A far better film on second bounce, mostly because you already possess the wisdom to mentally tone down the Chandleresque zig-zag of the narrative. It's never going to be Casablanca - despite its desperately cold yet encapsulating ending - but the spirit of the thing is what counts far more than its success, on its own two feet, as a tale of the political turf wars in recently fallen Berlin. Tobey McGuire is still the highlight; Aside from playing completely against type, he's not nearly as boring as Clooney or Blanchett seem to be (a befuddler in and of itself in my opinion).

The most disappointing thing is that its context is as lame as the typical frames on a STV fan concert (looks and feels like an episode of Mr. Show, but unfortunately becomes genuine and seems to lose its joke as the 19th century reject bounces with the crowd, not quite looking like the universal convert I expect Jim James was hinting at); The most exciting thing is how giddily energetic the band is and how the somewhat minimal coverage is frequently transcended by their stage presence, itself as thrillingly multi-genre as their music: They look and sound like power-ballad rockers, alt-country rockers, space rockers and hippie rockers.

What I've always liked most is the way it teeters on a powerfully liberating - and casually dangerous - attitude and its own mockery of this same attitude. It certainly doesn't always pull it off (more often than not, it's frustrating to see it excelling so beautifully at one or the other without actually comingling), but it has always had a desirable, osmotic effect, the same kind of all-encompassing intoxication one gets when seeing a really stellar, eccentric leading performance: You become the character or the film for a time after viewing it. It's something I've always felt worthwhile and one of the few sensations that seems to continue to exist in our modern, perpetually distracted cinemagoing collective.

The sober universalities, however parceled into familiar, safely bite-size Paul Haggis criss-crosses, still seem to carry the honor and sincerity we readily apply to that time period. Kazunari Ninomiya's fragile, entirely compelling baker Saigo is endearing in a way that none of the characters in Flags of Our Fathers were. Ditto for Ken Watanabe's General Kuribayashi, one of those deeply lived-in men of strength and wisdom who seem to be able to see their fatal flaw - unwavering nationalism - as some kind of badge of honor, forever just nearly convincing an audience so fervently led with a level-headed perspective that this patriotism is a valuable thing. So, let's summate: An American director arguing for the conviction of Japanese soldiers despite the obvious boobery in their top-ranking strategy department. It's likely a great number of American directors would lack the nuance to make this point without the occasional tip of the red, white and blue hat. What makes this a return to form (in my opinon) for Eastwood is the relative simplicity of the whole thing: He just gets the hell out of its way.

I loved the way it seemed to simply be framed around a sort of detached roundtable discussion wherein the band just rattled off, candidly, their memories and wisdom and the documentarian was only about to toss in photos and old footage from time to time.

Malick shows his illuminating distaste for conventional narrative presentation, backdropping two solid meditations on the ever unchanging twirl of romantic love versus respectful love in the initial days of America's colonization. And it looks so unbelievably gorgeous, you just want to melt into it. There, I said it. Something really, really embarrassing.

I was struck this time - watching it in a van on the way to a wacky evening on The Spirit of St. Philadephia of Mediocrity - by Mamet's insistence on the purity of thhriller chops (nothing new) and on making Sam Rockwell's character seem lame even for a Mamet Lame (new discovery). It bounced up on the Top Ten List, you'll see (and in grade) mostly because those lists are fast becoming unstable collections of a little more maturity and honesty and Heist is a film I enjoy in the realm of timeless pleasure. Hyperbole alert: Mamet makes indelible masterpieces when he makes films.