Grace is not only played by a different actress, but she seems to have become the next progressive step within herself and, though it seems a cliche to precede this description with the term "reckless", I'm going to very nearly do it - - Grace has become a forceful advocate for an agenda so rife with flaws, Von Trier has practically abandoned any simulcrum of understanding for her naivete (because, really, she's already been schooled in the reversal of well-meaning societal concepts) or her position. He suggests that her interventionist liberation of a slave plantation cultivates the inconclusive lessons of two separate ideas - the protruding wrong in slavery's foundation with its permeating gloom in modern society and the slipping mask of America's "goodwill" involvement in Iraq - and, just as he did in Dogville, he assigns the film chapters in his essay of moral skits, each more challenging and thought provoking than the last. A great deal of gushing on my part. And let me tell you why: It's exhilirating to see political allegory that is so dead-on: While Dogville hits us at gut level, Manderlay kicks us while we're down, telling us even more vividly than before that, as long as we're human beings practicing human nature, democracy can only act to suggest the apperance of itself. It's taking a beating for being a soapbox plain and simply, because the bare stage isn't as necessary as it was in Dogville (unless you argue that it makes a film like this possible financially) and because it shifts from literal to figurative and back again. And? All of these things are moot points: Manderlay another mouthful of particularly strong medicine.

[1: The montage of images surrounding the Civil Rights movement, et al that plays over the end credits with Bowie's 'Young Americans' is infinitely more powerful than the one in
    Dogville. Despite Von Trier's misreading the song, it's passionate nod at the gap between nationalistic assumptions works beautifully. Much improved.
2. I just re-read my Dogville review. Because many of the arguments are interchangable, I'm wondering if I should re-watch both films. Think I will.]

Is this another just another art film exercise for Soderbergh (see: Full Frontal and Schizopolis), or is Bubble poised to ride the cherrypop of excitement and creative lightning one typically associates with rebirth rather than upkeep?  Relying on our instinctual, cozy recongnition of archetypes, it seems to always be begging some unexpectedly haunting rhetorical questions: Does middle American poverty delude its servants into such extreme survival tactics (stealing, overworking, killing)? Do these characters live out a desperation they've become so accustomed to that it is no longer even acknowledged? Do the red-staters in question really think the self-exoneration of their religious fabric is the responsible tool professed to be the moral compass of the leaders they help to elect? (One too many? Oh. Right. The Soapbox. [steps down]). Using devil-rich details, Soderbergh relays an ownership of character that, quite frankly, few American films can envision (let alone attain). And though the film almost feels like its unnaturally pushing itself towards the central tragedy of the third act, it's still rule by the seemingly casual nature of its characters. The contrast of stylised camerawork and mundane staging (which includes the DIY narrative, by the way) speaks to this hyper-hypocritical worldview that mirrors Martha's skull-encased religious protection; It also looks fucking fantastic. Also: Was I the only one who thought the quick uplift at close - timid, disconnected Kyle smiles lovingly at his mom, inexperienced at production but nevertheless stepping in to replace two people on the assembly line - was terribly moving?

It's a bright, optimistic feeling when Spike Lee is able to plop his confrontational race agendas - they're relevant as hell which makes them potent as hell - inside a terrifically convoluted heist picture that never stops feeling like great, exhilirating 40s noir (even Spike regular Terrence Blanchard seems to notice the spartan pleasure of cops v. robbers, using very little of his Copeland flare-up and focusing rather upon suspenseful urban grandeur). And Denzel, pulling directly from his Carl Franklin gallery of good guys (despite the occasional hint de Alonzo that sneaks in), seems much more germane than he has of late, as if even he can taste the mellower, more focused Spike. It's not just Denzel, though (or Spike, for that matter) - - Inside Man takes its cue from Memento (but in a good way), intercutting a linear story with post-robbery interviews, zigzagging through moral treatises on levels of corruption, hardwired post-9/11 slants and best of all, trudging with a level eye to precisely what sets it apart from Dog Day Afternoon (a key acknowledgement to avoid a most inappropriate "update" stamp). Inside Man has the same invisible weight of sobriety 25th Hour took so effectively into my good graces; I can't wait to see this thing again.

Right, what if Ricky Gervais'"Extras" and Irma Vep had a one-off bastard child and gave it up for adoption? To Soderbergh's Full Frontal. And after that, I laughed out loud. Repeatedly. And Steve Coogan played himself. How would that be?

United 93 is sober enough to accept things that a more eager-to-please film might have altered (e.g. - the passengers only found themselves able to rebel because the hijackers waited too long to take the plane in the first place). Re-proves the theory I danced around posing in my review of Touching the Void: Great suspense has everything to do with detail. In both films, we already know the outcome but sit poised on the edge of our seat to see how it will be staged. Greengrass, using every piece of information at his disposal, has recreated the most bare of human universals - claustrophobia - in parallel stories oof both the speculative title flight and the unfolding events in various airline and military nerve centers without so much as batting an eye of wasted space. Those on the ground aren't following the flight as a heroic mission - they're multitasking the grounding of all domestic commecial flights; These are independent stories about a single incident. And it assumes our knowledge, slicing life with asymetrical mundanity, as an unforgiving handheld camera sideswipes terrifically unpolished and backstory-free dialogue. Quips are nowhere to be found. Pandering to a patriotic mindset - aside from the obligatory flag shot near the beginning - is left out. Attacker and Passenger are given equal face. Even the epilogue follows suit. It gives us neutral, indisputable facts we already know, reaffirming its intention to abolish a partisan viewpoint. (At the risk of being branded gauche simply by acknowledging The Conclusion Suspense Factor, I'd liken United 93's last ten minutes it to the first time I saw The Blair Witch Project: I was wrapped so tight in my seat I thought I was going to have to take up smoking again.)

Those of you hoping for a transformation of the source novel's many weak points (a la The Godfather) should brace yourself for a condensed, moment-to-moment regurgitation (a la Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone). Those of you who could care less - or have severe brain damage - should ffind the film easy enough to follow.

All three films have a placid, lightless texture to them, milking quips with more fluidity than any comic book I've ever read and ceaselessly hammering home the mutant versus human point. One of X-Men: The Last Stand's major strong points is the theory of unification that appears midway through the first act, when a cure for the mutant gene is discovered, and all mutants - good or bad - have to confront it. And it's just like this misfired franchise to both mirror and confound - good and bad souls dealing with evil in the world works fine, but the whole racism thing is now a little far-fetched to parallel, methinks. But nevermind all that: Brett Ratner is in the driver's seat. This means that all the well-meaning "fun" Singer traded X-Men's gloomy set-up for in installment #2 has now been transferred into a whole boardroom-programmed uber-popcorn thing (only less "fun"). Action scenes that wane on (and on), characters that seem to crave a backstory the film is blatantly devoid of (Beast and, to a lesser extent, Juggernaut) and late-movie tip offs that a fourth film (despite a subtitle like The Last Stand) may be imminent. I keep going back to the near great scenes - the prison on wheels sequence with Maggneto's pile up-ready hand, the two opening prologues, a near sex-scene between Logan and Jean Grey - and wondering if there's any way they could exist in a better version of this thing, one that didn't seem so all over the place (does the whole "Phoenix-fulla-power" thing make sense to you?), didn't seem stuck full of loose ends (the Rogue flip-flop, while relevant on the peripheral, is hardly satisfying) and, for the love of God, didn't feel so half-heartedly profit hungry?

The biggest surprise is how apropos Young & Co. make the previously questionable (to my mind anyhow) "Praire Wind" material seem (it helps that its set in Nashville, I suppose). Demme doesn't quite glean the hyper-excited sensation of live music he benchmarked in Stop Making Sense, instead carefully examining the comfort of an aging superstar and his pals as they continually channel another age. The "Harvest" stuff works pretty well, but the show goes on too long; By the end credits, its a relief that Young has shuffled off his bandmates - and the overzealous audience - to play alone on the stage.

Possibly the most innately chilling political dissection I've seen. At one point in my life, I may have sneered with a cockeyed head turn, calling out "Conspiracy theorist! Conspiracy theorist!" At this point, it all rings a kind of true that begs the question of perspective: Is it all really like this, or can it all be seen like this? Like his brother's Capturing the Friedmans, at no moment does a simulcrum of intensity feel wasted. And my wife still won't take the damn flag in.

Cars is great Pixar, albeit very template-laden. Semi-moving big second act moment where all things old timey are briefly seen in retrospect caused my eyes to get dull. Ultimately, it is as predictable and obvious as A Bug's Life or Finding Nemo, the second tier entries in the repertoir of the bouncing lamp it most closely huddles together with. I plucked this from an e-mail because it had been far too long to remember much of anything about it. Definitely not a good sign - - but I stand by the grade.

Practically without limitation, Army of Shadows indulges cruelty and tragedy as sobering techniques, perhaps to keep the director in mind of his subject: It's playful without being glossy or otherwise tastelessly stylish. It's also the speediest two and a half hours on two feet. So confidently does Melville sculpt the episodes in the up-and-coming steps and missteps that usher in the French Resistance Movement as most people know it (prior to the volume of the Maquis), we find him using - even more aggressively than in his gangster pictures - the brilliant, spartan mise-en-scene that seems to show you everything without resorting to telling you everything. Melville's command of the cinematic language recalls The Silents almost as a rule. Removed from the events at hand by a mere seventeen years, he aims to show things in a way that is unfettered by the implication of words or general exposition, rather, pledging itself to the in-the-moment horrors of WWII realism in the same way I remember Schindler's List cultivating. Bizarre and disturbing  moments like the running-start execution and the quickdraw stabbing of a Gestapo guard seem to ooze with a savagery we tend not to associate with the time period. Nay, even the main characters are contrasts of observed and actual reality: With names like The Masque and Bison, these guys hardly come off as anything more than loyal, educated Frenchman who make their mission as single-minded as the Nazi credo. Melville shows both sides in gray: The Nazis torture their quarry beyond mortal rescue but pity the dying man enough not to move him (they also warn those about to be executed to smoke their cigarettes quickly, an evil-laced kindness that foreshadows a literal smokescreen) while The French Resistance hunt down and murder their own if they should be compromised. No bones are made about the questionable reality. Instead, this fiction is treated as a history lesson.

Per usual, the Linklater dialogue is wonderfully entrancing (and probably some of the funniest since Dazed & Confused), but a mixed choice in presentation robs A Scanner Darkly of what little humanity an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story can hope to retain. His stories - at least as adapted for film - always seem to hint at some grandly-cast conspiracy and how people of the future deal with it, but they (the stories) rarely have any real or meaningful perception into the emotional trappings of these characters. What's worse - every new writer or director who stumbles upon these tales and attempts to concoct such feelings or draw such color from their actors seems hopelessly unable to do so. It's as if Dick has stitched some sort of gaping abscess into his lurid handfuls of paranoia and ultimate revelation, rendering them impossible to translate without making everyone seem like an automaton. A Scanner Darkly succeeds the best of the three I can call to mind, using its rotoscoping effect to stabilize an environment of surreality and uncertainty. Trouble is, if Linklater had hoped to crack the code and make an audience feel something, he never seems to put us in Keanu Reeves' corner. As all is revealed, we have no trouble keeping an eye on the bigger picture as we've long since given up on rooting for our allegedly pitiable "hero". Despite a long, semi-tense mood of impending doom that culiminates into a mere shoulder-shrug, A Scanner Darkly has some very funny, very well-written moments within its stoner-fivesome of Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey, Jr., Woody Harrelson and Rory Cochrane (two of whom are somewhat ironic casting). There is some discussion as to the number of gears in a supposed 18-gear bike. There is the discussion of why Reeves hasn't banged Ryder. And of course, there is the matter of the unlocked door with an inviting note that must be settled. In the end, it makes a stand on the soapbox of hypocrisy within the nature of healing and, more topically, the notion of shock suggested in newly manifested suspicions. And it looks gorgeous. But what do I care of Fred's Fate? Or Robert's, for that matter?

As if a film with seven (7!) Brian Eno songs could really be bad. Unfair subjectivity. And, to be truthful, Assayas doesn't use them all that well. "The Spider and I" and "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)" seem almost random, as if inserted merely to break up his use of "Ending (An Ascent)" as the theme of sorts. This turns out to be somewhat ironic, given how homogenized "Ending" should be, having been pimped out to at least three other films (that I can call to mind). Course, the familiarity - in addition to how ideally the track ggoes with the imagery - really seems apropos, albeit, in a terrifically unsettling way. Because the film itself is a tale recycled into oblivion already, that Assayas uses a track already memorable in at least two of those three films can only make sense. That the song's transcendent quality can be utilized as a reoccuring hymn, topping jumpy medium-pixel digi-cast images of Maggie Cheung experiencing a slew of awakenings in a post-heroin globetrot, gives one pause to ponder on the motive: Is Assayas doing THE mom-gets-clean film here or is this a friendlier, studioesque balance specifically arranged to distance us from the brilliant shit he was slingin' in demonlover? Whatever's at stake here, Clean seems comfortable pointing out things usually glossed over (especially: if drugs manufacture epiphany wouldn't an ex-junkie still be prone to constant, uncontrollable moments of clarity?) and setting up the showcase for a deeply felt turn by Cheung, one of our very best leading ladies. One cannot deny that - though it tends in and out of greatness - there are more wonderful sequences thaan there are shifts in narrative; Clean is as up front and honest about its manipulation as it can be. It zings beautifully in its final thirty minutes, as Cheung and the son she abandoned are reunited unbenownst to the dying grandmother (who raised him) by Nick Nolte who, for some reason, seems to be screaming for us to believe he's "elderly" (everyone keeps calling him old, he mumbles like he's lost his marbles and he dresses with reading glasses and high-neck sweaters). It's the greatest MOW-porn ever directed by a sharp French art house auteur.

A supernatural girl hidden below a pool is being pursued by wolves but able to be rescued by tree monkeys on her quest to fly away from the pool via eagle. The general base of it is, without question, a base. Shyamalan, in a particularly self conscious mood, spends the lion's share of his time entering into territory that's either ballsy or incredibly pretentious: Answering one's own critics. In overview, the base is a mere catalyst to shed its analogy as deconstructed by a set of characters barely qualified to participate in the forward motion of the dramatic narrative they are both concocting and aware of. In fact, the main show in Lady in the Water is - as you may have guessed after gasping in disbelief at the premise - Shyamalan's puppetry: Not only does he have the formula for the blockbuster (as he so ill advisedly put it), he seems to have the capacity to concoct an anti-blockbuster as well. My wife hit on it pretty well when she said she knew what to expect from Shyamalan's films and anticipated a twist. She was talking textually. What sings about Lady in the Water is the way it seems to anticipate it's audience's comfortable twist expectation groove; Shyamalan, in effect, leaves the product and its blueprints in full view. Now: Watching the blueprints is, at times excruciating. Bob Balaban is fine in this film, but his reprehensibly antisocial, cruelly academic film critic is nothing more than a cheap firebomb aimed squarely at the same crew who has been lashing out against his repeated use of the high concept premise as a lure (as if this, in itself, had ought to do with his skill as a filmmaker). It's kind of a miscalculation, though, to be sure: Shyamalan's critics, after a string of Twilight Zone-esque films carved in a hand resembling the height of Spielberg's proto-humanistic trappings, are pretty much everyone. It's likely getting such a drubbing because it is such a drubbing. This is a line in the sand, with Paul Giamatti as the artist in his element assembling a motley crew of characters to react to the world's evils with selflessness. Standing by is Shyamalan himself, as the writer with everything figured out. He sees himself as this whole, wild mess, a kind of Adaptation-style tearing down of the curtain to reveal the mechanics of storytelling and its ultimately reflective properties. A tad on the obvious side in spots (in spots, it feels a bit too much like a big blinking light for the masses that Shyamalan is, in fact, The Artist) but, using subtext as your primary delivery device in a film you know nearly all of your audience will miss the boat on is more ballsy than pretentious. By a hair.

Imagine the same now-beautiful, now-ugly, now-indistinguishable, now-strangely real quality of Collateral's mesh of HD and 35mm photography, amped through the dancy, musical bliss of Michael Mann and lacking a single attempt at depth. Between Summer and the Imdb, I was able to glean that Miami Vice the film takes numerous cues (textually, musically, visually, etc.) from Miami Vice the TV series, but I found myself in a position of ignorance (yet again) as I'd never actually viewed the show. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx play some strange version of all-knowing cops who carry themselves with a spartan disconnect that's almost indifference - with occasional bursts of violence. In addition to their explosive tendencies, the drug dealing storyline gets as carried away with itself as anything in Heat, but becomes almost too complicated to bother with inside something this constantly stimulating. It's like trying to taste the nuance in your third cup of coffee: You're too jittery to focus on drinking the shit, let alone how many shades of hazelnut your palette can distinguish. It also contains some of the most eye widening, ear shaking moments of gunplay in recent memory.

Because I'm planning to screen this again later in the week, I'll keep this brief: Rian Johnson's take on Dashiell Hammett Goes to High School is, in fact, full of terrific dialogue easily worthy of Hammett and a complicated noir that blends elements of both The Maltese Falcon and Red Harvest. The composition is gorgeous and Joseph Gordon-Levitt obviously walks off with it, but Brick's greatest attribute is twofold: It's possibly the most appropriate use of a fond high school recall I've seen in, well, maybe ever (Johnson sets a specific story here without sending a valentine to his own experience or appearing otherwise self-indulgent) and its far more confident than it has any right to be. I'm concerned with the connection of the jock and the actress to the main events, but am hoping I simply missed the boat. Either way: Brick is a godsend.

The well-meaning meld of hypothetical historical lesson and little-has-changed social critique collapses, completely, under a worldview that seems only to deal with slavery. The occasional mention of alternate ramifications of The South's big victory over The North keeps threatening to veer into interesting territory. It's promptly interrupted by Saturday Night Live commerical parodies of a world where every product, service and aspect of modern American life has something to do with slavery. The whole thing is little more than a Bamboozled-esque stunt (exec-produced by Spike Lee at that) which never gels into any sort of coherent statement of genuine insight. (Not that Bamboozled was the very picture of a clear signal, but its a heck of a lot less marble-mouthed than Willmott's film.)

It's hard not to take the Dardennes' films into some sort of pre-ordained reconciliation filter that allows you to brace yourself for their Worst Social Worker Stories Ever verve. No exception, L'Enfant also continues the long ride through their wildly overrated template of unforgivable acts laced with tiny (read: real-life) size doses of redemption. There's a great, cold central performance by Jérémie Renier, who zig-zags in and out of dire poverty and criminal focus when he's not busy meeting the responsibility of family life - his girlfriend has just had his baby - with a deafening indifference. He's inherantly street smart, but so small time and frivolous as to seem on the desparate side of pitiable. Constantly cashing in and cashing out (sometimes simultaneously), he's fitted with various baggage (a baby carriage, a scooter), a visual metaphor that constantly reminds us we're in the hands of a script, a trait I found both welcome and unsatisfying: Here are the docudrama superstars, employing far too much precalculation, leaving the only improvisational moments to Bruno (Renier) and Sonia as they embrace parenthood by chasing each other around the car and, later, battling over a horrendous decision. The Big Decision, by the way, goes a long way to cement Bruno's reputation and character, but goes even further when we question ourselves: Maybe that was the right decision? Why are we rooting for him to score? (Do we want to see how much he scores?) Later, to repay the even worse bad guys, why are we rooting for him to harness his criminal mind to make ends meet? Finally, it becomes clear - and muddy at the same time: The circle of wrongdoing must be broken - and is - in the smallest ripple of maturity possible. Therein lies the rub: This one, like Rosetta is so much a character study, it starts to lose the strength and effectiveness of its thematic resonance. Unlike that film, a pleasant edge of storytelling undercuts the you-are-there aesthetic, leaving us to wonder how these guys would fare if they gave themselves over to it completely. (I'm sure I'd complain there, too.) Dardennes': Always intriguing, always solid, never satisfying.

There's the sense that more care is taken to art Dave Chappelle's Block Party the fuck up. More often uniform (planning/concert/planning/concert) than intriguing, it splits its focus without a dominant, giving both Dave's impromptu antics as he plans the block party and uncut concert footage even keel. Lopsiding the film with either one would probably divide the audience pretty squarely, but by splitting it so equitably, Gondry winds up with too much and too little of both. The Conceptually bizarre bits (the "broken angels" house, the marching band from Dave's former High School) hit home pretty regularly, and there's a way overblown Fugees reunion that fails outright to garner an erection, but for all of the energy it puts into setting the film apart from cheap, under-the-radar concert DVDs and television sketch comedy, Dave Chappelle's Block Party rises and falls based almost soley on pure atmosphere. The film is a celebration of enthusiasm more than it's a buzzy, Big Comfy Hood narcotic. Because he's excitable, and because he's charismatic, you walk away from the film feeling something. It's not quite the edge you can tell the film wants you to tuck under your arm as you exit the theater, but there's a warmth.

[ "I'm sorry but that's just not right" award: Cody ChestnuTT only plays one song. If only The Roots had broken up and reuinted tearfully in this film like The Fugees did.]

Without question, the best full-on digitally animated film not made by Pixar to date. Kenan's film ebbs on the fumes of the bizarre appeal of second generation fans of The Goonies and That Summer Changed My Life movies and does it with a barrage of terrific riffs on scenes from these films. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, really: Monster House is immensely likeable; It's akin to watching a movie's worth of outtakes patterened after other films (as we see in the Pixar credits). I can't wait to see it again.