(That's it, by the way, for the star ratings; Heave-ho, me buckos!)

There's some good ideas in The Shipping News. Shame its so painstaking gift-wrapped to be accessible, which is ironic because, quite by accident, its incredible lack of fluid storytelling actually benefits its overwhelming Newfoundland tone, which, along with some nice vistas, a couple of well-told stories and a sharp turn by Julianne Moore, almost makes The Shipping News worth seeing. Trouble is, I'm feeling mighty vindictive watching the Miramax logo swirl around in my head. (You can almost feel the Weinstein Bros. breathing down your neck, words on their tongues: "Do you like it? What can we do to make it more, you know, commercial?"). Spacey is a fraction as compelling a loser as he was in American Beauty. To be fair, he's built his downtrodden existence on a slim and shady occurrence which should, by all rights, take at least an hour of screen time, but opts instead to cram ten years into fifteen minutes, building one incredibly shaky foundation - only to be surpassed in the third act as the literal foundation of a house comes apart, taking its big, honking groaner of a metaphor with it. Blanchett, in fifteen minutes, is all but a blur; Dench doing her usual wise ol' secret keeper schtick; Postlethwaite, returning to the screen to play a half-formed antagonist, apparently; Scott Glenn constantly looking all dark and stormy only to turn around and doll out the good fortune. This is acting at its most lethargic. At one point, Julianne Moore says to Kevin Spacey: "You're always saying 'I'm Sorry'". An obvious play to capture something its source novel probably made very special, The Shipping News is nearly two hours of people uncovering the past and then casually, repeatedly saying they're sorry amidst astounding backgrounds. Lasse Hallstrom has finally concocted the "let the healing begin" film he must've secretly been planning to make during the hiatus directly following his brilliant What's Eating Gilbert Grape?. Chocolat was just a warm up.

[Some other observations, while I'm at it:
 

• Dialogue like: "It's comes in waves...and then nothing. A rest, like in music; no sound, but so loud" would usually induce uncontrollable smiling at how embarrassed I am to be watching a film that allows its characters to speak the language of syrup. Here - and very few other places - the sincerity is actually earned.
• It's all in the faces: Tomei, evincing that she's blown it as her testimony is dragged out, mismatching her statement in the police report; Stahl, full of indecision; Wilkinson, giving personal, nostalgic meaning to a shiny piece of blue glass as he cries in Frank's room; Spacek, effortlessly patient with Frank, her face kind and smooth; Mapother, seeing Spacek in the village and looking, for the first (but not the last) time, human.
• In scenes, Spacek takes on an almost religious glow. She's a peaceful two-way street for a while: she let's people tiptoe around her hidden anguish while she smiles, and, she dolls out a politeness  that you can't help but continually examine with suspicion. Only with Wilkinson does she appear genuine.
• Catering to an audience's sympathetic (or, in some viewers cases, I'm sure, empathetic) instincts, funny quirks are included as the two characters, initially, work through their pain. The PRAY4US License plate on a driving instructor's car, the Acronym discussion that ends with a PMS joke and the "You may already have won $10, 000" envelope with Frank's name on it. To us, it seems a Herculean task that these characters might even crack a smile or, on rare occasions, chuckle at such things. When they do, we realize we've been acting in a way that is impossibly wrong-headed: naturally.

Ultimately thorough (though thoroughly unconvincing), the premise itself - a work of such complete and utter fiction - even a non-fiction disclaimer, I suspect, would've been laughed right off the screen. What makes I Am Sam an irritating film, though, is not the way the hopelessly intelligent little girl and the otherwise brilliant A-List actor seem to click in a mystifyingly unnatural way. No, the big, grating plummet here is the sense you get that the film is constantly trying to get you to start weeping, openly - at every scene. Pfeiffer plays a character you expect to be run-off from a TV show, and, in the end, that's what I Am Sam is - not a MOW - but more of a compressed episode of "The Practice" where, instead of the lawyers being the focal point, its their charge: a retard we feel for, but, ultimately, side against. And siding against the character is part of the film's ploy; you can practically hear someone at New Line (probably that hustler DeLuca) silently clapping at how two-fold I Am Sam is. It's like the Seinfeld foreign weepie Cry, Cry Again: You cry and then when you realize you're totally against Sam, you cry again.(You know, but, without the actual crying)

Pity Sam Fuller didn't have a "B" in his name, because what's crippling his movies is the seedy relentlessness, the attitude that says: "I want to tell a second-rate story with second-rate actors - and it's art, goddammit!" The ttwist at the end of the unbelievably repetitive - borderline redundant - The Naked Kiss is a doozy - - - and it saves the film BIG TIME. Consstance Towers is overacting; saying her lines like she was the precursor to Liz Berkely in Showgirls. Before the film on TCM, two tidbits were presented: she slaps Virginia Grey for real - and it left a two-day mark; and this film ruined Sam Fuller's career. I suspect the first incident has a great deal to do with the second. A nut for realism, Fuller never seemed to project much of it on the screen. Much like Pickup on South Street, I can barely remember the details of this film - but its premise is fresh in my mind. Maybe "B"ecause he wasn't much more than a second rate director. His execution was nothing compared to his writing. Draw your own conclusions.

Flipping between years and settings as if they were interchangeable, Resnais creates uncertainty so skillfully, so innovatively that I can barely seem to review this film based upon one viewing. Cinematography is scrumptious (so is the Organ music, I especially like the way Resnais bounces between scenes, but leaves the music, traditionally, grounded in one setting). The movie actually feels like Eyes Wide Shut, (or at least it's framed like something Kubrick would've attempted) the love affair between a man and a woman - the former who may be inventing details (including the incident itself) and the latter who can barely remember any of it - is breezy, and that's the way Resnais stages it. The whole film is about this affair - but it's left with so little weight, kept so stormy that it barely registers. The rest is pure, unadulterated style. This is one of the great achievements in cinema.

Though most of the dialogue is dubbed and the transfer looks like it was done by an invalid (or equivalent), the first two of Rohmer's absolutely stunning "Moral Tales" series, The Girl at the Monceau Bakery and Suzanne's Career are perfect places to start. Girl stars director Barbet Schroeder as a law student who spies an attractive girl, stakes out her neighborhood during his dinner break, and accidentally falls for a clerk while snacking on cookies at the local bakery. In fact, the story itself passes the time pleasantly, with little connection to any of Rohmer's other work. The story exists merely to serve the ending, however; Schroeder delivers, through voice-over, his justification in choosing one girl over the other. Feels like an introduction; not too shabby, at that. Suzanne's Career, on the other hand, is much longer (almost feature length), much broader, much more reminiscent of the other tales and, finds, in its title character, one of Rohmer's most complex creatures. Suzanne carries her male companions - one treats her as a conquest he can't cut loose of, the other treats her as a distraction - financially and emotionally. As their relationship begins to dwindle, Suzanne - who seems to, at all odds, favor being broke and desperate to being alone - one-ups them. Essentially, she springs the negative space left in the first story. Instead of spelling out a justification for her deeds with the two men, her actions create the moral right. Based upon these two films, Rohmer's penchant for making small talk seem more profound than petty and sculpting romantic situations that seem more literary than melodramatic was evident from square one. Next to La Collectioneuse, Suzanne's Career is probably the best of the six tales.

Yeah, on one hand, its eerie and unsettling stuff, thanks to Peter Weir's decision to reuse most of the tricks he showed off in Picnic at Hanging Rock, but, unlike that film, the sense of abstraction isn't overwhelming enough; quite the contrary: the subject matter seems much ado about nada. The idea that tribal law, the oft-referred to dream time and all the other Aborigine sorcery doings which are being infused into modern life is a fine one - unless coupled with any of the following: characters who don't really exist but decide to stand trial for a murder anyway, a precoming apocalypse that is so rarely talked about in the film but is supposedly a key point (the movie was sold on it in 1977) and, finally, that Richard Chamberlin would all the sudden realize he was part of a tribe in South America, coincidentally, when representing the aforementioned "ghost people". I'm probably more bitter over the decided lack of an actual tidal wave in the film (I was promised by at least three sources), but, nevertheless, it's a strictly tonal picture (as pictures go) and for that, I'll not fault it any more than necessary. Despite its shortcomings, The Last Wave is, in fact, rarely boring and genuinely creepy.

Powerfully illustrating another world with its own rules and its own speed - existing right on top of ours - Menace II Society is told almost too straightforwardly to work as anything but a sideways glance at the state of inner city Los Angeles. The characters range from strong to cardboard (unfortunately, Tyrin Turner, who plays the lead, seems hopelessly upstaged by supporting gangsta Larenz Tate - who never played another character like this again, by the way); the scenario ranges from intriguing to pedestrian, though the direction is first-rate: every single thing feels planned and purposeful, a hard bargain indeed (for first-timers). The contrast between generational values is strong, and certainly underlined, but feels lonesome as the sole source of profundity in the film. Still, its damn shocking in spots (even now, almost a decade later). Followed by, in my opinion, the superior Dead Presidents and the commonplace From Hell.

How High burns an hour of its running time before a viable conflict surfaces. It takes the film less than five minutes to solve that before it returns to pretty much what it is: a ninety minute commercial for gettin' high. Unfortunately, it has more in common with Half Baked than with Up in Smoke. The whole thing plays as if director Dylan wasn't into weed and didn't quite understand the references to toking that drive every single scene. As a result, he directs it as if it were one of the little dialogues which have grown popular preceeding the music in Rap and R & B videos. Method Man and Redman aren't as charming as other marijuana status symbols (Snoop Dogg, for instance) and How High is more unimaginitive than it really ought to be.

Plays unmistakeably like an low-grade Jeunet & Caro/David Lynch concoction (if such a thing existed), never once deviating from that head-splitting stylism that is more obtuse than revelatory. Feels purposefully made for the people that fancy themselves film buffs, but don't recognize more than half the titles in those ridiculous "cult movie" sections in the video store. Strongly underlines the flabbergastingly mammoth (but nevertheless very real) chasm between a shockingly good student movie and a coherent, professionally made film; I like Von Trier, but let's face it, his career is full of films flirt with the redundancy of a what could be called "Professional Student Films"; the Dogme 95 films are proof that he's never actually left film school - or that he's attempting to bring experimental films into the mainstream; Still, its hard not to admire the uncommonly complex, expertly staged camerawork - unless its strung on this slowly maddening half story; Harder still to miss the sparing use of music - an experiment that doesn't pay off, miraculously; Film sounds like an English Language version of a film shot in both the native tongue (Danish) and in English and,  a la Herzog, we're watching the Danish version with English Language dubbed over (which is silly for both of these directors, each popular stateside); This is a proud denizen of the Criterion Collection for Chrissakes, isn't it jungle law that subtitles will be choice, even if the director doesn't want to use them?!

[*Eventually, when the film could no longer keep coherence, it got shut off. I stuck it out for a good hour, though.]

Implausible and counterproductive humanitarian tale (like Pay it Forward or Changing Lanes); one which has inspired more support  thanks to a story that's so un-Farrelly, one which revolves around a guy who strikes out with women that are out of his league and then realizes that he shouldn’t be hung up on looks – thanks to some hypnotherapy. That the audience is given sexy, slender Gwyneth Paltrow in a push-up bra for two hours – the representation of the inner beauty of her fat self as seen through the eyes of Jack Black – is somewhat appalling (someone plain looking would have driven the point home much easier, since he does find love in the person, not their looks). The film’s hook is actually a superficial ploy meant to (badly) mask the fact that we, as a paying audience, wouldn’t sit through a romantic comedy unless the two leads fell under the universally accepted definition of “attractive”. Of course we as an audience know that a movie where two heavyset people fall in love won’t sell, but the trick used to cover it up is so thin (no pun intended) and so shameless, I can’t help but wonder if the film’s well-meaning premise spells more harm than good. (It doesn’t help, also, that the Farrellys' are helpless to do anything interesting, really, with their gimmick – ooooo, everyone but Black sees Paltrow as movie monster huge – but, then, we're not exactly dealing with artists, either). One can spot, quite obviously, that this is a blinking, valiant attempt made by the gross-out duo to spearhead empathy rather than cruelty, but don’t think there aren’t moments that will remind you just what you're actually watching (Jason Alexander calling Black to marvel at the size of a turd is certainly one of these moments). I’m not annoyed that the film is less a comedy than a message movie. The brave new territory has an ironic atonement to it, unfortunately fitted with a tenor that feels more dry than dramatic. If their comedies glimpse their ineptitude at competent direction, Shallow Hal, in all its pseudo-serious glory, puts their inadequacies on a pedastal. Their previous outings could rely on talented goofballs (like Jim Carrey or Ben Stiller) to spin the jokes and keep the momentum going. Here, I come to the following realizations: I like Black better when he’s playing himself rather than attempting to act; Paltrow misfires both her skinny girl with fat girl personality, while her infamous fat suit is nothing more than dimwitted sight gag; Alexander has a ridiculously nerdy accent like a sidekick all grown up trying to pretend he didn’t once star in a popular sitcom; and last, but not least, frequent mafia stereotype Joe Viterelli’s unintentionally hilarious Irish accent seems horribly out of place here (but, honestly,  I doubt there's anywhere it would sound natural). Talk about directors betraying their stars. Only self-help guru Tony Robbins, playing himself, escapes relatively unscathed - treating Black pretty much as we as an audience treat the Farrelly's - he tolerates his immaturity and tries to help him realize it is within him to become better). The Farrellys' haven’t exactly changed their structure very much either. There remains, still, a menagerie of kooky, off-the-wall characters who seem to stride in and out of the film like tourists, visiting the story at hand with little or no preconceived contextual necessity. Also surviving the changeover is the penchant the directors have for including bubble gum goop music over nearly every scene (in their defense, they used twenty seconds of Belle & Sebastian’s “Woman’s Realm”. Twenty seconds.) And believe you me, they’re still investing their characters with the minimum amount of development necessary to amass coherence (although, here, it took my wife and I a good ten minutes to sort the whole thing out anyway; the inconsistent execution of its “eye of the beholder” perspective is as confusing as What Women Want's running commentary of feminine and personal thoughts in Mel Gibson's head ). While they’re trying new things, the Farrellys' may want to have a stab at releasing a movie that's, you know, good.