DVD of the Week: Little Children

This satiric suburban tragedy persistently threatened to become the sleeper Best Picture nominee of the past award season, but ultimately slid under the radar nabbing nods for Best Actress - Kate Winslet, Supporting Actor - Jackie Earle Haley, and Adapted Screenplay - Todd Field & Tom Perrotta nonetheless. It's chilly box office reception leads me to believe that most people have yet to see it and that's just a shame. Winslet stars opposite Patrick Wilson (Hard Candy, "Angels In America," those moronic gap ads where Claire Danes dances) as an emotionally depleted suburban housewife in pursuit of a soul awakening new experience that takes the shape of an affair with the father of her daughter's playmate (Wilson). That's only the half of it, though, as Haley stars too in the film's most captivating role - a former sex offender released from prison and finding suburbia to be as dismal a home as his jail cell. The former Bad News Bears child star is half-creepy, half-soulful in the role and turns it into a magnetic tour de force of uncertainty. The entire film fancies itself a boldly plotted look at suburban hypocrisy and the crass artifice of Middle America, and thankfully it succeeds on all counts. The performances are wonderful. Its screenplay is the perfect blend of jolting darkness and twisted bleak humor. Todd Field is even more masterful in directing this, his second feature, than he was the first time around with the also compelling In The Bedroom. One of the few flawless films of 06, this is a movie not to be missed.

Trailers: The Golden Age

Cate Blanchett reprises her Academy Award nominated role as Elizabeth I in The Golden Age, the sequel to the 1998 film Elizabeth. Geoffrey Rush also returns for a second time with Clive Owen and Samantha Morton creating new roles for this second feature. Reportedly, the story will pick up 15 years ahead of where Elizabeth left off and focus on the Queen's relationship with Sir Walter Raleigh (Owen). It's due to be released October 12th which puts it in prime position for the Oscar campaign it's bound to run. Below is a link to the international trailer for the film.

Trailer:

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/scp_v3/viewer/index.php?pid=16469&rn=240896&cl=2513245&ch=1152231

Trailers: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I'm not the biggest of Potter-philes (I've read five books out of six and truly enjoyed just one film of the four produced - Alfonso Cuarón’s more inventive third installment to be specific), but I've still mustered my fair share of anticipation for the upcoming 5th film in the franchise, most particularly for the performance of Imelda Staunton, acclaimed character actress and Academy Award nominee for Vera Drake, as the overbearing Dolores Umbridge. Also joining the cast this time around is Helena Bonham Carter (Fight Club, Big Fish) as baddie Bellatrix Lestrange. The film will be released July 13th, 2007.

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/harrypotterandtheorderofthephoenix.html;_ylt=AoeTAdNfthjctPRLiOTxc2JfVXcA

The Invisible

The Invisible is a sloppily assembled thriller full of flat performances and dull dialogue. Its beginning skulks along like some horrid after school special, and even though it eventually finds some narrative footing, it still cannot deliver something fully satisfying. It’s mostly just a half-baked film overall, which, I guess is better than being a complete disaster. The general premise of the film revolves around high school golden boy Nick Powell, (Justin Chatwin) who is left for dead after being accused of ratting out a brooding, burglary prone classmate named Annie (Margarita Levieva) and finds himself wandering around the remnants of his life as an invisible specter hoping to reunite itself with his barely breathing body. Chris Marquette also stars as Nick’s best friend as does Academy Award winner Marcia Gay Harden as Nick’s icy mother in mourning.

The problem with the film’s beginning is simply that the movie actually turns too dark too fast. Within minutes you’ve got dead parents, drunken parents, violent assaults, robberies, fights, tears and every other soap opera device under the sun being employed even though the characters are supposed to simply be average 18 year-olds. It’s a stretch to say the least. I’m all for dark storytelling, but when you pile on so much with so little honest dramatic power to back it up, it all just ends up seeming false and contrived. The movie never really earns its darkness. It simply wears it like a costume. It shuffles through one lame façade after another achieving commitment to tone only in a few fleeting glimpses of solid storytelling. After getting past the oversold suburban dystopia scenario that wreaks havoc on the film’s first third or so, you get to its sort of entertaining if completely preposterous core. The circumstances of Nick’s death are so stupid and so unbelievable that it takes a while for you to forget and be willing to accept the situation as it exists, with Nick trying to connect to his killer just enough to prove he is alive and convince her to find his body. Nick’s post mortem bond to the troubled Annie becomes a solid narrative conceit even if Goyer lays in the melodrama a little too strongly. Too many scenes, though, even in this somewhat successful segment just don’t connect as they need too. As Nick reconnects with his life, it’s so obvious that his death will realign his perspective that watching it all happen seems tedious.

Even the good parts of this film get compromised by David Goyer’s muddled, mood killingly manic directorial style. Goyer is a director overly fond of his own technique. He deadens many scenes with unneeded camera tricks and music so savvy it reeks of desperation. You might think the movie is moving along nicely, but then suddenly Goyer will toss in a functionless crane shot or two, some weird slow motion moments, and meld it together with a Snow Patrol song that you’ve probably already heard a dozen times already and which doesn’t fit at all with the tone of the film.

After getting lost in theatrics and meandering melodrama, the film finally closes with an obnoxiously preposterous and unexplained scene of supposed sadness (with a random crane shot, of course). Then, it launches into an even more despicable coda sequence that is probably one of the most inappropriately schmaltzy endings I have ever seen. Oh, and of course, there’s yet another crane shot just in case you hadn’t had your full of unnecessary swooping camera movements just yet.

Grade: C

Trailers: The Brothers Solomon

I think it's safe to say that The 40 Year Old Virgin has become the prototype for mainstream Hollywood comedies, which is actually a good thing. Will Ferrell might still be going strong (sadly), but aside from his own inexplicably successful star vehicles, his brand of utterly, annoyingly broad humor seems to be dying out in the general film landscape. The new crop of summer comedies reflect a quirkier, softer stupidity as demonstrated once again with the just released trailer for The Brothers Solomon from "Mr. Show" star Bob Odenkirk who has a long history making oddball humor with dramatic bite (my personal favorite is his widely unseen festival fave Melvin Goes to Dinner). "SNL" star Will Forte wrote the film and stars alongside "Arrested Development" alum Will Arnett and his "SNL" co-star Kristen Wiig. The general premise revolves around two dopey brothers with limited romantic prowess determined to make a baby in time for their ailing father to see his first grandkid. The release date is scheduled for September 7th, but it's been getting shuffled around a lot lately, so that could change. The website below gives you the chance to see both the "General Audiences" and "R rated" trailers. In this case, I think the one for "R" audiences really adds a little something more.

Trailer:
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thebrotherssolomon/index.html

Trailers: Superbad

The 40 Year Old Virgin director Judd Apatow has everyone talking about his new comedy Knocked Up (you can find that trailer somewhere in the archives here), but he's also producing another, more low key summer comedy that looks like it might be even better. Knocked Up and Virgin star Seth Rogen co-wrote and stars in Superbad for director Greg Mottola (The Daytrippers). "Arrested Development" star Michael Cera and Accepted's Jonah Hill play the films central high school geeks as they navigate the final weeks of school and hope for the best. If anything, this looks like it could come close to being a "Freaks & Geeks" for the big screen, something Apatow would know a good deal about. The film is due to be released on August 17th. You can see the trailer at the link below or if you more interested in seeing the "R rated" trailer, then you can head over to AreYouSuperBad.com for more content. I personally think the censored one actually turned out funnier, but you can decide for yourself.

Trailer:

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/superbad/mclovinapproved

Red Road

First time director Andrea Arnold makes a remarkable impact with her debut film, Red Road. She sets herself up outright to be a purist voice in cinema that is as uncompromised and authentic as a filmmaker could be. Technically, Red Road is a thriller, but it unfolds in such precise rhythms and with such brilliant ambiguity that it’s hard to really group it together with the uninspiring dud action movies calling themselves thrillers these days. It’s much more of a beautiful, melancholic, and utterly chilling character drama than anything else.

Kate Dickie leads the film with a stoic, strangely moving performance as Jackie, a woman working in a 24 observation booth that tracks the every movement of citizens on the streets of Glasgow, a place naturally Orwellian enough to seem like a sci-fi parable without exaggeration. Political observance is merely subtext here, though. The principal plot, which I will spoil as little as possible since the film savors its ability to withhold information, focuses on Jackie’s process of grieving. She is a withdrawn observer, connecting in fleeting moments with people she watches on her monitors as she recovers from mourning the death of her family. One day she spots a man from her past on her screen and feels compelled to confront him. She slowly begins to make her way into his world and the film proceeds to explore her actions and the emotional damage they represent, leading to a hopeful bit of satisfaction on her behalf.

Dickie’s most astounding quality is the way she gives nothing away throughout the film. She doesn’t express for us any obvious signs of what she intends for the mysterious stranger. We watch her knowing nothing, and expecting that anything could happen at any time. It’s also refreshing to see a film bravely make its heroine somewhat dour and unlikable while characterizing the presumed villain (you’ll get there eventually) as perhaps not all that horrible. There are a handful of sluggish moments here, but the technique involved is deeply precise and not at all lethargic without reason. It eases slowly into territory as rich and dark as anything I’ve seen of late.

Grade: A-

DVD of the Week: 10 Items Or Less

This simple and delightful character comedy from writer/director Brad Silberling barely registered in theaters last year, but it stands a chance to find an audience on DVD. Morgan Freeman gives a casual, funny performance in the self-deprecating role of a voice over prone movie star whose name is never mentioned. It's not necessarily meant to be Freeman himself, but riffing on bad career choices, you get the feeling that he's bringing a lot of personal experience to the role. Considering how tragic he's been in so many films as a dozen different old-timers of various types and specialties, it is really exciting to see him lighten up and have a good time in something. He stars opposite the charming Mexican actress Paz Vega (Spanglish) in what amounts to sort of a small town, Americana interpretation of Lost In Translation. Freeman is researching a role as a grocery store manager for a new film and becomes taken with the cashier working in the "10 items or less" line. Together they go about their day, bringing joy and inspiration to one another in a pretty straightforward and foreseeable way that's only tacky once and cloying just twice (a new record for a movie of this sort, I think). It's a thin-plotted, well written film that follows the gradual advancement of their daylong friendship with wonderful detail and refreshing personality.

Also new to DVD this week is Stephen Frears' The Queen. Helen Mirren gives maybe her best performances (and in her case that's really saying something) as Elizabeth, England's reigning queen of perhaps dated ideals. In the wake of Princess Diana's death, she shows no remorse as is royal custom, but finds the nation crying out for public affection despite her wishes. Michael Sheen is also magnificent as Prime Minister Tony Blair who at first disapproves of the queen's stubbornness but soon falls into line with her regal authority. It's perhaps one of most inexpressive of 2006's acclaimed films, but there is most assuredly great care taken with each subtle frame. Something about this feels too rigid and methodical for my taste, but I still have great respect for it and all its participants.

News: The Return of the Coen Bros.

Focus Features sent out a very promising press release today discussing the impressive upcoming schedule of films they're producing in affiliation with the British company Working Title as well as their general objectives for the coming months. Chief among these is the resuscitation of the recently dormant careers of Joel and Ethan Coen, who made one of my all time favorite films, Fargo, before descending into an abyss of suck that topped out with the deadly stupid Tom Hanks comedy The Ladykillers. Early buzz on their latest projects is highly positive. Rumor has it they've finally found some of the classic Coen mojo that made them film icons in the first place. Here's hoping.

NEW YORK, April 24, 2007 – Academy Award-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen will write, produce, and direct their next two films for Focus Features and Working Title Films. The two projects are A Serious Man and the dark spy comedy Burn After Reading. The latter feature will star Academy Award winners George Clooney and Frances McDormand; Brad Pitt has newly joined the cast, and production is set to begin in late summer. Focus CEO James Schamus and Working Title co-chairs Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner made the announcement today.

The Coens are currently completing post-production on the feature No Country for Old Men, which world-premieres at next month’s Cannes International Film Festival. Mr. Clooney is currently in production on Leatherheads, which he is directing and starring in. As star and executive producer, Ms. McDormand has just begun filming in the U.K. for Focus on Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, which also stars Amy Adams for director Bharat Nalluri. Mr. Pitt will soon be seen with Mr. Clooney in Ocean’s Thirteen, as well as in The Assassination of Jesse James, and is currently filming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Messrs. Bevan and Fellner, who will executive-produce the two films, have had a long association with the Coens; Fargo (which won Oscars for Ms. McDormand as Best Actress and for the Coens in the Original Screenplay category), The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? (for which Mr. Clooney won a Golden Globe Award), and The Man Who Wasn’t There were all made by the Coens with Working Title.

Focus president of production John Lyons has also previously collaborated with the Coen brothers extensively, as casting director on their features Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo and The Big Lebowski.

Mr. Schamus said, “Joel and Ethan are the gold standard in American filmmaking. To have the chance to make not one but two films with them – along with our friends at Working Title – makes all of us at Focus proud.”

Messrs. Bevan and Fellner commented, “We’re delighted to be collaborating with the Coen Brothers anew, and to be partnered again with James and his team at Focus, on two such especially exciting new projects.”

Working Title Films is Europe’s leading film production company, making movies that defy boundaries as well as demographics. In addition to Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz (the U.K. boxoffice smash which Focus’ sibling company Rogue Pictures released across the U.S. this past weekend) and Steve Bendelack’s blockbuster Mr. Bean’s Holiday (opening nationwide in the U.S. on August 31st), Working Title’s 2007 slate also includes Shekhar Kapur’s The Golden Age, the long-awaited follow-up to the celebrated Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush, and Samantha Morton (due out in the fall); and Adam Brooks’ Definitely, Maybe, starring Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Derek Luke, Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, and Rachel Weisz.

Working Title’s hit Pride & Prejudice, directed by Joe Wright, was handled by Focus Features domestically, earning 4 Academy Award nominations last year. Focus is also the domestic distributor of Working Title’s Atonement, reteaming Mr. Wright with leading lady Keira Knightley and also starring James McAvoy and Romola Garai, which will be released in the U.S. in December.

Focus Features (www.focusfeatures.com) is a motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company committed to bringing moviegoers the most original stories from the world’s most innovative filmmakers.

In addition to Atonement, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Burn After Reading, and A Serious Man, upcoming Focus Features releases include Lajos Koltai’s Evening, starring Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Natasha Richardson, Mamie Gummer, Eileen Atkins, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close; Kasi Lemmons’ Talk to Me, starring Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor; Shane Acker’s animated fantasy epic 9, starring Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly; Henry Selick’s stop-motion animated feature Coraline, starring Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher; David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, starring Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts; Terry George’s Reservation Road, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly, and Mira Sorvino; Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes; and Lust, Caution, the new film from Ang Lee, the Academy Award-winning director of Focus’ worldwide success Brokeback Mountain.

Focus Features, Rogue Pictures, and Working Title Films are part of NBC Universal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBC Universal is 80% owned by General Electric and 20% owned by Vivendi.

In The Land Of Women

In the Land of Women is the sort of good intentioned movie that I hate to insult, but just can’t help calling pathetic. Somewhere around the middle of this film, amid one of the many anonymous confessional conversations that happen at random and often in seemingly inappropriate situations, Adam Brody’s Carter Webb (as paltry and insufficient a millennial attempt to recreate Benjamin Braddock as ever there was) talks about how in reading his old love letters to his girlfriend (now ex) he realized that it was the best writing he’d ever done (he's currently slumming as a pornography screenwriter) because they had a naïve, idealistic tone. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with the whole film. Maybe writer/director Jonathan Kasdan truly thought that by being blunt, maudlin, and utterly unimaginative he could make something “honest.” I certainly believe that he had the best intentions. The film seems too personal for him to have sabotaged his own work. It’s just that it handles death, adultery, and numerous other serious issues with an unaffecting, faux sincerity marked further by numerous badly placed attempts at somewhat obscene humor. It’s also packed full of clichés. Every teenager talks in bizarre lingo so densely unnatural that they sound as though they might be mentally handicapped. And that’s far from its worst offense.

The general premise here is that after being dumped by his beautiful actress girlfriend, Carter heads home to care for his ailing grandma and rethink his life. By the way, Olympia Dukakis, as Carter’s uncomprising and vaguely unhinged Grandma is the shining light in this mostly unfunny and contrived film. While he’s dealing with his darling grams, he meets an older woman named Sarah (Meg Ryan) and begins instantly telling her everything there is to know about his life and she hers. Then he meets her daughter, a younger high school girl, and repeats this process. By the end of the movie he’s kissed both women, written one a love letter and I still have no idea if either pair was ever together or how they went from total strangers to near lovers in hardly any time at all. There are so many dumb little moments thrown in that I couldn’t keep track of the soap opera stupid romantic entanglements. Carter kisses the already married Sarah in the rain, she tells him she has cancer, and then suddenly we’re at a kegger and Carter seems to in no way be reacting to what has just happened (seemingly something significant). By the end of the night, he’ll kiss Sarah’s daughter and talk to his ex on the phone with clear intentions of winning her back. Apparently, he’s gaming all the women in Michigan and beyond, and yet he’s supposed to be a sensitive would be serious screenwriter? It just makes no sense. There are honestly moments in this film where I wondered if a scene wasn't somehow missing. It was as though every character was either debilitatingly stupid or simply followed no emotionally consistent progression. They say things that seem clearly out of character and do things that make us wonder what they're thinking. It's not that they're suprising us. They're simply being moronic. Maybe this was editted badly. Maybe it was just not capable of financially affording certain scenes. I have no idea. There is no question that it's badly made, though.

Worst of all is that Ryan’s shrilly performed cancer victim goes through what should be troubling emotional developments (chemo, loss of hair) and yet somehow that’s just a puzzle piece in the jumble of this messed up movie. Her struggle feels so false that it stings with frustration. Making a serious film requires responsibility and integrity. Kasdan’s work has turned real life difficulties into obnoxious trifles full of cutesy dialogue that bleeds their emotional power dry. There are a handful of moments that work here, but they’re stuck in a body of work that just does not deliver its promise of sincere storytelling. Sarah doesn’t just have issues with her daughter. She doesn’t just have cancer. She doesn’t just have a cheating husband. She has everything at once and yet none of it matters because it’s all delivered like a checklist of middle aged woes that make for “good drama.” Had she had a clear arc, or a truer sounding collection of dialogue, we might feel for her, but why bother? The film does not show her the meticulous concern that she deserves and as an audience, we cannot be expected to create feeling out of material that offers none to us.

Grade: D+

Disturbia

After setting an unexpected standard of integrity with roles in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints and Bobby last year, former Disney star Shia LaBeouf is now making strides toward becoming a commercial film star. His goofball next door persona is front and center in Disturbia, an awkwardly and stupidly named film, (suburbia is so disturbed! Disturbia!) that more or less amounts to a competent reimagining of Rear Window for the digital age. Anyone with a cynical edge might want to steer clear as making negative comparisons to the Hitchcock classic are somewhat inevitable, but as far as teen films and thrillers go, this one is one of the best of late.

LaBeouf’s Kale is a juvenile delinquent under house arrest who decides to spend his time indoors peering out at the suburban scandals of his neighbors, particularly paying attention to the brand new girl next door, Ashley (Sarah Roemer). Eventually the two become friends and along with Kale’s best pal Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), they begin peering into the life of Mr. Turner, (David Morse) the strange guy across the street who they tease might be the serial killer reported on the local news, and turns out to actually be a more likely suspect than they’d originally imagined.

The film gets by largely on Morse’s ability to be eerily ambiguous. He makes Turner a menace from a certain perspective while leaving room for the interpretation that this is all just the product of some very bored teenagers’ warped imaginations. LaBeouf is also due credit, for the pretty much effortless, Cusack-y ease and eagerness he lends to the pseudo-loser role at the film’s center. He’s part hyper schoolboy and part compassionate loner. It all factors into the nicely melded genre mesh of the murder mystery world of the film and the more straightforward but equally effective drama side that bolstered by LaBeouf and his chemistry with costars Roemer and Yoo. You’re not going to get much originality out of this one, but you’ll be surprised by exactly how eerie, fun, and effective a retread can be.

Grade: B+

Vacancy

Foregoing almost all of the gruesome Saw-esque predilections of the modern horror flick, Vacancy delivers a solid, entertaining, and very old fashioned white-knuckle thrill ride. It’s far more of a suspenseful film than a gratuitous one. It revisits a time when the very possibility of a serial killer lurking outside your door was fodder enough to haunt your dreams. Now, of course, most films barely even tease at the fear of the unknown preyed upon by thrillers like these. They simply open up the door for the killer and proceed to photograph the disembowelment of as many young people as possible.

In this scenario, David and Amy Fox (Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale respectively) get sidetracked while looking for a back road and end up in a small deserted town. When their car breaks down (perhaps not by accident?) they hike to the nearest motel. It’s the sort of place that only exists in horror movies – no adjacent buildings, crud covered windows, eerily bright neon signs that seem a little too enthusiastic for you to enter. Even the untouched 70s décor inside feels like something straight out of the Overlook Hotel albeit cheaper and dirtier. It’s one of the delights of this movie that it lets its modern day leads be as naïve as they are. Have they not seen The Shining? It’s almost campy in the way that it tries to pretend that the film itself is taking place in the past (cell phones go out the window very quickly and what’s left is pretty much barbaric hand to hand combat). The need to fight comes after David pops in a VHS tape (again, no DVD?) and discovers that the “honeymoon suite” they’re occupying has been the location of various snuff films. More importantly, in choosing to stay at the motel, he and his wife have just elected themselves to become the stars of a film of their own.

Trapped inside their motel room, the couple must rely on intuition to try and find a way out of their perilous circumstance. The odds are stacked against them, though, since their captors know the lay of the land and they are merely fumbling in the dark toward a car that won’t even start. The movie then launches into an above average series of authentically creepy chase sequences and frightful near misses. There’s actually not all that much blood shed when you think about it, but the sheer terror of it feels far more excruciating than watching beating hearts being removed. There’s a handful of idiotic moments and a maybe questionable conclusion, but compared with most horror movies of the day, this one gets more thrills out of its audience than most. In fact, I’m rarely irked by anything from the horror genre, but this one is so absent of the modern clichés that it truly chills and surprises.

Probably my biggest complaint with the movie is the casting of the banally beautiful Beckinsale and Wilson to play the leads. In a film like The Shining you have strange, compelling personalities like Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall steering the ship, but here you simply have two actors who look as though they’ve just stepped out of a photoshoot for a GAP ad. They severely diminish the low key eeriness of the film and really damage the front end of the movie that attempts to build up relatability with the two characters. They’re marriage is failing and they’ve lost a child, but all of this sounds so contrived coming from these actors. They’ve both done well in superior films from the past, but neither can really give life to the admittedly thin back-story this movie is peddling. Too bad, then, that this back-story comprises a solid 20-30 minutes of the already brief film. It would have desperately improved the movie if more interesting talents that were capable of making such sidebar melodrama fly were at the wheel.

Grade: B

Stephanie Daley

One would think that any film addressing the issue of pregnant teenagers and abandoned newborns would be heavy handed or confessedly biased. It’s this fact that makes the enigmatic and utterly haunting Stephanie Daley doubly devastating and pure of heart. The film tells the story of the titular heroine (Amber Tamblyn) and her catastrophic pregnancy – which she claims to have known nothing about and whose offspring she insists was stillborn and did not die at her hands. The bulk of her story is told through flashbacks. In the present, we meet forensic psychologist Lydie Crane, (Tilda Swinton) a woman smart enough to ponder within minutes of her assignment to Daley’s case if her current pregnant state will compromise her assessment of the young girl. She decides that it will not affect her work and proceeds with a blasé attitude that could not be more contradictory to the true emotional connection she makes with Daley and this investigation as a whole. Her interviews with Daley five months after her baby is discovered wrapped in toilet paper in a ski lodge bathroom shape the film’s complicated structure. We pass casually back and forth between the past and present of both characters’ lives as though neither has yet to really separate one timeframe from the other. For Lydie, Daley provides a person on whom she can project her own resentments. She contests the arguments made by Daley largely as part of her struggle to come to terms with a stillbirth of her own that nearly wrecked her life less than a year ago. She fights to remain professional, but every time Daley cries innocent Lydie wrecks herself with internal anguish, as if getting the girl to express guilt will soothe her own feelings of culpability for the death of a baby which she may or may not have truly wanted in the first place.

The performances here are some of the best I have seen all year. They’re not just blanket expressions of thoughts and feelings. The words, the facial expressions, the posture, the costumes, and even the chosen hairstyles of each leading lady all work together to shape fully dimensional characters that feel incomparably authentic. Just watching Tamblyn’s soft eyes and dejected body language, you can glean a world of insight into the mind of her lost soul teen girl persona. Her character feels as specific and precise as could be, and yet she is such an everygirl that it’s absolutely horrifying. She’s dealing with unimaginable complexities yet no one notices her struggle – in this case a literally visible pregnancy that no one bothers to look at, but elsewhere just generally the way in which her simple middle America life does not begin to help her deal with the real world. In the most upsetting of the movie’s flashbacks, Tamblyn performs an extensive sequence that visualizes Stephanie giving birth. As she cries silently behind the locked doors of the bathroom stall, gaggles of gossiping school girls stroll in and out laughing and teasing one another, chomping on bubblegum as one of their own goes unnoticed, using her to teeth to chew through the umbilical chord linking her to the dead infant (according to her claim) she’s just brought into the world, effectively severing all of her ties with the child and her own already fragile sense of innocence. When we see her in her younger years, before the ski lodge incident, she’s like a completely different girl. She’s shy and silly. In her current state she’s dejected, jaded, and utterly vacant. Naiveté can only be afforded for so long before, as Lydie puts it, it becomes an active decision to choose denial. Such a statement rings true to her life as well. She’s living a complacent life in a troubled marriage and clinging to the hope that this baby will be different, but feeling endlessly as though she’s lost her chance at hope and new life.

The two women bond solemnly over the confounding pressure and self-defeat their seemingly comfortable lives have caused them. It’s as if neither one has the nerve to deliver another person into the world that has left them so sick with pity and grief. The true nature of each character’s intentions remains an obscure abstraction by film’s end, though. We never really get a concrete grasp on what Lydie sees in Daley that rattles her so deeply or what she truly feels for the child she’s carrying or felt for the baby of her past. There’s not such a solid structure or point here. Mostly, the movie just floats through a world of perfectly poignant dismay until the wheels stop spinning and both women just agree to stumble back into the numbing daily grind of life for as long as they can persist.

Grade: A-

Trailers: The Bourne Ultimatum

Of all the action franchises floating around out there, the Jason Bourne films get my vote for being the most ambitious, creative, and surprisingly compelling of the lot. When The Bourne Identity premiered back in 2002, director Doug Limon was known only for directing the low key comedy feature Swingers and Matt Damon was mostly just seen as the Good Will Hunting guy that wasn't in Armageddon. Together they launched the sleeper hit of the summer and delivered one of the best reviewed blockbusters of that or any year. Two years later Damon teamed with the wholly unbankable Bloody Sunday director Paul Greengrass to deliver a superior and even more successful sequel that solidified a precedent for the now commonplace mentality that indie auteurs can make blockbusters of note. Needless to say, I'm very curious to see this summer's third (and maybe final?) installment directed once more by Greengrass. Damon stars alongside a returning franchise cast which includes Joan Allen and Julia Stiles and some new faces like David Strathairn. It looks like this could be the most exciting of the bunch since its plot promises to finally reveal the history of the series' amnesiac antihero.

Quicktime/Windows Media:

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/thebourneultimatum.html

Fracture

Fracture bears all the signs of a conventional thriller, but fortunately it also features top notch performances by the Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling and some sharp dialogue that carries the movie through its rough spots. The general premise centers on Hopkins as Ted Crawford, a mad genius sociopath who murders his adulterous wife and then proceeds to plan what seems to be the perfect cover up. He gives a signed confession and turns over his gun, but to the dismay of the police, and particularly up and coming prosecutor William Beachum (Gosling) the provided evidence can all be easily dismissed in trial.

Gosling’s Beachum is an ambitious and atypically moral attorney vying for a major corporate job that could be at stake if he loses this case. He accepts it based on the fact that it seems like it will be easily won (Crawford has confessed and everything), but eventually he learns the details of the case are far more complicated than anyone expected. The bulk of the movie’s enjoyable moments come from the competitive banter between Beachum and the manipulative Crawford, played by Hopkins in a comedic, winking way that somehow only amplifies his devilishness. Gosling matches the barbed bravado of Hopkins as they throw down line after line, joke after joke, letting the audience keep score of who’s ahead and how much of a lead they have on the other. Both actors make their conventional character pop with charisma – something even better than realism when dealing with a film played so by the book. If they had been self-serious we would be bored, but they seem to know they’re playing with a certain genre, and in turn, aspire to simply make the genre burst with as much entertainment as possible.

The ending to the movie is sudden and almost everything beyond the initial trial seems like a trailing epilogue. There are several subplots that go nowhere, a number of characters who get no resolution or simply serve no real purpose. The construction of the movie is weak overall, but when it enters into its wonderful dialogue rhythms between Hopkins and Gosling, or simply between any of its more formed characters, we get a glimpse of intellect oft reserved only for art house cinema. It does right by its premise, offering a completely genre loyal narrative, but also has the bemusement of a lighter film. Smarter, funnier, and altogether better than most of its genre compatriots, I’m actually very pleased with this one despite its bouts with logic, structure, and general filmmaking technique.

Grade: B+

Year of the Dog

After incriminating himself in the creation of two horrid comedy blockbusters (School of Rock and Nacho Libre), indie darling Mike White finally returns to his oddball roots with a funny, poignant, and completely bizarre little movie that only he could make. Year of the Dog stars “Saturday Night Live” alum Molly Shannon as Peggy, a dog obsessed loner whose beloved pooch, Pencil, meets an unfortunate end early in the film. His death leaves her heartbroken, and the film follows her year of mourning through delightful bits of romantic comedy (Peter Sarsgaard and John C. Reilly play her potential beaus) and eventually into what turns out to be somewhat of a nervous breakdown. In true Mike White fashion, you can never really assess what’s to come or predict just how far Peggy might go in her grieving. Logic is not White’s strong suit. In fact, his screwball comedies are perhaps the screwiest of this or any generation. In the past he’s followed sexual obsession (Chuck & Buck) and adultery (The Good Girl). Now he’s milking laughter and tears out of “dog people” to whom platonic animal love is the only true connection they’ll ever enjoy. It might be a vaguely absurd feature (okay, maybe clearly absurd), but there exists a strange softness in between the craziness of Peggy’s debauched post-Pencil behavior that make it all too real. White’s gift is in bringing to life with complete fullness some of film’s most palpably unhinged weirdos. At a certain point, we see Peggy strolling down the street, walking her dog (a new one she hopes will fill the void) and looking sort of crazy, and then it sets in: White has made us understand the dog walkers. We’ve peaked behind Peggy’s canine obsession and though we recognize her strangeness, we can also understand her motivations.

Part of Peggy’s “new life” includes an animal rescue binge that leads her to make numerous donations to charitable causes and become a vegan. The movie is a bit of a paean to the animal world, and to animal lovers, but it’s also a skeptical watchdog observing some of the hypocritical cruelties inflicted by those that become overly passionate. Peggy’s animal right activism is portrayed positively but it is also made clear that she is not the most stable of people. She shuns the attention of her best friend (one-liner machine Regina King) and betrays the trust of her uptight suburban sister-in-law (a scene stealing Laura Dern as “that kind of mom”). She turns inward, to her animals, making Shannon’s often silent but always radiant performance even more of a wonder. She shows us the goodness of Peggy, her love of animals and her intention to do positive things. She also lets us witness the slightly frayed and crazy anti-social tendencies that define her unfortunate life state. It’s one of those brilliant performances that no one could have expected based on previously observed film work. Shannon’s “SNL” characters were mostly cartoonishly crafted outsiders, but here she elaborates the archetype into a vivid, deeply human soul searcher rather than merely letting her remain just an armpit sniffing “Superstar!”

My only problem with the film, and White’s work in general, is that his desire to drive the characters far over the edge almost always makes their conclusion seem forced or somehow sudden and unbelievable. It’s as if they go to the darkest possible place they can go and then spontaneously awaken the next day back to normal and completely recovered from whatever lapse of judgment had motivated the film’s climax. They generally have some socially unacceptable craving, one that never really gets sated, but always seems to dissipate just in time for the credits to role. I almost wish them more darkness, not because they’re characters I wish would suffer, but simply because without it they lose the intense despair that made them so satisfyingly real in the first place.

Grade: A-

DVD of the Week: The Last King of Scotland

New to DVD this week is The Last King Of Scotland, a methodically paced and dramatically satisfying political thriller starring Forest Whitaker in his astounding Academy Award winning performance as the notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. The movie also stars the amply talented James McAvoy who sadly got lost amidst the Whitaker media storm, but is actually extraordinary here as well. He plays Amin's physician and eventual confidant in the film, a character who witnesses first hand the violence and paranoia that defined Amin's bloody rule.

You can also check out the sophisticate drama Notes on a Scandal, adapted by Patrick Marber (Closer) and starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, both in extraordinary roles. Dench plays an odd outcast with a somewhat neurotic penchant for manipulating coworkers at the London high school where she teaches into becoming her "friends" and personal pawns. Her latest endeavor is to conquer a bohemian artist (Blanchett) who might be making the greatest mistake of her life in entertaining the affections of an underage student. It's one of the best penned screenplays of last year, filled with viciously sharp and witty dialogue that Dench and Blanchett deliver with aplomb.

A few final suggestions for the week include Joe Carnahan's adrenaline rush action thriller Smokin' Aces, which centers on a Pulp Fiction-y ensemble of tongue-in-cheek criminals and murderers that includes performers ranging from Jeremy Piven to Alicia Keys. It's a madcap carnival ride of violence and suspense brought to life in the niftiest of crime caper stories. Also, you can check out the well adapted film version of the award winning play, The History Boys. It's one of the few theater productions of late to survive the transition to film with the original cast and creative team intact and it does a fine job of reviving the long dead Dead Poet Society ideal of bright students inspired by unconventional yet troubled adults. It doesn't break the mold, but it does fill it well.

Hot Fuzz

In the era of Scary Movie, Date Movie, Epic Movie and every other vaguely categorized smashup of genre parody, there’s hardly any actual satiric juice to be found amongst America’s big screen spoofs. They’re stupid, unfunny, and utterly redundant attempts at pop culture mockery that rely upon the audience’s already formulated assumptions about a genre and its foreknowledge of recognizable characters. Most have simply sunk to filling their commercially minded minutes with basic caricatures of well-known characters (Jack Sparrow, Borat, etc.) that more or less just behave even more stupidly than they did in their film of origin, as if to suggest that somehow merely accentuating every idiocy in the summer’s biggest blockbusters constitutes entertainment. It doesn’t. The original source material actually makes for better laughs than any filtered, faux funny film of this sort. I can mock Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds on my own. I don’t need David Zucker’s Scary Movie 4 to get that job done.

Why then do I love Hot Fuzz, a buddy cop homage that pokes fun at everything from Point Break to Bad Boys 2? It’s actually pretty simple. Edgar Wright and his collaborator/star Simon Pegg have seen more indulgent action movies than I could ever dream of knowing, and the duo is just plain funnier than I could ever be. Just as they did with Shaun of the Dead, the self-proclaimed zombie romantic comedy (zom-rom-com), Pegg and Wright are playing referential mix masters, juggling chiding yet affectionate portrayals of genre archetypes and clichés with as many tongue-in-cheek acknowledgements of past movie’s as possible. They bring the filmmaking know-how to the sort of conversations all movie freaks have had in the privacy of their own living rooms, making public the laugh out loud dialogue that occurs while love/hating your favorite absurd guilty pleasure film.

In this instance, it’s the epic, ludicrous action flick that’s caught their eye and they very well demonstrate to the audience just how many action movies they’ve seen (I think it’s nearly all of them) as well as just how whip smart they are about laying into their cinematic favorites. Here they’ve reset a typical action premise – an overachieving cop (Pegg) paired with a comic foil bumbler (Edgar Wright) who accidentally uncovers a shocking mystery – and set the whole thing in a quaint little British village in which a dastardly human statue performer who’s “loitering on the streets” is the greatest villain of all since he compromises the perfection and tranquility of this aggressively adorable town.

Unlike Shaun which was mostly just a big bag of laughs, Hot Fuzz does have some semblance of a plot. Of course, it’s as thin and absurd as the worst blockbuster you’ve ever seen (backed by a wonderfully original twist to do with the story’s unconventional setting). The general structure, though, is still mostly just a grab bag of archly crafted scenes stolen from the macho action dude handbook: the first day on the job, the befriending of the goof, the discovery of bodies, the sudden but inevitable betrayal, and such and such. You could probably run off a checklist of what you’d expect to come next and be accurate in your predictions. The fun here is the film’s glorious, semi-serious tone that lets you have all the fun you might have had with a truly bad action film but that also relieves your guilt with some really brilliant comedic interpretations of some atrocious movie conventions. This film is just hilarious and pure fun. Edgar Wright and Pegg are slowly but surely establishing themselves as deserving peers to the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez – directors who can deliver all of the popcorn fun you desire with twice as much gusto and even more creative insight.

Grade: A

DVD of the Week: Bobby

My DVD pick for this week is Emilio Estevez's ensemble drama Bobby, a moving unabashedly emotional retelling of the events surrounding the assassination of Robert Kennedy as seen through the eyes of fictionalized characters mulling about the hotel that would unexpectedly serve as the place of his death. The issues of these character are both timely (Lindsay Lohan as a young girl marrying herself off to a classmate in protest of his being drafted) and just plain timeless (Demi Moore as the seen it all lounge singer binging on booze, William H. Macy and Sharon Stone as disconnected spouses, etc.). What the film might lack in pure skill and frankly, subtlety, it more than makes up for with a spirit as bold and bright as the most moving of American films. Holes can be poked and critiques can be made, but why burst the bubble of something so beautiful, and so refreshingly optimistic? Why not let it be naive and hopeful just enough to maybe deceive us for a minute about the truth of the world, an ugliness that invades in the film's final moments as we see the death of a man 2 hours worth of candid storytelling has paralleled with joy and a glorious future. Kennedy's death here is not just a tragedy, it's an emblem of the way the world has turned for the worse.

The TV Set

Jake Kasdan’s The TV Set is a sharp, observant satire about the corruptible nature of modern American television that dissects the hilarious, soul sucking demands of network execs pertaining to network TV’s desperation to reach wide, general audiences. Sigourney Weaver is brilliantly funny as one such exec in this film. Her Lenny is a ruthless, somewhat absent minded professional who actually casts Lucy Lawless over Hope Davis. She’s recently commissioned a pilot by an up and coming “artsy” writer (David Duchovny) and hired a former BBC exec (Ioan Gruffudd) for the sake of integrity, but as with most business heads, she’s got her eye on nothing more than profits and soon both of her latest employees are bouncing off the walls with frustration.

The film follows the process of making a pilot from casting through to the May upfront presentations. There are ample ludicrous requests from the network, or moderate “concerns” as they choose to phrase them. Among them is the casting of the awful Zach Harper (unknown Fran Kranz in a scene stealing performance) as the show’s lead primarily because he’s likable and Lenny’s daughter, Bethany, (with whom she clears all her projects) will love him. Duchovny’s struggling writer character is caught in a constant battle, morally debating whether it’s worth making his show once it’s been brutalized so badly by mass market interests. The film’s greatest surprise is that it actually makes him a character that we feel for despite the ludicrous comedy happenings going on around him. It’s close to Christopher Guest’s comedy masterpieces in the way that it balances fiercely funny wit and quietly moving human moments.

In an age full of cheap, exploitatious reality TV (in the context of the film, it’s a new reality competition called “Slut Wars” that Lenny’s pimping), it’s refreshing to see someone actually going after the networks for their lame artlessness and overburdening commercial demands. TV’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” was doing a pretty good job until it was yanked off the air. Perhaps there’s someone like Lenny calling the shots over at NBC.

Grade: A-

The Hoax

Unlike Color Me Kubrick, which I dismissed for being a dull minded, overly simple look at an interesting con, The Hoax delivers all the excitement, depth, and nervousness of watching an actual con unfold. Richard Gere stars as Clifford Irving, a character based on a real man who sold a fabricated autobiography of notorious recluse Howard Hughes to a major publishing house, forging and fast-talking his way through every moment.

Irving is a down on his luck author, who has been backed against a wall, and decides to sell this fake book partly out of desperation but also largely out of his own desire to achieve power, to be, like Hughes, a person who does not back down. His psychological correspondence to the billionaire’s own downfall plays humorously at first and then grows eerie when reality sets in and we realize Irving is actually a man experiencing a major emotional downfall. The film is devious in its mixture of emotion, satire, and crushing shame. Irving’s heart grows blacker with every frame, and the film pulls out darker tone just in time to deliver what’s needed to close out this story. It’s more than just a funny tale of corruption and tomfoolery. The severity of the situation constantly presses in to remind us that fraud is actually a dangerous crime and that Irving’s life is far from fun and games.

The ensemble, which also includes Alfred Molina, Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden, and Julie Delpy, is a really impressive collection of borderline famous yet truly talented actors. The whole film, in fact, straddles the line between art house psychological portrait and mainstream caper flick. I’m hoping that people will actually go out and see this as it’s in somewhat of a wide release already. There are some minor shortcomings and small bits of awkward editing, but it’s really a satisfying sophisticated dramedy with a great amount of both simple fun and serious suspense.

Grade: A-

Grindhouse

Grindhouse is without a doubt one of the most ambitious and knowingly bizarre would-be blockbusters in recent memory. Underground cinema auteurs cum megastar action movies maestros Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have teamed up for a two-part frenzy of campy, indulgent, and unapologetic carnage styled to match the cheaply made grade-z exploitation films of the 1970s. It’s not just one film; it’s two films (one by each respective director). Even better, it’s a 200 minute movie experience unlike any other contemporary works. It rehashes old, vintage 70s logos and fabricates trailers for “upcoming” grindhouse movies (directors like Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, and Edgar Wright help supply these previews). It even pretends that the film reels have been damaged, censored, or simply gone missing on multiple occasions. It’s the concept that makes this an unprecedented venture (at least for modern age theaters anyway). I actually witnessed many people leave after the first half of the film thinking they’d seen it all or ponder to themselves why they had never heard of Rob Zombie’s “Werewolf Women of the S.S.” before and why the trailer was snuck into the center of this film. I had thought there’d been enough press to fully inform people of what to expect here, but apparently a lot of people still didn’t get what was happening on the screen in front of them. For the record, the trailers are not real (at least, not yet) and there are two films here not just one. So, be aware of what’s actually happening.

It’s also important to be aware that these are not typical Hollywood films. They’re defined by raunchy, bloodthirsty, exploitation. It’s not that the directors lack logical minds or are incapable of constructing more competently rational narratives. They know that what they are doing is ridiculous and that’s what makes it so much fun. There are so many unclever, unremarkable films featuring stupid stories and over the top gore, but rarely are they handled as masterfully, and with such a self aware giddiness as these two films.

Rodriguez begins the double-feature with “Planet Terror,” a truly disgusting and utterly bizarre zombie movie. Rose McGowan, an acting talent who has hardly made a dent in popular culture in all the years of her subversive career, somehow landed the leading role of Cherry in this film and it’s an inspired piece of casting. McGowan has now found a place in film iconography as a one legged woman with a machine gun attached to her mutilated stump. That concept alone makes Rodriguez’s crowded, incoherent segment worth your attention. It’s made even better by the fact that McGowan is actually a far superior actress than I had expected. It’s more than just the physicality that she brings to the role. She really does humanize Cherry despite the fact that she’s a character torn straight from a very sick man’s fantasy. Her entrance into the film, a teary-eyed go-go dance routine amped up by Rodriguez’s own awesome score, is one of the best I can remember. It’s not just the smut and the silliness of it, though. She’s an affective character given life by McGowan’s willingness to be as sincere as she is campy. The many struggles of Cherry are just one facet to this feature, though. Freddie Rodriguez also stars as the mysterious Wray, a gun fighter of unknown origin with perfect aim and ample attitude. He and Cherry round up a crew of survivors to fend off the infected population of mutant zombies. The disease in question somehow strangely connects back to government corruption and the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. I still don’t think any of it makes any sense, but maybe that’s just part of the joke as well. Rodriguez’s film is certainly the bloodier of the two, but I also think it’s the messier one in terms of narrative as well. We do care, strangely enough, for Cherry, Wray, and other characters like Marley Shelton’s comedically numb Dakota. We just don’t have any idea what they’re doing or where they’re going or who exactly it is they’re shooting at and why. It all sort of spirals around in a bloody fog, but it’s certainly fun, particularly for action fans. It’s even just a teensy bit poetic in its attempts at character development. No doubt, there’s not been a zombie movie so clever or so affecting in quite some time.

It’s Quentin Tarantino’s less gruesome and more psychologically intoxicating “Death Proof” that most won me over. Tarantino assembled an impressive cast of young actresses to deliver his trademark dialogue packed with perversion and pop culture references. His film is the more methodically paced of the two, opting out of machine gun legs and choosing instead to slowly shape female characters that are unknowingly being targeted by a serial killer car driver named Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell). The cast of ladies includes Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Rose McGowan (again), and stuntwoman Zoe Bell who worked with Tarantino on Kill Bill and here plays a version of herself that allows her to do some unspeakably intense things in a great car chase near film’s end. Tarantino and Rodriguez have deeply different philosophies of filmmaking. Rodriguez enjoys CGI and the endless possibilities of digital manipulation (he masterminded the trendsetting Sin City which was almost nothing but special effects). Tarantino, however, will work only with real stunt people doing things that are actual plausible and can be filmed for real without effects. His car chase finale is doubly impressive because it was staged from start to finish using actual vehicles and actual, very brave, stunt drivers with minimal manipulation. I won’t give away all the twists of fate in store for those on the treacherous open roads, but let’s just say it gets very dangerous and hilariously brutal.

I can’t say that Grindhouse is for everyone. It’s not. In fact, I suspect a lot of people will despise it. If you get into it, though, it will be completely enjoyable and surprising in more ways than one. It’s worth the price of admission just to experience the strange 70s homage setup Rodriguez and Tarantino have created for themselves. Two action films of extraordinary caliber mixed with goofs, commercials, and generally cool bits of footage all add up to one very satisfying and very strange movie experience that’s well worth your time.

Grade: A

Color Me Kubrick

John Malkovich gives it his all in the moderately funny yet altogether forgettable comedy Color Me Kubrick, but the film’s lackluster script and sloppy narrative devices make it pretty much useless despite Malkovich’s best efforts. The story focuses on the strange tale of con man Alan Conway who during a brief stint around the time Stanley Kubrick was filming Eyes Wide Shut in 1998 impersonated the world renowned director in a series of embarrassing circumstances. Conway more or less preyed on the willingness of desperate artists and sycophantic elitists to believe that they’d found themselves in the company of greatness. He’d often ramble on, telling invented anecdotes about on set happenings while shooting some of his most famous films or describe his ever changing “next project.” One of his most successful confidence games promised financial backing or artistic exposure to London’s desperate would-be writers, actors, and rockers before eventually slipping out of their lives for good.

There’s no doubt that it’s an interesting story with the potential to become a quirky, strange docudrama. This just isn’t that splendid a realization. It sticks to stale, contrived, vignettes depicting bizarre, loopy and only sometimes a little bit funny encounters between Conway and his many pawns. The games get tired really fast, though, and Malkovich can only make Conway’s frantic whining stretch so far. The only moments in the film where we get close to unearthing some motivation for his strange behavior comes during a scene in which Conway falls to pieces before literally crawling on his hands and knees to beg forgiveness. It’s obnoxious and unenlightening. I really wanted the film to at least toy at some of the potentially richer complications of Conway’s behavior or even get off the same one note routine (Conway meets pawn-Conway befriends pawn-pawn makes fool of self-Conway departs). By the end we’ve been through nearly a dozen victims of Conway’s charade but never given any more than a few funny throwaway punchlines and some mildly entertaining antics. It’s pointless to tell this kind of story without some greater narrative structure grounding us in Conway’s twisted perspective or even the perspective of the New York Times reporters who went on to reveal his scam (this whole key story gets mostly shuffled off-screen save for some incredibly awkward direct address tidbits that break the film’s already thin believability). It’s attempting to be a brisk, blithe, funny trifle and it maybe succeeds at times. Mostly, though, you’ll be bored and craving something a bit more diverse, complicated, or even just satisfyingly simple in a way that this empty stupid film will never achieve.

Grade: C-

DVD of the Week: Volver

My DVD pick this week is Pedo Almodovar's darkly comic and deeply moving family drama Volver. The film deals with subjects as benign as daily housework and as extraordinary as murder and ghosts from the great beyond. Primarily, it is the story of mothers and daughters connecting through strange circumstances and against all odds. It stars a wonderful ensemble of Spanish actresses including Academy Award nominee Penelope Cruz who finally has the ability to show us her talent after scraping by in outlandish American action flicks for far too long.

I also want to mention Robert DeNiro's The Good Shepherd, a highly calculated thriller whose pace might grow infuriating but whose pay off works marvelously. Matt Damon gives another great steely spy performance as an intensely diligent CIA operative attempting to balance his complex job with his life at home. The film is rich with details and varied layers all of which may seem excessive but most of which factor strongly into the film's gripping final act. It's definitely a film worth seeing. Also, today marks the release of 3 Needles, a captivating and tragic AIDS drama that's beautifully poignant and thankfully not at all preachy about its social agenda. It creates awareness through multiple deftly crafted narratives rather than bluntly bashing its message into our fragile movie goer minds. The massive ensemble cast includes talent such as Lucy Liu, Chloe Sevigny, Sandra Oh, Stockard Channing, Olympia Dukakis, Shawn Ashmore and many more.