I'm actually tempted not to use the term "oft treaded territory" outside a quotation mark setting, mostly on account of Ratcatcher's deeply abstract presentation of a young boy growing up poor in a Glasgow housing project. The garbage bag imagery and the golden fields imagery recall Terence Malick to an almost alarming recall but, to be truthful, it's imagery that sells the movie - no matter the source. Ramsey is so clearly in control of her vision, that her film isn't hindered by the following usual obstructions: imposed english subtitles on an english language film (for the thick Scottish accents), annoyingly ambiguous time setting (oh, that timeless appeal, it gets you every time!), and the deja vu of abject, wrenching degradation (again, I call coin). The film is so hypnotic, in fact, that it's use of carefree childhood ritual and eye-of-wonder point-of-view does the unthinkable: it blurs the focus to the point where narrative is no longer holding on (a point which, miraculously, seems unimportant). Watching a string of while-away-the-day adventures avoids the harsh brand of commonplace coming-of-age, instead indulging James' world with a rather potent dose of medication. He survives because he's smart enough to invent his own reality (for example, get a load of the title creature, attached by tail to a balloon, on his way toward a lunar landing). That Ramsey is able to duplicate the illusion James so clearly and so beautifully masks his bleak world with is to our benefit. We're not suffering through one more sad child absorbing his parents' bad situation. That's a huge compliment.

Looking to be all about contrast and that arty, slow burning tension, See the Sea, instead, fills the viewer with an indescribable, almost subconscious dread from frame one. We don't quite know what unbelievably horrible occurrence is going to befall the main character and (or) her child, but we full well expect one to crop up between any of the soft, seaside picnics, or nerve-racking infant screaming fits. Lurching languidly between surreal sexual encounters and frank avoidance of confrontation, Ozon seems to control his main character and a mysterious drifter with mixed motives: he's never sure who he wants us to sympathize with, because it appears that he himself isn't sure. By close (the outcome I'll not reveal), the genius of See the Sea is that Ozon seems to be sympathizing with the viewer for having to endure this experiment in isolation and longing. It's an admirable arc of sorts, when he reaches the point of making his point, but the resolution may present itself to some as an expected turn in what is, in truth, a genre exercise. No matter, though. Ozon's films have constantly been a source of irritation to me, mostly because they feel like they reach a comfortable level, only to follow such competent pinnacles by loitering on the bridge to a suitable feature length running time (see Under the Sand, 8 Women). Here, he splices the final black frame at no less than fifty minutes. My only question, then, is thus: if he once knew his limitations, how exactly did he manage to forget them?

It's not all there - to be sure - but what is there works. The most exciting thing about the film is that it is unconventional, sometimes to a fault (for instance, the first thirty minutes don't make much sense - and don't move too fast). Even when it comes around full circle, having achived a two hour flashback, and though the brilliant casting of Deborah Kerr as three separate characters is revolutionary - what Blimp needs is a villian other than the threat, or even the far off existence of war. The long-lasting friendship that vies with a military career as the focal point is fine - and certainly watchable - but only because it is enacted so charmingly by actors Roger Livesy and Anton Walbrook. It's long and entertaining, but not exactly memorable.

But forget that the first ten minutes deal only with Elliot Gould feeding his PO'd cat. It's a terrific sort of given that a Raymond Chandler novel, when adapted for the screen, will present a challenge for both filmmaker and viewer alike; convolution (with a capital C), as conceived by artist and populous, vision and perception; a chance for complicity to butt heads with either tolerance or lack thereof, and so forth and so on. In Altman's film, the very idea that a plot could confuse a viewer is read to us in afterthought; it's a piece of the background that's either important or it's not, depending on where the camera chooses to wander; we're always too busy taking in the color and texture of the characters and their world - the seventies' era Los Angeles of hazy sunshine - to notice that Altman actually makes feasible and clean sense of Raymond Chandler. This is worthy of an exclamation point! But, my God, what a sense of sincerity lurking among the sarcastic comments of Phillip Marlowe (as wise-cracked by Elliot Gould, in a performance that is, itself, worth the price of admission); what a danger and calmness in the drunken writer (a Hemingway-bearded, almost unrecognizable Sterling Hayden) and his wife; what a masterful confidence and oddity in Marty Anderson, the Jewish bookie; what a hypnotism in the clinic doctor who is extorting money from the writer (or is he?); what a blonde naiveté in the small-time hood who flees to Mexico when his wife is murdered (and starts this whole ball of wax a-rollin'); and all the supporting characters (including a quartet of topless, yoga obsessed chicks and, of all people, Arnold Schwarzenegger). It's a masterful yarn, well told, and well acted. Altman's seamless, trademark languor-camerawork ensures that the pulse of the film never rise far above relaxed (executed by legendary cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, also responsible for Altman's best film, McCabe & Mrs. Miller). Using a number of window reflections (whose double images, usually including Marlowe, mirror his use of overlapping dialogue), Altman silently reveals, repeatedly, what Marlowe saves until the end: He's smarter than he looks.

The way its so true-feeling, and now historical - its relevance proved shortly after itts release. But also the way Levinson just knows when to say cut. It's a film that moves so quickly that by the time you're about to criticize it for one too many Mamet-penned twists - it's already been over for ten minutees. DeNiro's best foray into comedy, to be sure (hard to find a distinctive way to praise his unsung turn which, let's face it, opened up the door to his recent failings in the laugh genre); but also one of Hoffman's most neurotic and suspiciously honest turns in years (even when he's in crap like Outbreak or Sleepers, we always sorta liked Dustin Hoffman); I'll even take Anne Heche or Woody Harrelson, both thoroughly grating in their own specific ways. The movie doesn't seem quite so biting five years later - but it still makes me rumble with the belly laughs.

Edited like a mini-Thin Red Line is a film that wants to be a Marty Scorcese picture so bad, it turns into a wierd hybrid of the great director, and of Spike Lee, another great director, who finds it amusing to make us feel guilty for being afraid of his shocks. What sings about the picture - and it's not Mekhi Phifer, by the way - is the scope acting as music for the classical neighborhoody lyrics Spike is so generous about investing it with. Like Do the Right Thing, it's a moral tale - but unlike Lee's masterpiece, Clockers masks the fable in its subtext with an overheated cops and robbers game. The movie has scary moments - but it's too entertaining for them to retain their proper resonance. Richard Price's novel, rumored to be a good sight larger than the film, is a source work, however, of such indescribably complex characters, even Spike and his "style" can't dilute how huge and how real they are. The film is such a terrific visualization of a version of poverty that's often too unpleasant to sell. Spike, without tarnishing the art Price affords, is able to sell this world. When comparing him with Scorcese earlier, it was meant to be a compliment of the picture: A producer and director who pool their talents and auteur theorists be damned.

I swear, I'm watching Signs repeatedly for the fun of it; though it may look distinctly as if I'm watching it to prove to myself that I still love it, amidst a flurry of constant badmouthing from every and any angle.

Love the movie - still can't get past the occasional goopiness. It just doesn't mix with the relentless nature of the premise, which is so uncharacteristically cold and irresonsible, it's unfathomable that anyone would decide to stick with Hornby's original "fable" structure. (So, in other words, I feel no different than the first time I saw it).

She's a totally independent, curiously charmless - yet easy to root for - bitch. Sabine wants to get married, and she wants to get married to the next guy she meets. Tired of her sexual encounters with immature, married men, she tries to hook an upstanding lawyer - who turns out to be the bore to end aall bores. But after that, he lays upon her a justification of his inability to be with her that's, frankly, enormously ingenius. The baffling-me-again ability for Eric Rohmer to stage long, conservatively photographed dialogue bouts, and give the words just the right expedient progression, pretty much peaks in the closing-argument-as-break-up sequence. This bravura tete a tete with two unspeakably selfish, uncharacteristically polarized could-have-been lovers is the crowning achievement of the film. Sabine's beautifully realized epiphany - the cincher - proves her to be, possibly, my favorite Rohmer female since the title character in Suzanne's Career.

"Maybe it's the place," Val Kilmer whines with all sincerity. "It's been hit a couple of times?" Deniro, of course, shakes his head no. Instead, he suggests that all four of the thieves assume the police have tapped their phones, their houses - and even this little meet. It also thereby thoroughly clears up the major difficulty in Heat. By being packed wall-to-wall with melodrama, with subplot offshoots to the nth power, Michael Mann's film - while enormously entertaining and, vis a vie the melodrama, subsequently moving - never quite gets over how preposterous it feels that all of this is taking place at once and intersecting and happening as we speak in a city near us. The realism Mann invests would later pay off big time (The Insider, Ali) - and had paid off before (The Last of the Mohicans) - but, geez, there's just an air as you inhale its vastness that feels like its taking place in the annals of duhsville. Why don't cops hang out at liquor stores then, Val?

Michael Douglas, doing what he used to do best - play rich guys with chips on their shhoulders. I shouldn't knock, though, I love this film, and find myself watching it - or pieces of it - far more often than I care to share. Sean Penn's actually the most powerful character - if you assume he spent part of inheriitance on giving Douglas this elaborate gift (wouldn't it have been something if he'd have masterminded the whole thing - or maybe it wouldn't). Like wake-up camp for richies. My kind of thriller.

Can't really put together why the film doesn't blow me away. Everything that happens in it - even the masterstroke (the voice-over description of random fates and landmarks) - seems believable, but hardly electric. And the ending, sadly, still doesn't do much for me. They go their separate ways but, by then, I don't feel all that bad about it. Growing out of each other may be a natural progression (and we rarely see that on-screen these days), but Julio and Tenoch still never convince me why this road movie was the catch-all, end-all coming-of-age tale critics built yet another unnecessary pedastal for.

It's the rare movie where a scenery chewing performance and a bunch of really great little performances can defy a wayward pace sustained in Stone's historically bogus and narrative impaired "film". His mise-en-scene, however, is so competent and, often, so thrilling, we wonder if what he made was a nine hour movie and what we see are highlights. At the very least, though his time-jumping seems to make a confusing set of events even more confusing, the film comes off structured more carefully like a string of short films about the former president, some of them exploiting the tone found in Stone's Shakespearean parallel, others mining the eye-popping factor of Nixon's (and America's) most covert operations. While we question everything after JFK's endlessly debated honesty difficulties, Stone - with dignity, mind - strikes a chord of reversion to a more research based presentation (there are a great deal of titles, narration and explanation), even though his crudely intentioned preamble alerts us to the fact that, ironically, liberties have been taken. Hopkins, on the complete other side of all the dark "controversy", gives perhaps his best performance in a motion picture ever (please don't crucify me if you find that written six or eight times, in other places, in these pages). His portrayal isn't dead-on and, in fact, suggests a certain exaggeration, which thereby makes Nixon less like tricky-dick, and more of a universal standard. But, we should be very clear on this you and me, that it plays like Hopkins' achievement, this mimickry, not Stone's. Other standouts include Woods, Walsh, Hyde-Pierce, as Haldeman and Erlichmann and Dean, respectively. Joan Allen's Pat Nixon is a strange beast, one she hasn't returned to since (and she's had great success), but I can't say it's one of her more potent turns (Wouldn't be until the following year, in The Crucible, or perhaps in 1998, in Pleasantville). A solid, extremely time-consuming motion picture, but a suggestive history lesson that takes place in high art heaven is still a pretty darn good bargain.

One of the great, modern, multi-layered stories not directed by Altman or Kubrick, Neil Jordan's The Crying Game is about loyalty (military and otherwise) and unconditional love (of an enemy or another), but its also about launching a movement. The Crying Game makes full use of Hitchcock's plea with Psycho viewers not to reveal that film's big twist. Here, we have become motivated as a paying audience, to see films with huge reversals and, as a result, every third flick we see has some level of the "surprise ending". Which, in itself, is what makes The Crying Game so special, as its deep dark secret comes just late enough in the film to revitalize the last third or so and, to warrant  marked craving for repeat viewings. The principles are magnificent - especially Rea, who plays such a lovable dope, perhaps a grown-up version (had he not been imprisoned all that time) of Gerry Conlon of In the Name of the Father). This is probably the fourth or fifth time I've watched it, and every time, I would sit in awe of how Jordan and Whitaker were able to so effortlessly convince us of Jodi's credibility as a cricket-loving, martyred, black, British soldier. Whitaker should have received an Academy Award for his role. He may stick with Rea for a long while, but he haunts the audience until the very last frame.