Not as full of exasperating hilarity via multiple quips and puns as Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming, this one's set on the idea that it's saying something somehow profound about relationships - which it really isn't. But it does, onn the other hand, have a Billy Wilder brand stunt at center: Lester, a jealous lover joining a group therapy session with his lover's ex, Dashiell (played by the great Chris Eigeman in all his pompous glory), is simultaneously aiding his childhood friend Vince by using Vince's problems at session instead of his own. It might have been an episode of Seinfeld if it weren't so indie-preachy.

Signs is now a mythical expectation, the kind of film I've become excited about re-experiencing. Shyamalan's bravely un-self conscious style - a unique blend of ER-ish artsy-grandstanding and sparse, dry humor - plays, a second time, like a drug: we know what's coming, but we love what it does to us. The classical American family is an intimate, troubled thing and, much like Spielberg did in E.T., Shyamalan makes the realness of the Hess family transcend their admittedly mechanized problems, and bring forth a remarkable chemistry. In the end, we care so much for these characters, it's hard to believe. The grounded, eerily natural way they deal with a outside force (in this case, Aliens invading the world) invests in the movie such a serious air - that it's almost grave. If not for Shyamalan's wit, this film might merely have been surprisingly moving. As it is, Signs is a scary, funny, terrific time at the movies. The most fun I've had there - during the summertime - in years.

It's not the experiment that sacrifices narrative - and that's maybe the best thing about Herzog's decidedly intimate (by comparison) film, Heart of Glass. That the cast were hypnotized adds that air of numb fluidity the great German director was striving for - but the film never gels, exactly. He'ss fashioned a film that manages little more than a picturebook glance at a town which is, he suggests, at the edge of a supposed flat world they never knew was round. The beautiful nuttiness of Herzog's characters makes everything seem much more together than it really is; there wooden-for-a-point presence, though, gets old real fast. The film is somehow shapeless, but, nevertheless, poetically stimulating. It's also one of those movies where you have to be told what it's about.  Repeatedly. I look forward to seeing Heart of Glass a second time.

It's all Shohei Imamura brand lonelyhearts-finds-one-in-a-million, low-key Japanese conservative filmmaking (which is a feat, coming, as it is, from Takashi Miike, maker of the infamous - in my book anyway - The Happiness of the Katakuris). Then there's piano wire. And severed limbs. And Miike makes the transition from fortune to horror, holds it in mid-air, then lets it come down, landing on its side - revealing that fortune and horror are pretty much the same thing. What bright, pleasant news. The film is stylized to evoke a powerful air of suspicion, almost from the start; one by one, all of the protagonist's friends, as if they belonged to some underground psychic network, tell him not to pursue the hot, young would be actress he scouted in a phony audition session. We know its too late for him from the start, most notably because he wears that fated, sad grimace on his mug. A character, later on, says "Unhappy people can't act well". Holds more meanings than you might think.

Grady Tripp. Was ever a better role model for twentysomething would-be writers grafted to the screen?

By the end of 12 Monkeys, you can feel the monotony of free will vs. predestination almost to a fault. But, it's still got a momentum that has to be seen to be believed. The real trick is how Gilliam made enough sense of the purposefully convuluted-to-hell script to be able to disappoint us with such a commonplace ending. You feel like it's supposed to resonate and stand for something bigger. But somehow Bruce Willis is unable to communicate that with any skill. Perhaps he spends too much time brooding before his character knows he should be brooding. Not in direct possession of the mad, how-did-they-fund-this?! jitter of Brazil, to say the least.

Repetitious from start to finish - but it's hard to be bored by it. Dieter Dengler's tales of horror and misery in a Vietnamese Prison Camp are as captivating as they are nauseating. Herzog's macabre sense of humor in two forms: as he directs Dengler in a re-enactment of his plight is on the tasteless side, while a sly MST3K-esque commentary Herzog provides for a 1967 U.S. Army Combat Survival Training Film demonstrates how clever and funny Herzog can be. Herzog's obsessively striking composition, as ever, drives the piece. Nevertheless, as Dieter is never boring - not once, not even in flashbacks (which is a huge feat in itself) - Little Dieter Needs to Fly is consistent, at least, at being entertainment. Still, is that a word I could see myself maybe associating Herzog? I'm too conflicted to answer.

That shiny, clean cinematography almost acts as drug to help us forget how silly most of what we are watching turns out to be. Leto is so memorably insane, he upstages good performances by Forrest Whitaker and Dwight Yoakam. Jodie Foster is never more than distracted. The film is such an entertaining throwaway, though, that I managed to watch it before realizing how hypocritical it must be to view it a second time after all the bitching and moaning I did when it first opened in theaters.

Not a huge digression for Rohmer - it is still a talk fest, after all - but the abstract sets and relatively loose narrative certainly don't fall within his trademark. The first act, where we follow Perceval as he trudges, good luck in tow, to an ultimate truth, is often very entertaining. The second act, where we follow a random knight, who ends up shacking up with a woman whose father he had slain, is dry as a bone. Anyone who can tell me why the third act is Perceval re-enacting the ordeal and crucifixtion of Jesus - step up to the plate. An interesting experiment - nothing more.

Guaranteed emotional response. And use of phony accent for weeks. Also, it's still one of my ten best of all time.

All the attitudes are so American: from the 'Leave it to Beaver' style "Modern Japan" look of the postwar fifties, to the interesting but generally buried story of two flatulent youths giving their parents the silent treatment until they receive a television, to the gossipy wives of men - everyone constantly complaining of being poor but looking rather comfortable. Maybe it was the flatulence in an Ozu movie I had a little trouble with.

Cassavettes film, I assume in the awkwardly scattershot framing and often mega-indulgent ensemble improv, purports to reveal even the very shadows of these people. Not likely, but, he does manage to create more engrossing scenes of these subterranean-esque New York lifestyles than a Velvet Underground album. At the very least, it made me want to see more of his work.

Faces' had some absolutely amazing moments - and some can't-I-fast-forward-and-still-retain -my-cineast-dignity indulgence; couldn't decide if this is the dual nature of using alcohol to fuel your actors (if so, it's more bad than good I think) or if, perhaps, the long, rambling scenes where actors sing/dance/and generally be incoherent were saying something in another language I couldn't yet read (like the Mothman communicating with me via Seymour Cassel).

Sometimes we revisit the eighties and it's fun and jolly and everybody has a good time, whether you're laughing at how silly we used to be or how silly certain occurences are. And sometimes, laughter just isn't an option.

Never really all that penetrating (I'll submit, I was looking for answers), it prefers to do the documentary part of it's scant, sixty minute running time almost entirely in the dark. No one really knew Nick Drake - but, is that enough? As it is - using valuable screen time to make and remake said point - NO ONE KNEW HIM, THANK YOU VERY MUCH - doesn't qualify as watchable entertainnment. If the whole film were merely interior and exterior landscapes that the young, tragic genius of Drake once inhabited - his room, in particular - with his sad, beautiful music playing over it - A Skin Too Few would have been amazing (the rapturous camerawork comes from Lithuanian cinematographer, Vladas Naudzius).  Like I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (seen as part of a double feature at WIFF), there are worse ways to spend an hour than listening to great music. Obviously.

(to bartender) "I like that you drink", says the struggling writer, attempting to figure out where his life will take him just as fast as he can. "Otherwise, I'd feel like I was being poisoned".