Further proving himself unable to erect an overcome-the-odds film that doesn't make you feel cheated by the time the credits roll - Jim Sheridan humbly submits In America, a semi autobiographical portrait of a troubled Irish family coming to terms with their lost child (et cetera), and making a home for themselves (cue sappy trailer music) in New York City. The most striking thing about it - besides how easy it is to digest - has got to be the way you feel it; It's the kind of film you picture moving the most cynical and hardened of critics - - especially yours truly. Particularly interesting is the swiveling viewpoint: The movie is really told (from floor level) about the father's continuing strife, but the gaze is appropriated by the camcorder toting older daughter Kristy who, like an old woman looking into a crystal ball, acts as omniscient color commentator, establishing a more lyrical context for her father's actions. As it seems to be constructed so thoroughly of scenes rather than a long, stringing narrative - it appears that it would be a hit or miss affair. It's odd, then, to report that our response seems trigger by the work as a whole; Any hope that its episodic nature would dim the more oppressively familiar sequences may have been abandoned - - but its ends up playing more like a narrative constructed from interesting stories being told by an orator of varying reliability. It also happens to be an actor's movie from the get-go, toting around a banging set of performances. I suppose the word is "marvel"; And you'll do it lots and lots at the charming stiffness of Paddy Considine, the general strength of Samantha Morton, the unparalleled sheep in wolf's clothing reversal of Djimon Hounsou and the absolute magnificence of Sarah and Emma Bolger (as the imagination-drunk children). The best trick (or should I say treat), is the way In America presents typical red flag-hoisting elements like grief over lost children, stranger-in-a-strange-land rejection and fairy tale logic without making itself seem tiresome or manipulative in the least.

After the terrific Duvall set-up - she's living her own delusion - a dreamy atmosphere sets in, relinquishing all hold necessary for this film on reality and, essentially, freeing it from the bonds of conventional construction. You watch characters in movies and they tend to change throughout, assuming a new role by the end of the film (you know, when they've changed). As roles begin to reverse and characters begin to take on personas in 3 Women, they do it ALL AT ONCE - which is incredibly exciting for the viewer. Altman reportedly wrote the whole thing from a series of dreams he had and it fits; Everything activates as if stuck together from
fragmented thoughts, never completely fitting - but pleasantly so. The haunting artwork of elongated, tapestry-looking reptile chicks on pools, walls, etc. might be the runner-up to the silent star of the film if Altman's film: It's dazed and feverish montages (changeovers that remind one of the impregnating daydream in Rosemary's Baby). As it is, the murals complement the piece. Spacek and Duvall are both in top form, particularly the latter - who dreamed up a number of her characters' seemingly endless collection of quirks. Further proof that Altman in the 70s beats pretty much anything (excepting Short Cuts, of course) he would go on to make in the subsequent four decades.

With a self-conscious, hardly exciting Peter Pan at the helm (Sumpter's a total blah) and a Neverland that looks like a car crash between tacky, recycled sets (offset by eye-melting neon CG), it seems pretty much the wrong thing to do, trot out the text from the book and watch the actors - some good, some atrocious - try to wrap their tongues around the old world dialogue. It's like a Shakespeare play where only half of the cast gets it. Though set in the proper time period, the film seems to suffer from pretty much all the same maladies as the updated 1991 film Hook (that film looked much more high tech - which is why I've bothered to frame it around its release year; I'm not daft, really I'm not); The slapstick tomfoolery and mise-en-scene betrays Peter Pan, and leaves an utterly packaged and devastatingly modern residue on the whole affair. What I continue to love about the story - as a by-product - is the way London tends to look in the oopening sequences: Snowy, prim British streets on the outside - cozy, fantasy-laden hominess on the inside. I'm a sucker for the way the house itself feels like a shelter from growing up. If only PJ Hogan's shot at Barrie's penultimate mediation on shelving one's childhood had a smidgen of poetic abstraction or, you know, a touch of artistry. It's almost offensive to witness well-meaning fantasy being flubbed. (I'll stick with the Disney version, thank you very much).

Though occasionally it's that flat funny - the one you feel dumb for laughing at three seconds later - Stuck on You has an oddly warm shimmy to it (probably the same feeling The Brothers Goofball intended to bestow on their horrific Shallow Hal). Without hogging the spoiler warning privilege, I could scarcely even begin to explain the goods nestled late in the film (only to say - it ventures into non-surprising territory with surprising results). In shifting the focus from funny to borderline moving (and, in replacing one-time hopefuls Chris Rock and Woody Allen with pretty boys Kinnear and Damon), the film disposes of a number of  its particularly raucous sequences; The greatest feat to come out of this pressure less comedy is the way variations on the Siamese twin gags don't seem to exhaust themselves or get boring right away. The difference, I think, is that it has been made with a dollup of self-reflection - which goes a long way in eradicating the far-fetched flavor of Bob and Walt's antics. Replacing Hal's fake-feeling sympathy and insincere caring for those who are different with a genuine fraternal glow works big time. (Read: This is a film about the Farrelly Bros.)  Although, why they chose to involve a cautiously self-parodying Cher - nothing if not annoying - is beyond me.

Even better the third time around; Did I notice before how the story seems to foreshadow itself but also create its own path from things that all of the sudden come up? It's like the greatest impromptu stunt of all time, except that instead of the actors coming up with material off the cuff, it's the writer - who bundles the title theme into a set of occurences that are at once self-deprecating and soberly genuine. The whole thing feels as if written in one sitting, allowing any bend or curve from the norm to be answered - but justly - by the mere fact that Kaufman has written himself into the script (the most obvious proof has got to be the invention of Donald, used time and time again to lift Charlie out of any and every jam). And who isn't a sucker for a movie that just continually seems to feel original, even when you've seen it before, know what's coming and can almost comprehend its method?

The premise is broad. And by broad, I mean that in one scene they illustrate impending progression and modernization in the Japanese military by mowing down samurais with a machine gun. Apparently feeling that a good match for something so fundamentally simple-minded would be a huge star, beckoned forth was the world's most popular and wealthy scientologist. His interpretation of the script mingles somewhere in a realm between being a perfect celebrity vehicle (thereby undermining the material, thank god) and being a perfect showcase for his long, luscious hair. While most were content merely to dismiss his obviously hammy display of iwantanoscar-itis in favor of (over) praising Ken Watanabe (who, at the very least, isn't embarrassing), I think it's sad to overlook what may be the single most stunning instance of miscasting in decades. Not only is Cruise unbearably wrong for this part, but he seems to know he's wrong for it, stretching those muscles farther and farther in pursuit of the most intense attitude. He's like Maverick, only not nice and less willing to share the screen with others. And don't think I'm chastising Cruise's decision to buy himself an Oscar nomination (or, at the very least, a Golden Globe nomination); On the contrary - - he made an open-and-shut suckfest into a rousing set of laughs. (At his own expense, of course).

Mostly, because the legend of the rent was way hardcore.

Though Alfie's dated world of casual misogyny and even more casual sex seemed more fitting as a cautionary tale (from my vantage point), it is, without a doubt, a piece of work (period). It is: particularly aimless (structure be damned to hell), seemingly all about vilification (his big U-Turn is kept a little too close to the end for my taste), and is almost always, in some way, challenging its audience (on two levels: one, because it punishes you for buying into its endless charm by constantly judging Alfie, and two, because the first three fourths of it seem to beg that our (anti)hero stand for a whole generation, even though the film plans to dispose of this tactic almost completely at close). But it is also: A gas; Watching Alfie - he's a pleasant cretin most of the time - is kind of like watching one of those eloquent villains who turns out to be the lesser of two evils in super hero films: He's so much more interesting than the alternative, even though his behavior makes him, decidedly, unworthy of a happy ending. That Gilbert still lets him off so easily turns out not to matter so much. Viewed in present day, Alfie is as much a snapshot as it is a larf: Hard to take seriously and hard not to lose yourself in Caine, whose performance could have driven the picture even if its' politics had turned out to be ten times worse than they are. Here's hoping they hang the remake (with Jude Law in the title role) on a much more fitting song (The Divine Comedy's Alfie comes spring loaded to mind) than the extremely famous (and more than a little mediocre) tune belted by - gulp - Cher. The Sonny Rawlings score, though, is excellent.

Comes dangerously close to blowing its wad David Gale-style; Through the use of utterly immoral means to what should be tantamount to a purist moral victory, I again had to tap my reserve of restraint - less so than in that film - and quietly remember to myself that not only is this a movie, but that this is a movie based on a novel by John Grisham. (Though I'm still naive enough to wish that movies could still shoot to live in a world that we can't, i.e. - that a blow to evil (in this case, a gunn company) can be compressed into two hours and reached through legal means and that I might actually feel the same satisfaction - to some extent - that the characters feel at the end of the film). That - for a few reels, anyway - it pretends it could care less about the trial than about the manipulation of the twelve good men (and women) - is truly exciting; As soon as it turns into the sappy vindication story, the whole subculture of jury tampering seems a whole lot less important; It's as if that gimmick was only a selling point and the real goods were, essentially, the usual ones that we already hoped to avoid having to be innundated with yet again. Cusack and Weisz - both playing their stock "opening weekend" characters - spend a great deal of the film entertaining the audience, but their cat and mouse antics really add up to squat; A whole lot of nifty smoke and mirrors brand misdirection meant, mostly, to keep Gene Hackman staring into the lens and uttering those gut busting face melters you heard in the trailer (pointing a phone like a gun for some reason: "You're losing me my jury!"). His big scene with Hoffman - about nineteen scenes too few, I intimate, showing my hand - is staged with such look-at-me alarm thaat it practically stops the movie cold, tapping its foot to wait for everyone to come back from the rest room or the refreshment stand in order to see Our Big Scene; Fleder & Co. obviously know the draw to Grishman films is no longer even remotely relevant and that tossing these two heavyweights into the ring still could be. (And, obviously, I bit right into it; There's no way I was renting this thing if it weren't Hoffman vs. Hackman. To their credit - the walls of sed rest room are obviously juicy and these two leave none of this scenery un-bitten). Cliche's and too-easy social addendum aside, Runaway Jury is a grand and slick Hollywood throwaway that I couldn't preoccupy myself with overanalyzing if I tried.

It's a toss-up whether the pall of chaos drives Dawn of the Dead, or whether it's the endless scenes of people living out Romero's head-splittingly obvious - but not pushy - commentary on the greed and excess of capitalism that make the film so compulsively watchable. One thing's clear, though: It's easily one of the most entertaining horror films in existence. (I'm making this a big deal because most horror films, um, suck, in my opinion). The ironic suspense of watching zombies surround our heroes' oasis of need (doubling as the Monroeville Mall) is truly effective; even though we know full well that they'll eventually bungle it through their unwillingness of share (again, there's nothing subtle about Romero's constant foreshadowing stops and expository pauses). What I found uniquely disturbing - as in Night of the Living Dead - was the portrayal of a mindset that seemms to ritualistically shed its sensitivity to human value. By the end of the film, when Stephen and Peter make their last stand against the rowdy bikers who want to share the safe haven, even myself - an audience member - had temporarily mismatched the difference between zombie and bad guy, live and un-dead. Though it teeters on camp in spots, Dawn of the Dead is an excellent meditation on the desperation of mankind in crisis, a theme that seems to be relevant pretty much any time.

Very much welcoming the dropped jaw (as he will), Guy Maddin finds a terrifically eccentric buzz in rearranging plot points and channeling ballet into the most over told story this side of Romeo & Juliet. It's tightly believable as a (Maddin-brand) silent film - similar in goofballism to both Archanngel and Careful - but seems almost obtrusively buffered by the graceful swinging and winding of the dance; Ostensibly, there's too many scenes where nothing stands between interpretation and flat-out staging, welcoming a flood of tedium into the lens (in short: I'm not big on the long, drawn-out ballet sequences). The cast is nothing if not stunning - especially as dancers; I found myself at very honest odds: Strangely dolling out unofficial props in my noggin to these exceptional performers - even as their art seemed to transform Maddin's Dracula into the un-cinema). There is not a set or a montage that doesn't dazzle - save for three near ten minute flatlines of prancing and tippytoe-in'; Sometimes it's just better to purge the truth: I'm pretty sure that what I'm doing here is recommending it strongly with very, very specific reservations. (Of course, what I'm actually doing is apologizing for my conformity to cliche; Yes, I find ballet to be something less than satisfying and wish so that it weren't fused with film in this particular instance.)

Starts out blazing, flat-out promising a vision of the Baader-Meinhoff Gangs' troubling yet sincere reign of terror and lapses, far too quickly, into a study of psychological dissent. Where the picture lacks promise, and color, it almost makes up for in mileau: We're thrust into life in communist Germany with a main character who truly believes in the cause. For awhile, just viewing the socialist life through a non-damning filter is interesting. Unfortunately, the filter is Rita Vogt - based loosely upon Inge Viet - and her path couldn't be more obvious - or dry - from the get-go (sent to hide, blows her cover, watches the wall come down with tear drops, off to hide again, etc.). Schlöndorff's most famous film, The Tin Drum, used the free-will of an man-boy to protest Hitler's regime and its ill effects; Here, it's clear he's using Rita - - but to what end remains a mystery.

Stupidly, I've pledged to grow my hair like David Hemmings'. I say stupidly because I really suck at getting worthwhile haircuts.

As characters sing every line and clothing begins to match the walls, what excites me most about Demy's film is the way he wields the most bland and simplistic story possible in order to stage these aesthetic experiments, and then - he doesn't, and the story becomes about the sorrow of coincidence, seen from an alternate perspective, and strong in the emotion to boot. Deneuve - in the role that made her - is easily one of the most beautiful creatures ever committed to celluloid; Her performance matches this claim - she gradually shifts from likable to wronged and, finally, to cold all without seeming to. The final moments REALLY tweak the juice (I'd be very surprised to find myself alone on that. Very surprised).

Never seems to transcend its on-display lack of a story element; That said, it evokes the chaos and paranoia of the time period with edgy crackle. The famed Democratic National Convention sequence, though, is a wash - it's about five minutes of screen time and feels as if limited by its own devices. Helps that Forster is such a strong, but flawed character - even if he has nothing more than the reappearing shell of a narrative to cling to. (Wexler can't pull the formless-but-not-really structure off nearly as well as those who would attempt it after him like Terence Malick or David Gordon Green (Terrence Malick, Jr.) So, near as I can figure, a photo journalist for a TV News show - with a few grim things to say about the audience - gets fired for exploring what's "real" and finds himself projecting this as generosity and warmth to a West Virginia woman and her fatherless teenager (all in the ghettos of Chicago). The riots and military actions remind us, constantly, that the times they are a-changin', but the film seems to have been conceived very clearly to make a very strong statement. Because that's obvious from the get-go, the fictional escapades of a camera operator slumming with a saucer-eyed backwoodswoman feels almost unnecessary, certainly removed. I found myself almost uninterested in the characters, except as catalysts for Wexler's brilliant cinematrography. (Or, let's release my portfolio and say that it's a movie).

Nails every aspect of the comic book world twofold: Tim Burton style and metropolitan whirligig (dig those sets and matte paintings, man!) Inevitably works because Keaton's a terrific Bruce Wayne and a decent Batman and The Joker is a wildly free-reigning Jack Nicholson barrage. Yep, Summer's right - this was one of the quintessential movies of the season (in its day).

More historical
pictures get released - -
the better it looks.

[If you want to follow the cycle, it rolls thusly: Theatrical was a C, due mostly - I feel now, looking back - to excessive hype and a curious clickingg noise that distracted me throughout the viewing; Proven when it first hit video and I was willing to parcel out what I liked most and give it the standard middle of the road grade (B-) only to ammend almost everything I wrote two days later (after a long conversation with my wife, conducted partially while I was on the toilet); Only to be put into action upon third viewing, three months later, when I found myself astonished by how much I could give myself over to the film as a drug and leave my wits stuck to the back wall of my mind. This time, the film is almost completely successful (in my opinion) - especially against the backdrop of my recent viewing of the ill-conceived Troy - and in the sense that Russell Crowe did not serve as a fizzling icon, but remains as steadfast and unwavering in the beefcake intelligence department as he did when I first saw him in L.A. Confidential.]