Treads in the same thematic murk as Batman Begins (and, to a lesser extent, Insomnia), but succeeds because its subject matter is glued to the chair riveting. Purporting to find the essential, underlying resonance in the matter of science versus magic, Nolan's film is powerfully entertaining, balancing sacrifice on multiple levels, with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as magicians attempting to outdo each other. That Nolan so successfully makes these men merely delivery devices is a wonderful trick. Watch closely: It's self-reflexive (one could say it is about the fading nature of suspending disbelief in films themselves, or the existence of G-o-d, perhaps) and so utterly profound, I found myself thinking about it for weeks on end after screening it.

Ultimately uncinematic and, to be blunt, genuinely unnerving; It could have easily shifted between TV and the theater without much notice, but it packs a devastating punch, dulling my eyes at the sight of harm to the inantimate object of an electric car. Now that's a trick!

Is unbelievably entertaining in spite of the repetitious deconstruction of crosswords and its blatant advertising for The NY Times Crossword Puzzle (Will Shortz, Minor Celebrity Goofball) until it takes a long, unexpected turn at observing the familial bonds of those who participate in annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, CT. It then emerges from this long, goopy montage to spotlight a nail-biter of a race, the final round of puzzle-solving for the 2005 Event. It's an easy one, but it takes finesse to make it this fun to watch.

A purely motivational film that melds its expansion of Gore's presentation (to a larger venue) to autobiography, all the time in always-be-closing mode: Either it's stroking the credibility of the man or the credibility of global warming itself. Part of its greatness, though, is its ability to do this in the same way Gore composes himself, with an honesty and diplomacy that seems acutely admirable. Even if I didn't have strong political leanings, one cannot deny the film's exhaustive arguments (all well-stated and detailed) and responsible spirit, as it points out how apolitical the problem of greenhouse gases is by talking about the whole planet in a way you forget an American leader can: Without condescending. The end credits scroll suggestions of personal opportunities to combat this crisis. And you feel grateful for them, as if the film isn't just asking for your help, its expecting that you'll stop what you are doing and take part. It's rare to see a film this aggressive.

TemPlate Tectonics in full effect with even the kiddie surface-line absurdity (female mammoth believes she is possum, acts the part, generates annoyance) flopping like a dead fish. The villains are water-dwellers and are unleashed upon the heroes, a convoy of characters from the first film fleeing to uncharted territory as their legendary valley is about to be filled up (opening sequence finds the melting glaciers doubling as a groovy water park). From the start, the whole thing is merely proficient and seems, ultimately, satisfied to languish in its own mediocrity. What really gets me is the "Fear of Water" crap the Sabretooth Tiger is spouting? That kind of lessonmongering pre-dates, I think, even Aesop.

Experimenting on his Urban "Day in the Life Of..." Tales (see: the rest of his filmography excepting Another Day in Paradise), Clark finds more in fly-on-the-wall techniques here than in any sort of rounded comparisons he might pose or conclusions he might draw. The positivity of this clique's strength is observed and spot-on felt, an ironic turn for Clark, who usually seems content in the position of a brutal realist. Here, he leads his charges around a bit more aggressively than necessary, but its a pleasure to hang around them, listening to them speak and watching them write their own stories. Notable great-ish scene: Francisco Pedrasa's Kiko explains, in longhand, the spectrum of life in South Central, teeting between bracing and sensational imagery. He is spouting firsthand accounts, but he also uses "I'm from the Ghetto" to get into this girl's pants. The misadventures in several Bevery Hills homes at close are problematic: Great concept, but why does the same thing happen at each house?

That my ten year old watches it obsessively for the dark-haired heart throbs ought to give you some approximation of the target demographic here. At any rate, I've stolen a few glances since I sat down and watched it the first time and, in addition to plugging in random Indiana Jones plot points when things get dull (this never lasts more than a nanosecond, I assure you), I've noticed that it's just plain exhausting.

Did I say "my ten year old" a few sentences back? Okay: So I'm that fucking guy now. Nice.

[At any rate, this could have been set in any buzz-of-the-moment locale (e.g. - space, rural Russia, etc.) and the little spark of Pirate atmosphere we glimpsed in the first take of this (groan) trilogy, that spark that might make these films seem as if they've got blood pumping through their veins (instead of mindless, soul-crushing Summer dollar signs, that is), is all but gone, replaced by what feels like an attempt to pimp Depp's original frenzy of scenery-chewing (an act that worked pretty much because it went in opposition to the formal gooniness of installment one's less complex (by comparison) narrative). Unfortunately, both the suspiciously intuitive Orlando Bloom and moody bitch Keira Knightley also appear in the film. And the ending: I'm confused. And I can't explain enough of it to bother receiving clarity.]

It might just as well have not been a Bond film at all; Doing the same freshening act Batman Begins successfully pulled off last year, Casino Royale walks and talks an attitude so foreign to this franchise, its being mistaken by everyone as something like a rebirth. 'tain't. It's still mired in the plots of plod Fleming inked. (Going back to the Bond source novels only seems pertinent if atmosphere is something more than expensive-looking locales, as this one is.) Campbell's film has the good sense to beef up the setpieces into cascading crosscuts of something like supertorture (the camera drools at Bond getting hurt in this one, no wonder it was delivered to some theaters under the pseudonymn Rough Skins), perhaps a comment on the waning series itself (if only it had been a parody - as, coincidentally (but for different ends and a different audience), the 1967 Hughes/Huston/McGrath/Parrish/Guest version version was - demonstrating once and for all that camp - not sophistocation - is the preferred effect of a good Bond film). Daniel Craig is terrifically badass, a title character (also, in my opinion, in name only) who could easily have been considered an anti-hero (or, perhaps - in his blind, hardwired dedication to fighting "terrorism" - even a villian). As in nearly every Craig turn, the eyes soak up much of our gaze, though his delivery here is so consistently punk rock, he converts James Bond into Film Noir, a trick the film burns up with its unnecessarily labrynthine blatherings about money transfers with rebels and cartoonishly high stakes Texas Hold 'Em (!) games. All this would earn it a B easily. But then pile on its double-cross coda, which ends in bittersweet, personal turmoil for a Bond whose sterile focus we've spend the past two hours really enjoying. Still, The footchase through the construction site that ends in the Nambian embassy is the most kinetic, inspired 007 - or otherwise - action scene in recent memory, achieving (gulp!) an actual thrill.

Though its a nifty show of Warner's expense with setpieces featuring convention-sized newsrooms-a-bustlin and a cavernous floor-shiftin' boat, Superman Returns continually lapses itself absurdly back into Superman's impregnating folly - a plot point I'd expected to find laughed at outright not the subject of half the darn movie. Singer has always been gangbusters at juggling a slew of simultaneous narratives in different locales (or, The GI Joe Cartoon effect), but this story - Superman identity crisis commingling witth bumbling crooks stumbling upon catacalysmic weapon - is dull and overlong. What's superlative about it is the silky look and bizarre texture, all but feeling itself through a comic book visualization/remake with nothing more than dark humor (one dog is chewing on the bones of another as Parker Posey exclaims, "Weren't there two of them?"), Christ poses (A first: An openly gay filmmaker employing this many openly Christian undertones) and weirdo cameos (Brando's Superman II outtakes).

Odd as its maker, but also just as sloppy; Convention, and rampant, crippling implausibility turn the thing into a cartoon of sorts, (which is just the sort of label Gibson would love to have affixed to his two plus hour subtitled Mayan torture epic, I'm sure). That he's openly marketing it as an "action" movie is fine (although, couldn't The Passion of the Christ have been called an action film on some level, too?); That anyone gets emotionally invested in it after about the fourth time the main character takes a blow that would prove fatal to any other (non-main) character in the film is purely accidental. Also: It looks like poopy.

Strangely affecting in spots; Hopefully (shudder) this doesn't mean McKay fancies himself a Farrelly follower. Works better than Anchorman on first viewing, probably because much of it is looser, prone more to act as a series of vignettes until it hits the distracting wall of a romance subplot in its second half. All of it is terrific fodder for Ferrell (although John C. Reilly should stick to his character schtick), particularly an absolutely hilarious sequence where he leads the family in imagining how Jesus should be envisioned when you pray to him.

Very much made for the people it is about (the blue collar masses, the penultimate family men, military nuts using The Attacks as a segue back into the ranks), by which I mean its emotions are worn nakedly on its sleeve, its politics sympathetic but painfully black and white and its dialogue and mise-en-scene familiar. That it pulls off terrifying, nerve racking, silly, sillier, moving, touching and self-congratulating all at once gives it the distinctive feel of The New Oliver Stone (The sputtering style over substance approach from1997's U-Turn on in, excluding the two Fidel documentaries and Persona Non Grata, none of which I have seen). He was at once the perfect and the absolutely wrong person to tell a story like this (we can easily imagine him interested in a 9/11 film, but not now - in fifteen or twenty years, when he can add a twisting suspicion and conspiracy into it) and he seems content with merely gliding along with Andrea Berloff's script, despite the fact that it undermines nearly every single fabric of what made interesting The Old Oliver Stone (Challenging political views mixed with personal demons and drugs that enjoyed challenging the status quo). The closest cousin to this was the fact that the film made it easy to remember a moment I'd forgotten, a moment in late September 2001, weeks after the incident, when I found myself weeping uncontrollably at the hopelessness of the situation; That I channeled it through some really obvious Kleenex-tie in sort of tear jerking is a tad on the unsettling side.

By minute 25, the superfluous exposition and flayed backstory is revved to shrill, but don't turn the thing off: By minute 31, you'll be engrossed beyond distraction. Bickering more passively than not, six ladies - only one of whom looks like the extreme sports ilk - spelunk their way into a mess of uncharted caves only to find...well, if you don't actually know what they find (as I, perpetually ignorant filmgoer, did not), you're better off. Shifting gears suddenly and stopping only ever so briefly to slow down and pass the exposition danglers in a blur, Marshall engineers a series of horrorshow conflicts barely lit, peppered with screaming and supremely motivated by various bones (both in piles and protruding from legs). Gifted with momentum, he splits the bill between artfully vague composition and digi-aided lights that bounce from rock to rock; Atmosphere is thick and tight, drawing our gaze around each corner almost instinctively. Much has been made of the minute and a half that was lopped off (and, in a truly great example of commerce defeating art, US audiences were treated to the lesser, or "safety" version, I'm sad to report), but much more should have been made of the opening act which thuds to the ground with such a predictable death rattle, it can only be erased by something loud and savage and vicious. He comes close, but Marshall stops short of convincing us that he, too, could care less about his thrill seeking delivery device (i.e. - the characters).

[ Oh, and that which I've avoided mentioning above - probably because I believe the film's value is strictly genre and barely passes its metaphoric mustard to begin with - is preposterous. Yes, there are many young women (one of whom has lost a child) marching around moist, dark caves. Yes, the only non-blind "man" acknowledged in the film is killed almost instantly. Yes, at one point, the most feral of the gals, yanks the johnson from one of "them", thereby killing it. Got all that. Unfortunately, you have to be more than an exercise to speak in volumes. See Romero at once if you're looking for allegory or depth. ]

I can't believe this lazy, superficial horseshit isn't being called to the carpet and asked to undress and be scourged. I absolutely resent the use of "I Don't Love Anyone" by Belle & Sebastian in a key scene and plan to petition to have it removed from the DVD and all supporters of this popularity wet dream brainwashed until they're as practical and utilitarian as, you know, real fucking people. There is not a single, solitary moment of humanity that isn't clouded by materialistic, accessory worship or shallow representations of "relationships". Streep's turn is fine, particularly when she goes into the long, in-depth moments of insight, but her cold-bitch mentoring of the completely misfired Anne Hathaway continually reminds you what you're celebrating: Unnecessary cruelty for the sake of fame and money. Fuck this movie.

Children of Men is best when tone and atmosphere become intertwined, the political hopelessness swirling among the palpable dread of people in holding pens, eerily abandoned elementary schools and desperate, dirty forest marauders. Its bleak, arguably parallel (to one or more topical messes) worldview is consistent and driven full force by Clive Owen, who has turned into one of our most likable brooders, found here killing time until death in a low-level government career that tides him between booze and his next visit to former political cartoonist/current pothead Michael Caine (chewing up eccentricity like it were lungfuls of Strawberry Cough). By the time Julianne Moore recruits Owen to score a passport (from relative Danny Huston, living in an entirely badass workup of the cover of Pink Floyd's "Animals"), he's inimitably desheveled and downtrodden, but still immensely appealing - and immediately so. In a film that clumsily spurts out exposition through bursts of rote dialogue and convenience, his presence is a constant forgiveness factor, almost unconsciously playing activist in the face of compromised plausibility time and time again. The ending is distractingly assured and, while the film benefits from being overplanned (you'll know the continuous shot when you see it - and you'll gasp when Cuarón finallly cuts), Men's best moments find it acting off the cuff (as in, when a main character that gets offed practically without warning, any scene with Peter Mullan and the opening coffee shop explosion that cuts to the title card). It could have used a great deal more of this impromptu rattling, but my rants are mostly superfluous: This is a terrifically entertaining film that I'm looking forward to seeing again for a bevy of reasons, least of which is to scour the corners for all the details.

[And Michael Caine's house, I am telling you, was plucked directly from my imagination: Mark my words: I will find a way to duplicate it and live there some day. (Alright, don't mark my words. I'm a hyperbole machine and I know it.)]

Despite the premise, Slade's film never transcends its high concept, possibly because the dialogue melts all over itself before getting sharp (when you can predict every plot point, every disturbing story the characters tell, every "gotcha" moment - - the air leaves the balloon) and every scene not containing dialogue is, inexplicably, shot at fast speed and played back at normal speed. There is never a moment where suspicion leaves the piece and, therefore, there never seems to be a moment of sincerity. Both Patrick Wilson - as the photographer with a penchant for young girls - and Ellen Page - as the 14 year old who turns the tables on him - are in overacting mode from second one, as if it were a calculated acting style; Sandra Oh stumbles onto the thing like the quasi-high profile cameo she is. This is not the film to tackle this subject. In fact, this subject really never needs to be tackled on film again in my opinion. What more could be said?

Very solid. Easily Clint's best film since Unforgiven (which is saying nothing, really). It very effectively and very soberly examines the contrast between patriotism and realism (self-preservation), albeit, with a very American Movie sensibility. Flash of flag raising from a distance and without a shred of weight scored it some big points (caveat: I have yet to see Flags of Our Fathers), as did my calling it to mind a day or so later with a certain old timey reflection, as if the film could've been made in a number of eras past. Good for you, Clint: Let's work back towards making great films, man.

When I first watched it, I was so busy being appalled by the crooked MPAA system and the lies it successfully purported for years and years in the name of studio profits - and at the expense of artists - that I didn't realize (until the next daay) how unavoidably problematic its ironic inclusion of all the identities of the "raters" is. To include footage of, and infer the MPAA's similarity to the McCarthy-era blacklists isn't off base, but its wishy-washy. When stuffed in a movie where names are named, it feels a bit off color - a bit like the pot and the kettle. True: The raters aren't going to lose their careers over it, but the somewhat hypocritcal fact remains. I loved the dissection of just how much work went into assuring an "R" rating and found the film to be cathartic, personally (as one who was restricted by it both by parents and theater clerks), especially when explaining its details to my mom (who still believes a rating system is useful and kept missing the point on purpose). The long, drawn out overview of the private investigators that Dick hires to discover the raters' true names seems like padding and Dick himself veers further towards a territory rich in Michael Moore and poor in Nick Broomfield (sadly), but just that a film exists to blow the lid off this insane ruse warrants my attention and admiration.

If you can heft - and I mean LIFT - your disbelief and not pass out under the weight, you still have to get past how unfunny the thing is. But you can't. There's no way you can ignore the fatal flaw in its eager-to-zing premise: How could there have been a shred of organization (corporations producing the green liquid, inventories in the Costco, those credit card/food machines, public servants on the streets and in jails, judges, and on and on and on) in this future that Judge has dreamed up if everyone is, as it is immediately and clearly pointed out, dumb as a pile of rocks. Not only does it not make sense, but it also doesn't make me laugh. Whoever relegated this to (practically) straight-to-video status: Good judgement call.

Sherrybaby works on grounds of grit procedural almost exclusively (performances are remarkable, insomuch as they are naturalistic to an end meant to satisfy the mind's requirement that the thing be lived in); Watching the post-prison system - its holes, its rules, its surprise revelations - is fascinating. Sherry emerges from prison having expected so much, but she's forgotten work ethic and, soon, finds herself pining for her daughter's love (with no idea how to even begin to go about rebuilding what was never built in the first place). It's a reasonably intelligent social drama, not quite a pitch above snuff - the all-touted Maggie Gyllenhaal performance isn't enough to transcend some of the film's shortcomings, namely that it feels the need to explain away Sherry's condition at all, let alone in a split-second (all but) grope session with her papa. Would make a nice 2-pack with Half Nelson, if you want to go there.

[ By the way: I love Danny Trejo's calmly threatening manner; His performance, though defined almost exclusively by comparative terms, was my personal favorite. Giancarlo Esposito can be a dick any time: Doesn't impress me as much. ]

Del Toro is such a bore (See also: His entire filmography). He plugs in the holes in a post-Spanish Civil War melodrama about a feverishly evil Captain (an embarrassingly cartoonish Sergi López) attempting to clear the way - of his wife and stepdaughter, for example - for his namesake (and push The New Spaniish Politic besides), all the while missing Maribel Verdú's care packaging her brother and his rebels. The stepdaughter takes focal point, which is fortunate, though her fantasies don't get nearly enough screen time, leaving a discerning audience in a situation where they're wading and actively rushing the predictable doins' of the "reality" in hopes that soon they're catch a glimpse of something surreal or (gulp!) terrifying. And these sequences - of which there are only three and a half, by my count - are mesmerizing, none so plump with dread as The Pale Man sequence, itself flawed (why exactly does she ignore the very clear advice of the Pan and eat the forbidden fruit?), and transcendent (it seems to carry the weight of parallel, giving hint very palpably to the film's mirrored structure, which eases the "Why the christ are we sitting through this dusty soap opera, anyhow?"), but most of all, utterly spine tingling: It's the only time this year I can recall being engaged with genuine tension, stress and fear for a movie character.