is, a host for cinematic gingerbread to attach its barnacle-like tentacles to)? Free hint: Not recently. The movie may not be much more than a silly collection of gory setpieces, badass music, jaw-dropping film stunts, artful noodling, wildly arcane references too obscure for 99% of viewers (myself included - I kept feeling left out, but in the goodd "I can look it up later" sort of way) - - - but Kill Bill: Vol. 1 continues to gather speed from the word go all the way to the (admittedly) ridiculous, forced cliffhanger .It has crossed my mind half a dozen times that I can't wait to watch Kill Bill without the subtitle "Volume" attached at the hip but, you know,  fuck it, I suspect Kill Bill: Vol. 1/16 would have been cool (bottom line) enough to suffice.

An obviously purposeful miscasting fun house. Shelton may be so far out of his territory its laughable, but it's a bonafied gas watching Harrison Ford attempt to navigate this world as he seems to almost succeed and then - hoo-wah - he goes and does something completely out of character. He and Hartnett are great fun together (acting more like they're involved in a bet, or a dare, or a parlor game than a movie) and give Hollywood Homicide a strange sense of déjà vu: Eighties buddy cop relic, comin' through! (that rhymes, by the way) The serious "story" about a rap mogul killing off his acts has all the dimension and conflict of an episode of Rugrats instead of having the typically lame "ripped-from-the-headlines" appeal most of these films seem to strive for. I tell ya - I'm down with the ones that don't really try. Much less thought goes into my having a good time. (As the title belies, dozens of cameos are necessary from old school, washed up and favor owed actors and actresses).

Certainly an earnest, extremely well acted film - granted - but the same problem I have wiith all of Loach's films is in full effect (and is sort of spoiling to the contents) here in Sweet Sixteen, a film about a fifteen year old drug dealer hoping to buy any sort of shelter for he and his mother when she gets out of jail. Trouble is, the melodramatic effect Loach plays everything for seems to - as ever - go completely against the grain of his tthere-and-now grittiness (as displayed in the photography, the casual violence and the improvisatory dialogue). And once more, he seems to suggest the most interesting discord right before the film ends, almost completely changing my point of view (I thought it was more of a character study where the environment dictates the character's shabby ass code of ethics, but it turns out, the film is about how even the most ideal and best laid of intentions can sometimes fall into the clutches of the evil you-can't-change-people conundrum). I liked Sweet Sixteen, as I like all of Loach's films. They're terribly involving. I just never feel like I'm on board for all the subtext he's hell-bent on mock burying in the story.
 

If not for the incorrigibly obvious (and therefore perfectly avoidable - hint, hint) decision Xavier, the main character, finds himself with no choice but to make right before the credits, I'd have to happily agree with my parents and apply their usual stigma (of being incapable of honoring a movie but unwilling to fess up): It was "fun". And Euro Pudding or The Spanish Apartment (or any of its other six monikers per the imdb) is a passionately anti-serious film, shuffling off any inference to a sober worldview (both figuratively and literally), even when it's being precisely that (case in point - the quick burst that takes all of two minutes of screen time where the beefy Lars finds out he's a daddy; in any other movie, this point might make half a ripple through the rest of the film - here, it seems to only exist to be disposed of, and quickly). Xavier eventually grows on us (its as if we have no choice), though I couldn't help but wish, throughout most of the first couple of reels or so, that the film was centering on one of the more interesting wacky internationals who share the apartment with the dorky French guy (unreasonably painted as a sexual desperado). What keeps the effort from becoming too thin is just how consciously breezy it is; Whenever an irksome plotline is introduced, or a sour note played, the film seems to casually dismiss these unpleasantries - save for that ghastly one at close - like that friend we all have who can't help but conform his own opinions to avoid an argument.

[Special points to the marketing whiz who decided to sell the movie on Audrey Tautou, who plays Xavier's girlfriend - a bitter egg far too similar to Angélique, the erotomaniac she played in He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not. Less special points for using Radioheads "No Surprises" first in a scene that couldn't possibly benefit less from its inclusion and later, in a scene that feels all too corny before piping the tune in.]

The movie's biggest success is its own surprised look at itself as it does a thrice-removed double take at Harvey Pekar, his work - and finally a fictional representation of himself and his work at once. The surprise isn't necessarily shock at how different the other mediums are, but how eerily united and transcendent of the many-splendored artist they are (Pekar is a grump first, genius comic writer second, and underneath, (as expected) a surprisingly sensitive, sharp and cultured individual). It's like a smiling God gift that Paul Giamatti was hired to play Pekar but, as we see from the various other real-life appearances that threaten (late in the film) to leer forgetfully into the documentary world, the other major smarts of this picture lie in its own self-promotion: Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis and Judah Friedlander are put up against their real life counterparts and, miraculously, withstand the test. This is a big risk for a film like this one, as it's otherwise disappointingly episodic biographical structure - the bastard child (like Betty Thomas' Private Parts) of Milos Forman, to be sure - continually grounds the terrific one-liners and fascinating life imitates art to the third power-construction into something that always feels just slightly beneath it. (Loved James Urbaniak's R. Crumb, by the way; That's more of a curiosity than a performance, but it's still rather amusing.)