Despite how hard it is to hide behind "the joke is funny and all else does not matter" when a movie takes this long to get to the point (and goes on about an hour longer than it ought), it is pretty darn funny in spots: Sarah Silverman gets the best punchline (hands down). Where were the great comedians, by the way? If this is such a famous joke, why is there no coverage - or even press - of people like Hicks (mentioned), Cosby, Pryor or Bruce (mentioned) doing it or discussing it? Only one black comedian (Chris Rock) was allowed in on it? Where is Chevy Chase? Saget's a filthy man but Seinfeld isn't (wasn't that disproven, to some extent, by Comedian and I'm Telling You for the Last Time)? If these are all their friends - - - well, um, actually, that's a lot of friends. Documentary that seem great conceptually not always great in action. Said the blind salesman. As he picked up the hammer and took an eyeful.

What appears to be a complicit dissection of a great irony (the eventual manipulation of Truman Capote by killer Perry) only serves to plug its tradional prestige with a far too calculated reversal (Gay, funny-talking journalist's amoral gloryhounding is initially sexy but later turns on him). That it lacks a certain genuineness hardly matters, though. Miller grabs late 50s NYC and rural Kansas with both hands and recoils at their sensational social definitions: The wrongheaded confidence of Big City Meddler butting heads with the Desperate Cocksureness of Regretful Drifter. What's left unblinking, thankfully (we need fewer obvious cues in these sorts of films, methinks), is Capote nearly realizing that he's exorcising his own demons and instead empathizing. That this makes a bigger impact (he never finished another book and died an alcoholic in 1984) doesn't necessarily explain why he was so drained by the experience, why it hit him on such a gut level and, truly, why Capote chose this case as his writing material in the first place. If leaving out the motive seems like a grevious error, look at it this way: It unites Capote and Perry on a more fate-driven level: Perry has as little motive for killing the family as Truman Capote has for choosing to write about him. Hoffman's performance, though sure to win an Oscar, seemed far more calculated than necessary, but nevertheless reasonably engaging  (I confess that I did find myself lost in him for about an hour afterwards). As for Bennett Miller: Are we sure this guy made The Cruise? Is that even possible?

There's no new zest in the genre - in fact, as biopics go, this one's rather stale - but darnit if the foot-stompin' mood of Folsom prison at the very start of it doesn't permeate through, giving Walk the Line a passionate musical radiance that serves to forgive much of the many-splendored halitosis of drug addiction and broken marriage that seems to aid in swelling the running time of these singsong whimperers (see also, the following subchapters: The uncannily similar Ray, How to Score an Oscar, and Methodology: Template vs. Reality). What's almost ecstatic about Mangold's film is how competently the actors seem to bring to life the film's songs. Both performers are veritable triumphs, at once in awe of playing these characters and, subsequently, very much at home in them; Witherspoon's June Carter has an almost maternal sincerity (and it's truly distressing - at first - to watch her helplessly flirt it away) while Phoenix's persitent, distracted idol grimble grumbles every ego-soaked line with simple-minded self-derision (read: grumpy and selfish, but talented - and with a fine heart, after all). They actually remind me a great deal of Homer and Marge Simpson. Best line in the film (Cash is unsure whether to take drugs with his friends: "Hey-c'mon, Elvis takes 'em!").

Has a hard time not seeming like every other film that's ever tackled the same subject...right up until Peter Saarsgard has a fit because he can't be the one to experience legal murder (i.e. - killing an Iraqi officer from hundreds of yards away). Really, just a hopelessly beaten-to-the-punch film; Any remote topicality or 90s definition feels Three Kings, with The Transformation/Haunting of a Grunt done better more recently in Tigerland, which also wallowed in the shadow of Full Metal Jacket, itself likely one of Kubrick's least "Great" films but, by comparison, light years more solid.  In Jarhead's otherwordly visions of desert warfare, its allusions that these soldiers are facing an enemy they never see (more of a force, really) and are tasked with keeping their minds together and remaining dutiful as a team makes Jarhead's most valiant point: The Core is a fine place for people who lack a conscience and need the structure it takes to supress their urges to kill among their fellow civilians. (End of commerical.) More than anything, you wish the film was about the current situation; Without right-now urgency, Mendes is forced to rely on his actors - to mixed results: Gyllenhal is mostly intense - his quiet scenes seem almost redundant after Brokeback Mountain - and finds himself out acted by nearly alll of the supporting cast, most of whom feel too peripheral (especially Saarsgard, who we can't help but imagine would have made a much better subject for the film; And, despite being in only two scenes, Chris Cooper promptly walks away with the thing.)

Produces tremendous suspense and - in a violent jump moment - refuses to release it; Only in the closing shot do head-scratching audience members see a glance of confirmed suspicion. Underlying, Haneke's film is a treatise on French racism, colonialism and intellectualism - an allegory strung to its puzzle film roots. I was pretty much completely shaken by it and found its every corner thrilling. More to come when I stop sounding like a frickin' fanboy...

Pussies out, as so many musicals do, when it comes to singing every line. This film does it sometimes - and not others. As melodramatic entertainment, a vision of the AIDS epidemic and its deadline effect on late 80s/early 90s NYC art bums and a great, passionate reaction to the author's own (now lost) battle with the disease, Rent spares nary a moment to think of much else but its lovestruck Carpe Diem message. As a musical, it suffers its slings and arrows in a now assuredly more conservative market; As a phenomenon, the whole thing still seems baffling: Are these the children of the Les Miserables fanatics?

Compelling, despite being chock full of journalistic voice-over (the kind, as in Goodfellas, that lets you know the interviewee is dumbing it down for the layman) and revised flashbacks, both of whose tactics are displayed in their broadest, least exciting flavor. Also: A period piece? Technology barely winked at? A-List actors in material this picked over? Clear cut case of Egoyan's name being worth much more than his filmmaking which, despite being perpetually overshadowed by Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter, has probably never seemed this American to date. I'm not issuing a compliment, by the way. It's proficient, but: The man made fucking The Sweet Hereafter. C'mon.

[ Seems redundant to mention it, but I can't help myself: This is the single worst title of the year. ]

Grounded with far less at stake than the typical animated feature (at any rate, in the flight from one paradise to another kind of paradise, it sure feels that way), Madagascar is rarely weighted with anything more than moods (the zebra is bummed because he's 10 and hasn't seen the wild, the lion is grumpy, later, because he misses his home), except in one masterstroke of a plot divergence, when environment stokes the coals of the lion's savage nature, turning him against nearly every other character in the film, and forcing a self-exile behind strategically placed sharp reeds (self-imposed captivity that bests that of his original digs (man-imposed captivity), performing for children at a posh NYC park/zoo; although, If they were so smart, why can't they remember past the beginning of the movie?). Vocally, Chris Rock's ubertame PG zebra makes a much warmer foil for the occasional Zoolander infusion I found it hard to overlook in Ben Stiller's lion; Alternately, parts for David Schwimmer, Cedric the Entertainer and Andy Richter all feel like grand fun, with the voices being bent and exaggerated in grand form. (Pinkett-Smith, unfortuantely, has thankless token written all over her.) Shorter on the obligatory moments of cuddle than I'd anticipated, Madagascar's on-the-fly temperment - and oft-successful digressions - seem haarmonious to its bright, fantastical color scheme. Further adventures of the Noah's Ark gang and all that.

Morrison seems under the impression that he'll show the rift between the big city art dealer (Embeth Davidtz) and her new husband's spirited/cruel-then-charming Southern family by minimalizing the very thing that connects them (namely, the husband - a terribly bored Alessandro Nivola) and making the film the wife's story. Oddly enough, he distracts himself from this with an attention-getting burst of enthusiastic feminine overhospitality in Amy Adams' pregnant sister-in-law (The Big South as Julia Roberts on speed). More interesting than his focal tennis match are the little familiar observations, particularly in the perpetually angry brother, who seems happier at work than at home (people who spend more time slavin' than family'in generally make that sacrifice of mood). I'm pretty cynical about all this, but it may be because I'm lashing out: I geniunely believed the art deal with the crazy old cook who painted famous civil war battles emblazoned with bible verses (and giant penises) was far more important than waiting with the family while a stranger - the sister-in-law - gives birth. Call me callous: I think the film was made for the people who would find the Davidtz's decision abominable.

Easily the busiest riff to date on Miyazaki's standard purely innocent girl in dire circumstance is assisted/charmed/literally charmed by untouchable guy with bizarre animalistic tics while swirling all around are anti-war/pro-eco sentiments. My sarcasm is pretty unwelcome though; There's some truly amazing stuff going on amidst the chaos: The moving castle itself, containing a portal door and a talking fire, the main character's immediate notion that her old self just fits better (he says, having been called an "old man" - again -  just this morning), and the presence - the mere presence - of a semblance of imagination that never seems to stop producing great characters (here, a turnip-headed scarecrow who never speaks is the most intriguing in my opinion). Though it's pretty soft, still and without real forward direction, Miyazaki's movie has the great honor of giving me pause: In recent days (Syriana, Junebug and this, to name a few) I've noticed the very things I look for in a movie delivered. So why am I not happy? Why are narrative deviations, rambling essay pieces and vague, inferential staging not pleasing me the way I always thought - very few and far between - that they did? I think I have the answer. It still has to be done well, even if it's got the right idea. Howl's Moving Castle has a bevy of great, interesting ideas - and its wrapped up in this too-complicatted patchwork quilt of a tale - but because it isn't even the least bit episodic, nothing ever really happens or stops happening (if you follow).

Bursting open over black with a doozy of a trailer-made line ("A story like mine is never meant to be told") and closing just nearly speaking its title, template prestige whore Memoirs of a Geisha is pretty high on its overtly sympathetic broadening of culture that seems cause to exclude any scene that isn't expressly defining What It Really Means To Be a Geisha. Staged (rather than directed, that is) in every way - note perfect sets, too symmetrically busy crowd scenes, choreographed breathing - it's practically Kyoto (sans the songs of course); And not being a musical is probably the least of its disconnect with communication: See famous quote about "doing a martial-arts movie in English [and how it] would be like John Wayne speaking Chinese in a Western". I realize this point of view has room for argument, but the film's dialogue is not meant to repeatedly sound unintentionally hilarious as Chinese and Malaysian actresses do Japanese accents while speaking a third language: English. Realizing the necessary evils of a film like Geisha taking the commercial route (but not respecting its decision to do so, mind), I couldn't help but notice that the producers - one of whom is former attachee Steven Spielberg - made the film the safest it could possibbly be. On the plus side, both Ziyi Zhang (polar opposite of her 2046 character) and Gong Li are ideal casting - Zhang in pureheart mode, Li as superbitch - both transcending nicely the violently melodramatic machinations of the tale itself. In the end it turns out to be just the guadily-programmed tearjerker it purports to be.

[Wondering if I was alone in my belief that a film so culturally specific really does suffer under it's English Language happy-mask, I had to resort to reading the notices of for-the-masses tools like Berardinelli and Ebert because none of the snooty net nerds I read bothered to venture out and see the damn thing. Berardinelli takes note of it while Ebert barely even mentions the film. (He does, however, point out the irony of Gong Li being dumped on by her older sister-wife in Raise the Red Lantern and being The Senior Dumper in Geisha. Berardinelli out-steams him by recalling that Ziyi Zhang usurped the aging Gong Li's spot in director Yimou Zhang's bed.)]

[And despite having been dismissive and superior about my statement that being in English was a big part of how poorly Geisha plays - - Randy is right about one thing: Geishas are fucking boring.]

Dearly unsatisfying all around - effects interesting but obvious (read: cheap), story suited for wacky comedy rather than light period horror, Gilliam on autopilot - but ultimately not bad, per se, as brainless entertainment and visual imagination (Newton Thomas Siegel gives a real painterly scope to the forest, despite the constant use of filters and CG). Damon and Ledger are clearly miscast (Damon isn't powerful enough to play big brother and Ledger probably ought not be used as the romantic lead, the brainy weakling and the passionate folklore enthusiast) and are left flitting about in lazily slapped together fairy tales coating a simple Scooby Doo-goes-legit premise. By the end, I was actively tired of it, but I was still following it - mostly to see what bizarre locale would arise next; The writer likely envisioned our personal investment somewhere closer to emotion rather than surprise, but no matter: My biggest fear [sic] was that they wouldn't realize, after participating in every fairy tale you can possibly think of, that they could write them down and become the less fictional title duo. (Fear realized, I'm afraid.)

I smiled so much, my face was sore. Crowe continues his reign as our best Movie Star, unevaded, as the film melts my cynicism almost immediately. Is it a conscious decision to cast him in films that will rise or fall depending upon whether or not we're turned into putty? (If so: Good call.)

Aboard a double-decker airplane that would have made Howard Hughes gasp, Foster appears to lose her daughter (while the film plays heavily, and smartly, on our post-Sixth Sense suspicions) but, instead, finds herself the target of a wildly implausible terrorist plot. While, for the most part, the film makes no bones about this (the insane girth of the plane itself is a dead giveaway that we're in fantasy land but, then, so are the constant references back to Foster's job as a propulsion engineer), its difficult to remember anything I've seen in the recent past that so clearly delivered two different films - one with a very grave, ominous ovtone and the other that just plops itself on the screen, calling attention to itself. At this point, its almost impossible not to observe the care taken in films about fear and air travel (even prior to the henpecked terrorist plot) to operate as thermometers in the post-9/11 Friendly skies, sketching with every breath the alertness, the immediate panic and the new pace in the view through the looking glass. Despite its specific references - a compulsory "Arab harassing" scene, Foster's reference to new FAA guidelines, a quick camera pan to the posted regulation above the cockpit door - Flightplan's worldview seems to play up the tension of airline travel without considering any other perspective. No other course of assumption could possibly be suggested; Panic is like oxygen and, despite the space being as maximized as possible (you'll ask yourself, repeatedly, does a plane this big exist in real life?), its still finite. It still seems brave - however effective - for a modern feature film to unload upon a mass market audience (at Christmas time, no less) what appears to be an hour of a greiving, possibly deranged widow milking the unavoidable sense terror airline travel now carries with it. At one point, she sneaks off into the hold to open her dead husband's coffin and ask his help. Unfortunately, for all the visually driven order, precision and newness, a film this tirelessly urgent will inevitably shit or get off the pot; One can't help but be in awe that a major motion picture goes on this long without shooting itself in the foot with a dimwitted long shot of contrived, too-quickly paced genre garbage. The rest of the film, in other words, is not worth discussing.

Another one I can't believe got a release. Little - if any - narrative thrust going on here;; Most of what's taking place is a face value reflection of personal defeat despite professional glory. Nic Cage nails these roles so effortlessly (see also: The Family Man). Bizarrely, his appearance in both of them as a rich man called to the mat for shameless self absorption and taken over the barrel by the nature and pedastal of family (in modern society) gives otherwise from-the-limo directors some kind of real push. In this film, because it is so episodic, you can pretty much dismiss the silly bits - the archery, the stock child molester, his ex-wife's lame-o boyfriend - and relish how perfectly it nails a man constantly taking stock of himself. Voice-over both random and relevant permeates a great deal of the film. I suspect I'm not alone in seeing that the film feels very much like my own brainspace: Overthinking, assessment and self pity. Surprisingly unrelenting and refreshingly spare in the act-to-act department.

Hustle & Flow goes on a mighty long time without batting so much as an eye while Terrence Howard's mumbly diplomat of a pimp plies his wares, peddles weed and makes a blue collar complaint of nearly everything in his rampantly immoral day-to-day hustler lifestyle. This casual - but not damning - acknowledgment of Howard's career becomes so important as the zoomed-in focus on every detail of his musical talent begins to unfold (with contrasting religious buddy producing the tunes (Anderson) and work-a-day lug (Qualls) engineering em'). The film leads us toward the fall from grace as effortlessly as a donkey being led with a carrot. Howard is a villain by definition, but an ambitious artist by perception; We're not sure if we're disturbed by the inevitable downfall we're expecting or because the film goes on so much longer than we expect without punishing this man for his crimes. Howard's performance has been rightfully praised, particularly riding side saddle to a film like Crash, where he played a black man conforming to white wishes (while practically allergic to his own skin). Here, with a deep south mutter and the body language of bloated confidence, he takes pleasure in confessionals, talking just about any game necessary; His charisma in one sequence - where he ingratiates himself with local boy-turned-rap-star Skinny Black - is so overwhelming, I gasped a "Wow". (Usually, I make it a practice not to speak in "wows".) Though an unnecessary ripped-from-the-headlines epilogue follows this, and some over-the-top characterizations weigh in down in spots (Parker's Lexus is practically a cartoon skank), that Hustle & Flow bothers to point out how trying it can be in the world for, ahem, a pimp, turns out to be a surprisingly well-made and unflinching point.

Hanson works overtime to cover up the sensationalist bestseller that constantly threatens to rear its ignoble head. Smoothly attempting to shift the focus from familial tension to psychological deterioration, Hanson really only half succeeds (both Diaz and Collette still remain patently unconvincing characters, despite the cozy casting), observing the spillover neuroses in both women (their mother was clinically nuts) while simultaneously tarting up their respective curves to and from responsibility. In the end, there's no real excuse for courting conventionality (one could make the case that the source material left him little choice), but In Her Shoes is so unnecessarily maddening, flipping from instances of greatness to moments of sour sap without so much as a lengthy apology.

Moving at a breakneck speed not felt in prior Britcoms - there's no residue of Frears, by the way, before you think to ask - Mrs. Henderson Presents is rounded to show up Dench and Hoskins, both largely too good for these roles. The real problem is stature: Both characters - the reckless widow who buys a theater and the stubborn man she hires to run it - lack the air of intelligence these actors require to perform well. As a result, their banter seems undercooked, while the narrative simply seems light, as if operating only out of the necessity to give these two something to talk about. Doesn't help that the words "Based on a true story" seem to waft like a nasty odor.

As a rule, I dislike films about characters who really like to say their name. Also: Why melt at the foot of glam rock and then pipe in such a stale compilation of it? Cillian Murphy is terrific in the role (despite the aforementioned preoccupation with whispering his moniker to every person he meets (sometimes more than once); He at once belies a sense of naivete that's reasonably charming and innocent without being a weepy victim about it. Jordan tells the story in chapters (as nearly thirty screen titles), attempting to highlight the fragmentation of the thing. To what end, though? Instead of suggesting that Breakfast in Pluto is a serialesque faux biography the likes of which might be playfully precluded by a title like The Misadventures Of..., it unfortunately makes a right obvious spectacle of how much time it feels like its spending on tangent after tangent.

Is as bad as it looks (Summer's brief summation a la Spalding Gray - she describes it as "a slow, hot burner"). You know at a theme park when they come up with a story to accompany those specatacle/ride/motion simulators (e.g. - Body Wars)? The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl feels like one of those that somebody decided should be thrust upon an unsuspecting theatrical audience. I understand that perhaps this was a ploy to use 3-D and by not watching it in 3-D, I may have missed out. But I really doubt it.

[ The child acting in this film - in general, I'm saying - is like a forest of felled trees. Think about it. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by my cleverness.]

Surrounds itself confidantly - damn near defiantly - with incoherence and disconnect, such that you play silly self doubt games while you watch a story you're actively - or, frequently - gap-plugging to make sense of. On the other hand, there's some considerably great stuff here: Powerful ideas that communicate without context, a beautifully composed and paced tone, another bangin' music score by Stuart Staples of the Tindersticks (described ideally by one critic as "shamanic"). It's also easily one of last year's most professionally artful looking films; Even at 130 minutes, we can marginally forgive the plague of uncertainty in our sense that the director would likely have to debrief us for several hours in order that we don't misconceive the precious ambiguities (I'm being sarcastic here and it stems from my frustration with yet again being confronted by a film that does what I usually beg the conventional pictures to do, but lets me down just the same.) It is suggested by a thirty page novel, inferring by its take-liberty-ready slimness that this is more of a director's exercise than anything. Hence, The Intruder rises and falls based on how highly you value (or regard) Claire Denis and her hazily constructed films separated from any exposition whatsoever. Almost reminds me of my experience with Dumont's Twentynine Palms and feeling divided between my weakness for advocating obscure films and ignoring projected self-definition implied in calling it out as rubbish. Risk always seems to exist that I'll just be branded too dense to penetrate it. Why do I care? Why do I feel guilty about liking or not liking a movie? Probably because it has less to do with that than with laziness - and with putting off the inevitable: Personal deconstruction of the subjective kind. Am I rambling? Can anyone ever stop me once I start?

[ This rendering ranks among my favorite one-offs (under Sunday, the 12th, about halfway down the page).]